Good morning, everyone. The scripture reading this morning is from 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Corinthians 15. And while you're turning there, let me just greet all of you who are visiting. If you've been gone from us for a while and are returning, we welcome you. And if you're a first time visitor, we welcome you as well. You honor us by joining us in the celebration of our Savior's Resurrection. And we thank you for doing that. 1 Corinthians 15, beginning in verse 20, here now the Word of our God. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all died, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn, Christ, the first fruits, then when he comes those who belong to him. Then the end will come when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign till he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he has put everything under his feet. Now when it says everything has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him so that God may be all in all. May God add his rich blessing to the reading of his word, let's pray together. Our dear brother Jesus, first born over all, we come to you now. We have heard these words from your Apostle, these glorious words that celebrate your resurrection. And we are here to hear these words and to celebrate with the Apostle that you are alive, that you are ruling over all things. We blessed you for this reality, but now we come. Various ones of us in different places and stations in life, some of us skeptical that you even came to this earth much less than you died and resurrected. Some of us believe that you did come and that you even resurrected from the dead, but it doesn't mean that much to us. And some of us who are firmly committed to following you, the resurrected Lord. Wherever we are Lord, we are coming now, praying and seeking and hoping that you, Lord Jesus, will enliven these words to our hearts, that we will be people who hear you speak, and that we will be people who serve you faithfully. And as you do this, we will give you the glory, we will give you the honor for it. Amen. Have you ever heard the one about the rabbi, the Imam, and the Presbyterian preacher? It sounds like a joke, doesn't it? But this Thursday at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, it's not going to be a joke. There's going to be a rabbi, and a mom, and me, the Presbyterian preacher. And we're going to be standing in front of about 1200 to 1500 students debating which religion is true. Imagine that. There will be a lot of interest in that debate, but normally the first question that they ask in a time like that is this, tell us in just one minute what makes your religion different from the others. I'm sure the rabbi will have things to say, the Imam will have things to say. I don't know exactly what they're going to say, but I do know what I'm going to say. The one thing that makes Christianity different, unique, and special in comparison both the Judaism and Islam is the resurrection of Jesus. No other faith even begins to claim such a thing, yet we do. Other religions acknowledge Jesus in different ways, but they do not acknowledge Him as one who died upon a cross, and then three days later came back to life. This is the heart of the Christian faith that the crucified Jesus actually rose bodily from the dead. In the Apostle Paul's day, when he wrote these words we just read, there were plenty of people and plenty of various religions who would have laughed at the thought that Jesus was raised from the dead. If he had been like you and me, he would have cowered back and been afraid even to raise the question of did Jesus actually rise from the dead, but he doesn't do that. Even in this passage in the opening verse in verse 20, he makes a strong affirmation of his faith in the resurrection of Jesus. But Christ has been indeed raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. How could he do such a thing? Why did he feel compelled to do it? Why will I feel compelled on Thursday night to stand there in front of many skeptics and say, what makes the Christian religion different? It is that we know Jesus was risen from the dead. The answer is this. In this passage, the Apostle Paul explains that this is the heart of our faith. I know for many of us who are here today, the idea that Jesus resurrected from the dead is more or less like any other fairy tale, is like sleeping beauty being kissed by the prince charming, so that everything comes back to life and honey and bees are everywhere and birds and flowers are doing their thing. Springtime has come, so let's have another in live and season. But it's much more than that for the Apostle Paul and it's much more than that for us today. In the verses that follow, the Apostle explains why he would make such a strong affirmation. And I hope today that we'll be able to understand and grasp what this portion of God's word says about the significance of the resurrection of Jesus. He begins first by pointing out that Jesus' resurrection is the only hope for the human race, the only hope for the lost and dying human race. Listen to the how he puts it beginning in verse 21. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For in Adam all died, so in Christ all will be made alive, but each in his own turn, Christ the first fruits, then when he comes, those who belong to him. In verse 21, the Apostle says something that's absolutely amazing for modern ears. We live in a day when human beings are thought to be just one of many of the species that inhabit this planet. In fact, along with words like sexism and racism, is now a very popular word called speciesism, where it's found to be and thought to be a prejudice, a ridiculous, ignorant prejudice for us to think that somehow human beings are special creatures. After all, we all know, don't we? Science has shown us that we are nothing more than the result of random evolution. And the molecules that make your body, the world tells us, are no different than the molecules that make other bodies out there. In fact, the only difference between you and the mud on the side of the street is your lucky mud. You just happen to end up a human being. It's amazing, isn't it, that in our world today, the human race is degradated in so many different ways that it even begins to infiltrate into us. That we begin to believe that, yeah, what am I anyway? It used to be easy when you didn't know very many people. We did not see the billions and billions that populate the world on television every night. When you began to think, well, maybe my life does have significance because I'm comparing it to five other people, I know. But in our modern day, with the mass communication we have, with the emphasis we have on how we are part of a big global community, we find ourselves, and here's the popular word alienated. We find ourselves lonely. We find ourselves wondering what significance is it anyway for me to be a living, breathing human being? Well, from the Bible's point of view, from Jesus' point of view, from the Apostle's point of view, to be a human being is unbelievable. Did you notice the first thing he said in verse 21? He said, for since death came through a man. Modern people don't believe that. Lots of people that you would meet on the street today don't believe that death is something that human beings introduced into this planet. Instead, we have this strange notion that death has always been a part of the things that are going on down here on planet Earth. And that God, if there is a God, he made it that way, so you better buck up and just handle it. Deal with it as best you can because you're all going to die. Life is nothing but one step closer every single moment to that ultimate end called death. This is the way God made it, is the way it's supposed to be, don't worry about it anymore. Just live your life. Well, the scriptures teach that that is not the case at all. In fact, in the beginning, God endowed human beings with such honor and such importance that is almost unimaginable to us. He said to the first parents of the human race, this is what I want you to do. I want you to spread my paradise from the Garden of Eden to the ends of the Earth. I want you to make this whole planet such a wondrous and glorious place that I will come here and dwell in all of my splendor with you on this planet. In fact, God invested himself in the human race so much he gave such a central role to humanity that when Adam and Eve turned away from God, it was not simply they who were cursed. The whole creation fell under a curse. That's how central they were. That's how central you are. That's what it means to be a human being. You are the instrument that God has vested with the responsibility of turning the world into paradise. I don't know about you, but in my house we have countless gadgets. We have countless little mechanisms that always break. For the most part, I don't care if they break. I just go on and use something else. I just let them be broken. It doesn't really matter. If a light bulb burns out, I'm not going to change it until I'm forced to. I'm going to use another lamp. I'm just going to change chairs, especially if they're up in the ceiling and you have to do all the filling around on ladders and things. Forget it. Light bulbs are not important. The only little gadget we have in our house that gets immediate attention is the remote for the television. Right? If that breaks, you're in serious trouble because you have to get up to change the channels. You don't want to do that. Well, a lot of people feel like that's what they are. Little gadgets down here on God's world. I'm insignificant. What I do with my life doesn't really matter. You know, I'm broken, but what's the big deal? I'll just go on and live in my broken life and I'll just live my life until I die because I really don't have any choice. It's a lie. It is not you. Now in Florida, like up here, we have storms down there that are called hurricanes up here tornadoes and you've just had one in Tennessee recently and you know that sometimes hurricanes or tornadoes can rip the roof off of a house or can move a house off its foundation. Now when a house is missing its roof or when a house is knocked off its foundation, you don't just go on living in the house anymore. You have to fix it before you go living in it again. And that's the way it was with Adam and Eve in the beginning. They were like the roof on the house. They were like the house being shifted off the foundation when they sinned, when they turned away from God and it brought death to the whole human race and it brought death to the whole planet, the misery and suffering that we see day after day in the news, the misery and suffering we experience as individuals, it all comes from the first human beings making the wrong choice and from that moment on. From that time forward people were looking for someone to fix it, someone who could change it, someone who could put the roof back on, someone who could put the house back on its foundation, someone who could actually complete the original purpose for which we were made and the Apostle says something astounding. He says in verse 21, for since death came through a man Adam, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. If we had written that verse most of us would not have written it that way. We would have said something like, since death came through a man, resurrection from the dead comes through the grace of God and that would be true because God's grace was shown to us immeasurably in Jesus. But I want you to see something here, Jesus lived as a human being and he rose from the dead as a human being because human beings, the image of God had to be the ones who turned the earth into the paradise of God. It had to be a human because that's the way God set it up in the very beginning. This is no game for the Christian religion, everything hinges on Jesus being a man and Jesus living such a perfect and holy and righteous life even to the point that he sacrificed himself on a cross so that you and I would not have to pay for our sins. He was so righteous, so self-sacrificial that though he died on the third day he received his just reward as a righteous, perfect human being and what was that reward? Resurrection from the dead, so it is that all of us have a choice. The hope has been extended, but we have this choice. We're all born in this world associated with Adam. Is it not evident that that's the case? Is it the failure of the human race? Adam failed and every single person after him saved Jesus, has failed again and again and again to live the kind of life that would be pleasing to God. We've all been born into a world as full of death. Our bodies are corrupted, we are dying every moment. It's clear we were all born in Adam, but here is the choice. You can be in Christ. What does it take to make the shift from being identified with Adam, the failure, to Jesus, the successor, the one who was victorious, who actually overcame his own death? The answer is, we must put our trust in him. It's not that difficult. It's not the kind of thing where you have to sit back and say, well, let me think about this a long time. Let me work really hard and see if I can just earn my way into that identification with Jesus. No. Jesus, the one who was successful in overcoming death, offers freely to all. Come to me, love me, follow me, and I will share the life that I have with you. What do you want? Do you want to simply live your entire life, identified with the failure of the human race? Or would you like to be identified with the champion of the human race? Jesus, who was raised from the dead. Jesus is called here the first fruits of those who are dead or those who have fallen asleep. This is because it's referring to an Old Testament idea where they would bring the first bit of their harvest every year and dedicate it to God, but they would do that as a symbol of all of their hopes of the great harvest that was to follow. Jesus is the first harvest. He's the first piece of a resurrected humanity. He's the first one. He's the only one in all of history who has stepped from the world of death into the world of a glorified body ready to inherit the new heavens and the newer, the only one. When it comes to Judaism, there is no one who resurrected from the dead with a new body who rightfully owns all things. When it comes to Islam, there is no one. There's not even the claim of someone who was resurrected with a glorified body, but we Christians know that our King Jesus did not remain in the grave. He resurrected from the dead, received his new body, and ascended into heaven, and the same can be true for you as well if you are in heaven. On an Easter Sunday, we usually usually have this many people in church. I don't know if you know that or not. And the reason for that is because on Easter Sunday, people seem to make a special effort to come to church. I'm glad you did. If it's not your normal habit to go to church, I'm glad you came today. But often when it's not your normal habit to come to church, it may reveal something about you. And that is where you put your hope for your human life having significance. Where you put your hope for all of humanity having any kind of destiny, any kind of dream that's worth living for and dying for. I want to say to you, if that's where you are today, if you are one who invests in this life and in the things of this world and the hopes, the frail hopes that this world has to offer, I want to encourage you to turn your eyes away from the death, the dying, the suffering of this age, and to give your heart to Jesus who can lift you up as the rest of the harvest into everlasting life. It's the only hope for all of humanity. But the resurrection of Jesus was something even greater than that for the Apostle Paul. It wasn't simply that Jesus resurrected from the dead, goes up to heaven, and he's standing at the gates of heaven somehow with the doors open, saying, come on, join me up here. No, it's not just that. Instead, the Apostle Paul peers through the doors of heaven and actually looks deep inside and he remembers something that Jesus himself taught and the rest of the Apostles taught too. And that is, when Jesus resurrected with his glorified body, he then ascended into heaven and when he got there, he actually sat down. He sat down on a throne next to God the Father and was given authority and power over everything on earth. Do you remember how the Apostle puts it? He says in verse 24, then the end will come, that's the return of Christ, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he, Jesus, has destroyed all dominion, authority and power for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. He must reign until he puts all of his enemies under his feet. The resurrection of Jesus does not simply give you the opportunity to have a glorified body that will inherit the new world. The resurrection and ascension of Jesus into heaven assures you of something. A grand victory will be accomplished by Jesus. Look at the world in which we live. We actually live between two very important times. We live between the time when Jesus was resurrected and ascended into heaven and we live before the time that Jesus returns in all of his glory. Well, what's he doing in the middle? What's he doing in the mean one? What are we experiencing and what is he experiencing? Well, the answer for you and me is obvious, I think, and that is that the world looks like it's gone crazy. Is there anything true about our world as we look at it today that at first blush it looks like it's gone mad? Some of you will remember that old movie, it's a mad, mad, mad world, and the movie drove you mad watching it. Well, that's the way the whole world is today, isn't it? All the politics, all the fighting, all the diseases, all the hoarding up of resources, all the blaming this way and blaming that way. It looks as if the world has actually gone mad. That's the way it looks to the human eye. But how does it look from Jesus' perspective? He is in control of everything. Yes, the man Jesus who walked on this planet. Yes, your older brother of whom you just sang. He ascended into heaven and took a throne and God the Father gave him authority over every single thing on this planet. Can you believe that? He was given authority, not just to let things run him up. He was given authority so that as his kingdom grew on this planet, he would be destroying his enemies, one after another, after another, after another, until all of his enemies are put under his feet. And the last and the greatest enemy of all would be the enemy death. I have wonderful news for you. I know that it feels as if death is inevitable. We all have to pay our taxes and we all have to die. No, we don't. The fact is, is that the passing that followers of Christ experience as they go from this life to the next is simply that, a passing. It's not a hopeless, riding away of the body into the ground. It's not a visionless existence. It is not something that is to be sad, not something that is to be horrible and dreaded by all of us, but rather is simply a passing from this life and waiting for the what life to come, waiting for the glorified body to come because everything is under Jesus control. You can be sure of this. He is bringing it all to bear for those that love Him. He is guiding history in ways that will subjugate the enemies of the people of God. He is bringing history to the grand and glorious goal that God, the Father, will reign over this earth, a paradise earth, remade by Jesus' own hands. As you think about your life and you see the whirlwind that is your life, if you are without Christ, I don't know how to say this to you except to say, you have no hope of life ever being any different than that. The sad things that you experience, grieve me. The hardships you face, grieve me, too. But the reality is if you are not a follower of Jesus, the perfect human being who was raised from the dead, what you are experiencing now is only a prelude to the horrors of life after death. Not a prelude, just the beginning, but if we place our faith in this man who was resurrected from the dead, and we know that he now reigns over all, even when the troubles come and they come, they come to believers as well, they are not without purpose, they are not without goal, they are not without determination, they are determined by him and they are directed for a goal of his subjugation of all evil on this planet. And there is a wonderful destiny for those who are in Christ, even as they pass through this world of sin, and so what do you want? Do you want the miseries of this life simply to be a prelude of the miseries of eternity? Or do you want the troubles of this life in the hands of someone who is so good, so righteous that God actually raised him from the dead? We live in a day when people have rejected the idea that Jesus rose from the dead. They rejected it as mythology, as wishful thinking, they rejected the notion that Jesus is in control of everything, and so what do they have left? Nothing, but the whirlwind. But those who give their hearts over to the risen Jesus have much, much more than this. They will have trouble, but their trouble has a purpose and a goal. The goal is your eternal life within the New Heavens and the New Earth. Judaism does not even offer that. Islam does not even offer that, but I can tell you with confidence today that if you will put your faith in Jesus of Nazareth, you can have assurance in your heart and the proof in your life that He who reigns over all things will care for you and will resurrect you on the last day. On Thursday night, I'm going to say that in front of a lot of skeptics and in front of a lot of people who don't believe that kind of thing, but it's no problem of done it before. Happy to do it. One time, about a year ago, I was in Egypt, and I had been given the opportunity to make a public speech that was advertised on the radio and newspaper and on television, and I was given the topic, and here's the topic, it will shock you maybe, to give this in a Muslim country like Egypt, the topic was, does Israel have a right to the land of Palestine? How about that for a controversial subject? They said, will you do it? I said, sure I'd be glad to. I won't tell you all the things I said, but it was a group of about 400 people or so, at least half of them were Muslim. There were police surrounding the building out front, making sure that there was no violence and that kind of thing, but inside we were all there together, and as I came to the end of this speech, I said something to the group that was sort of shocking to them. I said, you know the land of Palestine, it's really insignificant, and the reason for this is because it's not big enough for Jesus who was resurrected, Jesus, the King of Israel. It's not big enough because the King of Israel who was resurrected and now reigns in heaven, he doesn't just own Palestine, he also owns Europe. They went, well okay, those are mainly Christian nations, and he also owns North America, and they all nodding their head, and he also owns South America, they're all nodding their head, and then I said, the King of Israel, the King of the Jews, who was resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven, now owns Egypt, oh they didn't like that, but I didn't let it stop there. The King of the Jews does not just own Egypt, he also owns Saudi Arabia, and he doesn't just own Saudi Arabia, Jesus owns Mecca, and I sat down. Why would you say such a thing? He calls it true. The Lord, our brother, who was so righteous that God raised him from the dead and gave him authority over all things, controls even the religious capital of Islam. Nothing is outside of his control. So as you think about Easter today, and you try to move beyond the Easter eggs and the bunnies and those kinds of things, when you get tired of those kinds of things, you want to ask what does it really mean to celebrate Easter? Remember that the Apostle Paul tells us Christ is risen, the first born from among the dead because he is the only hope for the whole human race because he accomplished what we have failed to do. And remember that his authority over all things guarantees you the inheritance of a New Heavens and a New Earth. Let's pray together. Our Lord Jesus, we bless you and we honor you that you were that good. We were left for our own futures resting in our goodness. We would certainly be lost. But we bless you that you were that righteous and that holy. And we bless you that you now control all things and we yearn for the day when you will subjugate every enemy, even the last enemy death. And we praise you for this with confidence. Today is a day of celebration. For Christ the Lord hath risen our joy that hath no end. From 267, the day of resurrection.