What it means to be a Christian

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Welcome and thanks

Next week, April 11, back to one service at 10:45

Next Explore Westminster class kicks off next Sunday at 6:00 p.m.

Heights Outreach Initiative – If you signed up but didn’t receive the email yesterday, please see Jennifer West or contact the church office tomorrow

Families with children, please take note: beginning Sunday May 2, we will resume Sunday school for children, birth through 5th grade at 9:30 a.m.

· Make it a point to be here

· Our elders have committed to teaching in rotation, taking the lead in revamping our children’s ministry

o We also need a cadre of volunteers to join the teaching effort to make sure that we are able to solidify our children’s ministry over the rest of this year.

LITURGY

Welcome/Announcements – Byron

Invocation/Call to worship – Justin

Confession/Assurance – Randy

Sermon text – Lori

Morning prayer – Byron

Benediction - Byron ___________________

1 Corinthians 15:12-20

What it means to be a Christian

The literal, physical resurrection of Jesus is the most important event in the history of the world. Without the resurrection, Christianity is the greatest hoax in history and humanity has no hope beyond this life. But, because of the resurrection, we have the forgiveness of sins, pardon in judgment, and the promise of eternal life.

FCF: Paul wants us to live with the resurrection in constant view.

Defending the resurrection as literal and physical, not mythical or merely spiritual

· “History Channel Jesus”

o Liberal scholarship/academia wants to mythologize the resurrection; Jesus was raised from the dead in the sense that his followers picked up his mission and promoted his teachings after his death, but there was no real, physical, literal raising of Jesus from the grave.

· You have those within Christianity who try to promote a more charitable but no less sinister view of the resurrection, stating that it was entirely spiritual in nature. Jesus was raised from the dead spiritually, he is alive spiritually, and we have already been raised with him spiritually and therefore we’re living in the new heavens and the new earth already.

o The ramification of this thinking is that we should simply live our best lives now, seeking to be happy, healthy, and wealthy.

· These positions were no less true in first century Corinth than they are today. The Sadducees rejected the resurrection as an impossibility. The pagan Greeks rejected the notion that the body had any substantive value and therefore were looking for a nirvana-like release from the physical.

o Both of these positions had so infiltrated the thinking of the church at Corinth that it was impacting their way of life. Or to put it a different way, the truth of the Christian gospel was not making any difference in the way the Corinthian Christians were living, and at the heart of their problem was a heart problem – they rejected the resurrection.

The resurrection is so central to the Christian gospel that you actually have no Christian gospel without it. Jesus’ resurrection was the one event those who put him to death feared the most because they knew (and subsequently know) that if the resurrection is true, then every claim of Christ is true, and all cosmic authority belongs to Jesus.

FCF: Paul wants us to live with the resurrection in constant view.

Jesus’ resurrection is the dividing line of history (v. 12-15)

Dates and dating – turning points in history

· Calendars change with cataclysmic events in history

o According to the Hebrew calendar, the world was created in our year 3761 BC; this means that we are living in the year 5782 according to when the Hebrew calendar began.

o In the year 753 BC, The Roman Empire began their calendar dating system in the Latin ab urbe condita (from the founding of the city). Again, this cataclysmic, world-changing event (the founding of Rome) brough about a significant change to the world’s calendar.

· The Christian calendar, or the Gregorian calendar, is noted as AD – anno domini – meaning “in the year of our Lord.” Our calendar begins with the birth of Christ and has moved forward ever since.

o Why all this hubbub about a calendar? Well, if you’re in academic circles, you know full well that the terms BC and AD are no longer in vogue. We have to use the terms BCE and CE. Why? Because today, just as in Corinth, there are those who wish to keep Jesus silenced.

Two types of people

· Those who believe in the resurrection and those who do not.

o Paul goes so far as to say that if you deny the resurrection, you deny the gospel of Jesus – the good news that Jesus has set you free from the bondage and tyranny of sin and death.

o v. 12 – If Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? How can you deny the resurrection?

§ v. 13 – But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

· v. 14 – And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain (NIV – your faith is futile).

· There are a number of critical points that Paul is making here. First, If you deny the resurrection of anyone, you deny the resurrection of everyone. If no one who dies is going to be raised from the dead, then Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead.

o This means that Jesus actually did die on the cross – no faked death, which is why Paul stresses at the beginning of this chapter that the gospel that has the power to save you is that Christ died in accordance with the Scriptures, he was buried, because that’s what you do with dead people, and that he rose again from the dead in accordance with the Scriptures. You cannot deny the resurrection and be a Christian according to Paul.

Jesus’ resurrection is the defeat of sin and death (v. 16-18)

The grave’s go ahead score

· Growing up, my older brother and I would often find ourselves in the midst of a pickup baseball/football game. Invariably, the older brothers and younger brothers would end up on different teams, which led to lopsided victories. Eventually we caught on and stopped playing because the deck was stacked, until the older brothers got the bright idea to spot us a few points in whatever game was being played.

o Death has been running up the score ever since sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden, claiming an undefeated record. Every person faces the same enemy and succumbs. 2020 taught us that no matter how hard we might try to hide our face from death, it’s ugly presence will come knocking at the door.

o The resurrection is God’s great comeback story – no matter how the game has gone to this point, in the end, when the final score is revealed, death loses.

· 15:21 – For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

o Adam’s story – Gen. 1 God created man, ch. 2 he set that man in the Garden of Eden to work and steward the earth as God’s #2; but Adam didn’t want to be #2, he wanted to be #1, so when tempted with being like God it was really a temptation to usurp God’s rightful rule and reign as sovereign. Subsequently, the entire creation was brought under the curse of Adam’s house and has lived there ever since. Every human in the history of the world, one by one, has entered death’s shadow, and one by one, the grave claims another victory.

o But in Jesus, death is defeated. How can you defeat death? We hear stories about people cheating death, narrow escapes and harrowing tales of near misses. But no one has ever beaten death – except for Jesus.

The death of death in the death of Christ

· Jesus changed how Christians think and talk about death.

o Mark 5:21-34

§ A man names Jairus came to Jesus because his daughter was gravely ill. While the conversation was going on, a crowd began pressing in on a Jesus and a woman with a blood disorder touched him, and she was immediately healed.

§ v. 35 – While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler’s house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”

· They knew and understood what you and I know and understand – death is final.

§ Jesus took Peter, James and John to Jairus’ house, and Jesus asked the mourners, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” So they took Jesus to the little girl, and taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” And immediately the girl got up and began walking…and he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

· The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, and each one of us will face it in our lives. It’s the consequence of living in a fallen world. For the Christian, death is nothing more than taking a nap. One day, Jesus will say to you, just like he did to Tabitha, “Arise,” and we’ll awake and get up, and my guess is, we’ll get something to eat.

o And that’s how death is defeated, as Christians, all at once, are thrown back up out of the earth, raised from the grave, every stone rolled away and casket broken open, and we are given new bodies to dwell on a new earth, and the knock-out punch for death is your resurrection.

· If you reject the resurrection, if Jesus was not raised from the dead, then our preaching is vain, your faith is futile, you are dead in your sins, and we are lying about God. That’s how serious this really is.

Jesus’ resurrection is the surety of our resurrection (v. 19-20)

Desperate for immortality

· Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has put eternity into the hearts of mankind

o We have an insatiable desire to live forever, to prolong and preserve our own lives

§ This is why we nip and tuck, botox and beautify – lotion commercials aimed at giving you “younger looking skin.”

§ Going back to Ponce de Leon’s landing in St. Augustine, people have been flocking to Florida in search of the Fountain of Youth – because we want to live forever.

· Paul has a word for us today, friends, that if in Christ we have hope only in this life, we are of all people most to be pitied. What does he mean? He means that if our focus is exclusively on living our best life now with no view of the resurrection, understanding that the best is truly yet to come, then we’re the most pitiful people on the planet. And his justification is that Christ has been raised, so we can be certain that we, too, will be raised like him.

Destined for eternity (v. 20)

· If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, we needn’t worry with faith or its impact in the world.

o v. 20 – But, in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

We need to understand a little about farming here. When the firstfruits come in, the whole crop is actually coming in at the same time. The firstfruits are merely a sample of the whole crop. Paul here is saying that your resurrection is the exact same as Jesus’ resurrection. It’s the same harvest, the same crop, the same kind.

Imagine for a moment that tomorrow the strawberries growing in our garden out back of the school are ripe and ready for picking. So Pastor Justin and I go out and take one or two to test their readiness for harvest and they’re the most delightful, sweet strawberries. And then we go over to Randy’s office and tell him the strawberries are ready for harvest and he says, “No way anymore strawberries are coming off that vine, and you sure won’t be having strawberry shortcake for dessert this week.” We’ve seen the harvest with our own eyes, we’ve tasted of the firstfruits, and so we know that the rest of strawberries on that vine are going to come in just the same.

That’s how Paul presents Jesus’ resurrection to us. He’s the firstfruits, and we’re part of the harvest - destined for eternity.

FCF: Paul wants us to live with the resurrection in constant view.

Life application takeaway

1. Every single person in the world will be raised to face the judgment of Christ. Our first application is the most critical – you have a decision to make today. Do you believe in the resurrection?

a. Romans 10:9, Paul tells us, 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.

2. Because every person is going to one day meet Jesus whether they like it or not, it is imperative on his followers to proclaim that Christ is risen and is the only rightful ruler of the world.

3. How then should we live? Is the resurrection relevant for more than an altar call?

a. B/c your body is going to be raised, and body and soul will be reunited at the coming of Christ – 1 Thessalonians 5:23 – may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ

i. Lyle D. Vander Broek notes, “Each of the community problems Paul needed to address grew out of the Corinthians’ inability to let the gospel message fully reshape their gentile, Greco-Roman lives, whether because they misunderstood that message or because they rejected it outright.”

ii. The Corinthians were simply trying to be Christians with a minimal amount of social and theological disturbance.

b. 1 Corinthians 15:58 – Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain.