Remember His Resurrection

Introduction

He is risen! Please open in your Bible’s to 2 Timothy 2:8-13 that is 2 Tim. 2:8-13 if you are using a bible spread throughout the chairs today you can find our passage on page… I am the kind of person who has been told that I have a great memory, and I am the kind of person that would lose his own head if it weren’t attached. I misplace my car keys all of the time, need to be reminded multiple times about certain appointments in my schedule, I will go the store and forget why I went there. How can this be? How can I remember my phone number from 20 years ago but forget the grocery list. Well, there are probably many reasons for this but one is certainly this. I like you remember the things that are most important to me. That is a hard thing to admit, but it is true. I forget the things that in the back of my mind. I am thinking about my day and therefore, can’t focus to remember where the car keys are. Memory is always connected to that which is most important to us.

This is our final sermon in our Remember series as we took a month to Remember Jesus. We remembered that he is first, that we are saved by faith alone, we were reminded that the is returning, and on Friday we remembered that he died for us. And today we remember that he has risen! Our remembrance of Christ is first and foremost an issue about our evaluation of Christ. How often you remember him, it a reflection of how valuable you believe him to be.

Now why bring up the issue of value or worth for today’s text? And here is why in this letter of 2 Timothy a man named Paul writes to his spiritual son. Paul is an apostle, a leader in the early church. And Timothy is a pastoring a church is a city called Ephesus. Paul is writing this letter from a prison cell most likely in Rome and as Paul writes it becomes evident throughout the letter that Paul believes that is time on earth in limited. He writes assuming that he will soon be killed for his faith. He writes this letter to his young friend encouraging him to remain steadfast while suffering. He wants to see Timothy endure suffering for the sake of Christ and the church.

Now, what you spend you money and time on will always display what we find valuable. But perhaps the greatest test of what you believe is most worthy is life. Is to answer the question, what are willing to suffer for? What are you willing to endure hardship for? The answer to that question is the answer to what you find most valuable. My prayer today is that you would remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. Because he is the supreme treasure of your life. Remember because he is the king who is worthy and always faithful.

As Paul writes to Timothy to encourage him to remain steadfast while suffering he writes 2 Timothy 2:8–13 “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”

Remember He is King v.8

In verse 8 we read 2 Timothy 2:8 “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel,” Paul tells Timothy to remember Jesus Christ and tells him two things specifically to remember that describe who Jesus is according to the preach gospel of Paul. Jesus is risen from the and the offspring of David. Why would Paul command Timothy to remember these two things about Jesus and then suggest that these two truths are essential to the gospel preached by him? Certainly there other truths about Jesus to remember. That he is loving and compassionate, that he performed many miracles, that he is wise etc.

But why in this moment these two truths: he is risen from the dead and the offspring of David? Well, as Timothy is being encouraged to endure suffering I believe Paul aims to remind Timothy who is King of his life. You are to endure Timothy because you carrying out the orders of your king. The one who has rise and is of the offspring of David.

Jesus risen from the dead is essential to the Christian gospel. If Christ is not raise then we of all people are most to be pitied. A risen King reminds us that he was also a suffering and dying king. He cannot raise from the dead if we was never dead. And when we remember the death of Christ we are forced to remember the unjust sufferings of our Savior. As Timothy endures unjust suffering he must remember that he is not alone in this suffering. Christ has gone before him and suffered at the hands of evil men though innocent. But Timothy is to not just remember that Jesus suffered and died, he is to remember that Jesus rose from the dead.

Jesus died in out place on the cross, but if we die with him we will certainly be raised with him. Jesus as the conquerer of death is the ruler over life and death. Just as a monarch expands his kingdom through conquest so does Christ’ victory over death prove his deity. He is the Lord over all. He is the king of life and death itself. Timothy does not need to fear suffering and death, but in Christ his is more than a conqueror of life and death. Just as Christ rose, so will those who are faithful to Jesus rise with him in the last day.

In the sufferings of life remember Christ risen from the dead. And to put exclamation point on the royalty of Jesus we are reminded that his not just King through conquest. But he is king by birth. David was an ancient king of Israel. The very king to whom God promised through the prophet nathan in 2 Samuel 7:12–13 “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” Paul is reminding Timothy that Jesus’ Kingdom is an eternal kingdom. Jesus is the one who was born from the line of David, the promised Messiah of the Old Testament. The one whom God foretold of through his prophets that would come and establish his rule and reign forever.

The reminder that Jesus is the offspring of David also roots Christ into the very history of Israel. Jesus and his resurrection is not a myth or metaphor. The gospel that Paul preached was an explicit gospel in which the real man, Jesus of Nazareth, lived on earth, and really, truly, factually, historically died on a cross. And rose from the dead.

In the late 19th century and extending into the late 20th century a group of academics sought to discover the “historical” Jesus. They called this the quest for the historical Jesus. They attempted to look at the biblical documents that mentioned Jesus and then harmonize them with their idea of historical evidence. This required them to read the biblical text and assume that supernatural events were at best metaphors for spiritual truths and at worst false embellishments added to the text later. If you flip through the history channel or some other documentary type show around Easter time you have surely encountered the product of their work.

They search for a “historical” Jesus that did not perform miracles, cast out demons, walk of water, and certainly did not raise from the dead. The “Jesus” they look for is not the Jesus that Paul preached in his gospel. The Jesus of the Bible, is risen from the dead. It is not a metaphor is a reality. Anyone that doesn’t believe in the literal resurrection of Jesus cannot call themselves a Christian according to the gospel preached from the Bible.

Andreas Kostenberger, a NT scholar at Midwestern Baptists Theological seminary explains that the questers found a Jesus that looked more like themselves than the Jesus of the Bible. That is to say, in abandoning the clear teaching of Scripture they crafted a “little g” god in their own image.

Why must we remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David as preached in Paul’s gospel? Because the moment we stray from the Bible we are doomed to do what the ancient greeks, romans, and so many others have done. We are doomed to create gods in our own image. Rather than worship the God who made us in his image.

The resurrection is a literal reality and the King has risen from the grave and He will return.

As some us may wrestle with the truth of the resurrection I pray that you would look to the life of Paul and see that it is a testament to the truthfulness of this hard to believe phenomena. Paul was so convinced in the legitmaticy of the resurrection that he was willing to suffer for it. He saw that Jesus was worthy

Remember He is Worthy v. 9-10

2 Timothy 2:9–10 “for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.”