Experience the Resurrection

 TEXT:  John 11:17-27                                                          

TOPIC:  Experience the Resurrection        

Pastor Bobby Earls, First Baptist Church, Center Point, Alabama          

Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007

          The resurrection is about life and death.  The belief that a man can live beyond this life is not strictly a Christian doctrine.  Every major religion holds to some kind of life beyond this life theory. Buddhists believe in carma. That life is circular.  Life is eternal.  Life existed before we came into existence and that it will continue after we have left.

New Agers and Eastern Mysticism such as Hinduism believe in reincarnation.  That we who live now are simply an aberration of a previous life which will reappear somewhere, sometime, as something else.  You may be a better person, but you could turn out to be a frog as well.

          But only the Christian faith declares that we who live now can live eternally in a perfect state of existence after this life is over.  The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is an eternal testimony of just such a hope.

          Recorded in the eleventh chapter of John’s Gospel we have another story of resurrection.  In this case, Resurrection resurrects!  (Read John 11:17-27).

          You can experience the resurrection by trusting in and receiving Jesus Christ!

I.      EXPERIENCE THE RESURRECTION BY CONFRONTING DEATH

A.   THE CERTAINTY OF DEATH, John 11:17, 21, 32

                   Romans 5:12-14 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:”

Illustration:  My sharing Christ with my father, From Genesis 3 to Romans 5:12

                   Hebrews 9:27 “And as it is appointed unto men once to die,”

                   Forgotten Statistic:  1 out of 1 persons die.

B.    THE CAUSE OF DEATH, John 11:1 and 4.  We all have a sickness called sin.

                   Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”

                   Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death;”

C.    THE ANGUISH OF DEATH, John 11:31-35 We’ve all wept over loved ones who have died.  Grandmother, father, I remember my anquish of soul.  Why did Jesus weep?

Matthew 18:14 “Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.”

Ezekiel 33:11  “Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’

II.   EXPERIENCE THE RESURRECTION BY CONFESSING CHRIST

A.   CHRIST IS THE RESURRECTION, John 11:25 “I am the resurrection”

          Romans 8:10-11 But Christ lives in you. So you are alive because God has accepted you, even though your bodies must die because of your sins. Yet God raised Jesus to life! God’s Spirit now lives in you, and he will raise you to life by his Spirit. (CEV)

                   Galatians 2:1-20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

                   1 Corinthians 15:51-57  Behold, I shew 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 trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.  For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.  So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

                   Job 19:25-27 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.

B.  CHRIST IS THE LIFE, John 11:25 “I am…the life”

                   John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

C.  CHRIST IS SAVIOR AND LORD, John 11:26-27

                   Romans 10:9-10 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Conclusion:  Call for decisions for Christ.  Paul said, “That I may know him and the power of His resurrection.”  Do you know Christ?  Have you experienced His resurrection living in you?