THE RESURRECTION QUESTION - The Mystery of the resurrection
1 Corinthians 15:50-58 April 16, 2017
Introduction:
It's just a normal Tuesday…you get up, take your shower…trying to be a little quiet as you get dressed so your wife can sleep a little longer. You head downstairs and put the coffee on…after your second cup you head for the car…all the stuff you need to get done for the day is dancing around in your head and as you stick the key into the car door…
There is a thundering trumpet blast…not like anything you've heard in band practice, but a glorious sound that vibrates through every fiber of your body…you are driven to your knees by its shear power, as an angelic voice announces… “The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords"…you look to the sky as it opens…it sounds like the ripping of a million bed sheets all being torn at once…it’s blinding, its glorious in it’s heavenly splendor, as Jesus appears…and at just that moment your body is transformed…in the blink of an eye…everything changes within you…in that blinding flash of glory, your body has gone from temporary to eternal…from mortal to immortal…its beyond anything you could have ever imagined, and could have hoped for….
And you know without a doubt this is no normal Tuesday…nor will there ever be a normal Tuesday again.
"I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet…"
The story of Easter has all the trappings of a great Mystery: intrigue, shady characters, betrayal, murder, an ending that leaves things unfinished…and you wanting more.
The Pharisees and Jewish leadership have developed a plot in order to kill Jesus…Judas, an insider is bought off, and agrees to deliver Jesus into their hands…there is a Kangaroo’s court…in fact 2 of them who were witnesses are persuaded into lying. Government officials are used for this nefarious plot…both Herod and Pilate.
Jesus is handed over…beaten, crucified and buried…but then the twist…the resurrection. He comes back…for 40 days he walks the earth…he's touched by his disciples, he prepares them for the future…hundreds are witnesses of this event…and then as hundreds watch…including his disciples:
"He was taken up before their very eyes and a cloud hid him from their sight.
They were looking intently into the sky as he was going when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them…"Men of Galilee,” they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:9-11)
So when the Apostle Paul writes in our text "Listen, I tell you a mystery,” He's giving us a glimpse into the conclusion of CSI Jerusalem…and the conclusion is "out of this world.”
For those who belong to Christ:
I. IT’S INHERITANCE DAY
Our salvation isn’t earned…it’s not a reward…it’s a gift…a gift from God Himself that not one of us deserve.
EPHESIANS 2:4-9
Eternity isn’t something we work to earn. Eternity is purchased for us by the work of another…Jesus. We are purchased by His shed blood. You see, God who is rich in mercy wrote a check to pay for the sins of all mankind…Dead in our sins, bankrupt spiritually, homeless and hopeless. “God demonstrated His own love for us in this that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
Faith is when we accept the gift. Faith is experiencing the conviction of our sin and turning toward God. Faith is uniting yourself with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection at baptism. And faith is God’s Holy Spirit signing your adoption papers to become His child so you live a new life.
Faith isn’t working your way to heaven. Faith is showing that heaven is at work in you.
As we’ve learned, flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God…the perishable cannot inherit the imperishable. So on the day Jesus returns for His bride, when the trumpet sound and the archangel shouts, “The dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye.”
How will we be changed? Paul’s already used the example of a seed being planted in the ground bursting forth into beautiful new life…you’d never look at a tomato seed and a tomato plant and think they were anything alike.
[Cemeteries aren’t black holes where bodies disappear…They are gardens where seeds are planted.]
The body that is sown is perishable. It is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power.” (1 Cor. 14:42-43)
Whether we are still alive when Christ returns or whether our Spirit has gone to be with Christ, and will be brought back with Him at His return…this body, this seed, is temporary, but will be raised on Inheritance Day just like Christ on Easter.
Just as God can make an Oak out of an acorn or a tulip out of a bulb, He brings forth our eternal body out of an earthly one. A body that won’t corrupt, or be weak, a body without dishonor…and most remarkable, “A body identical to the body of Jesus.”
I love what Joni Erickson Tada says…Joni was rendered a quadriplegic by a teenager driving accident…she, more than most, knows what it's like to live in a perishable body -but she also knows the hope of a resurrected body. Listen to her words.
Somewhere in my broken paralyzed body is the seed of what I shall become.
The paralysis makes what I am to become all the more grand when you
contrast atrophied, useless legs against splendorous resurrected legs. I'm
convinced that if there are mirrors in heaven (and why not?), the image
I'll see will be unmistakably "Joni" although a much better, brighter
Joni. So much so, that it's not worth comparing…I will bear the likeness
of Jesus, the man from heaven."
Jesus’ resurrected body was a real body…He didn't return as a Ghost or a mist…He told his followers "Look at my hands and my feet, it is I myself! Touch me and see; a Ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have" (Luke 24:39)
He walked with them…He ate with them…He touched them…. Jesus had a real body...and yet Mark tells us it was radically different…He appeared in another form…so different that Mary Magdalene, his disciples by the sea, and his followers on the Road to Emmaus did not recognize Him. Though He invited Thomas to touch his body, he passed through a closed door to be in the disciples presence. What do we know about the resurrected body of Jesus? It wasn't like anything this world had ever seen!
Maybe that's exactly why John the beloved disciple says…
Dear friends, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known…but we know that when he appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (1John 3:2-3)
This is the hope of God’s redeemed…It’s the Mystery of Easter waiting to be revealed in us. Death doesn’t win…death stings us with grief…but Jesus’ resurrection pulled the stinger out.
“Thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Let me end today with a final challenge:
II. THE TRUTH OF THE RESURRECTION ISN’T JUST ONE DAY A YEAR
As the Apostle Paul concludes the resurrection Chapter he says,
“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58)
“Therefore” is an important word in scriptures. It’s a call to look at the context of what’s been said…to look at what was just written…to see what the therefore is there for.
This challenge is at the end of a discussion on the resurrection…and basically he’s saying…“Don’t quit…don’t lose hope…live in anticipation of your inheritance.”
The genuine follower of Christ celebrates Easter 365 and 24/7. We serve a risen savior…Jess is alive to us…and He is alive “in” us.
The difference is in our connection to Jesus…there is a huge difference in knowing about some and having a genuine relationship with them.
[Don Knotts passed away a few years ago. He was always one of my favorites growing up. I was watching a show the other day called "Biography"…it's where they show the life of a famous person and interview them. The actor that was being interviewed was Don Knotts, shortly before his death…Don said at the age of 81 people still called him Barney…they approached him as if he was their dearest friend and wanted to talk about episodes from the Andy Griffith show. He said "people really believed they knew me because they'd seen and heard me as that character for so many years. It was flattering, but it wasn't the truth…they didn't know I was born dirt poor in Morgantown, WV, or that my father had a nervous breakdown when I was born…the youngest of 5, because he didn't want to raise another child…they knew a character…they didn't know the real Jesse Donald Knotts...nor did they really want to.”]
One of the scariest scriptures in the New Testament is found in Matthew Chapter 7 Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of heaven but only the one who does the will of my father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day. Lord, Lord id we not prophecy in your name? And in your name drive out demons and in your name perform miracles. THEN I WILL TELL THEM PLAINLY I NEVER KNEW YOU.
Christianity isn’t a religion with rules to be followed and work to get done. It’s a relationship with a person. His name is Jesus. And He’s alive. Maybe you’ve heard about His live…maybe you’ve even shaken hands with Him once or twice. But to you He still remains a storybook character. Someone you read about on Sundays. Someone who you think about on Easter and Christmas.
But you really don’t know Him. His death, burial and resurrection have very little to do with your daily life. His name is one you’ll use when you’re mad or in trouble, but talking to Him daily or spending time with Him in His Word isn’t a priority. Maybe you even try to do some charitable things because that’s what “good” people do. You believe…kinda…and you believe that’s enough. The truth is you’ve tried to hedge your bets…you want a “Savior,” but you don’t want a “Lord.”
The saddest truth Paul addresses in this closing is that some had this intimate friendship…but had moved…and now Jesus was just a name and the resurrection was in question.
Who enters the Kingdom of Heaven…“Only those who do the will of the Father who is in heaven” according to Jesus.”
The Father’s will, before even the creation of the world, was that we be in an intimate saving relationship with Him through His son Jesus…and Jesus’ fervent prayer for those who would really believe and follow Him.
JOHN 17:20-24
The Holy Spirit doesn’t call us from our sin to be good and to work hard. He calls us to be one with Jesus, and only then can we be one with the Father. It’s important we not forget that Jesus is the way home. He is the truth that sets us free. Only in Him, is there eternal life. No one comes to the Father except through Him.
That’s why Paul says, “Our victory is through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Brothers and sisters, stand firm. Don’t be moved from this relationship by anything. Give yourself fully to the work God has called you to. Always. Why? Because nothing you do to serve Him is fruitless.”
[January 17, 1979. It’s the day I finally surrendered. I didn’t join the church or clean up my act. I surrendered my heart and will to a calling from the Holy Spirit. Come and die…and you can be raised to new life. It was all about Jesus. His calling and His love, and His desire to save me from death was at the very core of what was happening…I knew without a doubt it was a choice to become one with Jesus. Belief led me to repent…a decision to turn around…a change of heart and mind…and I was buried with Jesus in baptism and I rose from that watery grave with the Holy Spirit living in me. That was almost 40 years ago. Both Jesus and I were there, and that truth has prepared me for life, death, and His return. My soul was transformed…and it’s still being transformed by that same Holy Spirit.
This is what Jesus did for a 17 year old High School drop out…a rebellious pothead. My death was swallowed up by life…Here and now…and for eternity. What He has done for me…He can do for you!]
Let’s pray.
