I Believe in the Resurrection
Proper 27: 22nd Sunday After Pentecost • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 11 viewsThe resurrection is the cornerstone of the Christian faith, giving the believer POWER, AIM, and PURPOSE in life.
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We are very BOLD to pray in our confessions of faith that we believe in the Resurrection: We say so in the Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed.
“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”
“I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church, I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sin, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the live of the world to come. Amen.”
The Resurrection is the very cornerstone of the Christian faith and what we believe, teach and confess.
The Resurrection is what gives our lives Power and Purpose TODAY!
The Resurrection is something in the future for us, YES; but, it also gives our live meaning today.
So, as we start to wind-down to the end of the Church year we are going to talk about the Resurrection from the perspective of our Gospel reading and Jesus’ discussion with the Sadducees. Why? Because the OT teaches it, the NT teaches it, and also because it is the very nature of God. You see:
The Resurrection is the Cornerstone of the Christian faith, Giving the Believer POWER, AIM, and PURPOSE in Life.
The Resurrection is the Cornerstone of the Christian faith, Giving the Believer POWER, AIM, and PURPOSE in Life.
Giving the Believer POWER, AIM, and PURPOSE in Life.
Giving the Believer POWER, AIM, and PURPOSE in Life.
The Old Testament Teaches It
The Old Testament Teaches It
The Sadducees try to use the OT to disprove the resurrection ()
Jesus uses the OT to prove the resurrection. Note: He doesn’t use the Prophets or the Writings, He quotes from the Pentateuch, the first five books of Moses, what the Sadducees accepted.
Jesus quotes from the passage about the burning bush (; ) — today’s OT reading — where the Lord tells Moses that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—to show that at the time of Moses, the patriarchs who had died hundreds of years previously were still alive in God.
Other OT passages support this:
25 “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. 26 “Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; 27 Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!
19 Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.
2 “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.
So, the OT is clear on it teachings of the Resurrection; and,
The New Testament Teaches It
The New Testament Teaches It
Jesus is “The resurrection and the life:”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,
The resurrection consists of
The restoration and glorification of the body;
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 45 And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.
AND, The reunion of body and soul.
Our resurrection has its basis in Christ’s redemption of the human family in His resurrection:
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.
17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is useless; you are still in your sins.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
Application: Jesus’ resurrection has significance for us not only on Judgment Day, but also right now; for already in this life it effects in us a spiritual resurrection, empowering us to live ever more and more in harmony with God’s will.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
There is no need to wait for the Last Day to live as Resurrection people, it begins today:
16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
And this is very much in keeping with God’s promise of the New Covenant promised to Jeremiah, and fulfilled in Christ Jesus our Lord. ().
31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
It is God’s plan and intention to make you brand new in Christ, for
It Is the Very Nature of God
It Is the Very Nature of God
God created humanity for life, not death:
37 But even Moses revealed that the dead are raised in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live before him.”
The Father sent His Son to rescue fallen humanity.
He buys us back, redeems us.
45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
He give us new life.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
This gives power, purpose and meaning to our life—for our lives not live to Him:
38 “Now He is not the God of the dead but of the living; for all live to Him.”
15 And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised.
10 For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.
3 For this is God’s will: that you become holy, that you keep away from sexual immorality,
Beloved of God, In Christ you are His resurrected people, to live as such RIGHT NOW, yet, waiting for its completion on the Last Day. So there is no reason to live like the rest of society, because all of Scripture teaches who you are in Christ: The OT Teaches it; The NT Teaches it; and It is The Very Nature of God.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
