Resurrection Sunday: 2 Corinthians 1:8-11 - The God Who Raises the Dead

I love Easter.

It's such a wonderful, wonderful day.

I love a lot of things about it.

It is a day full of brightness and color.

It's a day of celebratory songs and hymns.

It's a day which seems to assume and even draw out of us joy.

But for some people, Easter joy just seems a little bit out of reach.

The songs that we've sung together are triumphant songs.

The colors that some of you are wearing are bright and beautiful.

Hope punctuates the air.

The celebration that we had in our breakfast just in the last hour was filled with all kinds of laughter and encouragement.

It was a celebratory breakfast.

But real life, everyday life, sometimes just doesn't meet that kind of atmosphere.

And I know that some of you have come into this room with heaviness in your hearts, carrying burdens that aren't pausing for the holiday.

Some of you are dealing with medical cares that are still continuing.

Some of you are dealing with strained relationships or financial pressures which are you brought into the room this morning.

Some of you are here simply because it's Easter, it's a tradition, but you feel distant from the God that everyone else is singing about.

And some of you are here wondering if God can ever meet you in that hidden ache of your heart that only you and he know about.

Well, this morning I want to introduce us to a man who knows what it is to be in those kind of moments.

So let's take our Bible and go over to 2 Corinthians chapter 1.

2 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

2 Corinthians chapter 1.

2 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

And I want to introduce you to the Apostle Paul, who speaks about a situation in his life that was just as heavy as any of ours.

And you can find 2 Corinthians chapter 1 on page 1023.

2 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

The Apostle Paul, when he introduces himself to the church at Corinth in this second letter that he wrote to them, doesn't speak like a man who's got it all under control.

In fact, he says about himself in verse 8 that he was so utterly burdened that he was beyond his strength.

And he felt despairing even of life.

And the situation was so bad that he felt like he had received the sentence of death.

Now, those aren't the words of somebody who's having a bad day.

Those are the words of someone who has actually come to the end of himself.

And it's precisely there, at the end of himself, that the Apostle Paul recognizes the importance about something, the importance of something about God.

And something about God that he probably couldn't have appreciated quite so well in any other circumstance.

Because he realizes that the God that he serves is not just the God who helps the strong, he's not just the God who encourages the optimistic, he's the God who does this.

The God who raises the dead, as he says there.

And once you realize that God is the God who raises the dead, that literally changes everything.

It changes how you face your sufferings, it changes how you think about deliverance, and it shapes for you a hope that is unlike any other hope in this world.

So this morning, I'd like for us to listen.

To listen to Paul as he speaks about this, about the God who raises the dead.

And what we will be hearing this morning is not just a celebration of a past event, remembering that God raised Christ from the dead, but that he is a God who still works in human lives today.

People who feel overwhelmed, stuck, empty, even.

Because he's a God who raises the dead.

And I want us to capture three points this morning.

That because God is the God who raises the dead, we can face overwhelming suffering.

Because God is the God who raises the dead, we can feel his delivering power even today.

And because God is a God who raises the dead, we can live with confident hope.

Those are our three points.

And I want us to begin with that first one.

Because God has raised Jesus from the dead, we can face overwhelming suffering.

Well, let's begin where Paul begins here in verse 8.

And contrary to how many of us would frame ourselves and our situations, Paul doesn't begin this letter with a success story.

He begins it with a confession.

He wants the Corinthians to understand what's been really happening to him in Asia.

And he's not like some missionaries might be doing, giving the polished version, you know, giving the praise report.

He's giving them the raw reality.

Take a look at verse 8 again.

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.

We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.

Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.

Utterly burdened.

The scale has broken.

It's so loaded down.

Beyond the strength, no capacity left to bear any more.

Despairing of life.

No way out.

No strategy, no escape, no solution.

Now, this is an important point to remember.

Paul is not a weak Christian.

He's not a brand new Christian.

He's not immature.

He's not faithless.

He's an apostle of Jesus Christ.

And he's suffering these things and saying he despaired even of life itself.

What does that tell us?

It tells us that when we deal with overwhelming circumstances, it's not an indication that we're second-class believers.

It's just the path that God brings some of his children through.

Now listen to some of the biblical statements where other people mention exactly the same thing.

Psalmist in Psalm 88 says, This darkness is my only friend.

Now that's that's a pretty hard statement.

Job sitting in ashes, his world shattered.

And he goes to his friends, and even they don't give him an explanation, they give him an accusation.

Elijah under the tree saying, It's enough.

Oh now, Lord, please take my life.

I want to die.

And Jesus in Gethsemane, my soul is very sorrowful, even to the point of death.

See, the Bible doesn't treat overwhelming suffering as an embarrassment to hide, but to treat it as a reality to bring into the presence of God Himself.

And some of you are feeling like that.

Where the diagnosis has come and it's not good.

Or some of you are wondering what is the diagnosis?

When the relationships are fractured, when the job disappears, when the cares of this life gnaw away at any little sleep that you feel like you can have.

When those things happen, you're not stepping outside the normal Christian life, but you're stepping into the place where many of God's people have been and many still are with you.

Some of you are here right now.

It's Easter.

We've sung, He is risen.

You've said it yourself, He is risen indeed.

But inside your heart you're saying, I don't know if I can go any further.

I really don't have any strength left.

Paul's honest words are meant to be your honest words.

We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired even of life.

Now, why could why could Paul be this honest?

Why could he write these things to a church who are actually in this very moment questioning his apostolic credentials and are definitely questioning his apostolic competency?

Why could he speak that honestly about this?

Shouldn't he be protecting his image?

Shouldn't he be trying to tell them, hey, look, I'm I'm really am an apostle.

I I can kind of deal with life well.

Well, for Paul, his trust wasn't in his image.

Look at what he says in verse 9.

He said this so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.

You see, the resurrection is what sustained Paul in the middle of all these moments.

Because he knew that death wasn't the end, and he knew that weakness wasn't going to have the final say, and he knew that defeat wasn't going to be the last word written on his record.

Because if God raised Jesus from the dead, then Paul didn't need to pretend.

Paul didn't need to hide the despair.

Because underneath, underneath of those honest comments is a deeper foundation, is this realization that he can speak with confidence.

God is a God who raises the dead.

Now lock this point in.

The resurrection is not just a historical event that happened in the past, it's the turning point of all scripture.

And it is for you the horizon for all of your existence.

Listen to some of the Old Testament statements that talk about God bringing life out of death.

Abraham and Sarah, where Abraham is described not just once but twice in Scripture, as good as dead.

And yet Isaac is born.

Or Israel with Pharaoh and his army behind them and the sea in front of them, stuck between a rock and the deep blue sea.

And there in the midst of that moment, God acts to deliver.

Or Ezekiel 37, where Ezekiel is brought into a place where he sees nothing but a valley of tangled and dissembled bones.

And he's asked the question, can these bones live?

And the answer is yes.

Yes, they can.

And all of these in the Old Testament are whispers of a truth that God is able to bring life out of death.

He's able to bring something where there is no hope.

And these are signposts of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And when we talk about Jesus being resurrected, we're not just adding another signpost there.

That this is some sort of emblem of life out of death, you know, an egg breaking and out comes a new life, or flowers blooming out of a out of a cold, barren ground.

No, we're not we're not talking about little symbols like that where, you know, you know, your days will get better.

They just might get a little better.

No, we're talking about a dead man that came out of a grave.

Because one day we're all going to be dead people.

And do we have a hope that we'll come out of the grave?

That's the question.

And so here, Paul is saying that as believers, well, we can face overwhelming suffering.

And we don't need to deny it, and we don't need to hide it, but we also don't need to be despairing because of it.

But we can live with a deep, steady confidence that God who raised the dead is our God.

Paul goes on to talk about this in verse 9.

He said, We felt we had received the sentence of death.

Yes.

The verdict has been handed down.

There's no appeal, there's no reprieve, condemnation is coming.

That's how he felt.

And these overwhelming circumstances led him at the end of this verse to say this so that we wouldn't trust in ourselves, but in the God who raises the dead.

You see, sometimes God brings us through overwhelming suffering in order to expose where we trust.

Not always, but sometimes to expose where we trust.

Because when we're strong and when we're competent, and when things are good, we can trust our health, we can trust our financial planning, we can trust our relationships, we can trust our ability to manage and to plan and to fix.

But when things get out of our control, none of those things will hold us.

Not one.

And Paul realized God had taken him into a place of life where the only thing he could trust is the God who raises the dead.

And so one of the questions we have to ask ourselves when we face these overwhelming situations is Am I trusting the Lord?

Am I going to cling harder to what I can do or what someone else might be able to do for me?

Or am I going to begin to lean my full weight on the God who raises the dead?

If you're here this morning and you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and you're going through circumstances that feel like utter chaos.

Like, I want to tell you this.

The universe is not random, it is not cruel, and it is not indifferent.

It is controlled by a God who holds every single particle in his hand.

And I want to tell you this: that your suffering is perhaps put into your life to awaken you to something.

That you can't control life, and you certainly can't control death or your eternity.

You see, your career can't raise the dead, and your relationships can't raise the dead, and your moral efforts can't raise the dead, and your spiritual energies and efforts can't raise the dead.

Only God can raise the dead.

And he's given proof that he's already done that.

And that can be the very source of a new life for you, even in the middle of the things that you're dealing with.

Please stay with me as we go through the rest of this because you will understand more about that as we do.

Let's look at the second point now.

Because God has raised Jesus from the dead.

Our first point said we can face overwhelming suffering.

Our second point is this: that because God is the one who raises the dead, we can trust His delivering power.

Like I said, we go through life and sometimes it feels very, very uncertain, pressing upon us in ways that stretch us beyond what we've ever, ever imagined.

Some of you are waiting on medical clarity.

Some of you are dealing with the slow ache of relationships that are held at a distance.

Some of us are navigating financial strains that just gnaw away at every decision we make.

Some are watching a child perhaps drifting away from the Lord that you raised them to love.

And you're wondering if they'll ever come back.

These are real pressures.

But we don't need to interpret them through our fear.

And we don't need to interpret them through our gnawing fatigue.

We're asked to see them from a different vantage point, to understand them through the God who raises the dead.

You see, that is the starting point.

That is the lens through which we see our current circumstances.

Now take a look at verse 10 and see how Paul talks about that.

In verse 10, he says, We have put our hope in him that he will deliver us again.

Why?

Because at the beginning of verse 10, he says, He's delivered us from such a terrible death, and he will deliver us.

What is he talking about?

He's talking about three deliverances here.

He's talking about a rescue from the greatest death.

He calls it a terrible death.

What is he speaking about there?

Well, what he's talking about is something far worse than any circumstance we might be dealing with today.

What he's talking about is the need of every one of us to receive God's salvation, to be rescued from the eternal judgment that our sins deserve.

And Paul knows here that apart from Christ, a sentence of eternal death stood over him that was more severe than any earthly threat.

And he knows that this terrible death God has already delivered him from.

He knows that he has been rescued from the righteous judgment of a holy God.

And that deliverance has come at a cost.

The death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And this is why Paul says that he can trust God for present help.

Look at what he says.

And this is the logic of other places in Scripture.

Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

God there did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all.

And how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?

Also in Romans 8, those he foreknew, he predestined, those he called, he justified, and those he justified, he will glorify.

If he's delivered us from such a great death, he will deliver us now and he will deliver us in the future.

And this is why Paul says this, not with some vague optimism, but with a resurrection certainty.

That the God who saved him from eternal death is one day going to raise him into glory.

This God who justified him will glorify him.

This God who brought Jesus to the grave for him will bring and brought him out of the grave, will one day bring his people out of the grave.

And then he says, Because of that past and that future deliverance, right now, when I'm feeling overwhelmed beyond my strength with a sentence of death facing me.

I know he will deliver us still.

God can take care of today, just like he took care of my sin debt for eternity.

Now, many of you, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

You could speak longer than I will this morning about how God has sustained you through grief, how God has provided for you when the numbers just didn't add up right, when God has taken care of you and restored relationships that you loved that were broken without any hope of reconciliation.

You can speak about these things.

And those memories that you have and those experiences that you've gone through, they're not accidents.

They're meant to be cumulative reminders of you in your present moment, that what God has done for you already, and what he's promised to do for you in eternity, he is there to help you with today.

God was loosening Paul's grip on self-reliance.

What a great gift that is.

So that he might weigh out and fully lean upon that eternal strength of God.

Because God is not limited by death at all.

If you're here this morning and you don't know Christ is your Savior, what you're going through at this moment, if you're going through difficulties and troubles, they're not your worst problem.

You may feel the weight of your life in such a way that you can't fully explain it.

Yes.

And you may one day sense that your foundations that you hold on to are not strong enough to hold you.

And you might wonder what might happen to you that day when the strength runs out.

Who will be around me?

What will be around me?

How well have I prepared for this?

But there's one thing that you need to bring into weighty consideration.

The scriptures say it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

It is no joke.

The God who created us calls us to love him with all of our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

None of us passed that test.

None of us.

And Paul says that what awaits us is a terrible death.

I don't know about you, but I'm not going to have anything to bring to God that I've built that would convince him to release that sentence of a terrible death from my soul.

Not a single thing would convince him otherwise.

But I want to tell you something.

The God I'm talking about is the God who raises the dead.

That he is the one who has raised Jesus from the dead as a declaration of the forgiveness of sins.

That his work on the cross was sufficient to say.

You don't need to clean yourself up.

You don't need to present yourself to God as if you might be acceptable to him.

You don't need to pretend that you're strong.

And you don't have to hide the fact that you've got a need before him.

The scriptures say that if you come to Christ with empty hands, with a realization of your sin, with an acknowledgement that that sin has been committed against him, and that you trust Christ alone as your Savior.

The scriptures are clear in saying that you have to all who come to him a pardon for your sin and life for your death and a security and a welcome for your condemnation and your banishment.

Because God is the God who raises the dead.

And the God who raises the dead can put spiritual life into you like you can't begin to imagine even today.

Now let's go to the third point here.

Our first point was it's because God has raised Jesus from the dead, we can face overwhelming circumstances with confidence.

Our second point was because God raised Jesus from the dead, we can trust his deliverance.

And the last point is because God is the one who raises from the dead, we can live with confident hope.

We can live with confident hope.

Take a look again at verse 10.

He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and he will deliver us, and we have put our hope in him that he will deliver us again.

Hope is such a beautiful word.

It's one of the greatest gifts that God gives people to have, to live with hope.

But it's also something that feels in human existence in our lives very vulnerable.

It can feel fragile sometimes.

Our lives can be filled with uncertainty.

Hope can dissipate whenever we feel fearful or unclear.

Even believers can lose hope when their prayers don't seem to be being answered.

When the path in front of us seems very obscure.

It comes from God's character himself.

Now look at how this unfolds here.

He says, On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

That's not wishful thinking there.

That's not just simply optimism that pours out of this jolly personality.

This is not Paul trying to convince himself that things are just going to get better.

It's a settled confidence rooted in the character of God, in the activity of God who raises the dead.

Paul looks back, he sees God's deliverance from such a terrible death.

He looks at his present and he sees God's sustaining grace in the midst of his utter emptiness.

And he looks to the future and he sees the same God who is unchanged, who is always faithful, and who is strong.

And he anchors his future in God's character, not his circumstances.

Scripture speaks to this with a relentless confirmation to our weak hearts.

Peter had called it a living hope.

Listen to what he said in 1 Peter.

He said, God has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Paul calls it the hope of glory in Colossians chapter 1 and verse 27.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

He said, Christ in you, the hope of glory.

The writer of Hebrews in chapter 6 and verse 19 says, We have this hope as an anchor of the soul, firm and secure.

And the early church learned this lesson well to a very young church, the Thessalonians, among whom some had died, and some of them are wondering what's happening.

Paul doesn't minimize their grief and he doesn't rush them past their sorrow, but he does tell them this since we believe that Jesus died and rose again in the same way through Jesus, God will bring those with him who have fallen asleep.

Their hope is not in the avoidance of suffering.

Their hope is in the certainty of the resurrection.

Think about it this way life is a long journey.

A journey that's full of terrain that rises and falls, that's full of weather that shifts in all kinds of ways, sometimes pleasant, sometimes very, very difficult.

And on a path that weaves and moves through that terrain and even disappears in a lot of a lot of places where you don't even know where it might be turning.

But at the very end of it is your destination at a mountaintop horizon that never ever goes out of your sight.

And so, with that fixed point in view, whatever the weather might be, or whatever the terrain might look like, or whatever, however winding the road and the pathway might turn, there's something always in front of you.

It is that certain point of final destination.

And if you can keep that in view, weather and terrain and the turns of the path are just simply little steps along the way that will bring you eventually to that destination.

This is what Paul's talking about when he says, He will yet deliver us.

He's talking about the God who raises the dead, and he's got it deep down in his soul that God will raise him from the dead.

So, this ditch of terrain, this turn of the path, this rainstorm that's pouring down on me, it's not the end of the story.

It's not the end of the story at all.

Because there's a fixed point of destination.

He whom God has predestined is the same God who will glorify his people.

That's your end.

And so keep the resurrection in front of you on these moments.

Let it give meaning to these days that are filled with difficulty.

Let it keep you moving forward even though the path is steep.

Let it steady you even though the way seems unclear.

Let it remind you even when the story seems a bit muddled at the moment.

God will take care of you.

In the middle of your waiting, he will take you and shape you and hold you and sustain you, but he will also loosen the grip of your self-trust and your love of things for the love of him.

And the day will come in the future when he will bring you into his presence, and there for eternity, those things will never ever be able to even be once compared to the sufferings that you're enduring now.

So great are they.

Some of you are feeling as though you've got a sucking chest wound, and there never seems to be any spiritual breath that can hold deeply in those lungs.

You're always gasping for the next breath of life.

So draining and troubling are the difficulties.

But the scriptures here say that those moments are not the end of the end of the book.

They're simply a part of the page you're on right now.

And the God who raised Jesus from the dead will one day raise you.

And he will present you to himself as a spotless bride without blemish or any such thing.

Your spiritual dryness will be swept up by an eternal enthusiasm and glory and worship before God.

And some of you are discouraged by your own failures.

And it's easy to do that.

But the scriptures tell us that God, who is already forgiven, restores, but he will make you fully whole, completely in his presence, blameless and without fault and with great joy, I think Jude says at the end of his letter.

The resurrection means you have a destination.

Your sanctification, your troubles, your hardships, it's all going to come to that final point.

And if you're not a believer this morning in Jesus Christ and you know that what you're dealing with are simply trying to match your troubles with your own abilities or circumstances or relationships.

I want to tell you something.

The Christian life is not something we manufacture, it's something we discover.

And we often discover it most in the moments where we feel at the very bottom of ourselves.

Just like Paul's talking about here.

He's telling the truth.

That he was dealing with things that were so overwhelming he felt like he had the sentence of death already passed down on him.

It's over.

But he also says, God raises the dead.

And God took us through that.

And it wasn't because we added something or just needed a little extra help.

You see, without God, everything will eventually collapse.

Everything.

Without God, you have no eternal hope.

You die then what?

Well, there's an answer to that question.

The answer is God raises the dead.

And with that hope, you recognize that death is the doorway into new life.

God who raises the dead is here today.

He is speaking his word today.

He's among his people today.

And his invitation is to you today.

Look to Jesus Christ and live.

And live.

And find a hope that will anchor not only your present, but your soul in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

A God who's raised the dead, who can steady you in suffering, He can deliver you in your waiting, and He will give you a home in your eternity.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for this glorious truth.

This one declared through an inexperienced person, Paul, who told us with honesty and humility and transparency, not pretending it didn't hurt, and not minimizing the weight of his troubles, even describing he felt like if it was up to him, he was finished.

But who also said he wasn't finished.

Because he wasn't trusting himself.

He couldn't.

There was nothing there to trust.

But he could raise, he could trust the one who raised Jesus from the dead.

And Father, I pray that we might live with that same confident hope.

Not the kind of fragile hopefulness that's tied to circumstances, but with an eternal hopefulness that's anchored in the risen Savior.

A hope that steadies us in the middle of our sufferings, who strengthens, that strengthens us through all of our waiting, and who assures us that you are a God who's already delivered us and you will carry us home.

So, Father, I pray for those who perhaps have been hiding their real condition, who've been afraid to be honest and to say, I really don't have a hope, that they would bring themselves into the light instead of hiding it.

I pray, Father, for those who have held tightly to their own ability, their own wisdom, their own understanding, their own financial care, their own relationships.

Father, you'd loosen their group grip on those weak, fragile foundations that can't raise the dead.

Father, I pray for those who would be receiving, perhaps today, for the very first time, the life of the risen Savior Himself, who offers eternal life to those who come with empty hands.

Father, may we all trust and depend on and worship you, the God who raises the dead.

And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.