Why Is The Resurrection Of Jesus Important? Series

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?