Sermon:
ILLUSTRATION - E.V. Hill story - Old 1800, “Get to the good news, preacher.” “That’s it! That’s the good news!”
We’ve spent a lot of time examining who we are on the inside - looking past the facade’s that we place out there for others to see - and we’ve realized that we are in bad shape - hopeless shape - because we tend to be selfish, self-promoting kinds of people. We need to remember who we can be - but today is about the good news.
So much information is out there - bombarded with it. Average TV is on for 8 hrs and 11 minutes a day.
We spend an average of 3 hours/day online - and that includes the person who doesn’t know how to turn a computer on and the 35-year old who doesn’t have a job and plays video games all day long.
Everywhere you turn there is something new to look at, a new product to consider. You stand in line at the checkout and you learn ALL kinds of things. How to seduce your man. How to look 25 years old again. How to lose 30 pounds in 30 days. You learn about Brad and Angelina, Tom and Katie, Days of our Lives, and Survivor - all while waiting to purchase your Diet Coke and King-sized Snickers bar.
Information is everywhere. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself the question, “But what is the most important thing you know?” Because that is a brilliant question and a question that needs to be answered.
To answer that question, let’s turn to 1 Corinthians 15 and let’s do some straight-up Bible teaching.
READ 1-2 AND COMMENT:
Verse 1
This section stands as a fifth witness to the original Easter events...
“Remind” - I want you to have a thorough knowledge of this, I want to make this known to you, I want to declare this to you.
“Gospel” - the good message
Verse 2
“Saved” - by which you are being made whole, by which you are being delivered, by which you are being saved
READ 3
Verse 3
The gospel of Paul was received from the tradition of the very early church
Probably written around 50 A.D.
The gospel he preached was not unique to him…
The content of the story (what he is about to repeat) is a kind of foundation-story with which a community is not at liberty to tamper. It was probably formulated within the first two to three years after Easter.
In terms of this being created as a myth or legend, it was just not possible. The story had been solidified much too quickly for any legendary material to develop.
Like trying to do an ice carving in the desert.
Paul calls him “Christ” = Messiah
It is because Jesus is Messiah that his death represents the turning point in which the present evil age is left behind and those who belong to Jesus are rescued from it
Gal. 1.4 - who [Jesus] gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father
If He’s not Messiah, He’s just another guy.
Jesus Christ Died for our sins
This is true - even though many have tried to deny
Beaten, flogged, nailed to a cross with spikes, when it appeared He was dead they ran a spear into his side, rupturing his heart. When your heart gets blown up, you’re done. And I don’t know a whole lot about medicine, but I’m pretty sure that when you lose your heart, there’s not a backup plan… It’s not like you have two like an extra gas tank on a pickup truck...
If Jesus DIDN’T die, we’re talking about a bigger miracle than the resurrection.
He didn’t just die, either. He died for our sins. Many people have died. Many people have given their lives for noble causes. But only one has done so for our sins.
2 Corinthians 5:21 - He who knew no sin, became sin.
He is our scapegoat.
But, without the resurrection, there is no reason to believe this.
READ 4
Verse 4
Jesus was buried
Further proof that He was dead
This was an oddity for crucifixion victims - normally they were thrown into a common grave.
He was poor, didn’t have a tomb of His own, so one of his followers [Joseph of Arimathea] who was a wealthy disciple, secret disciple, took his body and buried Him.
Wrapped the body in linens, loaded them up with around 75 pounds of spices, and laid him in a cold, damp, tomb. The tomb was then sealed by the government with a large rock and the governor’s seal and guarded by two soldiers.
Which just continues to drive home that He was DEAD. If you have been through a trauma like He did and somehow managed to survive and just kind of passed out, being wrapped up in linens and 75 pounds of spices and laid in a cold and damp tomb, is probably not the best way to wake back up. And even if you did, then to get up on crucified feet and hands, roll away a huge stone, overpower professional killers, walk back to Jerusalem (crucified feet) and appear to your followers and say, “I’m back boys! I told you! Now, give me a chair, my feet are killing me…”
He was dead.
Jesus was raised on the 3rd day
He was dead - but now He is alive.
You need to know that this is not some sort of spiritualization of a resurrection.
It’s not like how we talk about how “Daddy is still with us.” - that person lives on.
Paul is writing - your NT is written - to a culture and in a culture where the idea of a bodily resurrection is hogwash - no one believed that there was a chance of resurrection.
As Jesus scholar N.T. Wright points out, “Christianity was born into a world where its central claim was known to be false. Many believed that the dead were non-existent; outside Judaism, nobody believed resurrection.”
Wright also notes: “We cannot stress too strongly that from Homer onwards the language of ‘resurrection’ was not used to denote ‘life after death’ in general, or any of the phenomena supposed to occur within such a life. The great majority of the ancients believed in life after death; many of them developed… complex and fascinating beliefs about it and practices in relation to it; but, other than within Judaism and Christianity, they did not believe in resurrection.”
This story was scandalous and contradictory to everything else that had existed up to that point. To say that it was borrowed from other myths or legends, simply doesn’t hold ground.
Why would this story begin circulating? Because it happened.
And Paul says that this isn’t a story that just came out of no where - this has been a part of God’s plan - His Scriptures - from the beginning.
It’s in accordance with the Scriptures that this all happened.
Jesus said that He would die and that He would rise again (Mark 8.31)
He’s not proof-texting. He’s saying that the over-arching narrative of Scripture has been hinting at this from the beginning.
READ 5-8
Verses 5-8
Jesus Appeared to Others
Seen occurs three times…
The Order: Peter, Twelve (minus one), 500, James, all the apostles, Paul
Regarding the 500 - Some are dead, but some are still alive is the implication that they could be interrogated on the matter.
James - Jesus’ little brother. Pre-Easter, he was a doubter. Post-Easter, leader of the church in Jerusalem.
“Other apostles” means more than the 12 and more than the 500 - for an apostle for Paul is someone who saw the risen Jesus.
Paul - the one who was born abnormally
Let me make a point here: Some would say that this whole thing was just a vision or a hallucination. It is impossible for this many people to have the same hallucination. It cannot happen. Once again, you are talking about a miracle that is greater than the resurrection. It is easier to believe the resurrection than the other.
I can be no clearer this morning than this: Jesus died - dead - on the cross for our sins - so dead they buried him - and three days later He was alive - in body, in a glorious body. Death was no match for him. The story of Easter is true.
And I’ll even repeat Paul when he says in verse 17 and 19, that if Jesus has not been raised, then those of us who follow Jesus should be pitied above all men. If it hasn’t happened, their faith is not only empty, but ‘futile’, mataia, a waste of time; and the crucial point is not just that they are believing rubbish about the resurrection and Jesus, but that the new age in which sins are left behind has not after all been inaugurated.
If God has overcome death in the resurrection of Jesus, then the power of sin is broken; but if he hasn’t, it isn’t.
The most important thing you can know is that Jesus died and He has been raised again.
So What?
The question that might be on your mind is, “Ok, so what? He rose from the dead that’s cool. Now let me go on. I don’t see how that matters about anything now.”
There is no just going on. That Jesus has been raised by God changes everything. Everything changes. To know this and to believe this and to live like this is true is life-altering.
For Paul, the point of the resurrection is not simply that the creator God has done something remarkable for one solitary individual, but that, in and through the resurrection, ‘the present evil age’ has been invaded by the ‘age to come’, the time of restoration, return, covenant renewal, and forgiveness. An event has occurred as a result of which the world is a different place, and human beings have the new possibility to become a different kind of people.
We are now in a day of new creation. Jesus’ resurrection marks the day of the new creation. We get to be partners with Him in that work.
God has defeated death through Jesus - that means there is nothing that is too difficult for him.
Think about it:
If God can defeat death; if God can be trusted to defeat death, do you think that He can be trusted with…
Your marriage?
Your kids?
Your money?
Your job (lack of)
Of Most Importance
04/12/09 - Easter
