Remember the Resurrection
Easter Sunday • Sermon • Submitted
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· 8 viewsSince Jesus has been raised from the dead we will be resurrected from the grave as well, so remain in the gospel knowing that everything we do is not meaningless.
Notes
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1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
Let’s pray.
He is risen,
(he is risen indeed)
And it’s a good thing too, because if Jesus was not alive then everything would be meaningless and we of all people would be the most to be pitied.
Just a few weeks ago, I began renovating our our guest room into a nursery that will easily convert back into guest room again. So I planned to build and install a Murphy bed. After hours of research, and more hours spent picking up all the hardware and materials, and even more hours of work putting part of the bed frame together, we came to the realization that the Murphy bed wasn’t going to fit in the room. So all that research, all those materials, and all that work, was meaningless.
While meaningless work is always disappointing, there is something far worse than hours, months, or even years of wasted work. What’s worse than a vain work work is life that is utterly meaningless. But here in lies our problem: because there is one thing that we will all experience that might cause our whole life to amount nothing and that is death.
Death is the great equalizer in life because everyone will die. Even though the lives of the rich and the poor look very different, both the rich and poor will die. While statistics show that women tend to live longer than men, more conclusive statistics reveal that every person will die. While the worst of criminals are expected to die die, so will those who devote themselves to doing justice. Regardless of who you are, or what you have done, you will die, and so will I. Listen to how the writer of Ecclesiastes says it,
2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3 What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
The preacher in Ecclesiastes says that all our work is vanity…
that word vanity, simply means meaningless.
The NIV translates this verse as
Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless…
And all of our work is made meaningless because of death’s inevitability
While though death is something that most people try to avoid thinking about, the reality is that none of us can avoid death. Churches use to bury their saints outside of their building, and this would a constant reminder of the fleeting nature of this life every time the saints walked into the church. But instead of having a cemetery outside, we have a parking lot full of nice cars. But this shouldn’t keep us from thinking about death. And if we can’t avoid death, then we shouldn’t avoid thinking about it either. So let’s think about death this morning.
1. If at the end of our life, all we have is death, then all that we do in this life is meaningless.
1. If at the end of our life, all we have is death, then all that we do in this life is meaningless.
That word vanity, or meaningless that we see in Ecclesiastes 1, is the Hebrew is hevel. The word Hebrew word hevel is translated in other ways though. While the word hevel can also mean vapor, or smoke…
The psalmist uses hevel this way
5 Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah
This word hevel, that we have translated as vanity/meaningless, gives us a word picture of what everything in this life is like.
Everything in this life is vapor, or smoke…
Like smoke, everything in this life appears to have substance for a short while, but just give a little bit of time and it will completely disappear without a trace.
All our work and even our lives are hevel… like smoke. It’s here today and gone tomorrow.
We will all die, and when we do the next generation comes everything that we have done will be forgotten.
So is there anything in this life that has any real value?
Well if you keep reading Ecclesiastes and you will find out;
The preacher goes on to say wisdom is meaningless
Self-indulgence, is meaningless
work, is meaningless
wealth and honor, are meaningless
When the preacher of Ecclesiastes says all is meaningless, he means just that… for everything is vanity.
Aren’t you glad you came to church this morning?
Everything is meaningless if all we have to look forward to is death.
Paul uses wisdom of Ecclesiastes in 1 Cor 15
13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Paul is saying that if there is no resurrection, then all we have to look forward to is death. And if that is true then the Christian life is all meaningless.
But we who are in Christ know to the story than that, for we know that for us, there will be a resurrection! And the reason we know this is because Jesus is alive.
Paul knew that his resurrection was sure, and therefore he knew his work had great significance. This is why Paul said this;
10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.
Paul’s motivation for his hard work was his sure reward that he would receive at the end of his life for being faithful. So we should understand, a lazy Christian is simply a Christian who has little understanding of the resurrection.
The bad news, is that we will all die
But the good news of the gospel is that because Jesus is alive, we too will be made alive with him! A knowledge of the resurrection gives meaning to this life.
With this in mind, Paul urged the Corinthians and us to do what he did:
58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
The wonderful reality of the resurrection is that our life and our work that was once vanity, now has a whole new meaning! The resurrection of those who have faith is so clearly spoken of in John 3:16
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
This is really good news for us in the face of death! Because of Jesus’ sinless life, atoning death and victorious resurrection, death no longer has any power over those who have faith in Jesus. Because of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we can look at death in the face and not be afraid.
If you’ve ever been to the zoo, it’s amazing how close we can get to some deadly animals…Consider how large and powerful a lion is. And yet a zoo, children can get up close to a lion and not be afraid, because the lion has been put inside a cage. So just as a caged lion cannot harm a child, so too death can no longer harm those who are in Christ.
Those who are saved by Jesus Christ can not taunt death just like Paul did when he said
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
The gospel is good news in in the face of death, amen?… but we do have another problem. While death has been defeated because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, not everyone will be raise from the dead. While those who believe will not perish, what will happen for those who do not believe? Well John continues,
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
So while death has lost its sting for those who believe in Jesus, the remaining problem for mankind is unbelief. While unbelief might not seem like a big deal on the surface, don’t be fooled.
2. The resurrection is meaningless for those who do not believe in the gospel.
2. The resurrection is meaningless for those who do not believe in the gospel.
If death is our problem, and faith in Jesus Christ is the solution, then our great problem no longer death, rather our greatest problem is now unbelief. Do we believe that death is not our enemy anymore? Do we believe that Jesus has defeated sin and death? Do we believe that Jesus is alive? If we do not believe these truths, then our great problem is unbelief in Jesus Christ, and this unbelief will lead to eternal death.
There are two kinds of unbelief that I want us to consider this morning.
The first kind of unbelief that I want us to think about, is the unbelief of those who have rejected or have never heard and responded to the gospel.
So for those who are here this morning who have never responded to the gospel, let me tell you what the gospel is… or rather, lets hear from Paul the apostle as he reminds the Corinthians of what the gospel is.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
These verses are one of the clearest recitations of the gospel that we have in the entire Bible.
So let’s walk through it and consider what the gospel is, We will be looking at this Scripture in five different sections
first in v3, Paul says that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures…
This means that when Jesus died on the cross, he took upon himself the sins of the world, so that all who put their faith in him will no longer be judged by God for their sins! This means that if you have faith in Jesus, you are perfectly righteous, because Jesus took your sins from you and died for them on the cross. And in the place of our sinful record, Jesus has given us his perfect righteousness! So when God looks at a Christian, he no longer sees all that we have done wrong, but instead he sees Jesus’ perfect record of righteousness!
This is incredibly good news, that is worth a lifetime of meditation…
But we need to keep moving this morning, so let’s look second part of the gospel that Paul lays out. In v 4, Paul says that Jesus was buried…
in other words, Jesus really died.
he didn’t pass out, nor did his disciples rescue him before he died on the cross. Jesus really died and he was put into a tomb for three days.
The sinless and eternal God who is and has always been who created all things, was killed on the cross.
Now if we stopped there, we wouldn’t have good news. So let’s move onto the next part of the gospel. Paul tells us that Jesus was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…
There are two parts in this one phrase that I want us to see… first of all Jesus is alive! I mean here and now, Jesus is really alive… His body that was pierced with nails that hung from the cross, is no longer dead.
When Jered Wilson came to LWC a few months ago, he reminded us of this wonderful realities in one of the strangest ways I have ever heard… What Jered told us all to do was to consider that Jesus has arm hairs.
Strange I know, but bear with me. Jered reminded us that we have a tendency to talk about Jesus this in ways that are vague, as if Jesus is just an idea…
And while it’s strange to think about Jesus’ arm hairs, its’ helpful to remind us that Jesus has a resurrected body. And that body is alive. And right now, at this very moment Jesus with the Father.
We aren’t just worshiping a concept, or an idea… but we worship a living God who is just as real as you and as me.
Also notice all of these things happened in accordance with Scripture.
What this means is, God planed to kill his Son so that we would be saved. This was God’s plan from the very beginning of time! While some like to make some kind of divide between the God of wrath that we hear about in OT and the God of love in the NT, Paul says that all of the OT was pointing to the wrath of God that would be poured out onto his one and only Son because of the great love of God for all those who who put their faith in Jesus.
And the fifth and final part of the gospel that Paul reminds us of is that he appeared… The gospel is not just a rummer, or a fable. Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t just a claim that Jesus made like a lunatic who claims that he can fly. Rather Jesus’ resurrection is a reality that has been revealed! The risen Jesus appeared to Peter, and to the twelve, and he appeared to more than five hundred people, and he appeared to his brother James, and the rest of the apostles, and he even appeared to Paul, who wrote the letter to the Corinthians.
What this means, is that Jesus’ resurrection is a historical event… the gospel is not just a fantastic story like the Lord of the Rings… rather Paul tells us that he and many others were eye witnesses who saw the risen Jesus. Paul himself, who is writing this letter to the Corinthian Church saw the risen Jesus.
Listen to how he describes his witness of the risen Jesus:
8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.
Paul recalls that he was a man who persecuted and killed the Christians who believed in Jesus. Paul, who was called Saul, was a Jesus hating, Christian killer. But Paul was transformed when he saw the risen Jesus. Paul the former persecutor was the apostle who worked harder than any of the other apostles. How is such a transformation possible?
Well this is possible because he saw the risen Jesus. Even though he formally opposed the truth, Paul could no longer oppose the truth because he had looked the truth in the eyes.
And the same goes for the rest of the apostles… remember when Jesus went to the cross, his disciples fled like cowards. But when they saw the risen Jesus, they were changed. Instead of running away from trouble, the apostles testified to the gospel that they witnessed, and the once cowards went on to boldly spread the good news of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. And each and every one of them would go on to die for the sake of gospel. This is amazing, because no one would ever die for something that they didn’t believe in.
The resurrection of Jesus was not a hoax. It is a reality that we all must look at. And we will either see it and believe it and with it receive eternal life, or we will reject it receive the full wrath of God that we rightly deserve.
So if you have never put your faith in Jesus, look at him, read about him in the gospels. See his love that was demonstrated for you on the cross. And believe that he is alive, and he saves all those who call on him.
Now let’s consider the second kind of unbelief… while rejecting the gospel is one form of unbelief, the other kind of unbelief that we see all over the Scriptures is that of not remembering the gospel. Church, do you know the gospel is just as needed for us who have already to believed in Jesus Christ as it is for those who have never heard it?
Remember the disciples who followed Jesus, who confessed that he was the Christ were the same disciples who repeatedly corrected by our Lord for their little faith. Even the story of the resurrection is filled with the unbelief of those who once believed in Jesus.
When the women came to Jesus’ tomb on that first Easter Sunday, Luke records,
2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. 5 And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?
While the women should have been filled with joy and rejoicing, Luke tells us that they were in fact perplexed and frightened at seeing the empty tomb and the angels
Even the angels ask them, ‘why do you seek the living among the dead?’
Why do you suppose the angel asked this question? I think the angel ask this question, because the women should have known that Jesus was alive!
But Luke shows us that there is remedy for their our unbelief. And what was that remedy? Was it something new that they hadn’t already heard? Not at all! Instead, the remedy to their little faith was remembering that same good news they had already heard.
6 He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” 8 And they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.
Remembering Jesus’ testimony about his own death and resurrection was the remedy to their unbelief!
So when the women went to tell the others this good news, surely Jesus’ closest disciples would respond with faith right? I mean they saw Jesus raise the dead, they heard him declare that he was the resurrection and the life, Jesus even told them that he had to die, and they he would be risen from the grave… so certainly certainly they would be men of faith when they heard the the good news of Jesus’ resurrection, right? Well Luke tells us quite the opposite.
10 Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, 11 but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
As it turns out, people of faith often have very little faith.
Think about it; who is Paul writing to in 1 Corinthians 15 where he lays out this wonderful recitation of the gospel? Is it to those who have rejected the gospel? No! It’s to those who had already recieved the gospel. Paul tells the Corinthian Church the gospel, not because they hadn’t heard it before. Rather Paul told them the gospel as a reminder of the truth that they had begun to forget.
So Paul says,
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
Paul shows us there is a kind of belief that held that vain, do you see that at the end of v2?… unless you believed in vain. Paul shows us that the kind of faith that is meaningless is the faith and is forgotten. So Paul reminds them, that they must hold fast to the gospel that he preached!
Let’s hash this out a bit.
Church do me a favor and testify to this. Raise your hand if you have ever felt condemnation from God for your sins even after you were saved?
Paul describes his fight against and the end of Romans 7
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
If your sin causes you to feel like Paul… wretched and worthless… then please keep on reading
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
If you who have believed in Christ feel condemned because of your sin, it is owing to the fact that you have forgotten the gospel.
No need to raise your hand for the rest of these, but I do wonder how many of us who are redeemed have ever feared death when we recieved a scary diagnosis from the doctor… when we are afraid, it is because we have forgotten the gospel, for our Lord repeatedly commands us to not be afraid. And we, who have recieved the gospel must remember that death no longer has the final word. Therefore what do we have to be afraid of?
Again, I wonder, how many of us, when we didn’t get that job, or when we lose our job, or when we fail a test, or fail in our career… I wonder how many of us feel completely worthless… if you feel this way, it is because you have forgotten the gospel. You have forgotten that your identity is not found in your performance, rather your identity is found in Christ who lived perfectly in your place, and Jesus has given you his prefect record of righteousness.
We are a forgetful people… but there is a remedy for our forgetfulness and unbelief.
3. The remedy for death and unbelief has always been and will always be the reception and remembrance of the gospel.
3. The remedy for death and unbelief has always been and will always be the reception and remembrance of the gospel.
This Easter, we remember the resurrection
But the resurrection, and the gospel for that matter are unique to Easter. Every single week, when we recite the Apostles Creed around here at LWC, we confess that we believe that Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried, and that on the third day he arose again from the dead. And we confess that we believe that our bodies will be raised in the newness of life with him! These truths are not new news to us, but we need to recite them and remember them often, because if we don’t, we will forget them.
But don’t take my word for it, listen again to the Apostle:
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
Notice the threefold progression in the Christian’s life in relation to the gospel;
when Paul preached the gospel to the Corinthians, they recieved it - that’s past tense
But notice that isn’t the only time they need the gospel
Paul continues saying that they are standing in the gospel - that’s in the present tense in the here and now
And the gospel is the very thing in in with they are being saved by - this is an ongoing and future need for the gospel!
Listen friends, there is no such thing as graduating from our need for the gospel.
I once asked a pastor why he never preached the gospel… and his response was that he wanted to teach the church the more advanced things of the faith.
Another pastor told me that the church needs a new way to understand God and so what we really need is a new kind of systematic theology.
Paul knew nothing of this lust for knowledge. For such people are always learning, but will never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
So while we ought grow in our knowledge of God, we don’t do this by moving beyond the borders of the gospel. Rather the way we grow in Christ is by diving deeper into the gospel! Or as Paul puts it, we are to hold fast to the gospel that he preached. This is why Jesus similarly said,
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
This is why we are gospel people… instead of being people carried about by every wind of doctrine and human cunning, we are a people that hold fast to Jesus Christ and his gospel…
For this reason, we need to remember the gospel time and time again.
We need to read the gospel, we need to hear it, preach it, declare it, pray it, we need to sing the gospel, and we need to live out the gospel.
We need the gospel every week, every day, every hour, and yes in every breath that we take, we need to remember gospel.
So church, when every sin and temptation comes our way, return to the gospel and remember that Jesus is alive!
When we feel condemned for our sins that Jesus already died for, return to the gospel and remember that Jesus is alive.
When we feel afraid, because the worries of this life have us anxious, return to the gospel and remember that Jesus is alive.
When we near our death, and we grow weary, return to the gospel again and remember that Jesus is alive.
Church, he is risen.
(He is risen indeed)
Let’s pray