Our Hope in the Risen Christ
Notes
Transcript
Opening Illustration
Opening Illustration
General Wellington commanded the victorious forces at the great battle of Waterloo that effectively ended the Napoleonic Wars.
The story has been told that when the battle was over, Wellington sent the great news of his victory to England.
A series of stations, one within sight of the next, had been established to send code messages between England and the continent.
The message to be sent was “Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.”
Meanwhile a fog set in and interrupted the message sending.
As a result, people only saw news of “Wellington defeated—” Later, the fog cleared and the full message continued, which was quite different from the outcome that the people originally thought had happened!
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The same is true today.
When many look at what happened on Good Friday, the death of Christ, they see only “Christ defeated.”
Yet, on Easter, at the Resurrection, God’s message was completed.
The resurrection spelled “Christ defeated death and sin and Hell!”
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So, please turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians.
We will conduct our study in Chapter 15 and focus on verses 12 through 23.
Our message this morning is called, “Our Hope in the Risen Christ”
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As you are finding your place in God’s Word...
I would like to share that this message will focus on why the resurrection of Christ is so vital...
Paul, the author of the text we will be expounding...
Presents a “what if” scenario...
What if there is no resurrection of the dead?
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From that question we get more questions:
What if Christ has not risen?
What does this mean for those who have already passed away?
What does that mean for the rest of us?
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To answer these questions, we need to study our text.
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Opening Prayer
Opening Prayer
Before we consider our text, please join me in prayer...
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Thank you Heavenly Father for raising up your Son...
This single act proves you accepted His sacrifice...
And that their is hope for those Who trust in His name.
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We praise you and bless you for you are both just and merciful...
You hear the prayers of the broken hearted and given hope to the hopeless.
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Help those who surrender their lives to you...
Equip you saints to be ready for battle...
Equip you saints to boldly declare your great and perfect truths and commands.
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Father, give us a heart that easily forgive and kill any pride in our heart...
Brake us and mold us into the image our your Son.
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Grateful are we for the perfect and complete work of Christ...
The work He preformed on a cruel cross at Calvary...
For it is by His wounds we are healed...
It is by His blood we are forever washed pure.
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And it is in Jesus Christ’s name we pray all these things...
Amen.
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Let’s turn to our text for today:
Reading of the Text
Reading of the Text
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.
16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.
17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
So, let’s look at our first point...
1) Faith In Vain
1) Faith In Vain
Verses 12-15: Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.
So, let’s start by getting some background on this text.
Before we can exposit a passage, we need to know the context.
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The Reformation Study Bible has this to say regarding the background on our passage:
“Paul finally addresses the problem that needs correction.
Some of the Corinthians, perhaps without denying that Jesus had been raised, were questioning the doctrine of the resurrection because of their unbiblical understanding of the significance of the human body, or of the principles of continuity and transformation that relate our present moral body to the coming resurrection body.
Neo-Platonic philosophy and proto-Gnostic religious movements devalued material reality generally, including the body, and the Corinthian Christians may have been influenced by such Greco-Roman ideologies.
Paul needed to show them that the resurrection of Jesus cannot be separated from the resurrection of those who are His.
If their resurrection is not true, neither is His.
But to deny, even by implication, that Jesus’ body was raised from the tomb destroys the message of the Gospel.
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The truth of the Christian message is tied to the historical reality of Christ’s death and exaltation.
The apostle cannot conceive of his message as having any spiritual value if its historical foundation does not exist.”
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So, Paul is addressing a major issue...
One that is intertwined with the Gospel...
To get the resurrection wrong is to get the Gospel wrong.
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Additionally, Pastor and Teacher John MacArthur has this to say regarding some additional historical background formation that will be helpful for our study:
“A basic tenet of much ancient Greek philosophy was dualism, a concept generally attributed to Plato.
Dualism considered everything spiritual to be intrinsically good and everything physical to be intrinsically evil.
To anyone holding that view the idea of a resurrected body was repugnant.
For them, the very reason for going to an afterlife was to escape all things physical.
They considered the body a tomb or a corpse, to which, in this life, their souls were shackled.
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For those Greeks, their bodies were the last things they would want to take along to the next life.
They believed in the immortality of the soul but strongly opposed the idea of a resurrection of the body—as Paul had experienced when he preached on the Areopagus:
“Now when they [the Athenian philosophers] heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer”.
The typical view of dualism was expressed by Seneca:
“When the day shall come which shall part this mixture of divine and human here where I found it, I will leave my body, and myself I will give back to the gods.”
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In spite of the fact that the resurrection of believers is taught in the Old Testament, in the teaching of Jesus during His earthly ministry, and in the teaching of the apostles, serious doubts about it had infected many of the Corinthian Christians.
[It is important to note that] some Jews, such the Sadducees, did not believe in it.
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[So,] it is those doubts that Paul forcefully counters in 1 Corinthians 15.”
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Paul will give 7 disastrous consequences of believing there is no resurrection of the dead.
The first four are found in our first section that we are studying in verses 12-15:
So, the 1st consequence is that Christ would not have risen from the dead...
We see Paul saying in our passage, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.”
Doubting that one will be raised...
Whether to eternal life or eternal death...
Is to deny Christ’s resurrection.
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Christ’s resurrection both served as proof that His claims were true...
And His resurrection acted as the first of what others would later experience after Christ’s second coming.
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The 2nd consequence Paul presents is that the preaching of Christ would be senseless.
Paul goes on to say, “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain.”
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The term “vain” in Koine Greek is “kenos” which means:
Empty, fruitless, void of effect, and to no purpose.
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If Christ died on the cross and that is the end of the story they I have no business being here preaching...
The New Testament would be pointless...
This building meaningless...
Our gathering here today and every Sunday would just be fruitless.
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In fact...
Leading directly into the 3rd consequence Paul presents...
The faith we all have in Christ would be useless.
In addition to the preaching of Christ being in vain...
Paul says, “your faith is in vain.”
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Our whole Christian existence...
Our Christian worldview and way of life...
It would all be pure rubbish!
If this is true...
If Christ did not rise...
Then as MacArthur says:
“All believers of all ages would have believed for nothing, lived for nothing, and died for nothing.”
Those 6 innocent lives that were lost on March 27th...
The ones gunned down at Covenant School...
Evelyn, William, Hallie, Cynthia, Mike, and Katherine...
Those are their names...
All targeted by a woman pretending to be a man...
The product of this deranged world...
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If Christ never rose from the dead then they all really did die for nothing!
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The 4th consequence is that all the witnesses and preachers of the resurrection would be liars.
As Paul said, “We are even found to be misrepresenting God.”
All the apostles...
The 500 witnesses of the resurrected Christ as seen in 1 Corinthians 15:6...
All would be liars in claiming God the Father raised God the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit...
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So, to deny Christ’s resurrection is to deny the actions of the God the Father...
And deny the Gospel altogether.
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Scholar Gordon Fee says this:
“Since for Paul Christ’s resurrection is not his (Christ’s) own doing, but God’s vindication of the work of the Son, that means that a denial of the resurrection of the dead leads ultimately to a denial of the gospel altogether and levels an accusation against the living God, that God did what in fact God did not do—if they are correct.”
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The resurrection of Jesus declared Christ as the Son of God and the true Messiah as He claimed.
Just take a look with me at Romans 1:1–4:
1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,
2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,
3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh
4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
And see what Peter says in Acts 2:23–28 when he boldly preached:
23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
25 For David says concerning him, “ ‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
26 therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope.
27 For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’
Peter and others are able to preach boldly like this because they truly were eyewitnesses to the ministry of Christ...
His death...
And His resurrection.
Acts 10:39–42 makes this point clear:
39 And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree,
40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear,
41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
42 And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.
Yet the preaching of Christ is a stumbling block to those without opened eyes...
To those with stone hearts...
To those with ears not willing to hear!
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As 1 Corinthians 1:22–24 says:
22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
But before we go any further in why we should preach Christ crucified...
And Christ resurrected...
We need to see the other consequences of rejecting the resurrection of the dead...
And this takes us to our next point.
2) Still In Our Sins
2) Still In Our Sins
Verses 16-19: For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Continuing Paul’s thought we see the last 3 disastrous consequences which are found in our next section...
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The 5th consequence is that no one would be redeemed from sin.
As Paul says, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”
If one is still in their sins...
Then there is no hope for them...
For just one sin...
No matter how small...
Equals death.
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A white lie...
A feeling of pride...
Breaking any one of God’s commands is a death sentence...
And that is why if we are still in our sins...
If Christ did not wash away our sins...
Then we have debt to pay that is greater than we can pay...
And that is why Paul says that is that is true...
Then our faith is futile.
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The 6th consequence is that all former believers would have perished.
As Paul continues and says, “Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.”
So, all believers from all time...
Those who have passed from this life...
Would simply perish...
For there is no life after.
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Finally, Paul states the 7th consequence which is that Christians would be the most pitiable people on earth.
As Paul puts it, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
Gordon Fee again had some great input on this point:
“But if Christ has not been raised from the dead, that means we not only do not have present forgiveness but have lost our hope for the future as well.
And if we have believed in the future when there is no future, then of all human beings we are the most to be pitied—not because Christian existence is interested only in the future, but because the loss of the future means the loss of the past and present as well...
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There seems to be little hope of getting around Paul’s argument, that to deny Christ’s resurrection is tantamount to a denial of Christian existence altogether.
Yet many do so—to make the faith more palatable to “modern man,” we are told.
But that will scarcely do.
What modernity accepts in its place is no longer the Christian faith, which predicates divine forgiveness through Christ’s death on his resurrection.
Nothing else is the Christian faith, and those who reject the actuality of the resurrection of Christ need to face the consequences of such rejection, that they are bearing false witness against the very God they claim to believe in.
Like the Corinthians, they will have believed in vain, since the faith is finally predicated on whether or not Paul is right, especially on this issue.
It is arrogance of the highest order to think one exists in some continuity with the historic Christian faith when this absolute center core of that faith is brushed aside in the guise of modernity.
That, rather, is an abdication of the Christian faith as it has been preserved for us in the New Testament.”
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Yet Psalm 16:8–11 presents the truth...
That our God will not leave His own as it says:
8 I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.
10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.
11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Church, we have a sovereign God who has given us assurance through Jesus’ resurrection that all will rise as it says in Acts 17:31:
31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
So, it is at this moment in Paul’s dialogue that he shares the truth of the matter...
And this takes us to our next point.
3) Christ Is Risen!
3) Christ Is Risen!
Verses 20-23: But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary on the 1st Corinthians says this regarding the term “firstfruits”:
“By ‘firstfruits’ Paul brings to bear the rich imagery of the Old Testament.
The ‘firstfruits’—the first sheaf of the harvest offered to the Lord—was not only prior to the main harvest but was also an assurance that the rest of the harvest was coming.
So with Christ.
He preceded his people in his bodily resurrection and he is also the guarantee of their resurrection at his second coming.”
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Additionally, the Pillar New Testament Commentary on 1st Corinthians has a helpful note:
“To be in Adam is to be part of the group which finds in Adam its representative and leader, which finds its identity and destiny in Adam and what he has brought about for his people.
To be in Christ is to be part of the group which finds in Christ its representative and leader, which finds its identity and destiny in Christ and what he has brought about for his people.
All humans who have not yet found redemption through faith in Christ remain in Adam.
Those who have entered into the promise of new life, the life of Christ, are in Christ, and will find that their initial experience of the newness of life was but a foretaste of the ultimate restoration of life that awaits them in the resurrection.”
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Paul says that “For as in Adam all die.”...
One only has to look at the very beginning of Scripture to see why...
As Genesis 2:17 records God’s warning to Adam:
17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Why such a high price for sin?
To commit sin is to commit high treason of the worst kind to God...
To commit sin is to proclaim oneself as knowing better than God...
To commit sin is to attempt to usurp God’s authority and to foolishly attempt to make oneself a “lord” over God.
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Despite the clear warning...
The Serpent came...
Our Enemy...
And deceived Eve...
All while Adam watched...
And Adam instead of leading his wife...
Followed her sinful action and eat the forbidden fruit.
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Genesis 3:17–19 records the punishment God issues to Adam and all mankind:
17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
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Again let me remind you...
Paul said in our passage, “For as in Adam all die.”
Or as he says in Romans 5:12:
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Every one of us is a sinner...
No one can claim otherwise...
As 1 John 1:8 says:
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
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So there is no getting around it...
All are sinners...
Yet as Romans 6:23 says:
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So, although all have earned death due to Adam...
If one places their trust in Christ...
They will be made alive...
Or as Paul says in our passage, “So also in Christ shall all be made alive.”
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Consider Romans 5:16-19 and the truth it contains:
16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.
17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
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Never forget this reality...
Jesus took our spot on the cross...
He took the place for His sheep...
That is...
He took the place of those who surrender to Him...
Those who trust in Him...
And when one is in relationship with Christ...
They can know that all their sins...
The sins of the past...
The sins of the present...
And even the sins of the future...
Are all paid off as Jesus cried out in John 19:30:
30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Jesus declared that our sin debt was paid in full.
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But that was not the end of the story...
Look with me at what it says in Acts 13:28–35:
28 And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed.
29 And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.
30 But God raised him from the dead,
31 and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.
32 And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers,
33 this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, “ ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’
34 And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way, “ ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’
35 Therefore he says also in another psalm, “ ‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’
So, Jesus may have died...
But the Father raised him from the dead...
An act that proves the Father accepted the Son’s sacrifice...
And how Christ was the first to be given a resurrected and renewed body...
Something that would also happen for His followers as it says in 1 Corinthians 6:14:
14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
And likewise in 2 Corinthians 4:14:
14 knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
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So, Beloved...
Remember the promise of Christ as found in John 5:24–26:
24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
Closing Illustration
Closing Illustration
As this message comes to a close...
I would like to share this that I came across in my study this week:
John G. Paton, a nineteenth-century missionary to the South Seas, met opposition to leaving his home in Scotland and going to preach to the cannibalistic peoples of the New Hebrides Islands.
A well-meaning church member moaned to him, “The cannibals, the cannibals! You will be eaten by the cannibals!”
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Without hesitation, Paton replied, “I confess to you that if I can live and die serving my Lord Jesus Christ, it makes no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; for in that Great Day of Resurrection, my body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer!”
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Church, fear not what any can do to your earthly body...
For as the followers of Christ have renewed minds...
So shall we one day have renewed bodies.
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For Jesus laid down His life for sinners...
Jesus laid down His life for those who where His enemies...
For we have a merciful God...
As it says in Ephesians 2:4–6:
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
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So, let me ask you all know...
Are you assured of your salvation?
Are you confident in the work of Christ on the cross?
Have you ever really placed your trust in Him?
Have you surrendered your will and desire for His?
Have you confessed Him and proclaimed Him as both your personal Lord and Savior?
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For the resurrection of the dead is very real...
As John 5:28-29 says:
28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice
29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
All will spend eternity somewhere...
Some in eternal torment for ignoring the truth in God’s Word...
And other who will be raised to eternal life for they will take seriously the promise found in Romans 10:9-10:
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
So, believe with your mind the truth of the Biblical Jesus...
And believe in your heart that these facts are not just true ...
But they are truths you believe enough to live by them...
And if that is you today...
Your life will reflect a new creation...
A life that will be eternally spent with the Lord of Lords and King of Kings!
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To God be all the glory.
Amen.
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Please join us for one more song from the Praise Band.