March 31, 2013 The Power of His Resurrection Life Living in Me Philippians 3:7 11 Introduction: Our text for Resurrection Sunday is Paul s testimony of Jesus life in him. We ll seek to apply what we see in Paul s life to our own P W with God through faith in Jesus. The most profound three days in human history. Peter looks back and writes in I Peter 2:23-25 On Good Friday God is moving in the human arena to D with S the A S of the Son of God God is in His Son Jesus spanning the chasm dealing with all that stood between God and us. Isaiah 59:1, 2. Jesus is the Someone who reconciles us to God John 14:6, Romans 5:1, 2 and 9 11 The Passion event is all one act of redeeming love the Cross, His death, and His resurrection life. The Cross is about F of sins, but the message spoken by the resurrection is equally powerful: It s the truth that God looked with F on the S Jesus made for us. The message of Jesus alive set the hearts of the early disciples on fire. There is a progression that they walked from Jesus alive A them to Jesus alive F them to Jesus alive I them. Paul wrote about Jesus resurrection power to T us, Ephesians 1:18 20 I. The Resurrection of Jesus; Foundation Stone of our Faith: The New Testament is clear that the Apostles believed the resurrection of Jesus to be C to our F The authors of the New Testament wrote about four aspects of what the resurrection of Jesus meant to them: 1.) P, Rom. 1:3, 4 2.) A I Cor. 15:14, 17, 3.) D, Rom. 4:23, 24, 4.) P, I Cor. 6:14 These foundational truths are important for us to know and believe. But it is equally important to move into the E and E 1
dimensions of what His resurrection means to you and me. Paul s testimony in Philippians 3:7 9 Jesus moved him from religious expression to a heart set ablaze with grace and love! II. Paul Desired to Know the Person of Jesus: The huge difference between knowing about someone and knowing them Paul s heart s desire to K C two Greek words he could choose from are hoiden and ginosko Paul wrote I want to ginosai Christ, to desire to know the Risen Jesus D and I It describes Paul s P... and it describes his P Jesus choice of words in His prayer John 17:3 III. Paul Wanted to be Fully Identified with Jesus: Philippians 3:10, 11 Paul was overwhelmed with what Jesus had done for him The Cross of Jesus must become I P to us for it to have transformational power in us Fellowshipping with His sufferings means that we are putting into Him our O both the ones we did and the ones done to us. We are bidden to live crucified with Him in order to experience His life in us. II Corinthians 4:10 Fully identified with Him in His death Luke 9:23, 24 Romans 6:5 8 The Cross of Jesus puts to death sin s power to E us. His resurrection life living in our hearts and souls E the death of sin and R the power of God to change us! The Spirit of Jesus living in us enforces the power of the Cross and resurrection every day The Biblical principle: I must be R with S in my life or S will be R with me! Conclusion: 2
Discussion Starter Questions for Home Groups 1. Let s talk about it: Why is what Jesus has done for us on the Cross the only thing that God will accept as a sacrifice for sins and the cleansing of the human heart and soul? 2. What were your thoughts when you heard the truth that Jesus resurrection testifies to the fact that God accepted His sacrifice? 3. What were you thinking when Ken spoke about the progression the disciples went through from Jesus among them, to Jesus for the, to Jesus in them? 4. Why do you think the Apostles made the resurrection of Jesus the central issue to our faith? 5. Do you identify with Paul s passion and desire? In what ways? 6. What were your thoughts as Ken talked about the living Lord Jesus in us enforcing the death of sin and the power of God to change us? 7. Read together aloud Romans 8:1 17 and discuss insights that you have regarding the presence of Jesus in us and what that means to us. 8. Read together aloud II Corinthians 4 and discuss insights that you have regarding how the resurrection life of Jesus applies to our lives today. 9. Are there any ways that the truth of this message will change the way you view what Jesus did for you and how you will live with Him? 3
March 31, 2013 AM Pastor Ken Hepner The Power of His Resurrection Life Living in Me Philippians 3:7 11 Introduction: This morning as we turn our attention to the Word of the Lord, we are looking at a pretty nontraditional passage of Scripture to study the beauty and the power of the resurrection of Jesus. Our text is Paul s testimony of what coming to know the Risen Lord Jesus meant to him. It s found in Philippians 3:7 11. We are going to look at this awesome picture of what walking with the Risen King Jesus meant to Paul. Then we will seek to make some personal applications to our own Personal Walk with God through faith in Jesus. It is essential that we attempt to understand the incredible power of what God was doing in the three days from Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday morning, when Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John came to the empty tomb. These are the most powerful and dynamic three days in all of recorded human history. In this three-day period of time, all of the barriers that stood between God and humanity were removed, permanently. Last week we studied all of the things that were put to death on our behalf by the Lord Jesus on the Cross! Peter wrote the following eyewitness testimony as he looked back at the reality of the crucifixion of Jesus. His words are remarkably similar to the prophecies that we read. I Peter 2:23 25 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. You were like sheep going astray but now you have returned to Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. The message spoken to the human heart and soul by the events of Friday is God moving in the human arena to Deal with Sin once and for all by the offering that His Son Jesus made for each one of us. Only the Son of God living in the human arena could be the one sin offering that God would accept. This is true because only the Son of God could live a perfect life above the allure and grip of sin, and therefore be able to be the holy and absolutely pure sacrifice for sins. The events of Friday represent the Atoning Sacrifice of the One and Only Son of God. Only in Jesus, who is both Son of Man and Son of God, is the wide chasm spanned between sinful people and the Holy One! Sins we have committed and sins that have been committed against us stand between God and us, like a wall of division. This is true because holiness cannot fellowship with sinfulness. This is exactly what Isaiah had in his view when he penned the following words that pointed 700 years into the future and the need we had of an acceptable sacrifice for our sins! Isaiah 59:1, 2 Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear to dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. 4
Someone had to come to make it possible for us to be reconciled to God, and that someone was Jesus. Jesus said in John 14:6 I am the way and the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by me. Paul comments in Romans 5:1, 2 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And Paul adds in verses 9 11 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God s wrath through him! For if when we were God s enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! The passion of Jesus, the cross, His death, and His resurrection life are all aspects of one act of love. On Friday the disciples and the women at the tomb were overcome with grief, devastated by what they had witnessed that was done to the body of Jesus. They looked on in disbelief and horror at what they saw. They walked away from the cross with their hopes crushed and their dreams as dead as the body of Jesus. Friday is about darkness and the holiness of God dealing with human sin. But the crucifixion event on Friday and the resurrection event on Sunday morning express radically different messages to the human soul. Both aspects of His passion must be equally understood in the heart, embraced and experienced, if we are to live a well-balanced and victorious Christian life! The message of the cross is forgiveness and cleansing of sin in my heart and soul, it is about the wages of my sin being paid for me. That is powerful. But the message of the resurrection is equally powerful. It s the truth that God has looked with Favor on that Sacrifice Jesus made for you and me. In His resurrection life there is victory over sin, death, and all the powers of hell. I too may have life and victory because He lives I live! When the disciples saw Jesus alive again and spent time with Him their hearts were filled with joy. They were set ablaze with holy love and zeal to speak the Good News of Jesus to anyone who would listen, and some who didn t want to listen. Jesus alive among them, moved to Jesus alive for them interceding for them in the Father s presence, and then their experience became Jesus alive in them! Our study today concerns the power of Jesus resurrection life and what that means for those of us who have believed in Him and who have received Him in our hearts and lives. The apostle Paul wrote some powerful words about experiencing His presence, the power of Jesus Life to Transform us, as he wrote to the Ephesians 1:18 20: I pray also that the eyes of your hearts may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty 5
strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, I. The Resurrection of Jesus: Foundation Stone for our Faith: As one reads through the body of the New Testament, it is clear that the Apostles believed the message of the resurrection to be Central to our Faith. They gloried in the power of what Jesus did on the cross, and they taught about and witnessed to power of His resurrection life that He pours out into everyone who believes and asks Him to do so. They understood a simple fact. The crucifixion would have been just another good man s death if it were not for the powerful message of the resurrection life of Jesus. The authors of the New Testament wrote four aspects of what the resurrection meant to them as they were guided by the Holy Spirit: #1. There is the Proclamational aspect of the resurrection life of Jesus, a point Paul made over and over, in such Scriptures as Romans 1:3, 4: regarding his Son who as to his human nature was a descendant of David and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. #2. There is an Apologetic aspect of the resurrection, which means that His being raised to life again explains and in ways defends His mission. I Corinthians 15:14, 17 if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith... if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. #3. There is a Doctrinal aspect of the resurrection of Jesus, in that it indicates the acceptance of His sacrifice for our sins. Romans 4:23, 24 The words it was credited him as righteousness were not written for Abraham alone but also for us to whom God will credit righteousness, -- for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. #4. There is also a Prophetic aspect of His resurrection life and power, in that it assures us of a future resurrection for all who have believed in Christ Jesus. Jesus told His followers candidly: Because I live you too shall live. I Corinthians 6:14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead and he will raise us also. It is important that each of us is gripped in heart, solid faith in these foundational aspects of His resurrection life and power. But it is equally important that we move into the Ethical and Experiential dimensions of what His resurrection means to my personal heart and life. To do that I want us to look at Paul s life, and the testimony he gave as he used his own experiences with God to speak encouragement to the people of God. I want to pull out various phrases from Philippians 3:7 9 for our consideration. Paul wrote about having been justified by faith, he understood that all of his really good religious activities he had been doing so well and so strenuously, were no more valuable than the sweepings from the stables of a local horse barn. Like a flashlight at noon is of little value, even so our good deeds, as compared to what Jesus did for us on the cross, are of little value. 6
Paul says having been justified by faith he came to realize in a powerful way, that righteousness is not something you can earn from God by trying to be good enough; it is something you are given by God as an act of His great mercy because the human heart is absolutely corrupt. He wrote that having been justified by faith God had given him a deep and burning desire to know Jesus more and more in a personal and intimate way. I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. That I may gain Christ and be found in him. As we seek to embrace His resurrection life and power at personal and experiential levels in our hearts, I want us to look carefully at what Paul explains in verses 10, 11 of the text. Let s be certain that we are making application of what we read, so that the deep hungers of our hearts will be satisfied in Him too! II. Paul Wanted to Know the Person of Christ Jesus: There are huge chasms of difference between knowing about someone and actually knowing that person, in deep and personal ways. Paul wrote in a really pinpoint accurate way as he talked about his own heart s desires to know Christ. You will recall that Paul met Jesus in a very personal way as Jesus appeared to him as he lay broken and repentant in the dust of the Damascus Road. After a brief stay in Damascus he went into the desert of Arabia to be alone with the Lord. There he spent two years with Jesus, praying, meditating, and having Christ Jesus formulate his theology from his knowledge of Old Testament Scripture. Paul received a completely new set of lenses or a grid through which to see the Scriptures. Jesus gave Paul a new understanding of the Law, righteousness, and how to overcome sin in life! There are two basic words he could have chosen for the word to know Jesus. The word could have been, Hoiden, which means to know about, perceive, or understand. The other word is ginoskein, which means to recognize, being acquainted with, to have experienced life with. So we won t miss the point of what he is driving at Paul chose the Greek word ginosai, to communicate his desire to know Christ. It is a future middle voice verb meaning to desire to know the Risen Lord Jesus Deeply and Intimately. Ginosai describes Paul s Passion deep longing of heart to walk through life with a deeper knowledge of Jesus in His heart and soul, by the presence of the Holy Spirit. He keeps saying it in different ways but the truth remains that Christ Jesus, and His resurrection power transforming a human heart, had become His single focus in life. It also describes Paul s Purpose in Life. He was going to invest the rest of his life telling the Gentiles in many countries of the Roman Empire about what Jesus had done in his life when He came to live in him. This intimate knowledge of Jesus would bubble up in his heart and be the focal point of his conversations for the rest of his life. 7
I find so many people who are trying to understand God s ways, trying to figure Him out, and the fact is; only when we truly come to know Him as Savior and Lord do we get better understanding of the things and the ways of God. Jesus said it this way in His prayer for us in John 17:3 And this is eternal life, to know (ginoskein be acquainted with, have experienced life with) you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. III. Paul Wanted to be Fully Identified with Christ: Philippians 3:10, 11 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection of the dead. Paul was overwhelmed in his heart and soul, let alone his mind, regarding what Jesus had done to make it possible for us to be restored to fellowship with God. Paul s words to the Philippian believers are that he wanted to be taken deeper in his understanding of what it meant to be sharing in the sufferings of Christ. The Cross of Jesus can t be mere doctrine that we ascent to, nor can it be merely historical fact that we accept. The Cross of Jesus must become Intensely Personal for it to have the transformational power in us that we must have to overcome our selfishness and sin s power to enslave us! We must come to grips with the fact that it was our sins, our transgressions, and our iniquitous patterns that placed Jesus on the cross and kept Him there. It wasn t the nails that kept Him there it was His identity with our sinfulness and our hopelessness to do anything about our lostness. It was love that kept Jesus on the Cross: Love for the Father God so much that He did His will completely and love for you and me because He knew our helplessness to defeat sin! He poured out His life for us there, bearing our sins, guilt, shame, and iniquitous patterns for the Father God, because the Father needed someone to take our sins away. It was love for you and me that kept Him on the cross! And yet it means even more than this. For us to be sharing in His suffering for us means that the suffering of Jesus becomes deeply personal to us. Sharing in His suffering for us means that we are placing our offenses the ones we have done and the ones that have been done to us, in Him by faith at the cross. We are bidden by Scripture to walk the way of the cross, to live crucified with Christ, so that His resurrection life and power may also be shed abroad in our hearts. II Corinthians 4:10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. Paul s words in the next phrase get at this concept of coming to the cross by faith and placing in Christ Jesus the things we have done that have offended God or others, and our offenses, and those who have hurt us. Jesus death was an end to sin, guilt, shame, iniquities, and selfishness and self-interest. Sin, all sins, and the power of sin to enslave us died in Jesus that day. Paul says, I want to be like Him in His death! He is pointing us to living a life that is dead to the sin and sin s power to enslave us being attractive to us anymore! 8
The desire in Paul s heart was to be fully identified with Jesus death for him. He wanted to know that what Jesus death did was personal to him. Paul s word of testimony in this text is a call to you and to me, bidding us to meet with Jesus and to deal with sin and sin s enslaving power at the cross each new day! Luke 9:23, 24 If any man would be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever finds his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The Apostle Paul wrote about this full identity with Jesus death on the cross in many Scriptures: Romans 6:5 8 If we have been united with him in his death we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ we believe that we will also live with him. Let s be sure that we understand the full implications of the passion event of Jesus our Lord, and what He has made available to all of us who have believed in Him and received Him in our hearts! The Cross of Jesus, His death there puts Sin s Power to Enslave you and me to death for ever. That is truly great news. But there is a truth flowing from that fact that is equally great news. The Risen Lord Jesus living in my heart each new day Enforces the death of sin and Releases the power of God to transform my desires, my thought patterns, and then my behaviors! So here is what that looks like speaking in completely practical terms. Before you invite Jesus to live in your heart you can commit a sin and feel bad about it but that pretty much ends it. But when you invite Jesus to come and live in your heart, your desire to sin begins to change immediately. And when you do something that is sinful, your desire is to be cleansed of it immediately! He enforces the power of the Cross and Resurrection in you and me daily! There are vast amounts of difference between forgiveness and cleansing There are vast amounts of difference between sin being in my heart and soul and sin reigning in my heart and soul There are vast amounts of difference between Jesus my Lord dealing with sin for me and Jesus my Lord dealing with sin that lives in me! Only believers in Jesus can come to these conclusions, that there is more to my Christian experience than merely being forgiven or seen as righteous! He wants to meet with me each new day at the cross and deal with sin and sin s tendencies, my attitudes that are sinful, my preoccupation with self-interest. The Biblical principle is: I must be Ruthless with Sin in my life or Sin will be Ruthless with me! 9
Conclusion: Philippians 3:9 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. There can only be a resurrection after there has been a death. It was true for Jesus and it is true for you and me. There can be no resurrection power over sin, until we choose to meet with Jesus by faith at the cross and put our sins, guilt, and shame to death in Him! The real question here is this: How much is the resurrection power of God living in me? How much is my life reflecting His death to sin and transforming life as He is changing me? 10