Ready Because of Christ
1 Corinthians 15:12-20, 54-55
Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008
NOTE: THE ME/WE/GOD/YOU/WE FORMAT USED IN MY MESSAGES IS BORROWED FROM ANDY STANLEY’S BOOK, "COMMUNICATING
FOR A CHANGE."
Me: I shared this story the first Easter I was here, back in 2001, but we’ve got a number of people who have become part of our church family since then, so I thought I’d repeat it here.
I have been living with a painful childhood memory that has impacted my impressions of Easter.
It happened during a family trip. I don’t know where we were going, or how old I was, because I have blocked that from my memory.
But I vividly remember what happened. My dad was driving down the highway that dark night. All of a sudden, a small rabbit ran across the road. There was a sickening thud as the little fella met with the tires of the car.
Witnessing what had just transpired, I cried out, “You ran over the Easter Bunny!”
My dad tried to convince me that that wasn’t the Easter Bunny, and it wasn’t until I saw the Easter basket (brought by the Easter Bunny, of course) that I was willing to consider the possibility that the Easter Bunny, was, in fact, alive, although at first I wondered if maybe Dad hadn’t smuggled in the basket to cover up the demise of the Easter Bunny.
Well, the story is true, but my current reaction is not. I know now that my father did not purposely run over the rabbit, and it certainly wasn’t the Easter Bunny.
But my first reaction was correct, as far as my understanding of Easter was concerned at that age.
I thought that since the Easter Bunny was dead, Easter was dead. There was no hope for Easter.
Thankfully the real Easter Story is full of hope. Because the main character of the Easter story was dead, but is now alive, and that is what we celebrate this morning.
Last week a friend of mine came across a horrible discovery. When she was walking through the parking lot of a business customer of hers, she and several others came across the body of man who had apparently suffered a heart attack as he was coming to work.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, she knew the man who had died.
My friend was visibly shaken as she talked to me about it, as you can imagine.
She hadn’t planned on finding a dead person that day.
And my guess is that the man hadn’t planned on dying that day, either. I hope he was ready.
Like most people, I find myself contemplating death from time to time.
I don’t know when it’ll happen. It could be today, or depending on the pace of medical technology, I might live for another 100 years.
I had, for a number of years, had an irrational thought that I might not outlive Elvis.
Seriously! He died when he was 42. And as I neared that age, I wondered if I would make it past 42.
Well, I’ve passed it by a year, and I’ll be 44 later this year.
I have lots of questions about death. When will it happen, will it be painful, will it be under honorable circumstances, will I see it coming, will it be easy on my family or horribly traumatic? Lots of questions.
But one question I don’t have anymore is this: Will I be ready? That question has been answered, and I want everyone here today to have that answered for themselves before we leave here today.
We: Because I would venture to guess that every adult here, and maybe most of you younger folks have wondered about your death from time to time.
It can be kind of a depressing topic if we focus on it or obsess about it.
And I would also venture to guess that you have had some of the same questions I have, and maybe some different ones I haven’t thought of.
But do you have the answer to the question: Am I ready?
If you left this world today, would you be ready?
Most people aren’t ready. Many of those people think they are ready, but are in for a terrific shock when find themselves face to face with the living God.
God: The good news is that everyone can be ready. Everyone in here and everyone who hears what Jesus has done for them can be ready.
Everyone who chooses to trust in Jesus and what He did will be ready, and you have a choice you can make to be sure that you leave here today ready to spend eternity in heaven when you leave this earth.
1 Corinthians 15:12-20 (p. 815) –
12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Now skip down to verse 54 (page 816) –
54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." 55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"
Christianity lives and dies, if you will, on the fact of the resurrection.
If Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, then there is no hope for anyone when they die.
The fact of the matter is that all of us here will die someday, unless Jesus returns before then.
Just like every generation before us, we will face that time when our life will end on earth, and we’ll be placed in the ground.
And if Jesus hasn’t been raised from the dead, then that’s the end. We’ll just stay in our graves with no hope of anything beyond them.
But folks, that’s NOT the end. Jesus died – but He didn’t stay that way. He rose from the grave. Physically rose. The body isn’t there.
We have eyewitness testimony that:
* He died.
It’s recorded in the gospels, and other sources outside of Scripture make reference to the crucifixion of Jesus.
* The grave was empty.
Before I get too far into this I should have also mentioned that we have eyewitness testimony that He was buried.
The number of people listed in the gospel was large, and included not just followers of Jesus, but also His enemies and the Roman guard.
But what I want to emphasize is that the grave was empty. And while there were plenty of explanations from many people, there was no denying that the grave was empty.
The disciples saw it, the Jewish leaders saw it, and the Roman guards feared for their lives because of the punishment they faced.
And we also have eyewitness testimony that…
* He was alive after He had died.
Let me read verses 3-8 of this chapter to give you a bit of context (forgot to put verse numbers in note-taking guide) –
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
Eyewitness testimony – the most powerful kind of testimony. Testimony that would pass the most rigorous cross-examination in a courtroom.
In fact, if you were to put each of those people on the witness stand and give them just 15 minutes each, we would be here for 128 straight hours. In other words, we’d be here all day today, and all the way into sometime Friday morning before it wrapped up.
And not even the best lawyers on “Law and Order” could make them change their story. That’s one of my favorite shows and I guarantee that even Jack McCoy couldn’t make these people change their story.
The resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact. And that fact drove the early disciples to face imprisonment, torture and death rather than deny it.
All they would have had to do to avoid all that was to say, “Okay! I know where the body is. We snuck Him out by pushing that two-ton rock away very quietly so the 16 Roman guards wouldn’t hear us and we buried Him somewhere else so we could pull a fast one on you guys!”
And that’s all that would have to happen. But the Romans couldn’t do it. The Jewish religious leaders couldn’t do it.
Remember, Paul used to be one of those guys who was trying to squelch this movement of people who believed in Jesus as the Messiah and that He had risen from the dead.
His job was to persecute those who believed that. Can you imagine what it took to convince him in his heart that this whole Jesus thing was real?
No one has been able to disprove the resurrection. No one has been able to produce the body of Jesus.
And it’s because of that fact that we can have hope.
1. Hope for the here and now.
We don’t focus on this so much at Easter, but it’s true. Because of Christ, we have hope for today.
We can live with the assurance that God knows and that He cares about every detail of who we are and what we’re going through.
And not only does He know and care, He is able to move and act on our behalf, because He moves and acts for our benefit.
We can face every day knowing that God is there, even when we don’t realize it, and even when we don’t think it’s possible.
And we can make it one more day, anticipating even more days, living in His presence and His care.
Life is tough at times, and we can wonder whether God really know and cares, but He does.
I could go on and on, just telling you how He’s proved that in my own life, but I want to move on to the idea that not only can we have hope in the here and now, but also we have…
2. Hope for the hereafter.
Look back at verses 19-20 –
19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Jesus’ resurrection allows us to carry with us the hope of eternal life in the presence of God Himself.
As I mentioned earlier, without the resurrection, the best we can hope for is an eternity in the grave.
But because Jesus rose, we can have the assurance that when life ends here, it begins in heaven.
A place where all our worries will be gone, where all the pain and heartache of our current situation will be remembered no more, and where we will be face to face with Jesus.
You: So the question becomes: are you ready to face the end of your days?
And the logical next question is this: how can you become ready? How can you know for sure that Jesus’ death and resurrection paid the price of your sins and made it possible for you to spend eternity in heaven?
Put your hope in the right place: the resurrection of Jesus.
Don’t put your hope in:
- Your religion.
Going to church won’t do it for you. Being baptized, whether as an infant or later won’t do it. Saying a certain bunch of prayers won’t do it.
Being “religious” doesn’t do anything to cleanse you from sin and give you the hope of eternal life.
There are plenty of religious people around – they have all the outward appearances of religion. Yet their hearts are still full of sin, because they haven’t accepted Jesus’ payment for sin and they’re trying to earn their own payment through their religious observations and rituals.
Don’t trust…
- Your good works.
You can’t earn your way to heaven by being a good boy or girl. You can’t get there by giving money to charity or volunteering to teach disco dancing at the senior’s center.
In fact, that might just be one way to guarantee you don’t make it…
You can’t help enough old ladies across the street, you can’t babysit enough children for free, you can’t coach enough soccer and little league teams to make into heaven.
The Bible is very clear that there won’t be anyone there who is able to say, “I got here on my own effort by my good works.”
A third thing you can’t trust to get you into heaven is…
- Your morality.
I don’t think anyone here would deny that they have sinned, more times than they can count.
But here’s what I hear a lot: “At least I haven’t killed anybody. God’ll let me in.”
Really? Why should He do that?
Let me share something with you very quickly:
God says that you shall not commit adultery. Jesus says that if you even look at someone in a sexual manner, you’ve committed adultery in your heart, and subject to the same judgment as someone who has committed the physical act.
God says do not murder, but Jesus says that if you hate someone, you’re under the same judgment as a murderer.
The book of James says that if you’ve broken one law, you’ve broken them all.
But again you might say, “But I haven’t done too many bad things – surely my good stuff will outweigh the bad, right?”
Let me ask you a question: if I only kill one person a year, shouldn’t the fact that I don’t kill anyone for the other 364 days mean that I’m really a good person who deserves to get off scot-free?
Ridiculous, isn’t it? But that’s just how most people view their sin.
But God doesn’t view it that way. He sees every sin, and it’s offensive to Him because He is perfectly holy.
The fact of the matter is that we don’t have a morality that’s pleasing to God. On our own, we have nothing good to offer Him.
But for those who have been cleansed by Christ, the Holy Spirit lives in us to help us be the kind of person who lives to please God, based on a love for Him and His Word. A morality that is objective rather than subjective and under our own definitions of what is right or wrong.
You and I have no morality to offer God that makes us acceptable to Him.
Here’s another thing you can’t put your trust in for forgiveness and a home in heaven…
- Your “spirituality.”
This is different from “religion,” which I discussed a few moments ago. That focused more on religious activity like church and prayer and such.
What I mean here is that there are lots of people who would call themselves “spiritual,” yet don’t want to be burdened with the idea of believing in Christ and living for Him.
They like looking at all sorts of spiritual ideas and trying out all sorts of things, but they miss out on the fact that spirituality apart from Jesus is simply a deceptive faith in their own ideas of who God is and what He requires to gain entrance into heaven.
You may follow a certain religion or faith and you may be a strong follower of it. But you won’t be judged on that.
You will be judged on what you did with Jesus.
Did you believe what He had to say? Did you take the gift He offered for forgiveness and eternal life? Did you, with God’s help, follow Jesus in your everyday living?
None of these things will give you the hope of eternal life that Jesus gave because of His resurrection from the grave.
He died to purchase pardon for your sin, and He rose to give you heaven.
Are you ready? We can be, because of Christ.
Invitation
I said at the beginning of the message that you’d have the opportunity to walk out of here today, completely ready to face God and spend eternity in heaven because your sins have been forgiven on earth.
Romans 6:23 – Take the gift.
I recently came across the story of a guy who sold everything in order to place a bet in Los Vegas. The article explains: “A British man who has sold all his possessions, including his clothes, will stand in a rented tuxedo on Sunday and bet everything on a single spin of the roulette wheel. If he wins, he doubles his money. If he loses, he will be left with only the television crew documenting his every move.” His net worth is $138,000 after he sold everything. He is doing that today, Easter Sunday. If he wins he will have a lot of money. If he loses he will be broke and naked.”
May I suggest that you are making the same gamble? Some of us are betting everything we have on the fact that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the grave so that we might live forever.
Some of you may be gambling that it is all just a nice story. If those who believe in Christ are wrong, they lose nothing. If those who do not believe in Christ are wrong, they lose everything — and worse.
Even if those who doubt are right they have gained nothing. But if those of us who believe in Christ are right, we will inherit the kingdom of God and eternal life.
Where are you placing your bet today?
(SermonCentral.com. Contributed by: Rodney Buchanan)
If you’ll take the gift that Jesus offers, then it’s not really a gamble. God doesn’t lie, and He promises forgiveness of sins and home in heaven.
Take the gift, and you’ll be ready. You’ll be ready because of Christ.
