The Foundation Of The Gospel

INTRODUCTION

„X This is a joyous occasion we celebrate today! Today is Resurrection Sunday! On this day we celebrate the greatest moment in the history of mankind! It is the time in which we celebrate God raising His Son Jesus from the dead.

„X The Resurrection of Jesus is the most important event in human history. The resurrection of Jesus is the most important event in history because this one event still impacts us today. Because of this event, we can have the opportunity to spend eternity with the God who created us and who loves us with all He has.

„X ROMANS 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

„X JOHN 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

„X The resurrection of Jesus puts a stamp of authenticity on Jesus as being the one and only Son of God, the one and only truth and the one and only way to God.

„X When you go to the tombs of Confucius, it is occupied, when you go to the tomb of Mohammed, it is occupied, when you go to the tomb of Buddha it is occupied, when you go to the tomb of Jesus, it is EMPTY!

„X The resurrection of Jesus is also one of the most attacked events in the Bible. Hat is understandable, the event is incredible in itself and if you are a follower of another religion, if Jesus was raised from the dead, it does not bode well for your religion. If you are a person who does not want to believe in God or is a god unto themselves, if the resurrection is true, it would not bode well for you either.

„X Once you understand that God raised Jesus on the third day, you have a quite a predicament if you have not given your life to Jesus yet.

„X The resurrection of Christ is attacked so much because it is the very foundation of the Christian faith. If what we are celebrating today is not the truth, then we have some problems here today.

„X Today I want us to focus our thoughts on why the resurrection is the foundation of the Gospel of Jesus.

„X We are going to take a look at some of the proofs of the resurrection and we will look at six implications that would result if Jesus has not been raised from the dead.

„X I hope that as you listen to the message today that your hearts and minds are open to the message. Sometimes for those of us who belong to Jesus, we become apathetic in our faith; I hope that today¡¦s message will help you to get your mind and energy focused in the right direction. I hope that today will help you to see how important it is for you to share Jesus with anyone you know who is without Him.

„X I hope for those of you who are here and have not made Jesus the lord of your life that today will be the day that you make that choice or that today gets you on the path to inquiry that will lead you to Jesus.

SERMON

I. WITNESSES OF THE RESURRECTED CHRIST (VERSES 5-11)

„X READ 1 Corinthians 15:3-11

„X Why did Paul go to the trouble of listing those who witnessed the risen Jesus?

„X This letter was written around 57 Ad, Jesus died and was raised in 30 AD, it had been over 25 years since the resurrection by this time. Some of the people for whatever reasons, most likely societal pressures were starting to doubt the possibility of resurrection.

„X Paul wanted to the people to remember concerning Jesus, there were many people who saw Him after the resurrection!

„X These were objective appearances; they were not the figment of someone¡¦s imagination. Paul is giving a list of those who would have been known to the Corinthian church, and these are not all who saw Jesus, but a fraction of the appearances. Acts 1:3 says, ¡§To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.

„X He appeared to Peter (Cephas was the Hebrew name), then to the 12 (which was the early church name for the Apostles). We need to realize that the disciples were hiding in fear of their lives when Jesus was crucified (John 20:19). They did not expect Jesus to be alive after He was crucified, even though He told them on several occasions He would be raised on the third day.