BECAUSE HE LIVES
Text: First Corinthians 15:1-11
There is one Christian writer who once said, “It’s Friday, but Sunday is coming!” (Tony Compollo). What that means is this, Jesus was crucified and then resurrected from the dead three days later. For those who lack hope and do not believe in the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the hope of Sunday never comes. For them the hope stops on Friday. The reason that Christians have hope is because of their belief in the resurrection of Christ (First Thessalonians 4:13).
There are many Friday moments in our lives---moments of doubt and hopelessness. Our faith in Christ for those who are Christian gives us hope because our belief in the resurrection. Someone has said that “The resurrection of Jesus Christ equips us to face the two biggest fears in the world: the fear of dying and the fear of living”. (John A. Huffman, Jr. The Abingdon Preaching Annual: 1995 Edition. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994, p. 71). There are times when our well-being may depend on our belief that Jesus is the proof of the promise of resurrection (First Thessalonians 4:13, First Corinthians 15:13).
I just recently read about a mother who once received some shocking news. “On February 27, 1991, at the height of Desert Storm, Ruth Willow received a very sad message from the Pentagon. Her son, Clayton Carpenter, Private First Class, had stepped on a mine in the Persian Gulf and was dead. For three days she had mixed emotions of anger, shock, and loss. People tried to comfort and console her but to no avail. Three days later, the phone rang. The voice on the other end said, “Mom, it’s me. I’m alive”. At first she was in disbelief, but then she recognized his voice. He really was alive. She laughed. She cried. She was overjoyed”.
When they crucified Jesus, His disciples thought it was the end. It was only the beginning. Jesus as we know was resurrected from the dead. “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!”
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST EQUIPS US TO DIE.
First Corinthians 15:26 tells us that the last enemy to be destroyed is death. For Christians that enemy---death was destroyed when Jesus died on the cross. Jesus died on the cross to defeat sin, death and the fear of death. It is when the fear of death is greater than our hope and our faith that we become slaves to fear.
Paul did not fear death. The apostle Paul once said that for him to live was Christ and to die was gain (Philipians 1:21). For Paul to live was to be at home in the body and absent from the presence of the Lord---to be alive and labor for Christ (Second Corinthians 5:6 KJV). God has put eternity in the minds and hearts of everyone (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God has a desire for us to know Him and to have a relationship with Him (Jeremiah 31:31-34). It is through this hunger for eternity that God calls us to Himself through the prompting of His Holy Spirit. This hunger (Matthew 5:6, Ecclesiastes 3:11) for eternity is our spiritual homing instinct.
It is interesting to note how many creatures of nature have what scientists have called a homing instinct. “The question has sometimes been raised whether or not man ever possessed this same homing instinct and lost it through the ages in his preoccupation with other things”. (W. E. Sangster. Can I Know God?. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1960, p. 53). Years ago, Disney made a movie that was a box office hit. It even had a sequel. It was called Homeward Bound. Homeward Bound was a movie about two dogs and a cat that were able to find their way back home. The things of this earth will just cannot satisfy our spiritual longing for our heavenly home. Jay Gould who was one of America’s famous millionaires died while possessing fifty million dollars. He summed up his life before he died by saying “I suppose I am the most miserable devil on earth” (Sangster, p. 54). Perhaps he was miserable because of his misplaced treasure: Jesus once said that where your treasure is your heart will be also. Gould’s treasure was earthly and not heavenly (Matthew 6:20-21). When Benjamin Disraeli, twice Prime Minister of England, reviewed his life, he said, “Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret” (Sangster, p. 54). For Gould and Diraeli Sunday never came, because they did not appear to know Jesus. If they had truly known Jesus, then they would also have had hope. Only those who are Christian can look at the Fridays of their lives and face the future with the kind of certainty that will allow them to say “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!”. Otherwise, death is an enemy that conquers.
Again, it is through Jesus Christ that God has conquered sin, whose wages are death (Romans 6:23), death and the fear of death. “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!” In Acts 9:9 Paul had lost his sight for three days: “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!”
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST EQUIPS YOU TO LIVE.
The Christian is the one who is prepared both to die and to live. Christians are prepared to live because their faith in Christ gives them a life that has meaning (Blake Huffman, p. 73). There was once a man who felt that his life was going around in circles before he came to accept Jesus as His personal Lord and Savior. He describes those circles as journeys of futility until he got saved. Jesus Christ is truly the missing piece in the puzzle called life (Huffman, paraphrased, p. 73).
Christians are prepared to live because their faith in Christ gives peace in knowing that Jesus conquered the power of sin and extends to us His forgiveness should we decide to accept it. It is guilt that makes people slaves to sin. Guilt makes them feel as though they have to earn forgiveness.
An evangelist once went to speak to a country cartwright about salvation. The evangelist had come at the invitation of the cartwright’s wife in hopes that he might be successful in leading this man to the Lord. They went to the cartwright’s shop. The evangelist pretended to be helpful by picking up a plane as he went to work on a finished wheel. The cartwright stopped him and told him that the wheel was already finished. The evangelist then said “Then I suppose I would spoil a finished job by trying to do something to it”. Then laying his hand on the cartwright’s shoulder, he quietly remarked, “You have more concern about your work than you have about Christ’s. By seeking to add something you would only spoil it”. The man saw his mistake and rested satisfied in what Christ had “finished,” and was at peace. “There was nothing to do for salvation”. (John Ritchie. 500 Gospel Sermon Illustrations. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1987, p. 16).
God gives us the strength that comes from knowing Jesus Christ in our relationship with him. The same power that resurrected Jesus from the dead enables us to have the strength we need to play the hand that life has dealt us. I once had a church member who seemed to have a strong faith. His name is R. E. Gallman. He had a bad accident. He was working with an auger. Something went wrong, and he got his leg caught in the barb wire that he was trying to put up in his pasture. The barbed wire literally took his left leg off and two finger tips off. I was called not long after it happened. I rushed to the scene. I arrived just after they left with the ambulance. I overheard some of his rescuers say that they did not think that he would make it. In fact at one point, right after the accident, he even said to one of his friends that he did not want to live. God was not finished with him yet. God gave him the strength that he needed to make it. Before he came from the hospital, he told me he would be in church that Sunday. He was. He told me that one day he would walk down the aisle of the church again with nothing more than a cane. First, he had a walker. Then, he had crutches. Later, he had a four pronged cane. Finally, months later before I moved he came into church walking on his artificial leg with a cane. When I saw him coming, I stepped down from the pulpit and embraced him and said, “You did it!” He said, that God gave him the strength (Philipians 4:13, Second Corinthians 12:9). There was not a dry eye in the congregation at that moment. His life is a testimony to the fact that “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!”
God has made each of us with a homing instinct---a spiritual homing instinct. There are many are lost or have lost their way. The resurrection is a magnet for our faith because it gives us hope. You might know someone who has lost his or her way. When Fridays of hard times come for them, they lack hope and long for the peace of Sunday---the day of resurrection.
There was a man who had lost his way. He asked his preacher to pray for him. At one time he had been a church leader. He had befriended alcohol only to find that he had become a slave to its vice. When he asked the preacher to pray with him he was sobbing as he said, “I know I’m in the gutter. I know it. But Oh! … I don’t belong there, do I?” Tell me I don’t belong there …” The preacher put his arm around him and said, “No, you don’t belong there; you belong to God. At the last heaven is your home!” (Sangster, pp. 60-61). “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!” Are you ready for Sunday?
It is God’s will that we receive the justification that comes through Christ, the sanctification that comes through God’s Holy Spirit because God wants us to reach glory in our heavenly home when our time for resurrection in heaven comes.
We have a lot of work to do. Our work is to tell the world “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!” Christians have faith because we know that Jesus lives! Because He lives we can face tomorrow! AMEN.
