The Resurrection 1 Corinthians 15:12-20 Sunday, April 20, 2014 Grace Church of Eden Prairie Pastor Troy Dobbs A dad pulled his children together for a little pre-easter spiritual instruction and he posed this question: Who knows why we celebrate Easter every year? His youngest child blurted out: Because the Big Easter Bunny at the mall will give you lots of candy on Easter Sunday Morning. Another child chimed in and said: 1
No it s when you get a tree and hang eggs on it and you wake up on Sunday with presents under it. At this point, dad is feeling like a total loser until (finally) His 10 year-old daughter spoke up and confidently said: Dad, Easter is when Jesus was crucified He died and His disciples put Him in the grave and rolled a big stone over the opening and the guards fell asleep. On the 3 rd day there was a BIG earthquake and the stone rolled away Now Dad was starting to feel pretty good about himself when she continued on: When the earthquake happened, the entire town came out by the grave. And if Jesus came out and saw His shadow they knew there d be six more weeks of winter 2
Close right! Please understand there tends t o be a lot of confusion surrounding the basic tenets of Christianity. And to be honest I think I know why. You see, the Christian faith is (strangely enough) oriented around an instrument of capital punishment. Think about it: What would you do if a woman came to work wearing earrings stamped with an image of the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima? What would you think of a teenager wearing a t-shirt celebrating the electric chair a firing squad or lethal injection? 3
What would you think of a church building adorned with a fresco of the massed graves at Auschwitz? No doubt we d we would all be appalled and shocked at these grotesque images. Well (in the 1 st Century) the same sort of horror was associated with the cross, too! Apart from the emperor s explicit sanction that no Roman citizen could be put to death via crucifixion it was an ominous threat to any criminal. As a matter of fact, crucifixion was reserved heinous criminals - slaves and barbarians. And no one talked about the cross in polite company. 4
Which is one reason why the nation of Islam rejects the cross even declaring it inappropriate that a major prophet of God should come to such an inglorious end. The Koran (actually) sees no need for the sinbearing death of a Savior. Additionally, every other world religion rejects what Christianity declares to be pivotal the cross of Christ. You see our faith as Christ followers is oriented around the cross, an instrument of capital punishment! And the death of Christ on the cross was / is a part of God s plan! Christ secured our forgiveness from sin on the cross! So Christians love the cross! 5
However - the cross is only part of the storyline of our faith tradition and although our faith is oriented around a cross and grave it culminates in a resurrection. Interestingly, as you study world religions all but four are built on philosophies! But the four major world religions are built on personalities and of those four only Christianity makes the audacious claim that its founder is still alive Christianity confidently rests on the certainty of Jesus bodily resurrection. All four gospels highlight it. The book of Acts insists on it and Paul (in the epistles) regards the resurrection as indisputable proof that the message about Jesus is true 6
But today (not unlike the 1 st century) there are many who scoff at the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now a scripture writer in the NT named Paul dealt with a faction in the church at Corinth that took the position: There is no such thing as resurrection So Paul addressed their assertion head on by laying out five sad repercussions for our lives if Christ is not risen from the dead! 1 CORINTHIANS 15:12-20 My real hope is that many of you for your everlasting good will be won over by Jesus Christ this morning because He is alive and able to persuade you that He alone is Savior 7
READ TEXT 12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. 8
20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. i The text begins in verse 12 by pointing out a contingent in Corinth said: There is no resurrection of the dead. Period. Nobody rises from the dead. So in verse 13 Paul points out the obvious: If there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised. Which means: No resurrection for Jesus no resurrection for you. 9
Undermine the resurrection of Jesus Christ and there will be direct implications for your life! Don t miss here that you cannot divorce theology from reality when you say you believe / don t believe certain things it does have a tangible impact. So Paul in attempt to awaken them to the misery and the mistake of what they are saying and believing spells out 5 devastating repercussions if Christ has not been raised from the dead! He says: OUTLINES The 1st Repercussion of No Resurrection Is our preaching is useless and our Evangelism unnecessary. 10
Verse 14a: If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain. Verse 15 says, Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ. So if there is no resurrection, all preaching is worthless and all witnessing is a lie. Now think about the fall out / ripple effect of that! If preaching is useless the Bible is worthless the church would is needless and Great Commission is an exercise in futility eternity is up in the air So don t miss the implications of all this: 11
If Christ has not been raised, then Paul s preaching is useless and He is a false witness for God. Of course, that s no skin off their nose. This faction devalues preaching anyway. (see Chapter 1&2) But Paul was trying to keep others from getting sucked into the vortex of their heresy by highlighting the ramifications of their unbelief. If Christ is dead we are dead to rights! If Christ is dead we need to shut it down. If Christ is dead all 360,000 churches in the U.S. are unnecessary and are propagating lies about Christ and leading masses of people astray! 12
So the 1 st repercussion of No Resurrection is that our preaching is useless & our witness is false. The 2nd Repercussion of No Resurrection is that our faith is in VAIN. (v 14b) v. 14b If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain our faith also is vain. Or as it says in v. 17a Your faith is futile or worthless. If Christ is not raised, your faith is a WASTE! If Christ is not raised, your faith in Him will make no difference in this life or the life to come. Now you ve got to wonder: 13
What did they have faith in if they didn t believe Jesus was raised from the dead? Well, Paul doesn t tell us specifically But these were savvy, philosophical, intellectual, cosmopolitan people who didn t like the idea of believing anything as literal and physical as the bodily resurrection of Jesus and, later, the resurrection of our bodies with Him. So here s what we know - the people in Corinth didn t say: this resurrection business is all a myth so we reject it. They said this resurrection business is all a myth so we re going to reinterpret it. They in essence asserted that the resurrection is just a symbol of God s love 14
and the indomitable power of the human spirit. And Paul s response was: If Christ has not (literally) been raised, your faith has no substance. It profits nothing! If the resurrection is a symbol and not a reality (the grave is a cold-hard reality) and the end of the line for all humanity! The 3 rd Repercussion of No Resurrection is that we remain UNFORGIVEN. (v.17) V. 17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Now this is getting increasingly serious! 15
Paul is pointing out here an utterly crucial connection between the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus. And he is saying, If Christ is not raised, then his death accomplished nothing for the forgiveness of our sins. And if Christ accomplished nothing to remove the guilt and condemnation of our sins, then we are still in our sins and under the wrath of God because sin is what alienates us from God. Translated: If there is no resurrection, you are now unforgiven and stand completely condemned before God. As such - there is no good news if there is no bodily resurrection of Jesus! 16
So understand the death of Christ was / is the basis of our forgiveness and justification before God. Romans 5:8-9 says, God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. How much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. ii Here Paul is saying that Christ s death pays the debt we owe to God and frees us from our sin, and gives us a right standing with God. And the resurrection of Jesus is the proof or validation that His death was sufficient to cover all of our sins! 17
But if there is NO resurrection we are stuck with the pain penalty of our sins! The 4 th Repercussion of No Resurrection is that DEATH IS THE END! V. 18 If Christ is not raised from the dead, then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If there is no resurrection, there will be no heavenly reconnection with anyone who dies before us or after us! Now can you imagine how devastating funerals would be if that were the case? There would be no words of hope no words of comfort no words of consolation no words of victory or 18
no words of relief. Death would be the end not the end to a new beginning. And then we would have to live with the fact that people we loved would be facing the judgment and the penalty and wrath of God forever. How brutally devastating to NOT have the hope of ever seeing your friends or family again! So to summarize without Christ s resurrection: Our preaching would be in vain Our witness would be a lie Our faith would be useless Our sins unforgiven Our loved ones forever doomed 19
And then in verse 19 Paul gives us His analysis of the aforementioned. V. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are to be pitied more than all men. Now what Paul is saying is that the life he chose to live a life of love, generosity, humility, service, persecution for the cause of Christ would have been a foolish decision if, in fact, there is no resurrection Think about it for a moment. If the dead are not raised and this life of risk and sacrifice for Christ is my only life I am a fool I am like an insane man living by hallucinations. If the resurrection is false, then we are all the biggest losers of all time. 20
Because we have embraced and lived a life of lies hoping in something that did not exist But Paul did not say it is not true. As a matter of fact, Paul is not even writing to prove the resurrection because Jesus is, in fact, alive and he knows it is true so he simply writes to show the unparalleled repercussions for our lives to believe otherwise. In verses 12-19 he is trying to show us that our lives would be in shambles if Christ did not rise from the dead. All of our lives would unravel into chaos! So in verse 20, he flips it from the negative to the positive. 21
Now by a show of hands, how many of you could use a little good news?! Well here it comes: V. 20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. In other words, Paul knows Jesus did rise from the dead, and that his resurrection is the guarantee of our resurrection that s what first fruits from the dead means. Think about His illustration if a person said: THERE IS NO HARVEST PERIOD. But you show up with the 1 st pickings of grain from that HARVEST YOU HAVE PROOF! So the first fruits were the first pickings of the harvest which showed that there is a 22
harvest (in that way) the reality of Christ s resurrection signifies the certainty of our resurrection. Said another way: The resurrection of Jesus stacks the deck of life in our favor. First, it means that because Christ has been raised, we too will be raised! And because Christ has been raised our preaching is not in vain, but valuable I get to keep my job and our witness is not false, but true. and it means that your witness for Christ is eternally significant. Because Christ has been raised, it means our faith is not worthless, but well founded. 23
Because Christ has been raised, it means we are forgiven of our sins The resurrection of Jesus means God no longer holds our sins against us! We are free from guilt, shame and bondage! And the wrath of God has been satisfied and we are no longer condemned, but now declared to be more than conquerors. Because Christ has been raised, those who have died will not perish, but live forever. Because of the resurrection of Jesus, You will see your dad again You will see your husband again You will see your wife again You will see your mother again You will see your son again 24
You will see your daughter again Because they will live forever the way Christ does, and, yes, you will GRIEVE when someone you love dies but you will not GRIEVE without HOPE because the resurrection changes the way we view funerals and cemeteries! Because Christ has been raised, rather than saying we are to be pitied we can say WE ARE TO BE ENVIED God has given us the greatest life ever A life that will NOT END. No one can offer us anything like it! Our lives are positively enviable! Our lives in Christ count all because Jesus is stronger than the grave. 25
And honestly I have NO IDEA why anyone wouldn t want the resurrection to be true. I mean we need HOPE like never before do we NOT? Look around: A lot of people are scared and struggling and feeling anxious about the future! People have pressures that they did not have before. They regret decisions they ve made over this last year. They wonder where things will stand a year from now. Nobody ever wants a season of hard times to come, but when they do, they have a way of making you ask: 26
What am I really counting on? Am I building my life on a foundation that s solid enough that circumstances beyond my control cannot take it away? That s why I ve been looking forward to Easter a time when we gather to remember the only hope capable of sustaining a human life through everything absolutely everything! So listen, people have not gathered for the past 2,000 years to say, The dollar has risen. It has risen indeed. OR The employment rate has risen or The gross domestic product has risen or General Motors has risen or The value of your 401k has risen. 27
Oh no - there s only one hope that has helped human beings across every continent and culture for two millennia of difficult times of Poverty Disease Pain Hardship and Death itself. And that is this reality CHRIST IS RISEN. HE IS RISEN INDEED! CHRIST IS RISEN. HE IS RISEN INDEED! i 1 Corinthians 12:15-20 ii Romans 5:8-9 28