Why Do You Seek The Living Among The Dead?
The Passion of the Christ • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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The First Day of the Week
The First Day of the Week
This is the most important day for the Christian. More important than Christmas.
But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
Beginning of a new week
A Light at the End of the Tunnel
Gandolf and the Battle of Helm’s Deep
The Facts
The Facts
Perplexing...
The stone was rolled away
Skeptic - the swoon theory.
Jesus rolled the stone away from the inside...
Now on the next day, the day after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, and said, “Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I am to rise again.’ “Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.” And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone.
But where are the soldiers?
Skeptic: They went to the wrong tomb
Then present the body...
The body was missing
Now while they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened. And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’ “And if this should come to the governor’s ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.” And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day.
Skeptic: The disciples stole the body...
The Prophecies
Jesus told them ahead of time that this would happen.
Specifically that He would rise again on the third day.
From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.
They remembered His words.
Number of prophecies that Christ fulfilled and the odds of one man fulfilling them all.
Women Were The First Eye Witnesses
Skeptic: The disciples fabricated the story.
First of all, if they had made it all up, they would not have used women as the first witnesses. In that day, a woman’s testimony was not valid and held no weight in court...
In fact, even the disciples didn’t believe the women at first.
Skeptic: In their grief they hallucinated.
But not 500 at one time. Even my atheist friend Daniel said that one was a hard one to explain away.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.
Nor the same hallucination by different people at different times. How many appearances do you we have recorded?
Why Do You Seek The Living Among The Dead?
Why Do You Seek The Living Among The Dead?
They brought spices to the tomb to embalm His body.
They did not trust Jesus’ words that He would rise again on the third day.
They chose to wallow in death instead of choosing to rejoice in life.
Instead of dead spices to embalm Him, they should have brought live flowers to celebrate His resurrection!
What words of Jesus do we not trust?
How often do we wallow in death instead of rejoicing in life?
How often do we bring dead spices to Him instead of a living sacrifice rejoicing in what He’s done?
We need to leave death at the cross and buried in the tomb.
How often do we take an issues off of the cross and pin it back on ourselves?
It has been nailed to the cross.
See what other applications from what will you leave at the cross.
Think through how to weave music into this message.
Jesus says to us today: Why do you seek the living among the dead?
Live a resurrection life - faith, hope, and love.
The same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us!
If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
Peter Ran To The Tomb
Peter Ran To The Tomb
He left marveling at what had happened.
Maybe tie in the following...
Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. “You are witnesses of these things. “And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
God gave us one more word:
And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.”
Paul’s comment:
in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.
Whose Word Will You Believe?
Why Do You Look For the Living among the dead?
What Will You Live For In Thanksgiving and Praise Today? The sting of the rebuke of Jesus still rings true!
And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
What Will You Long For With Joyful Expectation? The temporary things of this life, or the blessedness of the Heaven and Jesus’s Second Coming?