Sermon Tone Analysis

Scripture Reading:

The Importance of Christ's Resurrection

Introduction:

Scripture Reading:

1025 Aristeides Observed The Christians

About the year 125 A.D. a Greek by the name of Aristeides was writing to one of his friends about the new religion, Christianity.

He was trying to explain the reasons for its extraordinary success.

Here is a sentence from one of his letters:

“If any righteous man among the Christians passes from this world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God, and they escort his body with songs and thanksgiving as if he were setting out from one place to another nearby.”

Tan, Paul Lee: Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations : A Treasury of Illustrations, Anecdotes, Facts and Quotations for Pastors, Teachers and Christian Workers.

Garland TX : Bible Communications, 1996, c1979

Look with me at 3 important truths that secure the importance of Christ's Resurrection.

I.

It Secures Our Resurrection (20-22)

“and if Christ is not raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.

Then those 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.”

A. Our bodies will be like His

“So also it is written, 'the first man, Adam became a living soul.'

The last Adam became a live-giving spirit.

However, the spiritual is not the first, but the natural; then the spiritual.

The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.

As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly.

Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the the heavenly.”

1044 Benjamin Franklin’s Epitaph

1044 Benjamin Franklin’s Epitaph

When Benjamin Franklin was about to die, he asked that a picture of Christ on the Cross should be so placed in his bedroom that he could look, as he said, “upon the form of the Silent Sufferer.”

He wrote in advance the epitaph to be on his gravestone: “The body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here … Yet the Work itself shall not be lost; for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by the Author.”

Tan, Paul Lee: Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations : A Treasury of Illustrations, Anecdotes, Facts and Quotations for Pastors, Teachers and Christian Workers.

Garland TX : Bible Communications, 1996, c1979

B. What was Christ's body like?

● It was real

“And He said to them, 'Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in you hearts?

See My hands and My feet that it is I myself, touch Me and see for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.'”

● It was free from the laws of physics as we know them

“And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.

● It could eat food

“Jesus said to them 'Come and have breakfast.'

None of the disciples ventured to question Him, 'Who are You?' knowing that it was the Lord.

Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and the fish likewise.

This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples, after He was raised from the dead.”

“So when they had eaten breakfast,...”

● It was eternal

50 Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.

[1039 Faraday Rested On Certainties – When the great Christian and scientist, Sir Michael Faraday, was dying, some journalists questioned Him as to his speculations for a life after death “Speculations!”

He said, “I know nothing about speculations.

I'm resting on certainties.

I know that my Redeemer livith, and because He lives, I shall live also.”]

[1039 Faraday Rested On Certainties – When the great Christian and scientist, Sir Michael Faraday, was dying, some journalists questioned Him as to his speculations for a life after death “Speculations!”

He said, “I know nothing about speculations.

I'm resting on certainties.

I know that my Redeemer livith, and because He lives, I shall live also.”]

If your body will be raised to be like Christ's for all of eternity, Why would anyone want to worship this corrupted body of death that we have now?

[new nfl uniforms The jersey itself—dubbed the Elite 51—contains nine different materials to help combine everything from thermal cooling to rip-protection.

Todd Van Horne, Nike’s global creative director, says that as more teams embrace all the performance options afforded them, more might open up to an aesthetic change, too.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell echoed that sentiment, saying he expects to see more visual changes coming.

The Elite 51 NFL uniform actually starts with Nike’s Pro Combat base layer, a system that comes in three forms, 5 percent drier, 8 percent lighter and 22 percent cooler than the NFL previously used.

Athletes can choose a warm-weather choice (Hypercool) that wicks sweat away from the body for rapid evaporation; a cold-weather option (Hyperwarm) that wicks sweat away, but traps heat in by keeping the cold out (Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher says he is especially looking forward to using this option); or a protective-centered choice (Hyperstrong) that adds lightweight, flexible deflex padding into “critical hit zones” and comes with an optional carbon-fiber plate for added lightweight protection.]

Will you commit yourself again to live for eternity and not for for the fleeting pleasures of this life?

15 having a hope in God, which these men cherish themselves, that there shall certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.

16 “In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.

II.

It Secures the Order of Our Resurrection (23)

1. Christ

1. Christ

(NASB95)