Standing on Resurrection - Pastor Tom Loghry
Pastor Tom reminds us of the hope that we have in the resurrection of Christ.
Transcript:
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? If there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been risen. And if Christ has not been risen, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.
Amen. 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. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Today is the day when everything changed. But you may not realize this. Perhaps you think that the church is simply a place where morals are taught. Do this, don't do that. Maybe you think that Christianity is just a bunch of speculative beliefs about God found on the shelf next to every other religion.
Possibly you even appreciate the meaning that it seems to give to some people. It's just something that's not for you. Or maybe you have found that it's for you. You have tasted and found Christ to be good. You embrace Jesus. You embrace the Church, even if you don't understand it all. Some of you might even have a decent grasp of things.
But what I will say today concerns us all because everything has, in fact, changed. Jesus died on the cross. But he did not stay dead. He rose from the dead three days later and he is still alive today. He is the first human to ever do this, but he will not be the last. This is why I say everything has changed.
You can pursue moral discipline your whole life long, but you're still going to die. You can believe all you want about God and the spiritual world. But what reason do we have to believe that it holds any water? Where's the proof? Why should I believe it? Unless something radical happens. Something like a man who claimed to be the son of God.
God in the flesh. The savior of the world. Being crucified by professional Roman killers, and yet, coming back to life in the flesh days later. That, in fact, changes everything. And it is the very core of the Gospel. The Apostle Paul addresses this in his letter to the Christians in Corinth. Within 25 years of Jesus resurrection from the dead.
We look at 1 Corinthians 15, and this is what Paul says in the first eight verses. Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preach to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preach to you.
Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I pass on to you as of 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 scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve. After that he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters 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 one abnormally born.
Paul says that this summary is the very substance of the gospel, which is just, the word gospel is taken from the Old English, which is deriving from the original Greek word euangelion, which means good news. This is the good news. He's reminding us that it is by this good news we are saved. And what's interesting is that he relates to them a series of details that seem almost formulaic.
And scholars believe that in these verses it's contained a formula that probably came together within three to five years after Christ's resurrection and ascension. So to break it down in kind of numeric order, Paul says that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was buried. He was raised on the third day, also in accordance with the Scriptures.
He appeared to all the apostles, Paul included, James, brother of Jesus, and 500 other disciples. So it wasn't just one or two people who saw Jesus. It was a number of people who saw Jesus. The same Jesus who was crucified, who was put in the tomb, dead as a doornail. They saw him alive. They spoke with him.
They ate with him. To pick out just a couple of the details here. Paul says that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and also that he was raised from the dead according to the scriptures. The Scriptures anticipate both Christ's death and his resurrection. Now, I won't take you to a text on the latter account, but, because I could take you all across Scripture, but just as kind of the big lens picture, all the Old Testament is pointing us towards the death and resurrection of Christ as the necessary intervention for the salvation of humanity. Because the condition of humanity, as God finds us, is one in which we are rebels. We have rebelled against God as our creator.
That's fundamentally what Adam and Eve did. They decided, we want to be our own gods, live life on our own terms, apart from God. And the thing is, God let us do that. He let us live life on our own terms, apart from Him. And apart from Him, we have known only brokenness. We have only known evil and death.
But God did not abandon us. He called the people unto Himself. Beginning with Abraham, from whom eventually the nation of Israel emerged. And He gave them His law, saying, this is how you ought to live. This is what it means to live as God's people. And yet, they did not live up to God's standards, even though they knew what they were supposed to do.
God gave them a system of sacrifice in which they would offer animals that were perfect without blemish to cleanse away their sins, to restore their communion with God. But these sacrifices had to be offered again and again, because the people in their very hearts were sinful. Now, of course, the sacrifice of animals could never accomplish true cleansing.
But what they were acting as, was a signpost pointing to Jesus Christ. Pointing to the reality that there does need to be a sacrifice for our sins. There does need to be a substitute, a representative who can stand on our behalf because we have no standing before God. We need someone who can bring true cleansing, true forgiveness.
We need God himself to, in fact, intervene on our behalf. Now, as I've said, you could go throughout the scriptures and pick out various texts that point towards this. I'm going to just take you to one, though. Probably the one that's the most striking. In Isaiah 53. This passage comes to us 700 years before Christ died on the cross and was raised from the dead.
The word of the Lord comes through the prophet Isaiah, and he says this. He was despised and rejected by mankind. Now, who is Isaiah talking about here? He's talking about one who is a suffering servant. One who is also the Messiah. And the word Messiah just means anointed one.
The promised king that was to come and deliver the people of Israel and restore their standing with God and make all things right. And yet, Isaiah is saying this. It says, He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with pain. Like one through whom people hide their faces, He was despised, and we held Him in low esteem.
Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on Him. And by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray.
Each of us has turned to our own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
It's amazing how Christ so perfectly fulfills what Isaiah prophesies here because he was one who is rejected by mankind. He was one who took on the human curse, and whom everyone said, that guy's cursed by God.
And yet, while he suffered our curse, it was not because he deserved it. Because he was perfectly righteous. And that's exactly what we find in Jesus. We find the man, we find the human that every one of us is supposed to be, but are not. And so all the scriptures are pointing towards Jesus. And Jesus is bringing all that God promised to fulfillment.
Now to consider what else that Paul mentions here. He talks about the eyewitness testimony of himself, the other apostles. Jesus' own brother James.
Accounting for the claims of Jesus' resurrection among skeptics has taken various forms. One I don't even list here. One is the idea that Jesus didn't actually die. He just kind of looked like he was dead, and they put him in a tomb. That theory is easily dismissed because there'd be nothing inspiring about a guy who was up on a cross and barely somehow gets outside of the tomb, everyone would decide, okay, we're not gonna keep doing what this guy is doing because we don't want to end up like him.
But there are some more significant theories that need to be addressed. One, well, his body was just stolen by robbers. The trouble with that theory is that the disciples claimed to actually see Jesus and to eat with him. So we have to ask, why would they die for a lie? They had no reason to expect any gain for themselves.
Now, in hindsight, we might think, well, you know, I'd like to be as famous as Peter or John. But you have to realize, at that time, they had no idea that they'd become known worldwide. They were just fishermen from Galilee. They were nobodies. Their life could have been easily tossed away. So why die for a lie that would have gained them nothing?
The same response applies to the theory that they stole the body themselves. Again, what would they have to gain from that? The other that's been put forward is that, well, maybe they all just hallucinated this. The trouble with that is that hallucinations are not group experiences. I can have a hallucination, maybe you can have a hallucination, but we cannot have the same hallucination of what happened.
And we have Jesus appearing not just to individuals, but to groups of people. And so hallucination is not a sufficient explanation either. The testimony of the apostles that Jesus actually rose from the dead best explains the facts. And if you want to dig into that a little bit more, you can pick up this book.
And it will go into greater detail. To exclude this explanation, just because it is miraculous, reveals that you have changed yourself to only considering natural explanations. Even when naturalist explanations come up short. If Jesus really did rise from the dead, the consequences are monumental. Paul speaks to this as he reminds the Corinthian Christians that the resurrection is not a curious, unimportant detail of the Gospel.
In verse 12 he says, 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? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised our preaching is useless, and so is your faith.
More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God. 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. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.
You are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
It's kind of working backwards here. Paul's addressing a theory that had emerged among the Corinthians that there would in fact be no resurrection of the dead.
Paul addresses this by saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, if that's the case, if it's the case that you If you and I are not going to be raised from the dead, then Christ himself was not raised from the dead. Because that's exactly what he came to accomplish. If Christ is raised, we will be raised. If we are not raised, then it means that Christ has not been raised.
And the real pivotal point here is this. Paul makes this in verse 14. He says, If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith. If Jesus did not raise, rise from the dead on the third day, everything here is useless. You might as walk out of, might as well walk out of church now.
It's all just a sham. It's not worth anything. And the reason why it's worthless is this. He says in verse 17. He says, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins. If Christ has not been raised, we have no reason to hope that we would overcome death. Why would we have any confidence in that?
Everything would just be speculation that maybe there's some sort of life hereafter. You wouldn't know that. You'd just be guessing. If Christ is not raised, then we are still under condemnation for our sins because of this. If Jesus just stayed dead after they crucified him, then It would seem to affirm everything that they were saying.
That he was cursed by God. That he was, in fact, blaspheming. It would prove the religious leaders right. That he was deserving of crucifixion. When Christ rises from the dead, their ruling is overturned by God Almighty.
But if he's not raised, then it's not clear at all that God has accepted his sacrifice. And if Christ is not raised, He cannot ascend to heaven, at the right hand of the Father, to mediate on our behalf. Because between us and God, there has been a beef. We've rebelled against Him. There's been this gap between us.
Christ is the bridge. He is the one who reconciles us to God. Unless He is standing there as our mediator, we don't have any standing before God. You can say nothing for yourself before God except the name of Jesus Christ. But you can't say it if he's not there. The reason why his resurrection is so significant is because by rising from the dead he makes possible the realization of all that we are supposed to be. Because He is exactly who we are supposed to be. In His resurrection, Christ opens us up a new way forward. He opens up to us a new opportunity to begin again in Him.
And Paul says that this is, in fact, the case. That Christ has, in fact, been raised from the dead. In verse 20, he says, But Christ has, indeed, been raised from the dead. The firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man.
For as Adam all died, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn. Christ the firstfruits. Then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 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's put all his enemies under his feet.
The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Christ is the first fruits of our own resurrection. It's as though the end of history has come into the very middle of it in Jesus Christ. So that in him, we see what we will become. Adam introduced death into the world by his rebellion against God. But Christ is this new Adam, this second Adam, who is offering us an avenue of life through himself.
When will this occur? When will, when will this resurrection life be realized for ourselves? It will occur when Christ returns. It will be the culmination of His conquest over all dominion, authority, and power. That's what's going on today. Jesus is overturning all the powers.
The last enemy that He's going to overturn, once and for all, is death. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. So the question is, is how can you partake in that resurrection life? How can you gain that promise for yourself? It's not by doing a bunch of good works and proving yourself worthy. Because you can never prove yourself worthy of this salvation.
It's offered simply as a gift. A gift that we must receive by faith. We must ally ourselves with Jesus. It's as though you have two sides. You have the axis of Adam, under the power of the devil. And you have the alliance of Christ. And we bring nothing to the table. We have no assets to offer. But Christ says, come with me.
I will lead you into the new age to come. I will give you life in abundance.
Jesus says, In John 11, verses 25 through 26, on the occasion of the death of his friend Lazarus, he says to one of his sisters, I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this? Jesus is the resurrection and the life.
And if we come to Him, believing in Him, we will gain that resurrection life for ourselves. On our own, as things stand, we cannot live in God's kingdom. We cannot live forever. On our own, we have no life. Our only chance is in Jesus. In Him, we can be forgiven. In Him, our hearts can be renovated to be like His own.
In Jesus, we can exchange these bodies that are breaking down day by day for bodies that will never decay. Paul directs us to this hope, jumping down to verse 50. He says, I declare to you, brothers and sisters, That flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When Jesus returns, everything's going to be made new. Including me and you. It doesn't matter whether you're dead or alive. If you're dead at the time of Christ's return, you'll be raised from the dead and transformed.
If you're living at the time when Christ returns, you will be transformed and given the resurrection body. You see, we will not be spirits floating around. A lot of people think that's the Christian faith. That we believe we die and we become spirits and have wings and play harps and stuff. That's not Christian belief.
The Christian faith is this. Is that we will be raised with a resurrection body of Christ. The Apostle John tells us in 1 John 3: 2. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
We shall be like Christ inside and out. Our hearts will be like Christ. Our bodies will be like Christ. We will be exactly who God created us to be. This is a day that death dreads. This is a day that the devil dreads, because by death, the devil has subjugated us, intended to keep us down.
But what the devil intended for our harm, God has turned and made something beautiful, because Christ tasted death for our sake, so that we might be redeemed and restored. So that we might share in the victory, God's own victory in Jesus Christ. Paul continues in verse 54. He says, When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true.
Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you.
Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor and the Lord is not in vain.
This is why Christians view death differently. Death is tragic. It is a terrible curse that is upon us, and when one of our loved ones dies, we should not feel guilty about having sorrow in our hearts. When Jesus' friend Lazarus died, it says that Jesus wept. It's completely appropriate. But we are not those who sorrow without hope.
Because we know that the tide will turn. Because we know that the victory has been secured in Jesus. He is our champion who has taken the field. The day of Christ's resurrection is decisive. It's our D Day. It's when everything changed.
And the result of this victory is that we can live differently in the light of this reality. And that's exactly what Paul points to in verse 58. He says, therefore, therefore, in light of all of this, therefore my dear brothers and sisters 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. If Christ is not raised, just abandon it all. It's worthless. But if Christ is raised, give yourself completely to Him.
Give yourself completely to Him. Because none of it will be in vain. We will overcome. Because Christ has overcome. So the question you must ask yourself today is this. What are you standing on?
What is your hope? Let's be clear eyed and sober. Let's be honest with ourselves. The career you treasure will one day replace you. They will. They will replace you. They will replace me.
The name you make for yourself will quickly fade away. The money you have saved will dissolve as you approach death. It will be spread to the four winds after you pass. The family you have raised will go their own ways. Memories will fade. And in fact, your line may end in another generation or two. All very depressing, I know, but it's the truth.
It's the truth.
You can stick your hand in the sand, you can try to ignore it, but the truth remains. So what will you stand on? If you seek the truth, you will find that you can only stand by it. On Jesus Christ, the one who will raise you from the dead and restore your life. You can stand on him because of the eyewitness testimony of the disciples.
That testimony is true. Jesus did in fact die on the cross. And three days later, he did in fact rise from the dead. And so, if you will trust in Him, pledge your allegiance to Him, you will, in fact, be raised from the dead, never to die again. All that remains to be asked is, do you believe this? Do you believe this?
Let us come before the Father in prayer and in faith.
Father, you have kept your promise. You have fulfilled the scriptures. You intervened for our salvation through the person of the Son, Jesus Christ, who came to be our sacrifice for sins. The perfect Lamb who is without blemish. One who is without sin. The one who is who we are, all are supposed to be, Father. He offered His life up for our sakes.
He offered His life so that in Him, we could be restored to You.
No longer with Adam, but with Your Son, Jesus Christ. So Father, this morning, we pray that You would strengthen our faith.
Father, if we don't, if up to this point we haven't put our faith in Christ, I pray that you would lead those here to put their faith in Jesus Christ. That they would simply confess that they are sinners, that they need Christ's sacrifice, they need Him standing on their behalf, and that they would trust in Him for the forgiveness of their sins in this resurrection life to come.
But I do pray, Father, for us who do have faith, that you would strengthen our faith. So that we would give ourselves completely to You. Because none of this is in vain. Father, help us to give ourselves completely to Christ, rather than giving ourselves completely to all these other things that are so vain and empty.
We know Christ is not empty, Father. Because He is alive. And it is only the tomb which is empty. Help us to walk by faith, Father, in your Son. Fearing not death, because we know that victory is won. We ask this in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the risen King. Amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we begin our new series on Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It's our joy to welcome you into our community.
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)