Two Journeys

In this podcast, Andy answers the question, "What is spiritual maturity?" In this episode, Andy asserts that a spiritually mature Christian has a consistent habit of personal and corporate worship.

For a more comprehensive study of the topic of sanctification, please see Andy's book "An Infinite Journey: Growing in Christlikeness."

The post Sanctification Monday, Ch.16: Action – Worship appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on 1 Corinthians 15:20-28. The main subject of the sermon is God's purpose in the resurrection. 

So go ahead and take your Bibles, if you would, and open up to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and we'll look this morning at the verses that you just heard read: verses 20-28, and as we look around in our world situation today, it is easy to feel based on many current events that things are just spinning out of control. You can feel that like we're all of us on a big bus that's hit a patch of black ice and the thing is starting to spin and we're moving toward a precipice, and as we look at this, it's easy to feel that things are off plan, but they're not, they're not. Our sovereign God is still seated on his throne, and he reigns over mighty nations, the rise and fall of mighty nations, and the Scripture reveals that he oversees the birth of mountain goats, and even the death of sparrows are not insignificant to God. There's nothing too big or too small for the sovereign plan of God, and we need to meditate on that. Events are unfolding on planet Earth, just as God has ordained exactly according to plan. And I'm well aware of the sufferings that are going on in the human race. I'm aware of the deadly hurricane that just hit the Gulf, hurricane Laura, and I'm aware of the effect that it's had on lives of people down there, and I'm aware of the fiery riots in Wisconsin, and as much as I can, as any of us can understand the roots of that.

As I read history I know that other generations have gone through far worse things than this. Far worse than this, as I read the book of Revelation, and especially chapters 8 and 9, and we look ahead to what that says, I think nothing like those events have ever happened on planet Earth, the level of ecological disaster described in the bull judgments and the trumpet judgments, nothing like that's ever happened, so I believe they have yet to occur. And so the tribulations that will come on planet Earth will be as such we have never been seen at any moment in history, and yet all of this is under the sovereign power and control and in the plan of God. It's good for us to picture God seated on his throne far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and that there is nothing that has moved him off of his sovereign plan, but he is reigning. And we also need to understand that all of this evil, all of this suffering has come because Adam made a deadly choice in the Garden of Eden to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, seeking in some way an education, knowledge.

And so we've had 6000 years in redemptive history of an education and in evil, and that is part of God's plan, that the trespass might increase, that we might see more and more of what evil is really like, and that we might in the end be perfectly conformed to our Savior, perfectly like Christ, who loved righteousness and hated wickedness. And when all is said and done, we are going to be in heaven, free from all wickedness, free from all evil, and we will hate it like God does. And I'm looking forward to that. So this is part of the education. Everything is on schedule, but it's still a great deal of suffering. We need to look in our hearts and in our minds by faith to the infinitely good, infinitely patient, infinitely powerful, infinitely wise, almighty God, and understand that he has a plan for a world to come, in which there is no more death, mourning, crying or pain. And we need to fill our minds and hearts with that, and so today, as we continue our study in 1 Corinthians 15, as we look more at the text and understand the truths of God's plan for resurrection, we should stand in awe of this incredible plan and of a God who has the power to bring it about. And we're gonna start with this concept of first fruits.

Now, I want you to know, just in terms of the verses that have been read, these are weighty theological words that we're looking at, there's at least four major, weighty theological topics and we will not really be able to do justice to all of them this morning, but we're gonna start with this concept of first fruits. Christ has been resurrected as first fruits. Now, let's look at the context, Paul is writing to the church that he helped plant in Corinth, the Corinthian Christians who would come out of paganism. They had been saved by believing the gospel, and it seems according to verse 12, that some of them were saying that there is no such thing as a bodily resurrection from the dead, that resurrection is impossible. Look at Verse 12, “But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” So there were some, we don't know how many or how influential they were, but there were some that were saying, resurrection from the dead is impossible, so he begins the chapter by reminding them of the gospel that they heard from the beginning, the gospel that he preached, that he received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried then he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. And so he reminds them of that gospel, he doesn't cite the scriptural prophecies of death and resurrection, but he certainly did it when he preached the gospel to them, and he does it in other places. The scriptural support for all of that is the greatest evidence that there is that resurrection is not only possible, but it's part of God's plan, according to the Scriptures. And then moves on to the clear evidence of eyewitnesses, the appeared to people who saw him in the body after he was dead, and those eyewitnesses were speaking their testimony to the people, that were there at the time, and those eyewitnesses numbered 500, overwhelming evidence, eyewitness evidence that Christ has risen from the dead. Then Paul makes absolutely explicit how essential Christ’s bodily resurrection from the dead is to Christianity, to Christian theology. It absolutely matters whether this actually happened or not, does that in verses 12-19. So if resurrection from the dead is a philosophical, a spiritual, a physical- we would say: a scientific impossibility, then not even Christ has been raised from the dead. And if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then look at all the ramifications: first, our preaching to you is worthless. It's vanity. And so is your faith. We ourselves have been exposed as false witnesses because we testified to you that we saw Christ raise from the dead in his resurrection body. So we're liars. Your faith is futile, and you're still in your sins, you're still under the wrath of God and under judgment, it's like Jesus never happened, and those who have fallen asleep in Christ are actually truly, finally lost. You'll never see them again; they're gone forever. And then he says of himself: we who have suffered greatly for the gospel, who have been pounded from pillar to post every city, we are of all people to be pitied. I traded in a good career for this, and Paul, in his own mind, was believing the promises of God, rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. But none of that is true if Christ's not been raised from the dead. But Paul then makes- this was all last week, Paul makes his triumphant assertion in verse 20, look at it, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Christ has been raised from the dead. We can't say it enough. So there's no emotion I can put it in my voice or on my face right now, that equals the significance of that statement, and I would say whatever you're going through, that fact is greater than anything you're going through. The fact that Christ has been raised from the dead swamps in glory any trial you're going through at all, as a matter of fact, Paul says that the trials and the sufferings that we're going through aren't even worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. So Christ rose from the dead. Light shattered the darkness of the tomb. I love what it says in John 1:4-5, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” So that light will never be extinguished.

Now, some Corinthians may have granted that Christ rose from the dead without moving one bit from their position that there is no resurrection of the dead. They would say, “Yes, he is different, he's the only begotten Son of God, he's unique. But for the rest of us, mortals, when we die, that's it. When we die, that's it, Christ is the exception, we are the rule, we're gonna die, for us ordinary sinners, and when we die our existence will come to an end.” So Paul has to extend Christ's resurrection out to us, and He does that by means of this expression: firstfruits, the firstfruits from the dead. But before we unpack firstfruits, let's just look at the teachings of Jesus himself, while he was alive, while he was ministering, he made repeated promises to his people that he would raise them out of their tombs. He said it again and again. There are so many verses that teach this. One example is John 6:39-40, there Jesus says, “This is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” So John 6, he actually says it four times, “I will raise them up at the last day.” Then again right before raising, or resuscitating we could say, Lazarus from the grave Jesus said to Martha, John 11:23-26, he said, “‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.’” And then he said very plainly in John 14:19, “Because I live, you also will live.” So he wins this great victory and the spoils he gives to his people, he gives to us. So it is- you should think of it as inconceivable that Christ would physically rise from the dead just for his own benefit and not give to his people the fruits of that victory. The very reason he came to earth was to save us from our sins. As the angel said to Joseph in Matthew 1:21, “She [Mary] will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Now, I believe that salvation is comprehensive from everything that sin has done to us and to our world, he's gonna save us from all of it, it's not a partial salvation from sin. Now, we know that death is the consequence of sin. As it says in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” If in the end, death wins, death is victorious over Christ's people, and we remain forever in our tombs then sin and death finally triumphed. They were finally victorious. We were not saved at all, and that cannot be. It cannot be.

So Paul makes this point plainly in 1 Corinthians 15, with his teaching of Christ as the firstfruits. Let's try to understand that. Look again at Verse 20, “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Now, this concept of firstfruits would have been very familiar to the Jews, it was a big part of them, agrarian society, and they were commanded in the Law of Moses that when the harvest time came, when it was time to begin to bring in the harvest, they would give the firstfruits of their harvest as a sacrificial offering to God. Leviticus 23:10, “When you reap the harvest, then bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest.” it was their way of acknowledging that everything that they own belong to God. Paul says in Romans 11, “If the parts offered is holy, then the whole batch [the whole amount] is holy.” So it's a humbling thing for us to realize everything we have comes from God, really could give it all to God, but it's important that we give that firstfruits to him first, that's what the word first means, he gets the first portion of it. And so the whole thing is holy to the Lord, it is sanctified but that first part belonged to God.

Now, Paul calls Christ the firstfruits, it implies that there's a vast harvest that's yet to come. Christ is just the beginning. He's just the firstfruits of a vast harvest of resurrected bodies that are going to come, and Paul calls him the firstfruits of those that sleep, those that sleep. Sleep here clearly refers to physical death in the light of Christ's power for resurrection, physical death in light of Christ's absolute power; he says, “I hold the keys of hell and death.” Christ is in charge. So since Christ has the power to raise any person from the dead, any to Christ, any dead person is in about the same condition as a sleeping person would be for us. Do you understand it was no more difficult for Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead after four days than Jairus' daughter after a few hours? If you were to say, “Jesus, of all the resurrection you did, which was the hardest?” It would be like, “None of them, none of them are difficult. With man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.” And so he would frequently use this expression concerning Jairus' daughter, “She is not dead, only sleeping.” she's asleep, he used it with Lazarus before they went back to raise him from the dead, “Lazarus, our friend, has fallen asleep.” and they misunderstood, they're always misunderstanding Jesus. Well, if he has fallen asleep, he'll be fine. And he said, Lazarus is dead. And for your sake I'm glad- he's very plain, but he says, “Lazarus has fallen asleep.” So with Christ, the firstfruits of those who sleep, he is the first to be raised from the dead with a vast number of all of his believers to follow.

Now, when we say first, is he really the first in the sequence? Is he the first to be raised from the dead? Well, I would have to say in a beautiful theological way, yes and no, yes and no. In the Old Testament, there are three accounts of the dead being raised, one in connection with Elijah and two in connection with Elisha. So there were three in the Old Testament. Christ himself raised three from the dead. So up to the point of Christ's resurrection, six people were raised from the dead, I've already mentioned two of them, of course, Jairus' daughter, and Lazarus on the fourth day, and then there's the widow at Nain, and there's that funeral procession, and Jesus raises her son from the dead. So definitely there was, what I call, a resuscitation but they weren't resurrected in this sense, they didn't receive the resurrection body that Christ has now, that will be described later in this chapter, they didn't get that. They weren't delivered forever from death, never to die again, they were resuscitated back in the same pattern of life that they had before, we would have to say minus the fever or the illness that brought them to the grave, so they were restored to healthy physical life and resumed their path to the grave, and they're all dead now. All six of them and any that were raised in the apostolic era, they're all dead now. No one, as a matter of fact, no one in the universe has a resurrection body except Jesus. He's the only one.

And so Christ is not only firstfruits but he's also, as it says in Colossians, first born from the dead. First born from the dead. Colossians 1:18, it says of Christ, “He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.” He is set apart, is unique, so firstborn, there means first in rank in preeminence and authority and in the position in the family of God, he’s unique. And so Paul openly states in Colossians the reason that God willed that Christ should receive his glorious resurrection body long before anyone else was that he might have the supremacy. Do you see what Paul has to do here? He has to explain to these Corinthians, why do we not see any resurrection going on at all? Christ has been raised, it's preached, “Okay, we accept it. Now you're saying, we're gonna be raised, but I don't see any evidence of it. I've been at a lot of Christian funerals. I see no evidence.” Well, there's this gap between Christ and the rest of the harvest, so that he might have the preeminence.

Now, all those Christians who have died for 2000 years, the other Scriptures tell us what happened to them. They are absent from the body, present with the Lord. They are the spirits of the righteous made perfect. So their spirits, their souls, their minds are perfected. What I would call partially glorified, but glorification is not finished yet. They don't have their resurrection bodies, for those they are waiting, they're waiting for the rest of the elect to be saved, and they're not gonna get their resurrection bodies till the end. So Paul completely refutes any concept that Christ alone will be raised from the dead. Rather, he is the firstfruits within innumerable harvest from every tribe, language, people, and nation yet to come.

Now, next we get to the weighty theology of federal headship. Told you there's a lot of heavy things we have to walk through here, but we need to understand the concept, the theological concept of federal headship, look at verses 21-22. "For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive." This is the vital theological concept of federal headship. You don't need to know the phrase federal headship in order to be a Christian, but you do need to understand the concept. You need to understand, what does it mean? Federal means representative; we were represented by our head, by our first, our preeminent one, Christ. We're represented. That's the concept. So the idea here is that one man stood in the place of a huge group of people and represented them with certain significant outcomes. Alright? So federal means representative, one man representing the whole group. Paul asserts here in passing briefly what he clearly develops carefully in Romans 5:12-21, the idea of our headship in Adam, our federal headship in Adam. There it represents that Adam... Or it says, Adam represented the entire human race at the Garden of Eden, especially at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam had been warned clearly by God in Genesis 2:17, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day when you eat of it, you will surely die.” Wages of sin is death, the link between sin and death is made there in the warning before Adam fell into sin, he's warned. Now, when Adam subsequently reached out his hand and took that forbidden fruit and ate it, he was acting on behalf of all of his progeny. He was acting on behalf of the entire human race. All of his unborn descendants sinned in Adam and thus came under the physical death penalty. All of us died. We sinned and we died in Adam, death came through a man. Romans 5:12, puts it this way, "Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all men because all sinned." Now, that last phrase in Romans 5:12, "because all sinned." is the doctrine of original sin. That's what it is. We all sinned in Adam. So, we're seen in Adam as sinners because he represented us, every single human being represented- Adam represented at the tree, and the consequences of that federal headship is that every single human being dies, because we are descended from Adam, that's the link. That includes infants who never committed a sin that Adam did by hearing and understanding a command and violating it, but they still died because they were human, because in Adam, they sinned positionally. Now, you may be saying, as I've heard said many, many times before, "That's not fair. What did I do? If I had been there, I would have done differently. I would have lasted much longer than Adam did, I mean he made it one week." I wouldn't know how long he made it; we have no idea. But you would have done better. Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't. But in the providence of God and the wisdom of God, that was the man, Adam, and that's what he did, and he represented...

But here's the thing: that same principle of federal headship that condemns us to die also saves us to live forever. It's the same principle. It's the similarity that Paul raises in both Romans 5 and also 1 Corinthians. Look at verses 21-22, "For since death came through a man, and then also the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die so in Christ all will be made alive." Now, Paul states the same principle also in Romans 5, saying, "It works to make us righteous." We are righteous in our federal head, Adam’s single act of rebellion at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, made us all sinners, positionally. Christ's obedience makes us all righteous, and we will be raised from the dead based on that righteousness. Romans 5:19, "For just as through the disobedience of the one man, that many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man, the many will be made " Here's a beautiful word, "righteous." You are, if you're a Christian, righteous in your head, Jesus, in Christ, you are righteous. So by federal headship with Adam, we all sinned and we all die, so also by federal headship with Christ, we are all made righteous and all will be raised from the dead, made alive forever.

"Adam’s single act of rebellion at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, made us all sinners, positionally. Christ's obedience makes us all righteous, and we will be raised from the dead based on that righteousness."

Now, I need to say a word about the word, all, all. And I think it's worth doing this, 'cause if you look in Verse 27, he has to do the same thing when concerning what's gonna be in subjection to Jesus. All things will be in subjection to Jesus, oh, wait a minute, not God. God is excepted from all; he's not included in the, “all.” So Paul has to work on his "all’s," we all kinda need to work on our "all." So, what do we mean here? Well, there's a difference between Adam and Christ. Adam represents biologically, physically all human beings, so biologically, physically, all humans die. So the all represents the entire human race. But the all that Jesus represents are all the elect, all those that will be raised from the dead in Christ, all those that will eventually come to Christ, lots of different ways to say it. We could say it's similar; they both represented those whom they represented, completely. Adam represented all of his progeny; Jesus represented all of the children given to him before the foundation of the world; so this moves us away from universalism. We're not saying hell will be empty, we're not saying everyone will be raised in resurrection glory, no, all believers, all Christians, all those who have faith in Christ.

Now, second main point, Christ will resurrect Christians when he comes. So when will all this happen? What's the time table for this? The necessary consequence here is that all Christians will in the end be physically bodily raised from the dead, but when? Look at verse 23, "Each in his own turn: Christ the firstfruits; then when he comes, those who belong to him." So each gets resurrected in his own turn, Christ gets it first, to be preeminent, as we said, then, those who belong to Christ, he will raise from the dead. Now, I just wanted to stop and just let's meditate on the word belong. Those who belong to him, isn't that beautiful? Just stop and ponder that with me, just see how sweet that is. If you're a Christian you belong to Jesus, you belong to him. John 6:37, "All that the Father gives me will come to me." The elect are a love gift from the Father to the Son, here they are yours, they're yours. Or again, Jesus says in the good shepherd teaching, John 10:3-4, "He calls his own sheep by name, and he leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice." They are his own sheep. He knows them by name. And then Paul says in the same book, we're studying 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, "You are not your own, you were bought at a price." That's powerful, isn't it? You have been bought by Jesus, he owns you if you're a Christian. So here's the thing, move over to the bride image, there was a bride price paid by Jesus, and the price was his own blood shed on the cross. He bought us, he bought us with his own blood, and he will not allow his blood bought bride to stay dead, unable to respond to his love, unable to walk with him in the new heaven and new earth. He will not let her stay dead. I love the hymn, “The Church's One Foundation”: “The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord. She is his new creation by water and the word. From heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride, and with his own blood he bought her and for her life he died.” he will not allow her to stay in the tomb. Now, when will this happen? Well, it comes- it happens when he comes, it comes at the second coming of Christ. Look at verse 22-23, "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn, Christ the firstfruits, then when he comes, those who belong to him." Now the Greek word there is, parousia. Parousia, the parousia, the coming of Christ. There's a lot of New Testament theology on the coming, the second coming of Christ, Christ will return. He will come back. And so the consistent teaching on the timing of the resurrection is that's when it happens, it happens when he comes, it happens at the second coming of Christ. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, the clearest rapture teaching teaches this very, very plainly, look at these verses, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, "Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him, according to the Lord's own word. We tell you that we who are still alive, who are left to the coming of the Lord," that's parousia. "Who are left to the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with a voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, encourage one another with these words." That's all about the timing. It's when the dead in Christ will rise at the parousia, at the second coming of Christ. So, until then, death is the final enemy. We're gonna talk about that in just a moment. But that's the timing of the resurrection. There's a lot more complexity on this that some people bring in, but I got rid of it out of the sermon, the sermon's already too long. If you wanna know more of those complexities on timings, come and talk to me and I can confuse you as much as you'd like to be confused.

Third, Christ will progressively subdue all His enemies. Look at verses 24-28, "Then the end will come when he hands over the Kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power, for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he has put everything under his feet." Now, when it says that everything has been put under him it is clear this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ, “When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” If I can just tell you, this text, these five verses just get really infinite and ever-expanding until they swallow up your imagination and everything you can possibly think, and so there's no way we can plumb the depths of the significance of all of these words here today, God willing we’ll have more opportunities when I resume preaching in 1 Corinthians, but let's try to understand.

First and foremost, there is a plan for all of this, there is a plan going on here, that's how I began the sermon, everything's according to plan. And you may ask, "Okay, I get it. All of Christ's people will be physically raised from the dead, it's not happening now because Christ is the firstfruits and there's a long gap giving him preeminence, and we're gonna get our resurrection bodies at the second coming. What is he doing in the meantime?" Well, he is reigning at the right hand of God and is subduing, progressively subduing his enemies. That's what he's doing. And in this way, he is building himself a kingdom, that's a summary of what Paul says here. God has an amazing plan. Where are we heading? We're heading to the unification, the harmonization of all things, everything in the universe will be unified, everything in the universe will be harmonized under one head, and that one head is God and we could say God enthroned. Under the throne of God, so that everything is in subjection to his throne, not rebelling against his kingly authority anymore, he's not giving up the throne, that's not happening. We don't want it to happen. Everything's being brought in harmony under this one head, Ephesians 1:9-10 teaches the same thing. I think is Ephesians 1:10, one of the great underestimated verses, just meditate on it. Ephesians 1:9-10 says, "He has made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment." Okay, what is it? What is the plan? "To bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ." So that's it. Sin had, as I've said... I've used this analogy many times before, had a fragmentation grenade effect on the universe, everything got blown apart because of sin; things that were meant to be together have been blown apart. So start with vertical fellowship with God, that was the first most significant thing that got blown apart, and then horizontally fellowship with one another.

Now, the horizontal hit first, when Adam and Eve ate from the fruit, their eyes are open and they realized that they were naked and they made fig leaves to cover themselves because they were not one like they should have been, one as husband and wife any longer but felt ashamed with each other, and then that broken horizontal human relationship has spread to all human relationships. So Titus 3:3 says, "We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another." Do you not see evidence of that just- I would say every single day? “We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another." Broken horizontal, because of sin. That's why, but then more significantly is the vertical, they were estranged from God, so when God came and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the cool of the day, Adam hid himself, he didn't wanna have time with God, he didn't wanna be together with God, running away from God, not wanting to have time with him. “So the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’ And he answered, ‘I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.’” fragmentation, brokenness, and then man was estranged from nature, estranged from the planet, from the ground. This was the curse, Genesis 3:17, "Cursed is the ground because of you, through painful toil, you will eat of it all the days of your life, and it will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field." So, we are in an adversarial relationship with our environment as we wrestle with the ground to eat and survive, it's fighting us, there's a curse, thorns and all that. Romans 8:20-22 makes this plan as well, "The creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of him who subjected it in hope, that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." By the way, that's resurrection. I teach a resurrected earth where I really believe this earth is gonna be resurrected, same but different. Radically different. So that's awesome, that's awesome. "But the creation is groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time." And we see this in all of the horrors of natural disasters, Hurricane Laura, that's part of it. We should not imagine, "It's got nothing to do with any of this." No, it's part of it. Earthquakes, landslides, tornadoes, all of these things, famines, all of this, it's terrible. So, God in Christ is reconciling all of these fragments and bringing them back together into perfect unity. In the future he's gonna hand over the kingdom to God, look at verse 24, "Then the end will come when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father." In the meantime, he is progressively advancing that kingdom by one victory after another. He is reigning at the right hand of God and subduing his enemies.

Now, it says that he is advancing and subduing all rule, authority and power. Now, what does this mean? I think this refers first and foremost to demonic, satanic power that is controlling the unfolding events of human history. Satan is the power behind all of these human thrones that do evil, and there are archangels and different levels of angels that fell into rebellion with him, and they're called rulers and authorities and powers. The clearest teaching on this is Ephesians 6:12, where it says, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." So they're invisible spiritual powers, and they are fighting Christ's kingdom, they're opposing what he's doing. I believe that they have puppets, and they are puppet masters, and the puppets are human rulers, people who have positions of authority who are not redeemed, they're not seeking to use their governmental position like Daniel did for the glory of God. They're not seeking that, but they are rebels against God and they use their power to hinder the gospel in part or to make life miserable for other human beings, and so I think it extends to that, the final end of that will be the Antichrist and all of his sub-rulers who will dominate the entire planet in the name of pure wickedness, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 says, “that day [the end] will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of sin or the man of lawlessness,” called in 1 John: the Antichrist, “is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or worship, so he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” he will be blasphemously ruling, as a human being, over all the nations of the Earth. We're not there yet. Before that though, there are individual rulers, presidents, kings, Prime Ministers, rulers of communist parties in various countries who have been given power, and they have the ability to make decisions that shape and mold people's lives, but because they're not born again, because they're not redeemed, they are really serving Satan. As Jesus said to some of his enemies, “you're of your father, the devil.” and so they use their power wrongly to hinder, in part, to hinder the spread of the Gospel, now Satan claimed to be running the world, and in some sense he is. In Luke 4:5-6, “Satan took Jesus up to a high mountain, to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world, and he said to him, ‘I will give you all the authority and splendor, for it has been given to me and I can give it to anyone I want to.’” Now, isn't it wonderful to know in actuality, God is sovereignly controlling all of that, so Satan has his little puppets and they do Satan's will, unbeknownst, many of them are atheists or whatever, they don't believe in Satan, but he's manipulating them, but God is overruling all of it, isn't that awesome? And so what's happened is, Jesus is at the right hand of God and is controlling this ebb and flow of history, so that the elect can get saved, they can hear the gospel, and they can cross over, they can be rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of the beloved Son. And this is going on literally, dear friends, every single day, and Satan just keeps losing, he just keeps losing and losing and losing and losing.

Paul is quoting Psalm 110, Psalm 110:1-2, “The Lord says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’” Psalm 110:2, “The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, you will rule in the midst of your enemies.” That's awesome. Psalm 110, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’” That is an inter-Trinitarian conversation, overheard by King David, who then told us about it and wrote it down in Psalm 110, isn't that beautiful? By the Spirit, he heard what the Father said to the Son, the Lord the first Lord. In your English Bible, if you read in Psalm 110, will be all caps, LORD, Yahweh, the Creator, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, said to David's Lord, the Messiah, Jesus, “Sit at my right hand until I make all your enemies a footstool for your feet.” It's awesome. Now, what does that mean, footstool for your feet? You remember in the book of Joshua, after they won an initial battle against a bunch of kings, and the kings weren't dead yet, and he had them all lay down, and he told his commanders, sub-commanders and all that, come and put your feet on their necks, just put your feet on the necks of your enemies. It's total subjection, a complete victory for Christ over his enemies. “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” I love what it says about us, in Romans 16:20, listen to this, it's a great verse, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” How do you like to put your foot on Satan's neck? But this is a powerful image here: it's of complete victory. So Jesus is at the right hand of God, he is reigning at the right hand of God and is winning in hidden spiritual battles while the earth appears to be going to chaos, but it isn't, and he's winning the elect individually with countless stories that we'll learn about in heaven.

And we'll find out how Christ's enemies were subdued one after the other, and he is reigning at the right hand of God and he's subduing, and he is, I love this, plundering Satan's house. You remember when Jesus was driving out demons? He's driving out demons, and he just does it like with a word. Remember legion, the demoniac of the gatherings, remember this guy who is like naked howling at the moon and breaking chains, so that nobody even was in that region anymore because of this guy? And there are legion of demons, 6000 or more demons inside this man. In Matthew's account, Jesus drove them out with one word, “Go,” they're gone. That's power. And what is happening, or what ended up happening is Jesus' enemies said, it's by Beelzebub, by the prince of demons that he's driving out demons, he's the king demon, Jesus is, and Jesus refutes them and this is what he says, Luke 11:20-22, “If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed guards his own house, his possessions are safe, but when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils.” You Christian friends, you are the spoils, you're the plunder. Jesus defeated Satan, in your case, defeated demons that were assigned to make you miserable and tempt you and make you sin; he defeated them, conquered them and rescued you from the dominion of darkness. And now you're plunder: you've been rescued from Satan's kingdom, and now you're part of Christ’s kingdom. Now, no, you can't see this with your eyes, where it's going on, he's at the right hand of God and is winning victory after victory after victory, reigning, subduing his enemies, and that's what's happening. And so all of these enemies are being defeated progressively.

Alright, I'm gonna skip all this, let's go ahead to the last enemy, verse 26, “The last enemy to be defeated [or destroyed] is death.” verse 26, “The last enemy.” Now, this is one of the bitterest and yet most hopeful verses in this whole topic, and Jesus is not gonna destroy or defeat death until the end. Well, what that means is, his people will have to go through it. Will have to walk through it. If the Lord doesn't return in our lifetime, we're not part of that mysterious final generation, we will die, and that process will be painful, and not only for us, but for our loved ones or reverse: we will watch Christian loved ones die. I really believe this is why Jesus wept before Lazarus' tomb, he knew very well, he was about to resuscitate Lazarus, but he knew his people for 20 centuries and more would go through the sorrows and the bitterness and the pain of death, Christ could end death, could have ended it that day. He could end it now. But he will not do it. He's waiting, and so we have to walk through the gauntlet of sorrow and tears, we do grieve but just not like those who have no hope. And so Christian funerals are painful, people that we love, there are wonderful, beautiful people are removed from our lives and we don't see them again in this world, and all of the sweetness and the gifts and the blessings that flow to us through those people, we will not get them again in this world, and we grieve. Those people are in a better place and would not appreciate being brought back here, and how selfish for us that our present miserable lives are made a little bit better because they came back and walk some more with us, what it does tell me is, enjoy the time you have with Christian people while you have it, you don't know how long you have.

And so the last enemy will be defeated and it will. Jesus is going to throw death into the lake of fire, that is the death of death. And then Revelation 21:4, He will wipe every tear from their eyes. And there'll be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain for the old order of things. That's now has passed away. So those days are coming. 

Now, finally, fourth point, which I will not develop at all, just read the headings. So I told you this, this sermon swallowed me alive, and it would have been much longer than it already is, but there's just a lot to cover. Look at verse 28, “Then when he has done this, the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” This is the final version of the perfect harmony of heaven, when everything is harmonized under the throne of God, all opposition will have been subdued, all of Christ’s elect enemies, elect enemies as we once were, will have been converted and they'll be there celebrating his victory. All of Christ’s non-elect enemies will be in the lake of fire, receiving the just punishment for their sins, death itself, as I just said, will have been destroyed, then the creation will have been made perfect in total harmony with the people of God and with the plan of God, and it will be magnificent and beautiful. More next time, God willing.

So applications, first, live a holy life in preparation. Peter calls that new world that's coming the home of righteousness, you're going to a world of perfect holiness, that should motivate you to purify yourself from all wickedness. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. Get rid of things that defile that have no place in that beautiful, perfect holy world.

Secondly, understand that the present miseries, the present disharmony and violence and suffering came about as a result of Adam's sin, and is part of God's plan that we would hate evil and sin the way he does. We Christians have an explanation for what's happening, many of these other forces in our society, they just have rage, they have no plan, no explanation, no understanding of the heart, just rage, but Christians have an explanation of why it's happening and a remedy and what to do in the meantime, we just need to live up to it and just understand.

Thirdly, look forward with great hope to the perfect unity and harmony of all things in heaven. We're gonna be with brothers and sisters from every tribe, language, people, and nation, in perfect Trinitarian level unity with each other. And that's something to look forward to.

Fourthly, understand the significance of death as the final enemy. Death is here, we're gonna walk through it, we're going to have to grieve with those who grieve, we ourselves might have to go through the dishonoring, painful process of dying, and it is. We'll talk more about that, God willing in the future. Just understand that, and understand that doesn't mean Christ doesn't love you. It doesn't mean that he's not walking with you through it. Death is the final enemy; he'll destroy it. In the meantime, he will be with us when we pass through the waters.

And then finally, to each of you individually, make certain that you yourselves are born again, that you have received from Christ the forgiveness of sins, that you yourself will be among those he raises out of the tomb by calling you by name. All you need do is believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and God raised him from the dead. And call on the name of the Lord and you will be saved. Close with me in prayer.

Lord, thank you for the time that we've had to study today. It's been rich and it's been full. There's a lot to understand in these verses, thank you for Paul walking the Corinthians so many years ago through deep, rich, full theology. And Lord, I pray that you would please strengthen each of us to understand your word, to take in the things that we've learned today. And to be able to explain these truths to people who surround us in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, at the coffee shops, who just seem bewildered and who have no answer, help us with gentleness and with love to point to Christ crucified and resurrected as the answer in Jesus’ name, amen.

Christ is the firstfruit of those who will be resurrected and he will gradually subdue his enemies and bring creation into submission.

The post God’s Final Purpose in the Resurrection (1 Corinthians Sermon 60) appeared first on Two Journeys.

In anticipation of the crucifixion and ascension into heaven, Jesus prays in front of His disciples that God would glorify Him in order that He might glorify the Father. To have eternal life is to know the Father and the Son. Jesus prays that they may be kept safe in the world and may be one, as perfectly united as the Father and the Son. He mentions Judas, the one who was lost that the Scripture might be fulfilled. The net result of the prayer for protection is that no disciple may lose their salvation.

The post John 17:1-12 Episode 35 – Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer, Pt.2 appeared first on Two Journeys.

This podcast answers the question, "What is Christian spiritual maturity?" In this episode, Andy discusses a lifestyle pure from sin in sex, speech, relationships and pleasures.

The post Sanctification Monday, Ch.15: Action – Lifestyle appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on 1 Corinthians. The main subjects of the sermon are the logical consequences of there being no true bodily resurrection.

So turning your Bibles to 1 Corinthians Chapter 15, if you're not there already, we're looking at these verses, verse 12-19, and as we look at these verses, the question that emerges in my mind more than anything else is how do I know that my life is significant, how do I know that my life will mean anything at all? Is there any worth and value to my life and yours as well? And that's a question that presses itself on our minds, everyone has it, Christian, non-Christian alike, the search for significance. A few years ago, I heard a powerfully moving song called “The Green Fields Of France.” It was written about the immeasurable tragedy of World War 1. It was written from the perspective of a traveler who's walking through the green fields of France, comes to a cemetery entirely dedicated to soldiers that fell in that war and he rests by the grave side of one young man named Willie McBride and he sings to the young man, the dead man, he notes that he was only 19 when he joined the great fallen in 1916. Maybe the Battle of the Somme, something like that. And in the next stanza the song speaks of being forgotten by those that he once loved, this is what it says, "And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind, in some loyal heart is your memory enshrined, and though you died back in 1916, to that loyal heart you're forever 19? Or are you a stranger without even a name, forever enshrined behind some old glass pane, in an old photograph, torn tattered and stained and faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?" This concept troubles all of us that a few years from now, a few decades from now, there would be not a person on planet earth that even knows that we ever lived. That all that could happen at best would be some old faded photograph of us that no one can identify at all, that our lives actually were entirely worthless, they were stripped of all significance by the passing of time.

When I was in high school, there was a song by Kansas, the rock group Kansas, called “Dust in the Wind,” gets at the same idea. The lyrics go this way, "I close my eyes only for a moment, and the moment's gone, all my dreams passed before my eyes, a curiosity. Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind.” Same old song, "Just a drop of water in an endless sea. All we do crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see. Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind." Well, is that a concept we should wrestle with? I think so.

There's an entire book of the Bible devoted to that theme, the Book of Ecclesiastes. And in Ecclesiastes, the preacher, we don't know who he is, traditionally, people have seen him as King Solomon, maybe, maybe not, it doesn't matter. But he identifies himself as a king in Jerusalem, and he had lived a very prosperous and successful life, he had built great buildings, including many different houses for himself to live in. He had planted lush gardens with amazing fruit trees and irrigated them by systems that he himself devised. He enjoyed all the pleasures of life, food, wine, music, he drained every moment, every moment of his life for all the pleasure it could give him. He was brilliant. He was accomplished. He was rich, he was powerful, he was everything a person could be and achieve and have in this life; he had it all. But here was his conclusion as an old man, "Everything is vanity of vanities." another translation, “meaningless, utterly meaningless. What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.” Ecclesiastes 1:14, “I have seen all the things that are done under the sun and all of them are meaningless, all of them are vanity, a chasing after the wind." Then in Ecclesiastes 2:11, it says, "When I had surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Nothing was gained under the sun.”

Well, the whole book of Ecclesiastes is a study of life under the sun, and I think it is a perfect complement to this section of 1 Corinthians 15 that we're gonna study today, an extended meditation, I think, the book of Ecclesiastes, an extended meditation on: what if there is no resurrection from the dead? What if this life really is all there is, then what? What if all you get is 70 or maybe 80 years, and you live and you do lots of stuff, but then you die and within a couple of generations, no one knows that you ever even existed. Is it not truly meaningless, vanity of vanities or dust in the wind? So the apostle Paul ruminates on this for the whole section of the text we're looking at today, if, if, if, if, if. What if? You see in this text, that word, what if? If, if, if Christ, if there is no resurrection, if Christ does not... That's what he's doing. And whereas, Ecclesiastes takes it out practically, what happens if there is no resurrection. It doesn't mention that that's what he's talking about, but it is. If this life is all there is, these are the practical implications. Well, Paul does it theologically. He takes this concept out to its logical end theologically. And that's what's before us today.

So point one, the challenge to the resurrection, then and now. The resurrection itself is challenged. It's a challenged doctrine. Greek philosophy challenged it, the idea that the pure spirit was incarcerated in the prison house of the flesh and that you wanted to be liberated from that physicality, it was a dualistic way of looking, flesh is evil, spirit good, that kind of thing. And that had infiltrated, it seems, the Corinthian church, because in verse 12, if you look at verse 12, this is the key concept that Paul is dealing with for the whole chapter, “How can some of you say there is no resurrection from the dead?” That's what he's dealing with. So some of you are saying that. So the Greek philosophers challenged the concept of the resurrection from the dead, so also many Jews of that generation challenged the concept of the resurrection. The Sadducees openly denied that there is a resurrection; Jesus dealt with them in his life. Nowadays we have challenges to the resurrection as well, scientific materialism. I mentioned many times, Stephen Hawking, the physicist, atheist, basically, evolutionary viewpoint, everything comes from atoms, it all comes, it's material and chance and time, that kind of thing. It all just came together. So what that means is all of your inner life, all of your dreams, your hopes, your thoughts, your plans, what you love, all of those internal things are just biochemical illusions, that when your brain is dissolved by death will go, they have no meaning, they're gone. There are challenges still to the doctrine of the resurrection.

Now, Paul's approach here is to prove the resurrection. The backdrop is in verse 12, “some of you say there is no resurrection from the dead,” so he begins by going back to the gospel. I'm gonna remind you of the gospel. We're gonna go back over it. “Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, he was buried, he was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures.” 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. So he goes back over the facts of the gospel. And when he says “according to the Scriptures,” all of this was predicted, the death of the Messiah, the resurrection of the Messiah, these things were predicted in Old Testament prophecies, but not only that, there's historical proof that we've already walked through, eyewitness testimony: the 12, James, 500 brothers and sisters who saw the resurrected Christ with their own eyes. “Most of them still alive,” Paul says, “though some have fallen asleep. And then I myself saw him on the road to Damascus. I myself, the apostle of the Gentiles,” Paul says, “saw the resurrected Christ,” so that's eyewitness testimony.

But now he goes into the theological and logical aspect, which he will unfold for the next number of many verses, even beyond today's section. Who is Paul arguing against here? Is he arguing against cultured despisers of Christianity? People who are so erudite and the philosophers of his age and all that; is he dealing with that, the irreligious atheistic mocker? I think not. Because the way he argues in these verses, he brings it out to horrendous conclusions that are not horrendous for those people. They're like, "Yeah, exactly, you are a bunch of frauds; there is no resurrection." So he's not arguing against them, that's what they think anyway. No, he's arguing what we would say within the camp, within the church, within the walls of the church, spiritual walls, there are people, Corinthian church members who are saying there is no resurrection from the dead, look again, verse 12, "How can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?" Now, we don't know how many of the Corinthian church denied resurrection or how influential they were, but Paul has to deal with this, he has to address it. And he spends 58 verses on this topic, that's how important this is.

Now, perhaps these people taught that resurrection is kind of a spiritual ideal, it's an idea that then has a transforming effect on the way you see life; it just affects your moral behavior. This is very much like classical 19th century liberalism, which on the quest for the historical Jesus, the demythologizing that happened with liberal theologians, they're saying, "Well, we know that didn't happen. Those miracles and the deity of Christ and the resurrection, none of that happened. It does represent the fondest hopes and dreams of people, etcetera, but all that really matters is what effect Christianity has on you, on your heart, on your family life, on your behavior. It doesn't really matter whether Christ rose from the dead or not.” So that's just same thing. And so Paul is arguing against that, “so also the miracles are spiritualized, they didn't really happen, but how does it make you feel? Does it give you hope? Does it inspire you today to live a better life?” That's the whole approach to liberal Christianity. So Paul is arguing, I think, against false doctrine within the ranks and here in these verses shows the logical outcome of their doctrine that resurrection is impossible, and they really should be, if they're genuine Christians, horrified at these logical conclusions, it should be absolutely repulsive to them. So that's what he's doing.

And here we see, I think, the role of logic in the Christian life; we are called on to think, called on to reason. Paul is very logical, he reasoned in the synagogue and in the marketplace day by day, he was preaching a reasonable gospel. You look at the book of Romans, there's so much logic in it, if this is true, then that's true and then how much will the other be true as well, that kind of thing, it's very logical. Jesus did the same thing. "Consider the lilies of the field. If that's how God closed the grass of the field, which is here today, tomorrow thrown in the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" He's logical, he's reasoning. Isaiah 1:18 says, “‘Come, now let us reason together,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you're willing and obedient, you'll eat the best from the land, but if you resist and rebel, you'll be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’” Let's talk about this, let's reason together. Christianity is a reasonable religion. Logic then, is sound thinking and part of salvation is to learn how to think rightly, to think soberly and to reason out our faith based on the word of God. Based on the word of God. So Paul's logical tactic here is what's sometimes called a reduction to absurdity. “If your doctrine is true, let's spin it out as far as it'll go, and let's see where it takes us, and if you find that every step of the way has been logically connected and you end up there, then go back to the start and say, ‘This must not be true.’" And that's what he does, reduction to absurdity. So he takes out this viewpoint and he comes to seven conclusions that should be detestable to any Christian. What are they?

Well, first, if resurrection itself cannot happen, if there is no resurrection from the dead, number one, Christ himself has not been raised, and then number two, then all Christian preaching is vanity. It is worthless. It is useless. Number three: then all faith in Christ would be worthless, including yours and mine. Fourth, then all witnesses to the resurrection are false. Fifth, then all human beings are still in their sins. Six, then all dead Christians are eternally lost. We'll never see them again. And then number seven, all suffering Christians are to be most pitied of all people on the earth, these are the seven conclusions he comes to. Now, I have to say, if you don't think those conclusions are devastating, you're almost certainly not a Christian. If you're like, "No, I can live with all that", it's like, "Okay, well, we know where you are then." So for me, this is reprehensible. We do not wanna go there. Let's walk through each of them. The devastating consequences if there is no resurrection. 

So if there is no resurrection from the dead, number one, then Christ himself has not been raised. Look at verse 13, "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised." So if resurrection itself is a logical, scientific philosophical impossibility, then Christ himself has not been raised, makes sense. He is not the exception that proves the rule. He himself would have succumbed to the inevitable. When he breathed his last on the cross, outside the city gates of Jerusalem; that would have been his last moment of existence. Beyond that all his teachings and moral examples would have been rendered null and void for he claimed he would be raised on the third day, and if he has not been raised, he is exactly what his enemies said he was, a liar and deceiver of the people. We can't cherry pick some of the moral examples of Jesus and say, "He's a good moral teacher, an admirable individual." C.S Lewis just dispensed with this in the Lord, Liar Lunatic trilogy. Remember, he says, "He claimed to be God, he either is or isn't. And if he is, you should worship him as Lord, but if he isn't, then either he knew it or he didn't, and if he knew that he was not Lord, but claimed to be, then he is a liar of the worst order. If however, he really believed he was God, and he wasn't, then he was insane. 'Cause he's surrounded by a fierce Jewish monotheism and they would have told him somewhere along the line that that view was inappropriate, but you cannot,” as CS Lewis says, “go in for the patronizing nonsense that Jesus is a great moral teacher if he actually hasn't been raised from the dead.”

Secondly, if resurrection itself is impossible, then Christ has not been raised from the dead, “And if Christ has not been raised from the dead [verse 14], our preaching is vanity [or useless].” Preaching itself is useless. Paul's 18-month ministry in Corinth was a complete waste of time. In fact, all the church planning that Paul did was a waste of time throughout Asia, Asia Minor and Greece; that would have been useless, vanity of vanities, chasing after the wind. It would have been better for the pagans to just stay with their pagan lifestyle, he's a disturber of the peace, he came in and troubled everything, upset the apple cart and for nothing, it was useless. And it was a waste for Paul to walk through all of the issues he was walking through, the details of his preaching against factions and divisions or against- on church discipline or on marriage and all that. Forget it. The whole thing's a waste of time. So I'll just stop and just talk about this moment right here, you all can go home. This is preaching right now, right? This is Christian preaching. So it's just a waste of time. To make it relevant, right here, right now, I am wasting my time. I don't think I am, so I'm gonna keep going. But it would be a waste of time if Christ had not been raised.

Thirdly, then “if Christ has not been raised,” if there is no resurrection, and then quickly “Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” Your faith is vanity of vanities. He makes it very personal. Each one of you, he says to the Corinthians, you are wasting your lives, you're wasting your time; your faith is useless. And I'm gonna extend it across 20 centuries now to us. You who got up this morning and got in your cars and came here, you have wasted your time this morning. Those of you that are watching livestream, you are wasting your time if Christ has not been raised, that's what he was saying. And not only that, but all of our Christian lives, our faith is bigger than just believing in Jesus, it's everything connected, our Christianity, our giving to the poor and needy, all the missionary work that we've done, evangelism, all of the whole system of the Christian faith that's unfolded for 20 centuries was useless. All of it.

Fourthly, then all witnesses to the resurrection are false. Look at verses 15-16, “More than that, we are found to be false witnesses about God [it's very significant], for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead, but he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.” So Paul has already said that his preaching was useless, vanity, but he's going beyond that now, he's saying actually the preaching was fraudulent, it was a lie, and in his case, claiming to be an eyewitness, a willful lie. He is a liar. He claimed to have seen the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus and that was the basis of his call into ministry, his call to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, was his seeing of Christ. You know in the book of Acts, that account is given three times, three lies in the Book of Acts, the whole story would now be rejected as an official lie, it's a fraud, a fraud.

But not only that, the apostles who stood in downtown Jerusalem, fearlessly preaching that they had seen Christ raised from the dead, absolutely no fear of their own death, they were willful liars too. They were not only that, they were willing to die for a lie, 'cause they did die. So then I guess we would have to believe the official Jewish story about what happened to the body, because now we need an answer for what happened to the body, because Christ has not been raised from the dead, so the official story in Matthew 28:13 was his disciples came during the night and stole him away while we, the soldiers, were asleep. Now, when I preached through that I said that's so completely untenable, because then the people knowing the Roman army would have to ask them, "Why are you still alive?" They would have killed you. You were put on sentry duty and you fell asleep. But I won't go down that rabbit trail, I'm just saying that's not tenable, but etcetera, that must be... Something like that must have happened because Christ has not been raised from the dead, so whatever happened to his body, I don't know, it's a mystery. We gotta figure that out, but he has not been raised. And they knew it was a lie. Now, beyond that, all of the great preachers and missionaries of 20 centuries of church history, we're standing on a foundation of lies, we're not the same level of liars as the eyewitnesses, but we are basing our lives on a lie. So that means Augustine, Chrysostom, Martin Luther, John Calvin, George Whitfield, John Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, Hudson Taylor, all of these that preached the resurrection, the whole thing is a fraud. The whole thing comes crashing down; it's based on a lie. All of it. That they were, all of them, deceived, every one of them, and based their lives and their preaching on a lie.

Fifthly, then all human beings are still in their sins, verse 17, "If Christ has not been raised, then your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." Do you understand the significance of that? You are still in bondage, in slavery to sin. You're still under the wrath of God, as John 3:36 says, "Whoever rejects him will not see life, but God's wrath remains on him." It says in verse 3 of our chapter, "Christ died for our sins, according to the Scripture,” but he didn't then, because it was in the resurrection of Christ from the dead that his atoning death was proven acceptable to a holy God. Our vindication is found in the resurrection from the dead. When Christ said “It is finished,” then God said, "Yes, it is finished" by raising him from the dead. As it says in Romans 4:25, "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification." For our justification, but also his, if you take justification as vindication, but if you just wanna keep it as justification, Romans 4, his resurrection is part of our forgiveness of sins, it's the finish of the transaction, Christ died for his sins, God accepted it by raising Christ from the dead. But if Christ has not been raised from the dead, Paul says, we are on our own, we have no mediator, the God-Man, between us and- the human race and God; we have no mediator. We who are walking in darkness have seen no great light. There is no light. We are like the whole world: dead in our transgressions and sins and bondage to Satan. We are like the rest of the world without hope and without God in the world. We stand moment by moment under the just wrath of God, waiting for condemnation to come, if Christ has not been raised.

Sixthly, then all dead Christians are eternally lost. Verse 18, “Then those who also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.” Dead believers, Old Testament saints, Old Testament saints. Think about that great Chapter, Hebrews 11, the hall of faith. John McArthur calls it the hall of fools, based on this chapter, based on the logic... If Christ has not been raised from the dead, they're all fools. All of them: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, David, and the Prophets, all of them looking ahead to the resurrection of the Christ, which did not happen, so they wasted their lives. Abraham should have stayed in Ur of the Chaldees as a moon worshipper if there is no resurrection from the dead, we'll never see them again. We're not gonna sit at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 'cause there is no resurrection from the dead. What about Job? Job 19:25-27, "I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end, he will stand upon the earth and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh, I will see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes, I and not another, how my heart yearns within me.” Is that not a fiery faith in the resurrection from the dead in the midst of his misery? Of course it is. But he's a fool, if there is no resurrection from the dead. This isn't going to happen, Job 19 is never gonna happen. In his flesh, he's not gonna see anything, it's done when he dies.

And all of the heroes in The New Testament and all the heroes of church history beyond, they all died in a lie, they all died in deception if Christ has not been raised from the dead. And then, we should actually at Christian funerals, grieve like the rest of the world who have no hope. We should wail and grieve because this loved one in the casket, we'll never see them again. We'll never see them again. And those of you that are consoling yourself about some incredible Christians that have made all the difference in your life, would have gone on, so you say to be with the Lord: a grandmother, grandfather, a mother or father, a friend, a mentor, dead. They've perished if there is no resurrection from the dead, you'll never see them again. And all of the millions of Christians who died well, they fought the good fight, finished the race, kept the faith, they died in hope, filled with hope, with their family standing around their bedside, looking down at their radiant faces, and they're saying things like, "I know that for me the best is yet to come." The whole thing is fraudulent. Let me just tell you one thing, I can't keep this going much longer, but it won't go much longer, Paul couldn't keep it going much longer either, but just hang in there. We have one more point. This is so dreary.

But number seven: then all suffering Christians are most to be pitied on earth, look at verse 19, "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." Now, this is a challenging verse. Don't just blow through it. Just read it. Is it true of you? Not necessarily. But was it true of Paul? Let's just stick with Paul for a minute. Was it true that 'we' at least means Paul? I think it definitely refers to him. Well, why would it be true that Paul is worthy of more pity than any other person on the face of the Earth. Well, look what he gave up, he was a ladder-climbing Jew, well connected with some of the richest Jews on earth because they were just filthy rich through the- Annas and Caiaphas and all those guys at the Sanhedrin, they were just running a corrupt religious machine and making tons of money. The moneychangers, remember, that Jesus drove out of the temple? Paul was in with those people, and so everything you could want in this life was his. He was heading for the corner office, I don't think they had a corner office, but he was going there. Threw it all away because he saw Jesus on the road to Damascus. Well, what was his life like after that? You know what his life was like after that? I've said before, I'll say it again, I don't think I know anybody in church history who suffered as much and as long as the apostle Paul. No one. His credentials trumps everybody else's in church history, everybody. It's incredible.

Now, Jesus promised that suffering Christians could look ahead beyond the resurrection to rewards that would last for all eternity. He said in Matthew 5:11-12, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me, rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." You can look ahead, if you're suffering for Christ, you can look ahead to a great reward, but that includes the resurrection. If there is no resurrection, that's gone. There's no reward. What about Paul? 2 Corinthians 11:24-27, "Five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one." Five times his back was shredded. It's incredible. "Three times I was beaten with rods." So that's different than the other five beatings. "Once I was stoned." That usually kills you. That's execution. But he survived somehow. "Three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I've been in danger from rivers and danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea, in danger from false brothers, I have labored and toiled and often and gone without sleep, I've known hunger and thirst and often gone without food, I've been cold and naked. I did all of that for the hope of the resurrection." He says it plainly in Philippians 3, "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things." “I traded them in.” “For what?” “That life that I just described. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ.” A few verses later, Philippians 3:10-11, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead." Do you see how all that goes away if Christ has not been raised? We are, of all people, the most to be pitied.

So I would extend that then to all Christians who suffer for the gospel, who suffer because they're Christians, who suffer extremely to spread the gospel. Think about Stephen who saw heaven open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God in his resurrection body. That isn't true if Christ has not been raised. And Stephen died in hope of the resurrection. James the first apostle to be martyred, Peter crucified upside down for his faith in Christ. Those who wet the sands of the Coliseum with their blood, whom Tertullian calls, “The blood of martyrs, seed for the church.” Seed for the church, fraudulent, a waste if Christ has not been raised. When you think about our brothers and sisters who have suffered and are suffering in persecuting countries now, who are incarcerated and many of whom have in fact been put to death, if Christ has not been raised, they are of all people to be pitied. They wasted their lives. So this is a challenge to us in the affluent comfortable West. Is it true of us? Not necessarily. This one line isn't necessarily true of everyone, because what Christianity has done in the west is set up a socio-economic system that has produced huge amounts of peace and order and prosperity, and we've come along and benefited under the umbrella of people who suffered for the faith in previous generations. So it's not necessarily true that we are of, all people on planet earth, the most to be pitied, that's not true, 'cause we're not necessarily suffering the way Paul and Peter and the others have suffered, but it is true of Paul. And he says in verse 19, "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men."

So I consider verse 19 a challenge to me that I'd be willing to step out more in faith, to be willing to suffer some in this world, to be willing to lose some things for Christ in this world so that there is more and more sense that verse 19 could be true of me. Well, honestly, that's enough of Paul's argument. Amen? I'm ready to move on. And even though the scripture listing is just up to verse 19, is it okay if I just go ahead to verse 20? I'm going to whether you say it is or not, but I sense that many of you are nodding, “Please, let's go on to verse 20.” "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." Amen. Hallelujah. And not just for he himself alone, but he is the first fruit of a vast harvest and we're included.

So if the resurrection from the dead is not impossible, let's flip all of those seven back over. What do you say? Let's flip them. Then Christ himself has indeed been raised just as he said. And not only that, he is vindicated in all his claims, all of them. He is in fact the Son of God, God the Son. Because it says in Romans 1:4, "Through the spirit of holiness, Jesus was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead." Jesus Christ our Lord. So he was vindicated as God. Secondly, he is vindicated, as what he said, "The only way to God." If Christ has been raised from the dead, then his statement, "I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me." is completely vindicated. So what that means is all the other faiths are proven fraudulent by his resurrection from the dead, all of them.

And not only that, his role as mediator is established, his role as sitting at the right hand of God interceding for you for you is established, and his role as the future judge of all the Earth is established as Paul preached in the Areopagus. Acts 17:31, "God has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." So you wanna know how we know Jesus is the judge of all the Earth? By his resurrection from the dead. Jesus put it this way, because he is the Son of Man, God has entrusted all judgment to him. So when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory and all the nations will be gathered before him. And he, he will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he'll put the sheep, the believers, on his right and he'll put the goats on his left. He has the right to do it. And how do we know that? Because Paul says, God raised him from the dead. That's how we know.

Secondly, then all Christian preaching is not useless, but powerful. “I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” So Christian preaching is powerful, not useless. Nothing has changed the unfolding history of the earth as much as the gospel of Jesus Christ, the proclamation of the gospel, witnesses going forward to proclaim Christ died and Christ is risen and by faith in him, your sins are forgiven. That has had the most impact of human history than anything else there has ever been.

Thirdly, then all faith in Christ is not useless, including yours, dear brothers and sisters; you're not wasting your lives, not at all. Your faith is precious, of worth greater than gold, Peter says. It's valuable. And it will result in eternal life. You're going to live forever. As it says in Acts 10:40-43, "God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins in his name." So is that true of you? Do you believe in a crucified, resurrected Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins? That's what God is offering to you today, right now, that's the gospel.

Fourthly, then all witnesses to the resurrection over 20 centuries were telling the truth, Christ has been raised from the dead, and we who never saw him but have based our lives on the eyewitness testimony recorded in the New Testament, we have built on a solid rock that will never move. The eyewitnesses played a unique role in redemptive history, we didn't see with our own eyes, but the apostles did and they wrote it down, and they testified to what they've seen and we believe it and it's not a lie.

Then fifth, it is possible, then, for human beings to be saved from their sins. More than just possible, if you have believed in this gospel, you are saved from your sins. The wrath of God will not come on you; you're not lost. Six, then all dead Christians are not eternally lost, none of them are. We will see those people again. Isn't that beautiful? So we don't grieve like those who have no hope at a Christian funeral, we don't grieve like those who have no hope. We will see each other again.

And then seventh, then all suffering Christians all over the world and in every generation are not the most pitied on Earth, but they will be for all eternity the most honored in heaven. Now, I want to create in me and in you, a yearning to be one of them. I don't think everybody gets equal honors in heaven, not at all. Some people suffer more than others for Christ, but those that suffer are not to be pitied. And Jesus said to them, "Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven."

So applications. Obviously, the first and greatest I just touched on a moment ago. Just be certain that your sins are forgiven, be certain that you yourself believe this, this is required for your own salvation. You have to confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead ­­– this is not an option. Secondly, let's reject liberal Christian (so-called) theology. It really does matter whether Christ is raised from the dead or not, it's not just a matter of how it makes you feel. And so the quest for the historical Jesus is over, friends, read about him in the pages of the New Testament. Amen. There it is, you don't have to quest for the historical Jesus and demythologize, any of that. Just read it and believe it. Christ really did those miracles, he really did heal those people, he really did feed the 5000, he really did walk on water, he really did rise from the dead. And so we don't need to embrace that actually, it's poison. It's just simple poison. History matters. It really did happen. Then thirdly, life is not vanity of vanities. I really believe 1 Corinthians 15 is the big answer, the vigorous answer to the depressed preacher of the book of Ecclesiastes. I know he wrote Scripture, the Lord wanted him to write what he wrote, but it's phenomenal pre-evangelism, that's all it is. It's really how lost people, pagans and unbelievers should think about life. Read Ecclesiastes, think like this, if there is no resurrection from the dead, but if there is, now look at verse 58, if Christ has been raised from the dead, then nothing is vanity of vanities, and especially not your service to Jesus, “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord," why, Paul? “Because you know that your labor in the Lord is not vanity of vanities,” it's not meaningless. It actually is eternally consequential. Isn't that exciting? Doesn't that make today exciting, doesn't that make this week exciting? God has gone ahead of you, Ephesians 2:10, and prepared good works of eternal consequence for you to do and they are not in vain. So let's labor for the Lord.

Fourthly, let's be holy. This is Paul's personal application. If there is a resurrection from the dead, some day we're gonna give an account to Christ for everything done in the body, whether good or bad. So you should be holy. If you don't wanna talk to Jesus about it personally on judgment day, then don't do it. This is what Paul says in Acts 24:15-16. "I have the same hope in God as these men, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked, so I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man." Vertically, horizontally, I try not to sin because there is a resurrection. Be holy, and then fifth, be willing to suffer more for the gospel than you do, be willing to step out in faith, be willing to take some insults, to take some hits. I believe that it's going to get harder and harder in America to be a bold, clear Christian witness. It's gonna get harder, not easier. I see that in our surrounding culture, it's more hostile to Christianity than it was 10 years ago, so that gives us an opportunity, doesn't it, to suffer for Jesus, to speak bold words of hope to people who are without hope and without God in the world.

Close in prayer. Lord, thank you for this time to study 1 Corinthians 15, these verses incredible, and I thank you for the way Paul reasoned through the implications if there is no resurrection from the dead, but we thank you for the triumphant statement in verse 20 that Christ has indeed been raised and, God willing, we'll look at it next week, what does first fruits mean? How are we part of that vast harvest of resurrected people that will live forever in resurrection bodies? Lord, we look forward to that. Help us by faith, O Lord, to walk in holiness, to walk in bold witness, to do the good works you have for us to do, we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

If there were no resurrection, Christians would face devastating consequences. Praise God for His power to defeat death and raise His saints!

The post The Devastating Consequences If There Is No Resurrection (1 Corinthians Sermon 59) appeared first on Two Journeys.

In anticipation of the crucifixion and ascension into heaven, Jesus prays in front of His disciples that God would glorify Him in order that He might glorify the Father. To have eternal life is to know the Father and the Son. Jesus prays that they may be kept safe in the world and may be one, as perfectly united as the Father and the Son. He mentions Judas, the one who was lost that the Scripture might be fulfilled. The net result of the prayer for protection is that no disciple may lose their salvation.

The post John 17:1-12 Episode 35 – Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer, Pt.1 appeared first on Two Journeys.

Jesus answers His disciples questions about His return to God, and prepares them for suffering. He concludes by telling his disciples to have courage, for Jesus has overcome the world.

The post John 16:16-33 Episode 34 – Grief, then Joy, Pt.2 appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. The main subject of the sermon is the unchanging nature of the truths of the Gospel.

Well, this morning, I have the joy and the privilege of preaching the gospel to you. I am so excited to talk to you about the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and so I was sharing that with Christie this morning. And I said those words, she said, "But Andy, you do that every week." And I really do, I desire always to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ right into every sermon. It's a commitment I've made years ago. But sometimes the text itself openly, clearly proclaims the gospel and facts of the gospel, and that's our situation today. Paul said, "Of the gospel, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." This gospel has the power to transform hearts and lives, and so it has been doing for 20 centuries.

The gospel specifically has the power to transform hostile skeptics and enemies into ardent worshippers of Jesus Christ. There's a long track record of the gospel doing this. I think about Lee Strobel, for example, who's an atheist, he was an investigative journalist for the Chicago Tribune, he had a law degree, has a law degree from Yale, and he was an award-winning journalist, but an atheist, his wife was converted to faith in Christ, and his initial reaction was to think about divorce. He did not want to be married to a Christian wife, but instead what he decided to do is try to debunk Christianity. So he started to investigate it like you would any other topic as an investigative journalist, and the more he got into it, the more he investigated the evidence, specifically of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he was more and more convinced that it was true and he was converted. Lee Strobel wrote a book called Case for Christ.

I think about earlier in my Christian life, I was ministered to by Josh McDowell through Campus Crusade for Christ, same kind of story. He was writing a term paper as a college student, he was an atheist, agnostic I guess, and he decided he was going to examine the historical evidence for the resurrection in particular. And as he investigated more and more the historical evidence for whether Christ's raised from the dead he also was converted. He wrote one of the most significant books in our lifetime: Evidence that Demands a Verdict. I think also about Nabeel Qureshi, who was a Pakistani American, grew up in a loving Muslim home, loved to debate and had a Christian friend as a fellow student, and he wanted to defeat this guy in a debate by proving that Christianity was false. And it's the same story, he investigated the claims of the historical religion of Christianity, of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, he also did the same for Islam, looked at the origins of Islam, what happened to Muhammad in the cave and all that, and the more he got into this investigation, the more convinced he became that Christianity was true, historically true. That Christ actually rose from the dead. He wrote a book Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. It's an amazing story.

Now listen, God doesn't always do this, he doesn't always take the academic route, he does in some famous case, C.S. Lewis was like that, C.S. Lewis was an academic conversion through book study, in philosophical study and through debates with J. R. R. Tolkien and other friends, he was trying to refute and was won over by a very logical process of investigation, and C.S. Lewis said, "I was the most reluctant convert in all England," I mean, if ever a guy you would say was dragged kicking and screaming into the kingdom it was him, but he just could not resist the arguments of Christianity. But Richard Baxter back in the 16th century, the 17th century, he's a Puritan, he said, "God breaketh not all men alike." And by the word breaketh, he means breaking to his will like the breaking of a wild bronco to faith in Christ, it means to convert... God doesn't convert everyone in the same way, there's different ways that God uses; there are different persuasions that God uses. And one of the joys we're gonna have in heaven, I believe, with all my heart, is to find out how the countless multitude from every tribe, language, people, and nation were individually converted. And you may say to me, "Now pastor, that's gonna take a while." Well, we've got a while. When we've been there 10,000 years bright and shining as the sun, we've no less days to find out other people's testimonies than when we first began, I know that's not what “Amazing Grace” is, but we've got plenty of time. And you will have limitless interest in finding out how this brother or this sister from centuries before you were born was converted.

You'll find out, for example, a Viking raider named Oleg Tryggvason, was won to faith in Christ, and from his raiding Viking ways by a prophecy made by a hermit, a monk on an island that came true, circle back, found out more about Christianity and he came to faith in Christ. Augustine of Hippo was, didn't need any more philosophical arguments, didn't need any more argumentation, he just was battling lust, he was batting sexual temptation, and he didn't wanna give up that lifestyle until he heard a child singing, a little child's song, “Take up and read, take up and read,” and there was Romans 13 open for him, ready for him to read, he reads it and was converted by a moral injunction, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to satisfy its lust.” it converted him, Augustine of Hippo. Then there's Constantine, who was battling for the empire, control of the empire, before a key battle he had a vision of the cross in the heavens, the cross of Jesus Christ. He was well familiar with the Christian gospel by now, that's the progress that Christianity had made from the upper room in Jerusalem. Over three scant centuries it had made that level of progress to where a man who would soon become the emperor of Rome, the most powerful man on earth, considered whether to become a Christian. The vision convinced him, whether he was genuinely converted at that moment or not, I don't know. I do know this, he was eventually baptized toward the end of his life as the Roman Emperor, and his baptismal robe, his white robe, he took off his purple robe as the emperor and put on his white robe to be baptized and never took it off again. And in that faith, he died, raised his kids as a Christian.

So God doesn't always convert people by means of intellectual study at the historical facts concerning the resurrection, but let me tell you something, Christianity will bear the close scrutiny, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the accounts of the resurrection of Jesus Christ has converting power. And we're gonna look at that over the next number of weeks in 1 Corinthians 15. This entire chapter is dedicated to the bodily resurrection, not just of Jesus Christ from the dead, but of all the followers of Christ. That Jesus is actually the first fruit of a vast harvest of resurrected people. That's what this chapter is about. And as we do, we're looking at an ancient writing, an Epistle that was written to the Corinthian church centuries and centuries ago, but God's word never changes, it's an unchanging word, and so the facts of the gospel are unchanging.

Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, "Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." And as we look at 1 Corinthians, there is a central concept here, a central idea that dominates the whole chapter, and it's in Verse 20, it says, "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." The bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead is a historical fact, and it's not just a historical fact, it is a pattern for all of us who follow that we also will be raised from the dead. That is the central dominating theological fact of this chapter. Along with it is an application for all of us. And it's at the very end of the chapter. We're gonna see it again and again. Look at Verse 58, it says, "Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm, let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." So knowing that Christ has been raised from the dead, and that all of the elect chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, will most certainly some day be in resurrection bodies, and nothing will stop that. What that means is that everything we do for the gospel, everything we do for the church of Jesus Christ has eternal consequence, eternal value. Does not matter what your spiritual gifts are, it doesn't matter how little the work may seem, your labor in the Lord is not in vain, so let's be abounding in that work. So that's the central idea of 1 Corinthians 15, and the central application.

 The gospel (this is my first point in the outline) the gospel is our top priority. The gospel is our top priority. Now, the apostle Paul is writing to the church in Corinth and, let's try to understand their context, we're at a new section now in 1 Corinthians, we have began a new portion of this incredible epistle, the entire epistle has been the apostle Paul addressing significant problems in a local church there in Corinth, a church that he helped plant by the preaching of the gospel, significant problems there. This is, and it's not an overstatement to say: this is- was a dysfunctional church. They were messed up. They had a lot of problems, and so Paul addresses. So in chapters 1-3, by way of review, he's addressing the factions and divisions there are in the Corinthian church: “I follow Paul,” “I follow Paul,” “I follow Cephas,” factions and divisions. And their reason for following them are worldly, they're following them because of worldly reasons, they're following human beings and they don't understand Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God. Chapters 1-3, and then chapter 4, he addresses the fact that the Corinthian church yearn to be loved and esteemed and honored by their pagan neighbors who are pagans, who are going after pagan things, and they want to be esteemed and loved and honored by pagan neighbors when the apostles are like scum of the earth, the refuse of the world; they are men condemned to die in the arena, they are hated as they're faithful to Christ, and so it's almost like one of those old multi-level department stores like Macy's in New York, where the Corinthians were on the up escalator going up to the top floor and the apostles were on the down escalator, going down to the basement, and they're passing each other, and Paul's saying, "You're on the wrong escalator, you're going the wrong direction, you shouldn't yearn to be loved in this world and esteemed and wealthy and comfortable and held in honor. You should yearn to follow Christ wherever he leads. And Christ was crucified in this world, so you have to be willing,” that's Chapter four.

Then chapters 5-6, he addresses moral problems in the Corinthian church. Chapter 5, there's a man there that's committing egregious sexual immorality, and the church should have disciplined him, kicked him out of the fellowship, chapter 5. Chapter 6, he addresses lawsuits among the believers, the fact that some of the believers were visiting temple prostitutes, sexual immorality, chapter 5-6. Chapter 7, he has to address marriage issues, divorce and remarriage, singleness just the whole view of marriage, and he has to address that in chapter 7. Chapters 8-10, three chapters on meat sacrificed to idols. They'd come out recently out of paganism, there was a new religion, Christianity, there are new approaches, but others were struggling with aspects of that religion with meat sacrificed to idols, and Paul has to address the community and how they're going to have a community approach to meat sacrificed to idols, three chapters on that. Chapter 11, he has to address problems with the Lord's Supper, as some of them were gorging themselves in Lord's Supper bread, others were getting drunk on Lord's Supper wine and there's major problems as a result of their misunderstanding of the Lord's Supper. Then in chapters 12-14, a section we just finished last week, Chapter 12-14, he's addressing spiritual gifts in the church, what they are special abilities, and the fact that they're messed up in that too.

So now we come to a new section, and in that we come to a new problem, a new difficulty in the life of the church, look at verse 12, and Paul says, “If Christ actually is preached, that he is raised” and then, “how can some of you say there is no resurrection from the dead?” that's the problem he's addressing. There were some Corinthians who believed that bodily resurrection from the dead was impossible, they didn't believe in it. Didn't mean that all of them thought that way, but some of them did, and as he said, a little leaven leavens a whole lump, a little bit of bad doctrine can spread, so he's got to nip this thing in the bud. That's the problem. Now, almost certainly this was coming from their Greek pre-commitments to philosophy, they were committed to Greek systems of philosophy, and many of those systems, like the Epicureans, for example, or Plato, they looked at the body as basically a prison house for the pure spirit the pure soul, it was the seat of all problems, of all the difficulties. The Epicureans, for example, denied the immortality of the soul. They said, "This life is all there is, so grab all the gusto you can in this world," they also believe that the soul was made up of atoms like the body, and so when your body went into the ground and was disintegrated, your soul was gone too. You know, honestly, that doesn't sound much different than what British atheist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking said, before he died, he said this, "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers, that is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark." Well, I think it's amazing, John Lennox, Christian mathematician, answered that statement: “Heaven is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark.” he said, "Atheism is a fairy tale for people afraid of the light." I thought that was a helpful re-joinder. As Jesus himself said, “Everyone who hates the light will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” But anyway, it's the same idea: your dreams, your thoughts are biochemical reactions that are deceiving you, material stuff is all there is in the universe, when that breaks apart, the dreams are ended. That's the philosophy, the Epicureans taught, that kind of thing, and Paul had to face the Epicureans and stoic philosophers in Athens, which was not far at all from Corinth, and those same ideas, it seems, we're filtering in when Paul preached the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead some of them sneered. Acts 17:32, “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead some of them sneered,” it was not well received. So this philosophy evidently had affected- infected the minds of some Corinthian Christians.

Well, that's their context. What's our context? Well, some things are new and some things are not new, some things will never change. New things in our settings, the year 2020 has been a year that none of us, I think, will ever forget. It's been a very difficult year, a very challenging year. Obviously, the pandemic COVID-19 has reminded people of the fragility of life, the change-ability and fragility of our lifestyle, not just of our physical lives, but the key elements of our lifestyle are very fragile and can be broken apart, actually pretty easily. The death totals that are tallied every day that we can see worldwide, remind us of the danger of the disease itself, but frankly, it should cause us- our minds to lift up beyond this one disease to all disease and realize we are all mortal, we're going to die, that never changes. Beyond that, of course, with the death of George Floyd and with all the demonstrations that followed, and all of the anguish and anger, just focused attention on human sinfulness and it has forced people to ask ultimate questions, but these questions are current, they're new, they weren't around a couple of years ago, but the basic issues have never changed, they are the same. Job put it very plainly in Job 14:14, "If a man dies, will he live again?" Is this all there is? Or is there life after death? And again, beyond that, there's the constant fear of death itself, Hebrews 2:15 speaks of people who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. We are surrounded by people who, if they were honest, would say they're afraid to die; the author to Hebrews calls it a slavery and bondage to this fear. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that, “God has set eternity in the hearts of men.” So everyone's aware of eternity, it's there in our hearts, these things never change, but we see the reality of death around us, all the time people die, and we never see them again in this world.

Paul, therefore, felt the need with these unchanging realities to go back to the basics, go back to the first principles, to reassert the top priority of the gospel, what he says as of first importance. Look at verses 3-4, "For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance [top priority]: Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures.” This should be the top priority for every Christian church in the world, for every single individual as well, top priority, there are so many fascinating doctrines that could engage our attention. Christianity is a fascinating set of doctrines. We could spend a lot of time on the millennium, the bodily reign of Jesus Christ on Earth, and of the rapture, we could spend a lot of time talking about the rapture, it'd be endlessly fascinating. We could talk about the complexities of theology, like predestination and free will and how those things harmonize, we could talk about questions of the Jewish nation, the nation of Israel, their heritage, their future, all of those hot topics. Beyond that, there are hot topics of current events, many of which I've already mentioned in this sermon today, we could spend a lot of time talking about the pandemic, the best way to respond, churches staying opened or shutting down different… There are all kinds of debates we could get into. We could talk about social justice and issues of that, but this is the top priority. Every single church should focus on the gospel, and Christ crucified and resurrected, as a first importance, the top priority. That's why Paul used this language early in 1st Corinthians Chapter 2:2, "I resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified." That's a clear overstatement. Paul talked about all kinds of things. I've already listed all the topics he goes through. But what he's saying is, “This is home base for me, this is the center of my theology, Jesus Christ and Him Crucified, this is first importance, this is top priority for me,” Paul says. The gospel is of first importance, and why? Because of the infinite worth of the eternal human soul, as Jesus said plainly in Matthew 16:26, "What would it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his soul?" That means your soul is worth more than the whole world, all its possessions, all its powers, all its pleasures, your soul, which will last for all eternity, is worth more than all of the world, and it would profit you nothing to gain the whole world, if you would, in the end, lose your soul. “What would you give,” Jesus asks, “in exchange for your soul?” What, of all the world, would you give? Or conversely, what would you retain or hold on? “Well, I'll give you that for my soul, but not this.” The world is nothing compared to the value of the soul, so the gospel is of top priority because of the worth and value of the eternal human soul. Also, because death is inevitable, the wages of sin is death. We are going to die, all of us, if we're not part of the mysterious final generation, which will be alive when Jesus returns, we will most certainly die. As it says in Hebrews 9:27, "It is appointed to each one of us to die once, and after that, to face judgment." And what does that mean, “to face judgment?” Well, it's plain, the Bible teaches, again and again, every one of us will appear before the judgment seat of God. We will give an account for everything done in the body, whether good or bad. We're going to give an account for every careless word we've ever spoken. Revelation 20:11-15 describes it, "Then I saw a great white throne, and him who was seated on it, Earth and sky fled from his presence and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the Book of Life, and the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. And if anyone's name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." The lake of fire is the second death. That's hell. Now, we Christians believe that when we die, that's not all there is. There's eternity in heaven or eternity in hell. Those are the two options. That's biblical truth. That's why the gospel is of first importance. That's why Paul said: "I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile." And so that's why the Gospel must be of first importance for me as a preacher and for our church, for First Baptist Church.

So therefore, Paul reminds the Corinthians of the Gospel. Look at verse 1. "Now brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, and on which you have taken your stand." I wanna remind you of the gospel. Now, actually, the Greek doesn't say remind, it just says, "I want to make known to you, the gospel." But he says, number one, he already preached it to them. And number two, this is the gospel on which they have taken their stand or built their lives, so therefore, the idea really is of a reminder of the gospel, remind. The gospel is basic, you've heard it before and you will hear it again. And as a matter of fact, you need to hear it, you'll never graduate beyond the gospel, you're never gonna get to the point where, "Yeah, yeah, I got that. I don't need that anymore." Why is that? Well, because our salvation is a work in progress, and the basic truth of Christ crucified and buried and resurrected, will be useful and necessary to our faith until we die. And so, we're gonna forever go through this, this process, until at last, we lay down our faith and we don't need our faith anymore, and we see God face-to-face. And so, all faithful pastors, all faithful churches must continue to remind people of the facts of the gospel. This is the ground every Christian is standing on. This is the rock that Jesus likens it, not sand, but the rock on which you have built your life; that will never move. Heaven and earth will pass away, but this gospel will still be here. It is a solid foundation for your lives, and you, oh Corinthians, and you Christians, you have built your lives on this unshakable gospel. But Paul says every Christian has to continue to hold firmly to this Gospel message. Look at verse two, "By this Gospel, you are saved if you hold firmly to the word I preach to you, otherwise, you have believed in vain." You believed in vain. So the faith that we had at the first moment of our conversion, when we were born again, that faith, we must continue to have until we die. We have to continue to hold firmly to this gospel message. Paul's effectively warning the Corinthian Christians that they have to keep holding firmly to the gospel they believed at first. You don't need a new gospel, you don't need different articulations of the gospel; you need to hold firmly to the gospel you believed in at first. Jesus said plainly, "He who stands firm to the end will be saved." he who stands firm to the end. So you have to continue to hold firmly to this gospel message by faith. Otherwise, he says, you have believed in vain. What does that mean, to believe in vain? Well, James chapter 2 talks about that. There are different kinds of faith, there's demon faith and dead faith, and deluded faith, delusional faith. There are different kinds of faith. If your faith is genuine, you will continue to believe and you'll continue to produce good works, James says in James Chapter Two. So this true faith must persevere to the end of your life.

Now, I, as a Calvinist, as a believer in sovereignty of God and salvation, once saved, always saved, I believe that whatever you need to keep believing in Jesus, you will receive. He's going to keep feeding your faith, secretly feeding it, until at last you don't need it anymore, and faith is exchanged for sight. He's going to sustain you. But you need to know that you need to keep believing. You need to be warned to keep believing, there's many such warnings in the Bible, and this is one of them. So Paul goes back over the basic facts of the gospel message, verse 3-4, "For what I received, I passed on to you as a first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, according to the scripture." 

 So this is a second point of my outline, the gospel is founded on Scripture's testimony of Christ. The gospel is founded on Scripture's testimony of Christ. Notice that Paul says he received this gospel message. He makes it very plain in many places, this gospel message is heaven sent. It's not anything we concocted. So in Galatians 1:11-12, Paul says, "I want you to know, brothers, that the Gospel I preach is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it. Rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ." A number of years ago, when I was about ready to go on my first mission trip back in 1986, I had a good friend, a Christian friend, whose mother was not a Christian. And she was a sweet lady, we had dinner together, and she was very offended that I was going as a missionary to try to persuade people to believe in my views. She thought it was arrogant. I said, "Well, actually, I understand that it would be arrogant if the gospel were something I concocted in my own basement, my- like my secret brew, and I was saying it was the best in the world. But it's not anything I made up, it's something I have come to believe is true." And so it is, Paul says, "I didn't make up the gospel. I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ." God revealed Jesus Christ to Paul on the road to Damascus, and then he taught him the gospel doctrine directly by revelation. It's revealed, it's not anything we made up, no one could write Jesus like a fiction writer could come up with this, ever. This is something that was revealed from heaven, Paul says.

Now, this revelation though, had been going on for centuries before Paul was born. The foundation was laid in the revelation of Scripture. Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture. Christ was buried. Paul could have added, "According to the scripture," there are scriptures about the burial of Jesus, how he's buried in a rich man's tomb, etcetera, but he doesn't. At any rate, Christ then was raised from the dead, according to Scripture. All of this had been laid out ahead of time in the Scriptures. This is vital because it shows us how the facts of the gospel are tied irrevocably to the Bible, to the written word of God. We know nothing about Jesus apart from scripture, nothing. As I've said before, there is such a thing as natural revelation, we can learn things about God the Creator; we can learn invisible attributes and the existence of God, things like that, from looking at sunrises and sunsets. But you can't learn anything about the Trinity or the second person of the Trinity, or the story of the incarnation, the sinless life of Jesus, his miracles, his atoning death, His bodily resurrection, all of that must come from the pages of Scripture. It's forever tied to the written word of God, that's why John wrote, "In the beginning was the Word." There's a link between Jesus and the written word of God, and so Paul makes that link.

This link, Jesus established in his ministry. He was debating with his enemies in John Chapter 5, after he healed a paralyzed man on the Sabbath and they start engaging him in debate. And Jesus said many things in John chapter 5, but one of the things he said to his enemies, the Pharisees and chief priests, he said, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them, you possess eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." He said a few verses later, "Moses wrote about me." So the ancient scriptures contain prophecies testifying to who Jesus was and what he would do. And so he did that before he was killed. After his resurrection, as he appeared to his disciples, he clearly established the text that they were going to take out and preach, that they were going to use those texts, those prophecies, as part of their evangelism and their missions. You remember the two disciples on the road to Emmaus? The ones who were so depressed, so downcast, it was such a sad day. Remember what a sad day. Remember Mary weeping before the empty tomb, thinking that Jesus was the gardener. Remember all that? All these tears, and then there's the depressed disciples on the road to Emmaus, the two disciples so downcast, "We had hoped that he was going to be the one, and now we don't know what to think because our women have come and have said the tomb is empty. We don't know... We can't make heads or tails of it." You can't figure out what's going on? So Jesus said to those two disciples, “‘How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken? Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.” Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, he was buried; he was raised from the dead, according to the Scriptures. These scriptural arguments of Jesus's status as the messiah were the basis of Stephen's defense of Jesus that he debated; I think Paul was there. I don't think Paul lost many debates in his life, but he lost that one that day. As Stephen was debating and showing the evidence that Christ was the Messiah, as he was debating with members of the synagogue or the Freedmen, as it was called, Jews from Tarsus, Cilicia, etcetera; that was Paul. Paul couldn't refute it. And then, once he was converted, once Paul was converted, right away, he began preaching in the synagogue from those same scriptures, that Jesus is the Christ.

Now, what are these prophecies, what are some of the most important prophecies about Christ's life, death, and resurrection? I think they're five in particular that you need to memorize, you don't have to memorize the words, but these are the five you want to go to, these are the key prophecies. For example, who is Jesus? The identity of Jesus. Jesus circled Psalm 110. He began the discussion with his opponents, he said, "What do you think about the Christ, whose son is he?" "Son of David," they answered, that was the rote answer. "Well, how is it then, that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him Lord? For he said, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ If then David calls him Lord, how can he be his son?" Psalm 110. So this has to do with the supernatural identity of the God-man. He is descended from David, but David calls him Lord, and so he is God. Psalm 110. Then there is Christ's substitutionary atonement; his death on the cross was a substitution. You could argue all of the animal sacrifices were prophecies of Jesus, they really were. But it was articulated- it was described in Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53:4-6 is the most substitutionary atonement passage in the entire Bible, including the New Testament. This is what the prophet wrote six centuries before Jesus. "Surely, he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him, the iniquity of us all." That's substitutionary atonement. That's why Jesus died. He died in our place. Isaiah 53, written six plus centuries before Jesus was born. Psalm 22:14-18 describes the actual mechanics of crucifixion, written by David a thousand years before Jesus was born. And Psalm 22:14-18, He says, "I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death, dogs have surrounded me, a band of evil men has encircled me. They have pierced my hands and my feet." Wait, what? "They have pierced my hands and my feet?" When did that happen to David? There's no record of that ever happening to David. "They have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones, people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing." Those are the actual details of crucifixion, predicted a thousand years before Jesus was born and predicted four centuries before the Assyrians invented crucifixion. Then there's Christ's bodily resurrection from the dead. He was raised from the dead according to the scriptures. Psalm 16 is the central text. Peter preached it on the day of Pentecost, because Jesus taught it to him. And there, in Psalm 16, it says, "You will not abandon me to the grave nor will you let your holy one see decay," Psalm 16:10. Then Peter makes the point, "Look, David could not have been writing about himself. He died, he was buried, his body decayed. But he was writing about the Christ, that he would be buried, but not see decay, and God would raise him from the dead."

And then, the most, perhaps, in some overarching sense, the most significant prophecy of all, is the Daniel 7 prophecy of the Son of Man. This is why Jesus consistently called himself the Son of Man. And there in that vision, you have Almighty God on his throne, ruling over planet Earth. And into his presence, riding on the clouds, comes one like the Son of Man, and he receives from Almighty God, sovereign power and glory and the right to be worshipped by all the peoples, nations and people of every language. Who is worshipped but God alone? And there is clear picture of a human being, the Son of Man, who receives worship, and that is Jesus, Daniel 7. Those five. Like, "Pastor, I'll never remember all that." So write down on a little piece of paper or put it on your note section of your smartphone and say, "Okay, it's a witnessing chance, let's go through these five prophecies." These have converting power, because they were written centuries before Jesus was even born. Well, they're unchangeable. And these fulfillments- the fulfillment of prophecy, was the foundation of the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Again and again, they use the word, "fulfilled." They cite actual prophecies. That's how we preach Christ. 

 Thirdly, Christ's resurrection is vital to the gospel. We can't take the resurrection out and still have a gospel. This is Paul's main point. You can't argue that there is no resurrection from the dead, and as time allows in the future, not today, we will see in later verses, how Paul says, if Christ has not been raised, we have no gospel, we have no faith, we have nothing. And so, not only are the Scriptures clearly testifying that Christ would rise from the dead, but also, we have eye witness accounts. Look at verses 5-8, "he appeared to Peter, then to the 12. After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the Apostles. And last of all, he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born." Now, eyewitnesses are the key to establishing a historical event, something in the past. It's the basis of our court system, we have to establish what happened and then we can make a judgment on that event, and eyewitnesses are essential to that. Now, in Jewish law, two or three witnesses was what was needed to establish any historical fact. Deuteronomy 19:15, "Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses." So it is for any historical event, it will never happen again. How do we know the Battle of Waterloo occurred? Well, there were soldiers there that gave eyewitness accounts. And so it is for any historical event, we can never... We can't re-enact it in a laboratory, that's the uniqueness of history, the way you get it is primarily eyewitnesses.

Now, two or three is all that's needed, but there's a river of eyewitnesses that Paul brings forward here. He lists people who saw him and who testify to him by name, Peter (Cephas), Peter and James, and the 12. The apostles in particular, the 12, had as a central job description, being eyewitnesses of Christ's life, his death and his resurrection. After Judas betrayed and went to his death, they were trying to replace Judas to be one of the 12, and one of the requirements was, there had to be one of the disciples who had been with us the whole time Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John's baptism, for one of these must be a witness with us of his resurrection. Eyewitness accounts, that's what the apostles did. James, in particular, is fascinating. Brother of Jesus, we talked about it when we went through the book of James. Seemingly, it seemed, an unbeliever while Jesus was doing his public ministry. John chapter 7 says even his own brothers did not believe in Him. But something radically changed him. He was in the upper room waiting for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He became a pillar in the church in Jerusalem. What happened? Jesus appeared to him, personally, and James fell down and worshiped him. And so he appeared to James, and, it says, to 500 witnesses. Imagine how long it would take to get their testimony one after the other. “I have seen the risen Christ.” 500 eyewitnesses, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. So that is clearly establishing the fact. Now, here's the thing, we don't get any of that, friends, we don't get to talk to eyewitnesses, what do we get? Well, you get this: you get the Bible. You get John saying, "That which we have seen with our eyes, what we have handled, this we proclaim to you." We get the Scripture. And frankly, if you don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the basis of Scripture, you will never believe. There's no other source of information. Old Testament prophecies, New Testament fulfillment. That's what we get.

Now, William Lane Craig, who's an apologist, said that there are basically four facts that everyone agrees on that debates concerning the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. First, the entombment of Christ, an honorable burial, we know in Joseph of Arimathea's specific tomb. Secondly, that tomb was empty on the third day, the tomb is empty, or else his enemies would have produced a body. Thirdly, Jesus appeared to people after he was alive who gave eyewitness testimony that they had seen him. And fourthly, all of the early disciples believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, wasn't some mythology that came in centuries later, these basic facts. Now, William Lane Craig has gone around debating, he's an apologist, defending the faith, and has debated people all around. He debated this professor from the University of California, and he said these four facts kinda put you in a box. He said, "Well, I have a solution. Jesus had a twin brother, and they were separated at birth, and he came in just around the time of the crucifixion, no one knew he even existed, and he went and moved the stone, buried Jesus's dead body and presented himself as Jesus- as Jesus resurrected from the dead." Do you see the lengths you have to go to try to argue away the resurrection? Let me tell you the simplest way to argue it away. This is how it happens. I shared the gospel, these kinds of things, with a nominal, kind of lapsed Roman Catholic up in Massachusetts, a co-worker named Larry. I went through all the historical things, all the prophetic evidence, I did all this, later I said, "What do you think?" He said, "I guess Jesus rose from the dead." That was it. "I guess Jesus rose from the dead; let's eat." It didn't move the needle for him at all; it just didn't mean anything. It was a scent but it wasn't belief, it wasn't faith. Other people, just like Napoleon, he said, "I don't even think Jesus ever lived." Well, he clearly wasn't much of a historian. So you could say there was no Jesus, therefore there was no Joseph of Arimathea, there was no tomb, etcetera. Those are the kind of things you have to start doing. But let me ask you a question, why then within three centuries did Constantine think it was at least politically expedient to paint the cross on the shields of thousands of Roman soldiers? Some progress had been made. There are just some basic facts we have to deal with. It wasn't some later mythology. The tomb was empty. The tomb was empty. 

Fourth point, the Gospel of Grace saved and commissioned the Apostle Paul, look at verses 8-10, "Last of all, he appeared to me also as to one abnormally born. For I am the least of the apostles, and I do not even deserve to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace to me was not without effect. Now, I worked harder than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me." The resurrection of Jesus Christ transformed the apostle Paul. Story is well told. Paul was a ladder-climbing, zealous Jewish man who was trained in Jewish theology at the feet of one of the great teachers of his time, Gamaliel. He was advancing, he says, in Judaism beyond any one of his age. He was zealous for the traditions of his fathers. He debated with Stephen and lost. That started what one preacher called a ticking time bomb in his mind. He watched the way Stephen died so filled with grace, “Lord, don't lay this sin at their charge.” But he, Saul of Tarsus, began to destroy the church. He went from house to house and dragged off men and women, threw them in prison. He even went to the council, the Sanhedrin, and obtained letters that gave him the authority to go to Damascus and arrest any Jews there that were following this cult. And as he was en route on the road to Damascus, suddenly a bright light, blinding light, "brighter than the sun", he said, filled the road. And he heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" And he asked one of the most remarkable questions there's ever been in church history. "Who are you, Lord?" Just ponder that one for a while. "Well, I know you're Lord, but who are you?" But in some sense, it's a fair question. We're all still learning Jesus, aren't we? We'll be learning him forever. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. "Who are you, Lord?" "I am Jesus." Those words changed Paul's life and changed the history of the world. "I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting. Now, get up and go into the city and you'll be told what you must do." And that was the conversion of Saul, Acts 9, two other accounts in the Book of Acts.

Saul's mission, he was told what he must do, was to begin preaching Christ from the Scriptures, and he did preach him immediately in the synagogue in Damascus and began an amazing career of preaching. He's the very one who's writing this epistle, and he ascribes his salvation directly to the grace of God. "For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God, but by the grace of God I am what I am. And His grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them, yet not I but the grace of God that was with me." God's grace in Christ covered all of Paul's sins. God's grace in Christ was powerfully effective in transforming his mind and heart. God's grace in Christ commissioned him to be the apostle to the Gentiles. God's grace in Christ gave him a relentless energy to preach Christ where he had never been named.

Paul said he worked harder than anyone, and it's true. If you study his life, there was a three-legged stool to his approach. He would reason every day in the marketplace with pagans who happened to be there, trying to persuade them to come to Christ. In the evenings, he would train Christian disciples in theology. Late at night, he would make tents and supply, with his own hands, his own needs and the needs of his companions, and then on the Sabbath he would go into the synagogue every week and reason with the Jews from the Scriptures that Christ was the Messiah. That was his life. He said, "I worked harder than all of them." So he produced that energy, he produced that work, but then he says, "Yet not I, but the grace of God that was in me." That was Paul's life and Paul's commitment to the unchanging message, look at verse 11, “Whether then it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed,” centered on the resurrection. Next verse, verse 12, “How then can some of you say there is no resurrection from the dead?” God willing, we'll get to that.

Applications, first and foremost: is there anyone listening to me, either live here or by live stream, who doesn't believe that Christ was raised from the dead. I'm begging you. Come to Christ. I'm pleading with you: find forgiveness of your sins through faith in Christ. I say it every time I preach. Say it again. Christ has been raised from the dead; he is the first fruit. Do you know for certain that you're going to go to heaven when you die? This is what the gospel is for. It is the power of God for your salvation. Trust in Christ. Secondly, if you're already a Christian, rejoice in the resurrection more than you do. Rejoice every single day that Christ defeated death. Later in this chapter, he's going to call death the final enemy; it's going to be with us, we're going to have grievous times. But understand this, Christ has defeated death. He holds the keys of death in his hand. Rejoice. We need that, don't we? In this age of the pandemic and all that, we need people that are just transcendently filled with hope. Transcendently. Be that way.

And then as you have opportunity, as people ask you to give a reason for the hope that you have, evangelize. And even if they don't ask, initiate with them. Be bold as lions. Go out and share your faith. Initiate with people, start conversations. Learn the key texts or just one of them. Do Psalm 22, "They pierced my hands and my feet." Written a thousand years before Jesus. Talk about that, say, "What do you think about that? How could this happen, written so many centuries before Jesus?" Have a conversation. If you should attend a Christian funeral, a funeral for a Christian, even if it's someone very, very near and dear to you, do not grieve like those who have no hope. Christ has been raised from the dead, and this loved one who died in Christ, you'll see them again and they'll spend eternity in a resurrection body, glorious and radiant. Rejoice.

Therefore, prepare to die well, as a Christian. You're going to die. If you're not part of the mysterious final generation, you're going to die. Prepare to die well. Say, "Well, Pastor, how do I do that?" Well be courageous in your little trials, day by day. Don't complain. Don't murmur against God. Stand firm in those trials. Know that someday a greater trial is going to come. You're gonna get your final exam at the end of your life. Prepare to die well by dying to yourself day by day, putting sin to death by the Spirit day by day. Prepare to die well. And then finally, verse 58, read it, “Be energetic in your service to Christ, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” Close with me in prayer.

Lord, we thank you for this incredible chapter. We thank you for the clear testimony that Christ has been raised from the dead. We thank you for how clearly it's based on Scripture. Father, I pray that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit, give us joy in our salvation, give us energy in our ministry toward one another, in our mission toward lost people. Help us, O Lord, to stand firm in the Gospel, to remind ourselves of it regularly, to speak the words of the Gospel to our family members and to our friends and co-workers. Give us that boldness, O Lord, that is our birthright as Christians. In Jesus’ name, amen.