Pick Your Hard

I really don’t know where I picked this phrase up from, but it’s one of those that sticks with you - that means something.

Someone said - I may have read it - I don’t remember, but someone said, “Life is hard, pick your hard.”

The immediate context for me was what I’m doing with my weight - I’ve told you I’m intermittent fasting.

If you’ve been here any length of time you know I’ve struggled with my weight forever.

I’ve always felt huge, and that’s hard - Being overweight is hard.

Stairs were hard - the thought of hiking in Israel was hard.

Finding clothes that don’t hurt but look like something is hard.

But so is not eating anything or drinking anything flavored for at least 16 hours every day.

That’s hard - and when I heard that sentence, it all kind of clicked with me.

It’s going to be hard either way - choose the hard that has the outcome you desire.

Our text today is 1 Corinthians 15:12-34 and the topic is the bodily resurrection of Christ.

And let me stop you right there - I can hear your mind churning.

I believe that Jesus was raised from the dead - I’m good.

And from one aspect you are good - but this is a whole ‘nother thing.

Two things right quick.

For our little kids - Kindergarten through 2nd grade - on your Kids Guide you are looking for me to say three words during the message.

When you hear one of these words, you need to draw a star in the box beside the word.

The first word is really two words and they are long: bodily resurrection.

I know you have no idea what that means nor should you at your age.

But it is extremely important for you to start learning about it.

The second word is hope and you’ve heard that one before.

And the third word is very familiar to you - it is behave.

I’m certain someone in your life has used that word more than once.

Bodily resurrection, hope and behave - that’s what you’ll be looking for.

And number two - we’re going to read the scripture a little differently.

There is so much really good stuff here - we could take weeks on this - and I would really enjoy it.

Not so sure about most of you and I understand that.

But I don’t want you to miss some of the things that make this scripture pop.

So, I’ll quickly amplify it a bit as we read through it.

If you are visiting with us or joining us by live stream - we are glad you are a part of today’s service.

I pray that the Lord has already blessed you and will bless you even more as we read God’s word.

Hear now the Word of the Lord from 1 Corinthians 15:12-34

1 Corinthians 15:12–34 (ESV)

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised

Raised is a verb, perfect, passive, indicative, third person singular.

It means Christ did not raise Himself

He was raised by the Father - and perfect tense - it was done in the past and will remain done forever.

By the way, the word raised is Anastasis in Greek - You’ve sung Hillsong’s “O Praise the Name (Anastasis)” - O Praise the Name Resurrected.

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.

Your faith is without anything, empty-handed, foolish, stupid, without result, without purpose, without effect, untrue.

We are even found to be misrepresenting God,

Literally, we are bearing false witness against God

because we testified

Literally, we witnessed

about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that 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 futile

It is worthless - useless

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.

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.

Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.

For he must reign [Jesus must have total control] until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

For “God has put all things in subjection [again, under control] under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him.

When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?

Let me say this about that - in what I’ve read, there are no less than 400 different ideas about this verse.

Very simply, no one has a clue what Paul is talking about.

This is the only time being baptized on behalf of the dead is mentioned in all of Christian literature.

There are a couple of denominations and cults that build a theology of salvation around this verse.

That is incredibly unwise and here is why I say so - do you want to risk your entire eternal existence on a single sentence no one can agree on what it means?

Sorry, verse 29 is a mystery to me and to people a lot smarter than me.

Why are we in danger every hour? [On a daily basis I face the reality of death]

I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day!

[I swear because of my pride in the fact that Jesus saved you that I am in imminent danger of dying every day.]

What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus?

[People were literally thrown into a cage to fight with an animal for the amusement of a crowd.

He could mean that or more likely, all of the opposition he was getting for the gospel’s sake in Ephesus where he was writing from, was like wrestling a wild beast.

[Why would I do all of this] If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”

Wake up from your drunken stupor, [come to your senses] as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

How can you say there is no bodily resurrection?

1 Corinthians 15:12 “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?”

Now - stop right here - first, young kids - there’s your word - bodily resurrection.

Now, you might say, I believe in the resurrection - but what you are saying as a Christian is that you believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

As the song says, “His buried body began to breathe.”

Brothers and sisters, when we say Jesus rose from the dead - our profession of faith is that Jesus crucified, dead and buried.

That His spirit descended into death

And on the third day He rose again from the dead.

The body that was buried was the body that was alive again.

Paul will qualify it in the next section that it is a more perfect body than we have.

But it still ate, it could still be touched and touch, it could be seen, it was recognizable as Jesus all the way down to the wounds in His hands and His feet.

Paul says how could you not believe this?

He tells us in verses 5 - 8 that we studied last week, that well over 600 people saw Jesus alive.

And the told everyone they met what they had seen.

Many of them ended up dying because they would not deny what they had seen and know to be true.

James the son of Zebedee was beheaded a scant 12 years after Jesus was resurrected.

Philip was crucified.

Matthew was slain with a halberd - a two headed weapon on a pole.

Mark was drug through the streets of Alexandria behind a horse, put in a jail cell all night and then burned the next day.

James, Jesus’ 1/2 brother was beaten, stoned and eventually someone clubbed him in the head to kill him.

Matthias was stoned and beheaded

Andrew was crucified on an X type cross.

They tied him rather than nailed him to it so he’d die more slowly.

And so he preached Jesus crucified, dead, buried and resurrected until his strength ran out.

Peter was crucified upside down.

But before him his wife was martyred - as she was taken away, his last words to her were to remember her Savior.

Jude was crucified.

Bartholomew was beaten and crucified.

Thomas was run through by a spear.

Luke was hanged.

Simon the Zealot was crucified.

And John - John was boiled in oil - only he didn’t die.

So he was exiled to Patmos where he would right the book of the Revelation.

These men and women died because they saw Jesus physically, bodily alive after he had been dead.

If Jesus’ bodily resurrection was a hoax - these are the stupidest people to have ever lived.

And don’t you know, the Jews and the Romans would have paraded Jesus’ body in front of the world to prove he was dead.

But they didn’t - did they?

Because they couldn’t.

Because on the third day He rose again from the dead.

We believe that the very same thing is going to happen to us.

Yes when we die will will be with the Lord.

2 Corinthians 5:8 ESV

Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

But only for a season.

Beginning with verse 23, Paul says we’ll be raised bodily too.

Listen - in the same manner, by the same power Jesus was.

Do you believe this?

I do too.

Jesus rose from the dead and baring Jesus return before my time expires, I will rise just like He did.

Because He made the way for me.

But for the sake of argument

Suppose there was no bodily resurrection

Young kids, here is your second word - If there was no bodily resurrection, then we have no hope.

1 Corinthians 15:16-17 “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.”

Why is your faith futile?

Think about what Jesus taught.

Mark 9:31 ESV

for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”

If a man sold you a car that he said would go 300 miles per hour.

And you go to the Bonneville Salt Flats and ran it as hard as you could and it never went over 200.

What would you think about your salesman?

He’s a liar, right?

You’d certainly never believe him again.

If Jesus did not rise then he is a liar, and everything - listen - everything He taught is nonsense.

If Jesus didn’t rise bodily from the dead, then everything you believe, everything you have given up in order to follow Jesus - it is all worthless.

1 Corinthians 15:19 “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

I can think of at least two reasons we should be pitied.

First - God is still God and we are still guilty in our sins.

We don’t sacrifice anymore.

No blood atonement has been made.

Everyone who believed in Jesus is lost forever in hell if He did not rise and that will include us too.

And two - think of every physical pleasure you denied yourself in Jesus’ name.

You are going to die and rot anyway - why not, what does Paul say?

1 Corinthians 15:32 “ If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.””

What would the world look like if Jesus was not bodily resurrected?

All you have to do is open your eyes and look around.

So many people don’t believe and what has happened?

I drove to Atlanta the other week.

Sometimes I like to get off the interstate to see the scenery and not take a chance on getting killed on the race track.

I used to work in the area I drove through.

It used to be a fairly eclectic area.

There was a black neighborhood.

A gay neighborhood

There was an artsy - hippie area

There was a yuppie area

And I enjoyed the differences - the shops and decor and just the vibe of the different cultures.

But that’s all gone.

For miles there wasn’t a wall that was not completely covered in graffiti.

We’ve cleaned that word up - we call them graffiti artists - and some are incredibly talented.

But they aren’t honorable - they are vandals and they destroy other people’s property.

All of the things that had made those neighborhoods eclectic and fun

They were all covered up - literally as far as you could see - with graffiti.

A vandal had somehow got inside a gated, very nice apartment complex and graffiti’d all down the side of the building.

There was nothing that had not been defaced.

As I pulled up to a stop light, a homeless parked his buggy

He walked into a circle of very short - maybe 1 foot tall plants and then dropped trow to do his business.

Every business had bars over the windows.

For the first time in my life in that area, I did not feel safe.

You could sense all around you that everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes.

You see it on social media the vulgar, perverted parades.

With riots and mobs storming stores and looting them.

With political opponents getting jailed

With a multi tiered judicial system

With countless wars where our sons and daughters die - for what cause?

They die to feed rich men’s lust for greed and power.

That’s what it looks like when people don’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

That’s life living in the ruins of Christianity.

Look around and see what Post-Christian looks like.

You have to be blind, deluded or unsaved to miss it.

There is nothing to be desired there.

And they think, when you die you are dead, so eke whatever pleasure you can out of this miserable, meaningless existence.

1 Corinthians 15:32 “If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.””

How do we avoid joining them?

1 Corinthians 15:33–34 ESV

Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.

First, stay away from heretics.

Do you remember us reading a few weeks ago, 1 Corinthians 14:38

1 Corinthians 14:38 ESV

If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.

It’s kind of a cryptic sentence, but this is what he means.

If they don’t recognize the truth, don’t hang out with them.

That’s one of the reasons the Deacons and Staff are recommending we go with Elders.

One of their primary goals is to protect the gospel.

To make sure that what we believe, what we teach, what we preach, what you come expecting at this church, is true, biblical Christianity.

And there are lots of influences trying to help us be more “open minded,” “more accepting” and “loving.”

You know what I’ve found - I think you’ll agree.

We are against something, until it happens to us or someone we care for.

We are against homosexuality - until it is our son, or daughter or relative or friend or us - and then it becomes at least tolerable, if not OK.

We are against gluttony, unless it’s us weighing in at twice our normal weight.

We are against drunkenness unless it’s us who can make money off of it.

We are against divorce, until we meet our soul mate.

We are against pornography, until there is this great movie we want to see.

All of this makes it easier to drift from the truth.

Bad company ruins good morals.

Paul says wake up - come to your senses - Behave - that’s word number three kids.

Look around yourself and see what the world is becoming

Look in the mirror and see what you are becoming and stop it, behave.

“Do not go on sinning.”

When we recognize that Jesus did indeed bodily rise from the dead we are required to realize that everything the Bible says is going to happen

How God will put everything under Jesus’ feet.

How everyone will one day stand before a Holy God in judgment.

How the rebellious and unrepentant will one day die a million times over in the lake of fire.

How one day the Christ follower who perseveres, who endures, who guts it out in the face of unfathomable evil

How one day that Christ follower will live with Jesus - bodily - in the new earth.

If Jesus was bodily resurrected, then everything God has said from Genesis to Revelation is going to happen.

Just as He said.

Come to your senses.

Follow Jesus.

He was raised from the dead in a physical body.

This thing is going to end exactly as God has said it will.

There is no escape from punishment.

There is no escape from the reward.

And Paul ends with this section with this, 1 Corinthians 15:34 “For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.”

We are so busy trying to figure out “how much we can get away with and still go to heaven”

That we’ve forgotten that we are some people’s only hope for salvation.

Paul kind of hurts our feelings - “Shame on you” he says.

We’ve got to live so people can see.

We believe in Jesus, crucified, buried, dead and bodily raised to new life.

Because it’s hard to believe that.

But it will be even harder to suffer an eternity in hell.

Both of those are hard.

Choose your hard.