Introduction:
Prayer:
Well it’s Easter!
And just like last week, Rob said then we were celebrating two holidays! April fools and Palm Sunday!
One Pagan and one Biblical!
And the same goes for today, many will celebrate the Easter bunny while others will celebrate a risen King!
One Pagan and One Biblical!
Today we are going to look at all three elements of the Gospel of Christ, with our main focus being on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead!
I’m not going to presume any of you know what these terms mean and so we will look at each on in some detail and I hope this will give you a better understanding of just what happened when Christ was raised from the dead!
Much of this message will be informational, but at the end of the I pray the results will be transformational, that God would change your heart, That He will Open your eyes to see His wonderful goodness, to see His unfailing grace! To see His sufficiency!
Well lets get started this morning.
If you will turn with me to 1 Corinthians 15:1-8
1Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, 2by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 3For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. 9For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.
Here we have Paul, is writing to those at Corinthian Church, they seem to brothers in the Lord, but something has happened!
Because he said this 1Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, 2by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you,
So what it going here? He is about to known something that is already known.
Well if we shoot through our text and look at the big picture of what is going on here we will see in v12 some are not following the entire gospel!
Look most of you sitting in here today have heard the gospel message from someone before, some have heard it heard it from me or someone else and this is what Paul is saying “What I’m about to say is nothing new to you” You are for the most part are believers, you have had the gospel preached, you received it and you stand on it and you are saved by. The Power of the Gospel! It has taken from Darkness to Light, it revealed to you good and evil, it’s delivered you from Sins power and condemnation. The Gospel.
Then he places some kind of an exception clause: unless you believed in vain.
Now this is not talking about losing salvation it’s taking about having a believed in vain, having a worthless faith or for some kind of personal necessity.
Kind of like if I believe then I can have my best life now! If I pray this prayer I can get my ticket to heaven.
Have you believed in vain today? Do you believe the whole gospel?
The fact is that here some lacked, a true saving faith in Christ, which failed to work it self out.
He is priming his people, he is trying to draw them in, he is trying to get them to evaluate themselves, before he gets in the gospel message again!
Listen we need to do the same, we need to evaluate our lives, our beliefs, our world-views, or understanding of the Gospel that saves us!
If you’re here this morning and the last time you stepped into a Church was Christmas, you better evaluate your life,
Stuart going to church don’t make you a Christian: Your right it doesn’t.
No, you don’t have to go to church to be Christian, but you must go to church in order to be an obedient Christian.
Make sure we don’t believe in Vain!
You see Jesus spoke many times about impostors, people that had useless un-saving faith.
Remember the parable of the Sower, oh the tares often look like the wheat, but they are not, there seed fell on shallow soil, thorny soil. He spoke of different kinds of fish being caught and the good fish that were caught were kept and the dad fish thrown away and so on and so on!
Look My heart goes out to each of you this morning! And if you’re here for the first time, praise God! This can be the first day of the rest of your life!
But I want make sure that you get today, that you understand the gospel message all of the elements and that you wouldn’t believe in Vain! I would be fooling my self to think I could give that to you, I cant change anything inside of you, only the Lord can!
But I pray that as we look at the Gospel He would bring to light the message of salvation to your eyes and your heart! We are in the last of last days and the spirit is working in the hearts of people and so don’t you run from conviction, don’t you suppress that call of the Holy Spirit in your life today. Because Paul is going to show us the way and show us what’s important!
So Paul is going to continue right into the rest of his message to the church at Corinth!
Here in verse 3 he says 3For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received,
This message has been delivered, many got it, others didn’t and so he is about to tell them again.
Paul didn’t fix it up, he didn’t design this message, he didn’t craft this message, but he was simply a delivery boy! He brought about a teaching that was given to him to deliver.
Listen you may not like what I have to say, but I’m just a delivery boy, I didn’t craft the message, I didn’t design the message, I’m simply going to deliver the message today.
Paul Received it! Delivered it
Where did he receive it?
This is a message that has been since the Old Testament!
Gen 22:8, 14 / PS 22 / Isaiah 53 / Hosea 6:2
All of these speak of the death, burial and resurrection in some shape, fashion or form. They speak of Christ many years before Christ ever became a man! We call that Prophecy
And so the message is not one he made, but one that he is called to deliver!
And then Paul reminds us that this is of First Importance.
What is of first importance? Well its three things #1
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
You could say it this way:
I received a message of the greatest importance and passed it on to you. It was that……….
Fulfilling what is written in the scriptures.
Now Friday night was good Friday and many people missed out on a wonderful service, where we took time out of our week to come and to celebrate the greatest message in the world that Christ died.
We looked at the 7 sayings of Jesus on the Cross! And we discussed just what took place there on Calvary that day.
If you remember in 23 third chapter of Luke verses 33-46 we have the Narrative of the Death of our savior,
There on Calvary’s Hill our savior hangs on a Cross,
The disciples fearful and in unbelief and the mother of Jesus standing at the foot of the cross, as her heart pangs, as she sees her child hanging there in utter pain.
He is pierced through with nail in hands and in His feet and the torment is so bad that he could barely breath, every breath brought about pain! But he was pierced for our transgressions our sins, our wrong doings, our disobedience.
He was chastised for our well being
Oh he was mocked, but His words tell us, “Father forgiven them for they know not what they do.”
The Death of Christ was our perfect sacrifice, only a sinless man could take our place and just like from the Old we no there is not forgiveness for sin with out the shedding of blood, Jesus became sin on our behalf. He took my place and your place there on cavalry so that you and I might have life and have that life abundantly.
This is the death that Paul is speaking of, this was the message they had received once, but he continues to tell us of what’s important and the #2 thing was:
4and that He was buried
Mark 15:42-47
Gives us the narrative of this burial, and how Joseph of Arimathea a man that was waiting on the kingdom of God as well went forth before Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus and it wasn’t until Pilate was confirmed by the centurion that the Christ that had been crucified was dead, that he okayed Joseph to take the Body.
He did then take Jesus our King wrapped Him in Linen cloth and laid him in a tomb carved out in the rock and a stone was then rolled up against the tomb and if you remember in Matthew they remembered that Jesus said that He would rise after three days and so they then placed a guard there to make sure that no one would steal the body least we people say Jesus has Risen! So they secured it even to the point of putting a seal around the stone.
And so the importance of the burial is that He was truly in there, Pilate in the middle of trying to protect him self gives us the incredible assurance that the King we worship was buried in that tomb that day and sealed in.
But I submit to you this morning that if the third element of the gospel fails to take place, we are to be pitted.
Paul says it’s of the first importance:
The Death, Burial
, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
Now Paul in the Corinthian Church is address an issue that in not in our text this morning, but its vital to understand what he is point out to be important here!
Lets look at 1 Corinthians 15:12-19
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.
Do you see his Problem?
There were some there in the Corinthian Church that failed to believe in the resurrection of the dead.
But he explains just how important the resurrection is to our faith and to our king and to our eternity.
Look the Power of the Resurrection is unspeakable.
Yes, many were called back to life in time of Jesus, but all went back to the mundane things of life, the struggles of life, the struggles of survival and yes they all experienced death again.
But not our King, death couldn’t hold in that grave and when Jesus Christ rose from the dead it showed His power!
His resurrection was proof of His Deity! Romans 1:4 tells us that
He was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.
We find this account in Matthew 28:1-7
The guard is there, the stone is rolled away and they are in utter shock as to what’s before there eyes as they see this angle that’s compared to lighting!
You ever been close to lighting? I come from the coast of SC, I have seen lighting so close that you that the hair on your arms stand up, the lighting is so blinding and I haven’t even the effect of the lighting is how close I was, no thunder yet!
This angle comforts these women, with words do not be afraid! He then explains to them, Jesus has Risen!
I can hear Jesus now in
John 2:19
"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
Matthew 16:21
Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.
Mark 10:34
who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.
Our King Rose from the Dead! And conquered death that we might have life! Oh these things are of most important says Paul.
We have been justified! And the penalty for our sins have been paid in full and our King of King and Lord of Lords lives.
No Christ will not go back to the mundane things of this life, He will not experience death again, for he conquered it. He is not like any normal man, for He God in flesh!
Now things stopped here, but the fact that he rose and how it has taken place in sufficient, but God wanted to make sure that we understood, the resurrection was real.
And so Paul begins to take us on a journey of some of the people that Jesus appeared to after he was brought back to life from the tomb!
5and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.
Why does this matter?
Well I tell you this it matters in the court of law today!
Just recently in the news a young man George Zimmerman took the life of another young man Trayvon Martin. Now Im not going to debate about this , it’s a tragic death, I want to simply draw the illustration, if there were 500 witness that saw this event take place there would be no doubt of truth of the incident. Someone would be going to Jail or someone would be set free!
Do you realize that Jesus appear to over 500 people after his death, real people, eye witnesses.
Not only them but also Cephas, the twelve disciples, James and the Apostles and Paul! All of these people saw with their own eyes. The Resurrected Jesus!
This event is the #1 event in the history of the world and I tell that if it’s the most important event in history of the world it bear importance in your life.
Because the news of the of the resurrection brings about great and wonderful promises to humanity, but in the same fashion its brings about the most condemning news to humanity!
I got good news and I got bad news, The good news is Jesus has risen and the bad news is that Jesus has risen, it simply depends on what you do with!
Its bring life to those in Christ and death to those not in Christ.
It brought life to the disciples; you see they didn’t believe until their King resurrected dead.
Once they saw their king face to face and some only when they could touch the hole in His hands were they willing to give up their lives for the sake of Christ! Then they believed.
But while he was being crucified they were stove up in fear and disbelief, it rocked their world!
How can this resurrection effect us today, we have a great assurance through these lives of these people, the personal testimony of these people whom made an eyewitness account!
There has never been another, killed and brought back to life an eternal life!
You see Jesus appeared and beat death and gave hope to his people, we don’t have a blind faith, we have one that screams TRUTH!
What will you do today with My King today?
“I want to show you a quick Video by Dr. S.M. Lockridge, that speaks depths into the the king we worship! I cant say it any better than he does, so lets listen to what he has to say!”
VIDEO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Death, the Burial and the Resurrection, The Gospel Message!
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Will you believe will you call on Him! Today.
Will you step out in faith and make a decision for Christ today!
He has made it possible, all you have to do is to believe and accept His gift of salvation.
I want to give you that opportunity today, to receive Jesus Christ as your savoir!
IF the Holy Spirit has spoken to your heart today, don’t dull your ear to the call don’t worry about the people around you, if you deny Christ before man, He will deny you before His father in Heaven. You come forward to and make a decision Christ and allow Him to grow you and make you into the man or women of God!
If you are a believer now, but you are not walking with Him like so many, take a step of faith a make a rededication to your king!
Come forward this morning and receive the blessing of a resurrected Jesus!
