Well, if you have your Bible, I'd like to invite you to turn with me to First Corinthians and chapter 15 this morning. First Corinthians chapter 15 If you've been with us for the past several weeks We've been going through a study through the book of John through John's Gospel It's been a great privilege for us to explore who Jesus is and what he's come to do and why that matters for our life But it all kind of reaches it reaches its apex in the resurrection The whole Christian life Spends on the resurrection and this is one of the great passages of scripture that zeros in on that reality You'll notice in your worship guy that it says that we're going to read verses 12 through 28 But what I want to do is just back up just a hair and begin in verse 3 and read through verses night that through verse 19 this morning So we're going to be looking at first Corinthians chapter 15 Verses 3 through 19 and let's give attention to the reading of God's Word For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures That he was buried that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Sephus and then to the twelfth He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time Most of whom are still alive though some have fallen asleep Then he appeared to James then to all the Apostles Last of all as to one untimely born he appeared also to me For I am the least of the Apostles Unworthy to be called an Apostle because I persecuted the Church of God But by the grace of God I am what I am and in his grace toward me was not in vain On the contrary I work harder than any of them though it was not I but the grace of God that is with me Whether then it was I or they so we preach and so you believed Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead then not even Christ has been raised and if Christ has not been raised Then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ from whom he did not raise if It is true that 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 futile and you are still in your sins Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished if in Christ we have hope in this life only We are of all people most to be pitied Amen, this is God's word to us this morning. I Wonder if you have ever been lying in bed at night trying to fall asleep. You're tossing and turning You're thinking about various different things in life and the question pops into your mind it goes something like this What if everything that I believe About the basic fundamentals of my life are wrong What if the decisions that I make which are based out of those fundamental beliefs what if those beliefs are wrong What if I get to the end of the road of my life and I discover that I believed in nothing but an enormous lie? I've asked myself Questions like that on more than one occasion. I remember being in seminary and spending all day long studying theology and plumbing the depths of Scripture and I'm considering what the next 10 or 20 or 50 years of life will look like in ministry and the thought crosses my mind What if Christianity is an enormous load of nonsense? What if I've been doomed? I've had people close to me in my own personal life who've had to come to grips with these questions as well They were sitting right where you are they professed belief in the gospel they could articulate it well. They sang Christ the Lord has risen today on Easter Sunday But then they were forced to confront this question They were forced to confront the reality of the Christian faith. Is it legitimate or is it a big lie? And they concluded that it was false This has been true for more than one of my friends and family members and it's heartbreaking It's heartbreaking to see someone do that when when you believe what Scripture teaches that that Christ alone in Christ alone Our hope is found That our only hope in life and death is what Christ has come to do on the cross to pay the debt of our sins and to rise again to conquer its penalty But it is easy to understand why a person in this day and age would conclude that Christianity is false that it's all a fabricated lie Because many of you will remember a time in your life growing up when the great evils of life were coming from an atheistic godless view of the world You remember growing up with Communism as being the great threat of the world and the great answer to Communism and the great answer to the godless evil that it seemed to be perpetuating was you guessed it Christianity a resurrection based Belief in a god who will conquer evil on the last day so back in the 50s when This communist ideology was weaving its way through the fabric of the world You began to see phrases like under God included in the pledge of allegiance That wasn't there until 1954 You began to see American flags standing at the front of churches for something of which there is not any biblical warrant for doing so and You began to see Patriotic songs included in the himmels of the church and it seemed to be that Christ the resurrection the things of scripture the Christian faith and Religion in a very general sense seemed to be the answer to the godlessness that was being perpetuated throughout the world and promoting so much evil But if you fast forward the clock to the year 2010 You discover that there's been a major paradigm shift that's happened in the thinking and believing of many people in our culture today because there are so many different Influences bombarding us so many different belief systems coming our way and Much of the evil that exists in the world today is done in the name of Religion in the name of God Terrorism is almost always committed in the name of Allah But on a domestic front we see many people who've imbibed a pluralistic mindset believing that Christianity is One of the forces that promotes so much injustice in our society today Some of the beliefs that are deeply held by Christians which are born out of the resurrection which are born out of who Jesus is and Born out of what scripture reveals to us about him We hold beliefs very often that those who are unbelieving Find wildly unjust and wildly backwards So that is the conundrum we face in 2010 now the reason why I mentioned that is not to give you an interesting historical or cultural commentary the reason why I mentioned that is because it has a lot to do with this passage that we've just read this morning And let me just give you a few reasons why I think that's the case and and a few reasons why Paul seems to be Plumbing the depths of this issue of the resurrection as well and here's the first thing that I think that he wants us to see He wants us to see that if Jesus Christ did in fact rise from the dead then everything that he said and everything that he did matters And if he didn't rise from the dead then we shouldn't even bother to waste our time on him So if Jesus rose from the dead everything that he said and everything that he did should be believed and Embraced and is true for all people and in all times and in all places And if he didn't rise from the dead then Jesus should be nothing more than a person of historical interest to us And I think this is what Paul is getting at in verses 14 through 17 in this particular passage In fact, if you look at verse 14 you'll notice that Paul says that if Christ has not been raised Then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain and then he goes on to say in verse 17 That if Christ has not been raised then your faith is futile So if Christ did not physically rise from the grave on the third day according to the Scriptures then Christians have been duped Then Jesus was without question the most influential liar in human history and We are a bunch of people who have believed in that lie If the resurrection did not happen then Christianity is bogus and so if that's the case Then why would we even want to bother with what Jesus said and with what he did Why not just go out and do it Paul says to do in verse 32 Why don't we just go out and eat drink and be merry stop worrying Just got an enjoy your life. That's what Paul is saying that we ought to do if the resurrection didn't happen It's all a big fabrication Not only that we should consider Christianity Which is arguably the most influential force in all of Western culture and all of Western history We should consider it to be a great force of evil in our society This is what many of the popular atheistic writers are telling us today Because Christianity if the resurrection did not happen is not grounded in any kind of reality whatsoever Look the sexual ethics of Christianity alone Are enough to cause people to view the Christian faith as Nothing but a bunch of assertions from back words ignorant intolerant Middle Eastern people who lived two thousand years ago And we're foolish to believe that and we're foolish because it also is promoting Wild injustices in our world But I want to suggest you something else If Jesus Christ did rise from the dead Everything that he said matters Everything that he did matters everything that he calls his people to be and do it matters in our lives If Jesus did not did rise from the dead who he is and what he said and what he did Should actually be the source of the way in which we define ourselves the way in which we understand ourselves the way in which we view the world So it matters Think about this with me for a minute What is the main thing that distinguishes Jesus from all other religious teachers? From all other do-gooters From all other Philosophers out there. What is it that distinguishes him? It's the resurrection. It's Easter Sunday. It's the resurrection and There have been heaps of people who've made all kinds of important claims valuable claims in this life But none of them claimed to be God and none of them resurrected and if they did claim to be God We dismissed them as some kind of Wild egomaniac who needed to be locked up in a padded room somewhere But look at what Jesus did and what he said In John the gospel of John he says things like this I am the resurrection and the life Whoever believes in me though he die yet shall he live and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die I recognize that there are a lot of gray areas in life Proverbs says that we're Supposed to Respond to a fool according to his folly because if we don't he'll go on in his folly and sometimes we're not supposed to answer a fool According to his folly because then we just become like him. There are some ambiguities in life. This is not one of them Jesus is being remarkably black and white here He's being remarkably black and white when he also says that I am the way the truth and the life and no one Comes to the Father but through me He's saying my friends your only hope in life and in death is by resting upon me alone By looking to me as the one who has come to live a life that you fail to live that is come to die to pay the penalty That your sin deserves and has risen again to conquer that penalty and give you the hope that you might have life with me as well That is your only hope in this life and the next and the whole Christian faith stands or falls on whether or not that's true on whether or not the resurrection happened and The reason why is because the resurrection Authenticates who Jesus is and what he did and what he said How do we know? If Jesus was telling us the truth when he said I am the resurrection in the life We know it because he resurrected because he rose again That's the only way in which we can know something like that is true and so the resurrection puts the stamp of authenticity on what Jesus said and did It affirms his message that he preached his sinless life The validity of his death the what he came to do and in the reality that through faith in him alone We can stand guiltless For a given clothed in nothing but his grace So Paul here in this passage is saying that our faith Our preaching Our gathering together to worship Christ The implications of that for the way in which we live our life If the resurrection didn't happen Then all of this is from the neighborhood of make believe But if Jesus did rise from the grave If the resurrection is true then it is hopelessly foolish not to believe in him It's foolish not to bow the knee to him and trust in him and seek his forgiveness and grace and abide in him If the resurrection is true then everything that Jesus said and everything that he did matters So that's point number one I think there's a second thing that Paul wants us to see here about the resurrection as well and why belief or unbelief and it matters and it's this That if Jesus did not rise from the dead Then there is no forgiveness of sin But if Jesus did rise from the dead We discover that he is the only one who can forgive sin Jesus didn't rise from the dead were still stuck with this problem of sin But the problem of sin is dealt with if the resurrection is true I think this is what Paul is getting at here in verse 17 again when he says that if Jesus didn't rise from the dead Not only is our faith in a vein not only is our preaching in vain and not only is the proclamation of the faith in vain, but our sin is still not dealt with It still remains a problem for us. We're still in our sin and we're still under condemnation Now one of the things that's easy for you and me to buy into Even if we've been hearing the message of the gospel for years and years It's easy for us to buy into the mentality that our sin is Really not that big of a deal Because we tend to be sin as something that we do or that we fail to do that Pretty much just brings feelings of discomfort in our lives or to somebody else And so the dimension that sin seems to take for many of us is purely a this-worldly person to person Issue it seems to exist only in this particular life and as the conditions of life change and as people begin to evolve So will the rules because the rules are all just socially conditioned anyway That's a mentality that very many people have and that is why so many people believe that the consequences of sin don't Transfer to the next life if there is one at all Because we're all there's a mentality that we're all basically good That everything will work out in the end and that the rules of life just depend upon the situation anyway well Jesus Christ and his word has a little bit of a different understanding of what sin is Because if Jesus did rise from the grave and the resurrection is true Then we have to come to terms with what he said about it with what he said about the Problem of sin in our own lives if you look in various different places in scripture Matthew 5 for instance Jesus says things like everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment Have you ever been Excessively upset with someone before I Have recently This is part and parcel of our lives and he's saying that if something even like that something which is socially acceptable Is part of your life then and you're standing upon your own merits all by yourself then you're liable to judgment You're subject to that Jesus seems to be saying in this passage and a passage that we looked at a couple weeks ago that if you want to see the kingdom of God Then you must be born again Which must insinuate that we are by nature dead in our trespasses and sins and we're under condemnation Because of that the only way which we can stand confidently before him is if he comes and breathes new spiritual life into our souls Jesus also said in John chapter 3 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in him is condemned So he seems to be saying That our problem of sin not not only has personal personal person to person implications But it is also a wild offense to God But there's something about us that we do by nature and by choice that can bring offense to God and Can make us liable for judgment under that as well And it seems like it's a universally common trait that each one of us have we all have this problem of sin And so if God is holy in other words if he is morally perfect if he actually is light and there is no darkness in him at all Then we're not and we and we are not then by nature Sin is going to be a huge problem for us that alienates us from God It it makes us at hostility with him But if there is a God and he is Some way come to deal with our sin then we can know that that sin has been dealt with in Jesus Christ in the resurrection We know that by his grace we can stand confidently before him when that sin no longer condemns us We know that through the resurrection it tells us something it tells us that we need forgiveness and the only place in which we find forgiveness Is in Christ alone the one who's come to conquer that penalty and bring us that forgiveness Folks, I know that there are many of you here this morning Who are bogged down By guilty conscience There's some part of your personal history That still seems to condemn you you still carry that weight around all the time and It never seems to let you go and you have a mentality that Maybe you can try to work your way back into God's good graces and Get him to accept you and think a little bit more highly of you Because you still think that there's some way in which you can provide some measure of atonement for your sin Then there are others of you here this morning who think that you're basically good I mean, yes, you make mistakes like anybody else, but your sin is somewhat minor and innocuous compared to the things that you see going on out in the world today You're a good citizen. You pay your taxes. You love your family. You love your children You do your job with integrity and so you see yourself as basically good and not in Terrible need for a lot of God's grace because there's a lot that you have to offer Look the resurrection tells you and me that we are all colossal sinners That our sin that the ways in which we have brought offense to God are as far greater than anything that we could ever begin to Imagine but here's the other thing that the resurrection tells you The resurrection tells you that you do not need to condemn yourself For what God has already forgiven you You don't need to carry around that weight of condemnation because if you've entrusted yourself to the resurrected Jesus Christ You can know that he took your burden of shame That he became Damaged goods so that you wouldn't have to be damaged goods That's what he's done for you. That's a love that surpasses anything that we can ever experience in life Because most the reasons why we get love from people is based upon what we accomplish for ourselves upon what we do upon what we have to offer And Jesus says you didn't have anything to offer. I came to you out of pure grace I bore your sin in my flesh Not because of what you have to offer, but despite the fact that you can bring nothing in your hands to me And you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt That I have conquered your penalty That you can stand confidently before me That there is nothing in all creation that can separate you from my love And when you see that resurrected Jesus Christ, you can know that for a fact That is your hope and that is my hope in this life and in the next if God does exist And the resurrection proves it Then there are obviously implications for the way in which we live our lives There are moral implications But there's a difference between a child who obeys his parents Because he fears that he will be beaten if he does not And a child who obeys his parents because he knows that his parents have his best interest and his joy in mind That's the obedience and the authority that Jesus is calling us to submit ourselves to To the one who has our best interests in mind to the one who has come to pay our debt in full the one who is Seeking our joy Paul doesn't just want you to think Happy thoughts And just think that it'll all work out in the end He gives us reasons For this resurrection He gives us reasons to believe that it actually did happen We have you can have the confidence of knowing that the resurrection actually did happen and Paul provides us Evidence for that here. That's one of the great things about the Bible But the Bible never just calls you to have faith in faith to just have a blind Disney world when you wish upon the star kind of faith Biblical faith is a historic faith. It's a faith that's grounded in Evidence something that is actually true something that has actually happened and that's what Paul is providing us with here If you look in verses three through five in the passage that we read you'll see what he has to say You'll see that he appeared Jesus appeared physically to people and what Paul is saying here to the Corinthian Church This is a church and they're having doubts about the resurrection They're questioning whether or not Jesus actually rose from the grave He's saying if you have doubts about that then go ask one of the eyewitnesses They're out there Jesus appeared to four hundred or sorry five hundred people at one time not to mention all the other people he appeared to after that So you would have to believe that either five hundred people had a mass hallucination Or you have to believe that those eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus Christ actually saw his physical body And he did conquer death and he did conquer the penalty of sin and he is risen indeed Paul provides us with that evidence But there's another interesting thing as well that Paul doesn't mention that all four of the gospel writers mentioned And he said and the gospel writers seem to be intentional about pointing out the fact that the very first people to whom Jesus appeared were women Jesus appeared to women when he first rose from the grave when the when the tomb was first empty The unfortunate and unjust reality of the culture in this time was that women had very few rights and their testimony in a court of law would never stand up They weren't even allowed to make testimony in a court of law So you can imagine the pressure that the gospel writers would have had to eliminate this fact that Jesus the first people that he appeared to were women And the reason why they couldn't just get out the magic eraser and and blot that out of their gospel writings is because everybody knew that that was the case Everybody knew that Jesus had appeared to these women And not only affirms the fact that Jesus In him is neither June or Greek slave nor free male nor female But it affirms the reality of the resurrection Folks, there are so many things so many ways in which we could explore and plumb the depths of Defending the fact that the resurrection actually happened But what I want to provide you with as we prepare to leave today Are just some practical hooks that you can take with you To discover why this actually matters for the way in which you live your life As you leave here today Paul says that this is supposed to have implications for us is supposed to matter for our day-to-day life in verse 58 of this passage He says that as a result of the resurrection because of it Where to be steadfast and movable always abounding in the work of the Lord Knowing that your labor is not in vain In other words that if you believe in the resurrected Jesus Christ if you've entrusted yourself to him There are implications for our lives and I just want to give you a couple brief ones first of all What it tells us is that in the resurrection god is all about making something out of nothing God is all about making something out of nothing. He's always been like that. What did he create the world out of nothing What did he create man out of nothing What does he create new spiritual life out of nothing When he was Dead on Saturday and everything looked utterly and completely hopeless Me get back up a step and think about the disciples think about his followers what life was like for them On the day between the crucifixion and the resurrection They were forced to come to terms with those questions that I asked at the beginning of this sermon What if everything that I built my life upon is a big lie? What if it's a hoax? Because everything looked utterly hopeless for them There was no hope Until Jesus rose again Jesus was dead as dead as you could possibly be his body cold and he rises again and he conquers death And it tells you that he makes something out of nothing It tells you that if Jesus Can conquer something as colossal as death and sin He can deal with the issues in your marriage If Jesus can conquer death and sin He can conquer the issues in your life
That's what he can do that's what he's come to do because in the resurrection we know that love one Healing one Justice one And ultimately all of the suffering and sorrow and pain and confusion of this world will be dealt with Will be dealt with in Jesus Christ because in verse 27 Paul says it because of the resurrection he's put all things in subjection to him So the question that we have to reckon with is Why not rely on the Holy Spirit To cause those kinds of fruits to manifest themselves in our lives As they do it changes our attitude towards our spouse and our job and our world and our circumstances and our circumstances Don't dictate your joy They don't dictate your future Your hope is not dependent upon your circumstances your hope is dependent upon the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and he accomplished all these things for you and it transforms Your living it transforms the way you view yourself and the way in which you view others and the way in view You view your identity in Christ and what he's come to do Here's the last thing that I'll be done some of you are here this morning and You have recently endured a painful loss
Where you can look on the horizon of your life and see one coming your way
You're suffering in some way something about your life Is sorrowful and suffering Well, here's what Paul has to say and verse 55 He says this Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death. Where is your victory? Oh death. Where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ Folks the confidence that we have By entrusting ourselves to Jesus Christ this resurrected God Is that death no longer has any more victory over you than it had over him It has no victory over you because it had no victory over him Jesus rose and you will rise If he didn't rise then you just fertilize the grass But Jesus rose and your suffering is not in vain because he's gonna work it out for your good That's cliche. I understand it You have the promise and the promise is confirmed in the resurrection that your suffering and your pain and your sorrow Will not have the last word in your life and it changes the way in what you live now It changes the way in which you view those sufferings now Because in the midst of your suffering and the midst of the legitimacy of all of that You can still have a deep-seated joy that Christ has come to conquer it and will ultimately reign victorious And that he will use it for your good for your growth for your maturity and for your joy Folks your hope And my hope our only hope And this life in the next is that Jesus died for sinners But he forgave their debt And that he filled us up with his grace He's poured out grace upon grace upon grace upon grace to us And the reason why you can know that that is true Is if you believe in him That Christ has risen He's risen indeed Amen. Let's pray Father no doubt in a room of this size There are some here today who have yet to believe you They may believe that it's good to be here. It's good to go to church especially on Easter I believe in good values They may believe that you said and did a lot of good things But maybe there are some here this morning that are still denying the resurrection by seeking to work their way into your favor Father the resurrection reminds us that it's impossible to do so Nothing in our hands we bring simply to your cross we claim And we cling to the resurrected Christ And we're reminded that we need your grace and we need your power In your son to conquer death and hell for us And that it has been done in the life and the death of the resurrection of Jesus Christ So father if it be your will may no one leave here today without believing in you and your son who has indeed risen And father no doubt there are some here this morning who do believe and yet they still doubt your love for them They're racked with guilt They still feel as if you merely put up with them that you tolerate them Lord would you show them that the resurrection is proof That there's sin no longer has any hold on them That it's been paid for That you have ransomed and healed and restored and forgiven them and that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus May the reality of what you have done for them spur them on in faithfulness and ignite their joy This we pray in the name of him who came and died and rose again for us Our Lord Jesus Christ Amen