The Resurrection, the reason to praise Him..1 Corinthians 15:
3 Buddies were talking about death and one asked the others:
What would you like people to say about you at your funeral?
• One said...."He was a great man, who cared about his community."
• Another said...."He was a great husband and Dad, who was an example for many to follow."
The 3rd one said ....I want someone to say.....
• "Look, he’s moving!!"
We are going to look at one of the most important scriptures in the Bible…this could be an Easter message....this could be the complete gospel message because it deals with everything we clam to believe.
1 Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.
16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
Apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians chapter 15 to straighten out the hearsays and the perverted gospel that was being spread in the city of Corinth.
Corinth was the sin center of the Roman Empire in Paul’s day.
The spirit of the world seemed to have more influence in the Corinthians than church did the Spirit of God.
Kind of like our Hollywood or Los Angeles but, it was even worse if you could imagine that.
Some in Corinth ....mostly Greeks were teaching there was no resurrection ....but, Paul says ...if there is no resurrection then our faith is in vain and we are still in our sins.
But, to understand their thinking some of the Greek culture...they had the idea that the body was a prison in which the soul was incarcerated and when someone died.........
The soul that is good is freed.
To a person with this kind of thinking or religion the idea of any bodily Resurrection would have been offensive to them.
There may have been a reaction to a popular Jewish idea of that day
Some believe that the resurrection meant that the present physical life would start all over again.
Paul wrote 1 Corinthians some 20 years after the events of Christ.
Think about this ......if we had Apostle Paul, John and maybe Apostle Peter were here today and ask each one to stand and give a personal account of what happen and how they felt during those 3 days of the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord....I believe their stories would be different than what you might think...
..I believe each one would give account of how it felt to lose a close friend and someone they loved
**Seeing them nail Him to a Roman cross....watching as people spit upon Him....laughed at Him....hung a sign around His neck saying The King Of The Jews....watching as He drew His last breath and then a soldier stuck a sword in His side and they watched as blood and water ran out of His lifeless body then ...in 3 days find out He was alive again.
That’s our Saviour.....that’s our King ....our friend...our Shepherd.
ILLU: I read a true story of a mother in Chanute Kansas
It was Feb 1991, in the middle of Desert Storm war, that Ruth Dillow received a message from the Pentagon that all parents can only imagine the horror of getting.
They told her that her son from a previous marriage Clayton Carpenter, Private 1st Class, had stepped on a mine in Kuwait and had been killed.
Ruth Dillow later wrote, "I can’t begin to describe my grief and shock. It was almost more than I could bear. For days I wept. For days I expressed anger and loss. For days relatives and friends tried to comfort me, but, there was no comfort because the loss of my son was too great."
But a few days later she received another phone call the voice on the other end said, "Mom, it’s me. I’m alive." Ruth Dillow said, "I couldn’t believe it at first. But then I recognized my sons voice and he really was alive."
The first message she had received was all a mistake...it was meant for another family across the country....he had been injured but, was fine.
She wrote, "I laughed, I cried, I felt like turning cartwheels, because my son whom I had thought was dead, was really alive.
The Headlines read in in the newspaper March of 1991
GI Reported Killed Calls Home : Military: Kansas private shocks mother with news he's alive; Army apologizes
The mother said I’m sure none of you can even begin to understand how I felt.
Probably not, but what about those who were there to see Jesus crucified and then 3 days later heard He was alive.
******They would have understood how she felt because they experienced the same emotions.
One day they watched their best friend and teacher being nailed to a cross.
They witnessed His pain and heard Him as He cried out, "I thirst!" and "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?"
They would have understood...they went through the horror....they cried..they couldn’t rest so they met and talked about it and comforted one another......then they laughed...then they rejoiced.
Why?.....because all that Jesus taught them was beginning to make since..but, they didn’t totally understand until the day of Pentecost.
What did Apostle Paul say in our study? In verses 16 and 17 of 1Corinthians chapter 15?
16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
Think about that a second....if Jesus had not have risen on the third day...we would have no future ...because our sins would not be forgiven
****But, we are here to praise Him ...thank Him because He did raise from the dead...our Saviour lives.
***We don’t serve a dead god ....our God lives....how do I know He lives...because He lives in me and lives in you...
We are here because He lives we can face tomorrow........because He lives all fear is gone....because I know He holds the future .....And life is worth the living just because He lives..............
Life would not be worth living without Jesus following through with what He did....brutal death....placed in a tomb..but, then rose again in a glorified body.
We would only be a full time target for Satan with no protection.
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But, life is worth living when you belong to Christ.....we are protected by the Holy Spirit.....He is the guarantee and deposit of our salvation and redemption.
But.....we must die in this body first....then what happens?
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Let drop down to verse ... of Corinthians chapter 15...Paul says..
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
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A Sunday school teacher ask a group of children...how do you get to heaven.....one little boy said...”you have to be dead”
You know....he was right.......you have to die....
The ones who give their life to Christ die in this body of flesh but, are raised in a glorified body....no more sickness.....no more trials and troubles...
I heard there is a group that don’t have any troubles or problems.....they say most every neighborhood has one of these groups......its call a cemetery.
How do you get to heaven?.....the little boy said....you have to be dead....and for a Christian....living has just begun after this old body goes into the ground.
43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.
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*********You know the Holy Spirit makes the resurrection real to us.....He teaches us faith....bears witness to us that every word and promise from God will happen......but, there were also many wittiness’s.
Paul was a witness to the resurrected Christ.....you remember he met Him on the road to Damascus....Paul said in verse 8 in
1 Corinthians 15 ....as of one born out of due time.
Paul said the resurrected Jesus was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve...in verse 5 and in verse 6 Paul says After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once;
There were many witness that seen our Lord after His resurrection.
Illu:What if we had each person that witnessed the resurrected Lord come up here and talk for 15 minutes giving a testimony to what they saw.and that’s only the ones that are recorded in the Bible...I’m sure there were many more.
If we listened to the testimony of all the people that Jesus appeared to, we would be here all day, and all night, and Monday and Monday night and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and sometime early Friday morning they would just be wrapping up the testimony.
It would take over 128 straight hours just to hear, for 15 minutes each, the testimony of those that saw the Lord after he rose
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Paul says in 1Corinthians 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
The last Adam is Christ of course......He has made a way back from the grave for those who believe in Him ....never to die again because we will have a glorified body.
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I have heard that possums are smart animals.
You wouldn’t think so because you hardly ever see one except when it’s dead on the road.
There’s a joke that goes, “why did the chicken cross the road? To prove to the possum that it could be done!”
But possums, it turns out, are smart.
They won’t enter a hole if there’s just one set of tracks going into it.
They know there’s something in there. But if there are two sets of tracks. The possum will enter and not be afraid.
The message of Easter is that we can enter the grave - we don’t have to fear death because there are tracks leading out of the tomb.
Paul preached the truth of Easter: in verse 55..O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
Our Lord Jesus has defeated death for us.....giving us a way to spend eternity with Him....never to die again.
I had a license tag made for our pickup that has 1CO:15:57....
That is 1 Corithians 15:57 that says But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Is it because we are smart and clever and have overcome?
No, the victory belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank Him and give Him praise honor and glory.
Love in Christ Jesus, Ronnie Miller
www.themillersbiblestudy.com
