I Corinthians 15:1-11, A resurrection at work
Notes
Transcript
I Corinthians 15:1-11
“A Resurrection at Work”
Read Passage I Corinthians 15:1-11
Opening Illustration -
I met a Youth Minister who had a successful inner city ministry in a major city.
-Church was in a rough part of town.
-One Wednesday night after youth group started a small group of gang bangers came in off the street, sat in the back and left a few minutes early.
-2nd Wednesday night, the same thing.
-Each time the gangbangers watched & listened to what was being said & let early.
-3rd visit, they same small group of rough necks guys come in a few minutes late, but at the end of youth group they didn’t leave early.
-They stayed around until all the students had gone & it was just a few leaders.
-The youth leaders approached the young men and asked if the could be helpful.
The guys off the street very sincerely said this.
-Can I ask you a question?
-Do you all really believe a dead man came to life?...
In these young men’s perception of Christianity, they wisely and accurately got down to the essence of our faith… The resurrection of Jesus.
And so I ask you the same question,
“Do you really believe that a dead man came to life?”
Big Idea - Not only was Jesus able to raise Himself to life. If you are a Christ Follower Jesus has raised you to life.
Opener,
Jesus did not come to help sick. He came to raise the dead to life.
If you are a Christ Follower you have been raised from spiritual death to life.
If you are not a Christ Follower Jesus can bring you to spiritual life right now.
Jesus can raise the spiritually dead to life spiritually, because through His resurrection he conquered the murders of the soul.
He conquered Satan and the Sins of Pride and Selfishness.
Pause
Christ followers tend to think of the Death, Burial and Resurrection of Christ as an historical event that happened 2,000 years ago with little effect on our everyday lives ...
That is a lie.
The death and resurrection of Jesus is still active daily in your life today.
Jesus resurrection worked mighty work 2,000 years ago, and is daily at work in your life.
While Jesus resurrection has made all of you alive in Him.
The power of the resurrection is helping you experience life inn those parts of your life that you are surrendering to Him .... that you are learning to shine Hi slight on.
Transition - The resurrection of Jesus is still at work in us today.
Point 1, My salvation is at work. vs. 1-2
Look at the beginning of verse 2, “and by which you are being saved,“
Note the scripture doesn’t say, you “were” saved, it doesn’t say you “have been” saved. You “are” saved.
You are “being saved”.
“being saved” present tense. This is active, not passive.
If you are a Christ Follower, you are saved, and you continue to be saved.
Your salvation is still at work.
-Salvation has a practical continual saving work.
It has covered the sins of the past, and it continues to cover the sin of today and the sin of the future.
-When you were saved you position before God became that of holiness.
You became once and of for all “the righteousness of Christ”.
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
-The Gospel that you were saved at the moment of belief is still actively at work saving you.
-Your position before God is that of righteousness.
-You say, I don’t feel righteous. I know I don’t always act righteous.
“Aren’t you glad our salvation isn’t based on our feelings, but on the truth of Christ?!”
Transition - Now we come to a difficult truth.
And we see an evidence of this great salvation.
vs 2 - gives us a qualifier of our salvation.
Middle of verse 2.“If you hold fast to the word that I preached to you.”
Scripture interprets scripture this way.
In a focus verse for VBS this week.
6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
God started the work of faith in Jesus in you.
He will strengthen you to continue in your faith walk with God.
Almost all Christians walk through a valley in their faith where they don’t know if they can continue following Christ.
-A difficult trial comes, a sin or temptation continues to pull you in, a doubt will not exit your mind.
-A thought of desperation comes… I don’t know if I can continue in my faith.
-The answer is this - you cannot. You can’t continue.
-BUT, God will continue it in you.
-God will continue to help you scrape and scrap. God will help you to not only survive, but thrive.
-You didn’t begin this work in yourself.
-God began it. He initiated a relationship with you.
-The great news is that what God has started He will finish.
-You don’t need faith in your ability, you need to trust God’s ability.
Psalm 30:5 “… there may be tears in the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
Pause
What is this “if you hold fast to the Word” we see in verse 2?
Answer - It is simply a evidence of your faith.
-If you have been changed by Jesus, then God will give you the ability to hold fast to Him.
1/3rd of humanity will never hear the name of Jesus.
3 Billion people in our world today have never heard about Jesus.
But, God placed you in a place where you would hear the Gospel.
He gave you the gift of faith, He gave you the desire and ability to exercise this faith. At the moment of faith and repentance in Jesus, you were saved. No one could snatch you out of the Fathers hand.
Question, What about those who identify as Christians, but do not persevere in their faith?
What about those who do not hold fast to Jesus?
-Those who do not hold fast to Christ do not enjoy the security and confidence in knowing that they are saved.
-Actively following Jesus is a fruit or a sign that Jesus has changed your life.
-Without this fruit, there is no confidence that true faith exists.
-You and I live with this tension every day.
-In our county many call themselves Christians because they identify with the 10 commandments.
-They may even believe Jesus was a real man.
-But sadly, a faith that surrenders and follows Jesus doesn’t appear to exist.
-For many, They have never entered into faith in Jesus and given control of their lives to Him.
-How do you know?
-We aren’t here to judge someone’s salvation.
-This person is not exhibiting fruit/evidence of a changed life.
Read
6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
-What do they need? Someone lovingly talking to them about spiritual things.
-You need to step into their life. Share how God helped you when you were struggling spiritually.
Application?
Transition - Not only do we see our salvation continuing its work in us, but we see next that...
II. The Gospel at Work, vs. 3-4
God in His great love is still saving people.
If you are not a Christ Follower and are listening to this message today, God is calling you to salvation in Him.
Why? Because you have a problem that only God can fix.
That problem is called sin.
A. The problem of sin
What is sin?
-We know what sin is. We have all sinned and continue to struggle with sin.
-A selfish thought.
-A harsh word
-A pride of being the boss of our life and not God
-breaking any of the 10 commandments
-The offense of sin,
Sin is highly offensive to God
We serve a God who is 100% perfect. 100% set apart from sin. Who will not have a thing to do with sin.
God hates sin, because whatever sin touches it kills.
Sin offends God’s perfect character.
God hates sin because it hurts & ruins the people He loves.
Illustration - If you take a brand new white linen Easter Dress. You decide that you are going to take just 1 drop of used motor oil and place it on that dress where no one can see it - you will fail.
-Why? That dark chocolate stain cannot be hidden.
-You say it’s just 1 drop.
-1 small drop ruins that beautifully pure dress.
-The smallest lie or bad attitude when you were 7 years old made you guilty of sin.
-You say it was just 1 small sin.
-1 small sin ruined your purity.
-God cannot accept anyone who is guilty of sin.
-If you are like me, you are in deep deep trouble.
-By 9am every morning I will have sinned not just once, but several times.
-An attitude, a thought, ignoring God, selfishness, do something that is unloving, ignore someone … there are many days I sin and I’m not even aware in the moment of what I’ve done wrong.
-If one small sin ruins your purity before God what does the accumulation of all the sins in your life do?
It ruins you.
And...
God is a good judge.
-If someone steels your car and wrecks it, will a good judge let the thief go free?
-God is a good judge and He must punish sin.
Your sins must be punished.
-In our culture today we are use to seeing people get away with doing what is wrong.
”Be sure your sins will find you out”.
Either in this life or in the life to come.”
Unforgiven sin is punished in an eternity in hell.
-If you are not a Christ Follower, If you sins have not been forgiven.
- You are like a spider that is hanging from a single thread over a bond fire.
-You don’t know when you will die.
-If you were to die right now, you wold be lost in the judgement of eternal hell forever.
Here is the Good News
BUT GOD … 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
died for our sins, Jesus made a payment for your sin.
buried (3 days), Jesus was unmistakably dead and in the grave.
By HIs own power Jesus raised himself from the grave.
Jesus conquered death, Satan, Sin, and Hell.
He invites you to trust Him in faith and give Him control of your life … allowing Him to be King of your life.
Please understand that this amazing resurrection is a vital part of your salvation.
I Peter 1:3 says, ...
Not only is the:
Your salvation at work.
Not only is the Gospel still at work saving people, but...
III. vs. 5-8, Christ’s appearance is at work
Read verse 5-8.
How do we know that Jesus was resurrected?
How do we know that Jesus raised Himself from the dead?
He appeared to others to prove His resurrection.
First,
The 12 Apostles
Jesus appeared first to those: He knew most intimately.
Jesus appeared first to those: who would lead in spreading His message and lead His people
Jesus appeared first to those: who die for Him
Jesus appeared first to those who had heard him prophecy of His resurrection - Mark 8:31
What kind of man foretells his own death and then foretells his resurrection from the dead?
-A man who is God.
-A man is the Savior
-A man who is worth giving your life to follow.
-Will you give your life to follow Him?
And the disciples … They died and were imprisoned for Jesus. How many people would die for a lie? They truly believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
After Jesus appeared to the disciples, then he appeared to
More than 500 -
Question, In a Court Of Law, How many eye witnesses do you need to prove that something really took place? 2? Maybe 3? Definitely 4?
Illustration - While teaching Bible at TJ this year I was showing a short video from the book of John about Jesus life.
-At the beginning of the video, A well meaning student called me over to her desk and asked me, “Is this a real video of Jesus or are these actors.”
-Utterly bewildered that this student thought video cameras were around in Jesus day, I tried to tell her with a straight face that these were actors and that cell phone cameras and video cameras did not exist is Jesus day.
Ya’ll, The Lord really helped me not laugh straight in this girls face.
-We are use to seeing video of events. These video proves what happened.
-There was a time in history when everyone didn’t have a cell phone to take a video.
-What did you do to prove an event?
-You had eye witnesses.
-It was not just the disciples and the woman that Jesus was close to that claim He was resurrected.
-Jesus had 500 eye witnesses. People saw Jesus after his death.
-People saw a resurrected Jesus and gave witness to Him.
-500 people.
-This is part of how we know Jesus rose from the dead.
-This is part of how the Resurrection is still at work today.
Then Jesus appeared to Paul as Paul gazed into heaven.
At Paul’s conversion, as Paul was struck blind by a great light and gazed into heaven, Jesus spoke to Him. The Resurrection Jesus changed Paul’s life.
Transition - Paul tells us that it was God’s grace.
IV. 9-11, God’s Grace at work. (through proclamation?)
Read vs. 9-11
vs. 9, Paul is honest about His sin. Least of the Apostles and unworthy.
-He persecuted, arrested and murdered Christ Followers.
-Paul hunted down Christ Followers. Like animals he had them put to death or put in chains.
-God changes Paul’s life.
-Then Paul became one of Jesus greatest ambassadors.
-Did he deserve to be used this way?
-No, but that is God’s great mercy and grace.
-God can take your worst of spiritual failures & transform you into someone who is used mightily for Him.
-”The vilest offender who truly believes, That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.”
How was Paul changed from an enemy of The Cross to a Harold for Jesus?
vs. 10, By God’s grace. By God’s unearned gift.
-Paul is not a self made man.
-Only by God’s grace He is what He is.
-It is God, by His grace that is calling you closer to Him.
vs. 11, It is by God’s grace that He proclaimed this great resurrection.
Transition - As we close...
Closing -
Christ Follower
-Who is God calling you proclaim this great resurrection to?
-In what way is God continue to work in your life to free you from sin?
If you are not a Christ Follower
-Will you follow Jesus today? Will you give your life to Jesus as your King today?
-Will you full believe that Jesus was raised from the dead?