This Changes Everything

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

I Corinthians 15:12-34

S: Resurrection

C: Essence of Christian Faith

Pr: BELIEVING IN THE RESURRECTION IS ESSENTIAL.

?: Why?

KW: Reasons

TS: We will find in our study of I Corinthians 15: 12-34 three reasons why believing in the resurrection is essential for the Christian.

Type: Propositional

The ____ reason why the resurrection is essential is the…

I. CONSEQUENCES (12-19)

II. DESIGN (20-28)

III. INCENTIVE (29-34)

PA: How is the change to be observed?

• Don’t compromise on the essentials

• Realize His life means we have life eternal

• Live in preparation to the eternal

Version: ESV

RMBC 10 April 05 AM

INTRODUCTION:

ILL Death: A Great Loss

There was great loss in the entertainment world recently. The man who wrote the song "Hokey Pokey" died. What was really horrible is that they had trouble keeping the body in the casket.

They’d put his left leg in.....well you know the rest.

Seriously though, there have been a lot of people of notoriety whose life has come to an end recently…

Terry Schaivo

Johnny Cochran

Bishop Edmund Head

Prince Ranier of Monaco

and, of course…

Pope John Paul II

When one dies that is known to us or we feel particularly close to, it tends to sober us up, doesn’t it?

It makes us uneasy.

We don’t want this to be the end of our knowing them.

You see…

No one wants death to have the last word.

ILL Resurrection: Dillow

It was 14 years ago, on Feb. 27, 1991, at the height of Desert Storm, that Ruth Dillow received a very sad message from the Pentagon. It stated that her son, Clayton Carpenter, Private 1st Class, had stepped on a mine in Kuwait and was dead.

Ruth Dillow later wrote, "I can’t begin to describe my grief and shock. It was almost more than I could bear. For 3 days I wept. For 3 days I expressed anger and loss. For 3 days people tried to comfort me, to no avail because the loss was too great."

But 3 days after she received that message, the telephone rang. The voice on the other end said, "Mom, it’s me. I’m alive." Ruth Dillow said, "I couldn’t believe it at first. But then I recognized his voice, and he really was alive." The message was all a mistake!

She said, "I laughed, I cried, I felt like turning cartwheels, because my son whom I had thought was dead, was really alive. I’m sure none of you can even begin to understand how I felt."

TRANSITION:

You know, a story like that seems too good to be true.

How can that be?

For…

1. Resurrection is unbelievable.

When someone dies, that’s it.

None of us expect to turn on the news tomorrow and find out that the report of the death of John Paul II was a mistake.

It is not only unexpected, it is unbelievable.

This is why the resurrection of Jesus was unexpected.

Sure, He talked about it, but it was as if it went in one ear and out the other to His listeners.

This type of thing did not normally happen.

2. The struggle to believe in the resurrection is not new (12).

We find that Paul begins this portion with…

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

At first, the Corinthians accepted his teaching on the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

This was the core of his teaching as we noted on Resurrection Sunday (two weeks ago).

But then, there was an infiltration of false teachers who taught doctrine that was contrary to Paul’s.

They said that there was an afterlife, but no new body would come with it.

Instead, one lives as a disembodied spirit, like a ghost.

This was a belief that reflected their Greek heritage.

It was Plato that taught the concept of dualism,

This concept teaches that everything spiritual is intrinsically good, while that which is physical and material was intrinsically evil.

So, a dualist didn’t want a body.

They wanted the perfection of the spiritual.

This line of thought was unacceptable to Paul, because it is unacceptable to the Christian faith.

Why?

Because Jesus did the unthinkable.

He did the unexpected.

He did the unbelievable.

He raised from the dead.

He raised from the dead with a body.

This being so, dualism is untrue.

For the Christian, then…

3. BELIEVING IN THE RESURRECTION IS ESSENTIAL.

The resurrection changed everything.

Rooted in history, it is the defining event of the church.

And when Jesus appeared, it changed everything.

These true blue Jewish folk began to depart from the traditions that they grew up with because they were finding freedom from the law.

They began worshipping on Sunday rather than the traditional Sabbath day of Saturday.