WHY IS THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS IMPORTANT
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On February 27th, 1991 Ruth Dillow was at home in Chanuk, Kansas when the phone rang. It was bad news from the Pentagon. Her son, Private First Class Clayton Carpenter, had stepped on a landmine in the Persian Gulf War and was dead.
It was an awful, sickening reality to learn that her son would never come home again.
Three days later Ruth received another phone call. The voice on the other end said, "Mom, I’m alive!" Ruth said that at first she could not believe it was the voice of her 23 year-old son, over whom she had mourned for nearly three days.
Ruth said, "I jumped up and down. I was overjoyed! You just don’t know how much."
Submitted to Autoillustrator Online by Don Maddox, Granada Hills, CA (SFAPR93)
Can You imagine the excitement of a mother who thought her son was dead only to find that he was actually alive?
Jesus told of his coming death and res. Before it even happened… But most either did not believe or did not understand…
-Can you imagine the excitement of those who knew Him and loved Him when they saw Him alive again?
BUT BEYOND THE EXCITEMENT….
WHY IS THE RESURRECTION IMPORTANT TO US TODAY? &
I. WHY IS THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS IMPORTANT
A)It is our bases of trust in Jesus as the Christ.
1)He claimed to be God.
2)He even predicted His death & resurrection.
3)He claimed to be the only way of Salvation and
eternal life.
Lets take a quick look at how the res. Validates each of these claims of Christ and gives us confidence in the Fact that Jesus is the Christ and God.
(A) Claim to be God.
Jesus made a lot of big claims in his lifetime the biggest was that He announced He was God.
-We are all children of God but when Jesus called Himself the Son of God He was claiming equality with the Father.
-In Jewish thought the eldest son knew all about the fathers business.
-In Jewish thought it was the eldest son who had the greatest responsibility of inheriting and continuing the fathers work.
**Jesus went even a step further when the Jews questioned Him and proclaimed:
JN 8:19 “If you had known me you would have known My Father also.”
Jesus was saying, I and the Father are one.
Then in …
Jn. 8:58 He says, “Most assuredly I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”
Jesus was making a claim to be God.
When Moses had the burning bush experience, and was sent to Egypt to deliver the people, he asked God, “Who should I tell the people is sending me?” God answered, “Tell them, I AM that I AM.”
The Bible says that when Jesus called Himself “I AM” the Jews picked up stones to kill Him, but Jesus hid Himself and walked right through their midst because it was not yet His time.
Jesus Claimed to be God. He did many signs, wonders and miracles which supported His claim He even raised the dead. But this was not enough to give us full confidence in Him as God…. Because there have been many dedicated servants of God who performed miracles in the name of God.
-How can we know that Jesus is God and not just
another great prophet?!?
***The resurrection!
-Jesus was raised from the dead w/out anyone praying
for Him.
Acts 2:24 says, “God raised Him up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.”
Would God choose to raise up a blasphemer?
-A liar
-Someone who claimed to be God but was not?
(of course not … But He would raise up His only begotten son!)
(B) Jesus even predicted His death & resurrection .
Mat. 17:22 “Now while they were staying in Galilee, Jesus said to them, ‘The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up.” And they were exceedingly sorrowful.
Jesus foretold of His betrayal, death, & resurrection before it even happened!
-His disciples did not understand what He was saying they just understood the death part and were sad.
The Point of this passage is to show us that Jesus knew exactly what was about to happen… He knew that He was to be betrayed, killed and rise again from the grave.
*When we consider all of the surrounding circumstances it may have been easy for Him to predict his betrayal & death but…. How could anyone be so ridiculous as to predict that they would rise from the dead?!?
How do we know that Jesus was not just some kind of lunatic leading blind deceived followers?
** The Resurrection
** The fact that Jesus rose from the dead…. once again
proves that He was not just some kind of lunatic
but He was exactly who He claimed to be…. God in
the flesh.
(C) Jesus claimed to be the only way of Salvation and eternal life.
"Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25, 26 (NKJV)
Jesus spoke these words to Martha just before He raised Lazarus from the dead.
-But was speaking about a greater issue than just raising Lazarus’ physical body.
*Even though Lazarus was raised to life …. His physical body died again.
If you read Martha’s response you will see that she acknowledged Jesus as the “Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
Jesus had and has the power not just to raise the dead to life again but to give life to souls and raise us out of the grave – if we believe in Him
*He has the very power to grant eternal life!
Martha’s acknowledgement of who Jesus is and what He has the power to do in this life and the life to come is significant!
***Jesus was saying, If you want eternal life … It is only by believing in me that you can get it!
Jesus claimed this same thing in
JN 14:6 He said
“I am the way the truth and the Life, No one comes to
the father but by me.”
But How can we know that what Jesus was saying is true?
How can we be sure that He is the way of salvation and the gateway to eternal life with God?
** The Resurrection
When Jesus rose from the dead it proved that He is the resurrection and the life !
-When He rose it proved he was the resurrection
-Since He still lives it proves He is the life!
Rom. 6:9-10 says, “We know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all but the life he lives, He lives to God.”
-He only had to die once to take away our sins!
-He only had to rise from the dead once to give us
eternal life!
Jesus claimed to be the only way of salvation and the only way to eternal life…. The fact He died rose from the dead and yet lives proves His claim.
Jesus had to be more than just a prophet or a man full of good teachings. He said a lot of impossible things. If his prophesies and claims were left unfulfilled it would be easy to call Him a Liar or lunatic, but the fact is Jesus died and rose from the dead.
-The only alternative His resurrection from the dead leaves us is that He was the Son of God…. God in human flesh just as He claimed!
B)Jesus’ Res. is the basis of our hope of new life now
and for the future.
Rom. 6:1-11 (read)
This is a very rich passage of Scripture I will not attempt to fully explain it tonight. But we do need to pick up on a couple major themes that show us that the resurrection of Jesus is the basis of our hope of new life now and for the future.
(A) Our hope of new life now.
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C.H.Mackintosh wrote: “There is power in the presence of a risen Savior to solve our difficulties, remove our perplexities, calm our fears, ease our burdens, dry our tears, meet our every need, tranquilize our minds and satisfy every craving of our hearts.”
(1) Paul is picking up on several themes from Jewish tradition and scripture and tying them together.
-First, The Crucifixion, burial, & resurrection of
Jesus.
-Second, Baptism
-Third, Slavery
-Fourth our freedom and hope in Christ.
What do these things have to do with each other and how do they show us that the resurrection of Jesus gives us hope now and in the future?
A look at history will show us how Paul in these verses nits these truths together and gives us an answer.
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In Judaism it was possible for a gentile to become a proselyte Jew (convert to Judaism). The final steps of the process would include circumcision and baptism in water.
· It is important to remember that baptism symbolizes the washing away of the old life.
· Once you are dunked under the waters it is as if your old life as a gentile sinner was buried. When you come out of the waters a new life as a proselyte Jew began.
Paul is taking this common Jewish practice and connecting it with a Jewish legal theory of slavery.
-If a gentile slave were to escape from a Jewish
owner.
-If that slave went through the process to become a
proselyte Jew.
(The final step being baptism)
according to the legal theory of the day…. That slave was no longer under the control of his Jewish master. – He was free!
*** His old life had been buried
-He was resurrected into a new life of freedom.
Paul then goes on to connect this Jewish practice and Jewish legal theory to the New Life believers get when they share in the death and resurrection of Christ.
Rom. 6:4 declares “ Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
Then in verses 5-7 he writes,
“For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.”
What is being said here?
-If we have trusted Jesus as God.
-If we have recognized Jesus as the way the truth and
the Life.
-If we have followed Him for our salvation….
o We have been baptized
o We have been buried with Him
o And we have been raised a out of the grave of
sin and brought into a resurrected … New
life in Christ!
*The cruel Slave master of sin longer has control over us… we have been given a new life of freedom in Jesus!
But if Jesus has not been raised from the dead… We cannot share in his death and resurrection.
If Jesus has not been raised from the dead… We cannot be “raised from the dead with Him.”
If Jesus has not been raised from the dead… We cannot have new life now and be free from sin!
** The resurrection of Jesus is Crucial for us to have
new life NOW and freedom from our sin!
(B) The resurrection of Jesus is also our hope for the
future… Our hope for eternal life with God!
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The southernmost point of Africa is a point for centuries has experienced tremendous storms. For many years no one even knew what lay beyond that cape, for no ship attempting to round that point had ever returned to tell the tale. Among the ancients it was known as the "Cape of Storms," and for good reason. But then a Portuguese explorer in the sixteenth century, Vasco De Gama, successfully sailed around that very point and found beyond the wild raging storms, a great calm sea, and beyond that, the shores of India. The name of that cape was changed from the Cape of Storms to the Cape of Good Hope.
Until Jesus Christ rose from the dead, death had been the cape of storms on which all hopes of life beyond had been wrecked. No one knew what lay beyond that point until, on Easter morning .
Suddenly, like those ancient explorers, we can see beyond human death to the hope of heaven and eternal life with the Father.
We know that we shall experience in our own human lives exactly what the Son of God experienced in His, for the risen Christ says to us, "Because I live, you shall live also." This is the heart of our faith”. Robert Beringer, The Easter People, CSS, 1984, p. 14
1 Cor. 15:17-22 Says,
(Read)
Paul says (paraphrase), --If we only have hope in Christ for this life we are to be pitied above all men…IF the dead are not raised then what does it matter if our sins are taken away in this life… we will still die anyway?!?
But we are reminded in verse 20 “Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
Another words Jesus did rise from the dead!
-Now, we also have the hope of eternal life… not just
freedom from sin and life on this earth!
-Because of the resurrection of Jesus we have hope of
eternal life with God!!
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“In one of his lighter moments, Benjamin Franklin penned his own epitaph.: The Body of B. Franklin, Printer Like the Cover of an old Book Its contents torn out, And stripped of its Lettering and Guilding, Lies here, Food for Worms, But the Work shall not be wholly lost: For it will, as he believ’d, Appear once more In a new & more perfect Edition”
Review:
I.- why is the resurrection Important?
A)It is the basis of our trust that Jesus is God as he claimed.
(1) He claimed to be God.
(2) He even predicted His death & resurrection .
(3) He claimed to be the only way of Salvation and eternal life.
The fact that Jesus did rise from the dead proves all of these claims… so that we can put our faith in HIM.
B) It is the basis of our hope of new life now and for the future
(A) Our hope of new Life now.
-Jesus died and rose again
-If we trust in Him we are baptized with Him into death and res.
-This brings us freedom from our sins and a New life Now.
(B) Our hope of new Life in the future
-Christ has risen from the dead and will never die again…
-We have the confident hope that someday we will be raised eternally with him.
