The Walking Billboard Series

Isn’t that cool? The Spirit of God who resides in you is powerful enough to bring you right up out of the grave!!! And this is a such a central doctrine in Scripture that it’s even part of the salvation experience of every person who’s ever become a Christian.

Do you know what I’m talking about?

That’s right – when we are baptized. Paul writes in Romans 6:3-4 “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

That’s the genius of baptism. It not only declares that you’ve died to your past and all your sins have been buried in those waters never to come back to plague you again… BUT it is also declaring that just as Christ rose from the grave – you will too. When that trumpet sounds at the last day, you’ll shoot up out of the ground to be with Jesus eternally. No grave will hold you in the ground.

As Paul wrote in I Corinthians 15: “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting?” I Corinthians 15:51-55

ILLUS: The story is told that when Lazarus grew older he stood before a ruler of the region, and that ruler was demanding that Lazarus renounce his faith in Christ or face the possibility of death.

And Lazarus began to laugh.

The governor became incensed and demanded that Lazarus quit laughing take this seriously – “Don’t you realize I have the power to have you executed.”

But Lazarus laughed all the harder.

Finally, the Governor exploded in a rage demanding to know why Lazarus laughed.

Lazarus looked up at the ruler and replied: “I’ve already died once. I no longer fear death.”

Another way of saying it would have been: “Been there, done that… I own the t-shirt.”

Lazarus laughed.

CLOSE: And when foolish mortals reject the idea of a bodily resurrection - God laughs.

In a cemetery in Hanover, Germany, is a grave on which were placed huge slabs of granite and marble cemented together and fastened with heavy steel clasps. It belonged to Henriette Juliane Caroline von Rüling (1756 – 1782). a woman who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Yet strangely, she directed in her will that her grave be made so secure that if there were a resurrection, it could not reach her. On the marker were inscribed these words: “May this tomb bought for eternity never be open."

In time, a seed, covered over by the stones, began to grow. It slowly pushed its way through the soil and out from beneath them. As the trunk enlarged, the great slabs were gradually shifted so that the steel clasps were wrenched from their sockets.