If Christ Has Not Been Raised

That's a pretty good question.

What if our faith was based on nothing more than wishful thinking?

Have those thoughts ever flown into your mind?

Or uh what if the atheists are right?

Have you ever asked yourself that?

What if the atheists are right?

What if everything I have believed about Jesus is wrong?

What if he never rose from the dead?

What if the Bible is nothing but a collection of legends and myths?

So what Paul is doing here is taking honest doubts and helping us.

And I just want to pause with that for a minute and say again, God is okay with honest doubts.

Just like in the Psalms, God is okay with all kinds of questions with people who have problems with God because they don't understand what's going on and doesn't think my way of thinking.

And God, why have you, why are you, why haven't you shown up to put it in today's terminology?

God's okay with that.

If your heart is seeking, God gently moves us towards Him and draws us Godward.

Now, God does not impose Himself upon us, nor does He impose the idea that we can't have any doubts.

If you have doubts Well, you know, all kinds of things come into your mind.

A mind is a strange thing.

Mind is a strange thing.

All kinds of thoughts fly into your mind.

That's not the problem.

The problem is what do you do with them?

Do you hang on to them?

Do you focus on them?

Do you obsess over these thoughts?

Or do you seek to take every thought captive to Christ, as the New Testament talks about?

And so what Paul is doing is he's he's saying, okay, let's uh let's just think.

And what he says about the resurrection is be very, very careful.

If you discard the resurrection, the literal physical resurrection of Christ, the whole superstructure of our faith collapses.

The resurrection is not peripheral to our faith.

It's not out there on the margins.

We can read the Bible, we can study theology, I love to do all of that.

And there's things out there, conclusions you can come to that are interesting, and of course, all the conclusions I come to are, of course, right.

Um you can deal with all kinds of things, but but not every conclusion we come to is central.

There are a few central teachings that if we give these up, we lose everything.

Uh the miraculous is one example.

Uh the Bible is filled with the miraculous.

If we're so focused on what we can see, taste, touch, measure, and analyze that we don't accept anything outside of that, then we will not get to the core of Christianity.

The fact that God changes lives, I serve a risen Savior.

How do I know He lives, He lives within my heart, that there's a reality, there's this internal testimony of the Holy Spirit that Paul talks about in Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

And there's various ways.

But if we give up on the resurrection, or if we don't focus on what the Bible does teach about the resurrection, we risk losing everything.

That's the big picture of these verses.

And I was I was trying to think of a visual picture of it, and um I got thinking for some reason, and for some of you this will be silly because it's so obvious, but I got thinking about a linchpin.

And so trying to figure out what a linchpin is, I'm not a car guy, I'm not an axle and wheel guy, especially.

Uh so I went to the source of all true knowledge, Wikipedia, and uh in Wikipedia there was a very simple explanation and a very simple diagram of what a linchpin is.

You have an axle, you have wheels, and a linchpin, if you think about the axle and the wheel, a pin, a linchpin goes uh transversely through the axle and it holds the wheel on.

And it's just really a relatively small part of a cart or a car.

And yet, if you take that linchpin out, sooner or later the wheels fly off, and there is practically nothing left of that.

That's what the resurrection is.

It is so central.

You remove that, and everything falls apart.

And so what he's saying is we can't pick and choose.

There's some things we can pick and choose, and Christians can disagree about, absolutely.

But if you give up the resurrection, we have no biblical Christianity anymore.

Um you have is a cart that is about to have the wheels come off.

So let's just walk through these verses.

Uh verse uh 14, verse 15, verse 16, and 17, verse 18, verse 19.

Five simple uh examples of if Christ had not been raised.

We'll move through this pretty quickly.

Uh verse 15.

Sorry, we'll start with verse 14.

If I follow my outline, we do better, right?

If Christ had not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain.

Let's just take that thought.

Then the preaching is in vain, and our faith is in vain.

Now, he's not talking about the process of proclaiming.

It's not that the preaching like I'm standing up here now and I'm preaching the proclamation.

It's he's talking here about the content of his proclamation.

And he had already declared, that's why we read some of the first verses, that the gospel I preach to you I have received.

It was delivered to you as in first importance, just as I have received it.

And the content of the gospel there is that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he raised on the third day, and he's alive.

That's the content.

Now, if Christ has not been raised, then the content, the message, is described here as being empty and vain.

So the idea of vanity is what he starts with, depends on the translation, but that's talking about empty or meaningless words.

Um what would be meaningless words?

Just words that we say.

And maybe it comes because we were with our grandkids recently and we were, you know, singing silly kids songs.

Uh they tell Alexa in their living room uh to play silly kids songs.

And about 20 uh kids' songs come on, the miracle of modern technology drove us nuts, frankly.

But uh so you had these silly kids songs, and I got thinking about silly songs.

And one of them that came to my mind, you'll have to forgive me, um, Froggy went a court and Anna, he did ride.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Sword and pistol by his side.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

What is that all about?

Took Miss Mousy up on his knee, said to Miss Mousy, Won't you marry me?

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

What does that mean?

Well, probably, just like with a lot of nursery rhymes, they there was something that in the day, when they were formed, it was referring to something, but I have no idea what froggy going to courtin means.

In fact, to me, it doesn't mean anything.

And yet it's kind of a cool little ditty.

Okay.

If Christ has not been raised, then our faith is like a cool little ditty.

Okay?

If you take the resurrection out of the gospel, all you have is froggy go in a courtin.

It's vain.

It's empty.

That's what he is saying.

He talks here in this verse as well, verse 14, and your faith is vain.

Um, and the the the word that is used that second time has the idea of being empty, uh, not true, uh, without any reality, without any, you can't count on it.

Um it's kind of like um a campaign slogan.

I hope you don't really believe politicians in their campaign slogans.

Really?

Um it's like a a warranty that the company doesn't stand behind.

We we had a um a humidifier, dehumidifier actually, uh in our basement a number of years ago that we bought, and after two or three years the silly thing stopped working and said, No problem, I've got a warranty.

So I take the warranty back to where I bought it, and they said, Oh, I'm sorry, that company has gone out of business.

Uh, we can't help you.

And so the warranty was worthless.

If Christ has not been raised, then the content of our message is like a worthless warranty or a deed to a piece of property that doesn't exist.

Now, what Paul is saying is, you know, you can you can you can question the reality of the resurrection and God's not going to force you.

But just realize what you give up or what that means.

It means all that we believe is is empty.

It's just just like a frog going to court and it's just words.

Okay?

Verses verse 15.

If Christ had not been raised, we've been tricked.

We've been lied to.

Verse 15.

We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised.

So if we have been told by God, and we have in his word, that Christ was raised from the dead, and the dead in Christ shall rise, and if it's not true, then we are in more or less the same position that Dorothy was with the Wizard of Oz.

I'm a very good man.

If we have been lied to in the scriptures about the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of believers, then all we have is smoke and mirrors.

That's what Paul is saying.

Then all that is left is trickery and lies.

That's the conclusion that Paul comes to if we assume that he has not been raised.

You remove the Christianity, the resurrection from the faith, then all we have is a carpenter who wanted to be a rabbi who thought he was a Messiah and dead is dead.

That's all there is to it.

And the rest is just smoke and mirrors.

Verse 16 and 17, if Christ has not been raised, then we have no solution for our sins.

Let's look at verse 16.

For if the dead are not raised, even Christ, not even Christ has been raised, verse 17.

And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins.

He says your faith is futile, and that's parallel to what he said in verse 14, only now it really means something that is without power.

And the power that he has been speaking about is the power of the gospel of God who raised Christ from the dead, and he died, he buried, was buried, and he rose again and he appeared to the twelve.

And if that is not true, then the salvation of Christ has no meaning, has no existence.

Then you just have a dead rabbi on the cross put in a tomb.

That is not Christianity.

If Christ didn't rise from the dead, then our faith is empty, our faith is powerless, and there is no solution for our sins.

The death, burial, and resurrection is the basis of salvation in the scriptures.

God forgives our sins because Christ bore the penalty for our sins on the cross.

So we were separated from God, we weren't doing what God created us to do and be.

We're sinners, we're separated.

And the whole message of the gospel is that Christ died for sinners, forgave them, and that if that we uh we come to Him and we ask forgiveness, and He grants forgiveness not on the basis of our asking, but on the basis of what Christ has done.

Not on the basis of how good we are, or we go to church, or we do all kinds of religious things, but on the basis of Christ's death on the cross.

He paid the penalty for our sin.

He was the substitute for you and me.

But he didn't stay on the cross or remain in the grave.

The gospel is that he died, he buried, was buried, and he rose again.

And if he did not raise from the dead, were not raised from the dead, then there is no salvation for sin, no payment for sin.

Now, we can believe that that Christ did not rise.

That he wasn't raised by the Father.

You can take that thought and you can have that central to your understanding of the New Testament teaching.

Paul is saying, you know, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

You get rid of the resurrection and you get rid of salvation from sin.

And we're still then in our sin.

Verse 18.

Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ, those who have died, Christians who have died, have simply perished.

Dead is dead.

However, the scripture makes it clear that we may think dead is dead, but the reality is all shall be raised.

There is life after death for everyone, those whose sins have been forgiven and those whose sins have not been forgiven.

There is an afterlife.

You will meet your Maker one way or the other.

And either we awake from that picture of death, awake from sleep, and what the scripture reveals to us is that we, as believers, whose sins have been forgiven based upon the death and the resurrection of Christ, we awaken to joy inexpressible and full of glory.

We awaken to the presence of the Father.

Jesus said to his disciples in the upper room, I've told you that I'm going away and I will come again, and I'm going away to prepare a place for you, and I will come again and I will take you to be with me.

For where I am, you will be also.

The whole matter of our future, the matter of the afterlife of heaven, of the glory, of the smile of the Father.

We are designed as believers, and we are promised that we will awaken to the smile of our Father.

But the reality is that those whose sins are not forgiven, they too will awaken, and they will have hell to pay, to use that very harsh but very accurate phrase.

And if there is no solution for sin, then we will awake to terror and anguish forever and ever.

Now, I don't like that particular teaching of the Bible.

I don't like that.

It just happens to be what the Bible is very, very clear about.

And what Paul is saying is, okay, you can you you can choose to believe whatever you want to believe.

God's not going to force us.

But if you if if if you if Christ had not been raised, then my friends, there is no good news, there is no salvation, and what awaits us is not delight but terror.

Finally, what he has to say, verse 19.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, in other words, no hope in the future, no hope in an afterlife, then we are of all people most to be pitied.

If there is no life after death, and if Christ is not raised, there is no resurrection.

That's what Paul is saying.

He's saying, just think about the implications.

What that means is that that which is to motivate us and to transform the way we live in the here and now, if there's no there and then, then why not just eat, drink, and be merry, and tomorrow you'll die?

That is a logical, a consistent philosophy of life I can respect.

I can respect that more than somebody who says, I believe in Christ, but I don't believe in the resurrection.

Paul doesn't give us that that option.

You if you opt out of the resurrection, you opt out of everything that is to motivate us.

Then all we have is this life to live for.

Then life becomes a matter of the most popular commercial on television and radio in 1965, I happen to remember it, is you only go around once in life and you gotta grab for all the gusto you can.

Schlitzbier.

Yeah, that makes sense.

It makes absolute sense.

If there is nothing but this life, then why wouldn't we just live for the moment?

Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.

Why would we care about one another or other people?

What's the purpose of altruism?

What's the purpose of sacrifice?

Unless maybe it's just to make us feel good.

And if we only live because we're feeling good, well, that's that's not what Christianity is about.

Christianity is not living so that you might feel good.

Christianity is that we should live forever.

Our lives begin to be transformed now, but the real, our real, real being, um, we are looking.

Forward to, and it's in the there and then.

But if if there is no there and then, then Christians they're really pathetic fools, is the terminology he uses.

So why in the world would you sacrificially give financially?

Why would you do that?

It makes absolutely no sense if there isn't the reality of a there and then.

Why would you live differently in the here and now if this is all there is?

If dead is dead, then just live like the rest of the world.

Makes total sense.

However, we live as believers who really take God seriously.

We live in the here and now.

We do.

But the here and now is not what's most important for us.

It's not where we put our focus.

That's not where we we hang on to at all costs.

The goal of life for the believer is not to having gone around only once in life, we better grab all, better have grabbed all the gusto we can.

It's not dying with the most toys.

That's not who wins in life in the Christian worldview.

We're called to do things that make little sense.

God called Jane and me to come to North Dakota.

What's that all about?

Now, you may say, don't offend me.

I'm not.

I'm not offending you.

I just had people, when they learned that we felt the Lord was leading us to North Dakota for a couple of years, they said, Well, don't expect us to visit you.

And others politely let it be known it didn't make any sense to them.

But back that up.

I came to faith in Christ 1967.

This month in 1967, that's 50 years ago.

What in the world have I been doing for the last 50 years if there is no there and then?

Then all then I stand before you as the most pathetic fool in this congregation.

You see what Paul is doing?

He's saying, okay, I get it.

You have doubts, you have questions.

But for a moment, think of what that means.

Then we just have empty words and meaningless faith.

We've been tricked and lied to, we have no solution for sin.

We do not awake to anything but terror, and we are most pitiful and pathetic fools.

But verse 20.

This is one of those great but verses in the Bible.

An adversative.

Not this, but this.

Okay?

So Ephesians 4, you were dead in your trespasses and sin.

By nature you were children of wrath.

But God, but God, being rich in mercy and love, has made us alive in Christ.

By grace you have been saved.

You were dead, but now you're alive.

It's one of those places where you were going down a path and you just, it's, it's, it's overpowering, it's discouraging.

But that's not the way it is.

Romans 3, by the works of the law, no human being is justified.

But now the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from works of the law, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

You're counting on your own righteousness?

There is no hope in that.

But God has come up with a solution, and that solution is the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us.

1 Corinthians 6, 11.

Don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Don't be deceived.

And he gives a whole long list of life-dominating sins, and he says, and some, such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Paul is saying, okay, if Christ had not been raised, then all of these things would be true, but they are not true, and each of those have a counterpart, a glorious counterpart.

We have words of truth, not just froggy go in a court and that's not what this is all about.

And don't ever reduce it to just empty words.

We have truth.

The God of the universe has revealed himself graciously and kindly to us.

We have a gracious God and Father who speaks the truth to us, and it's not smoke and mirrors, it's not just a bad wizard behind the curtain.

It's God speaking truth.

We have a sure and certain deliverance from sin.

The literal death, burial, and resurrection of Christ is at the core of our salvation.

We shall awaken to the smile of the Father.

We shall be home, home at last.

The process of dying is something that I don't have any interest in.

Big deal.

It's not going to keep me from dying.

But what death brings, oh my goodness.

Better by far.

The smile of God, joy inexpressible and full of glory.

We are the most blessed and privileged people of all times.

We don't deserve a bit of what of what we receive.

We're blessed, we're honored, we're loved with a grace that is greater than all of the sin.

And if the world only stood, understood this, it would be jealous of us.

On the basis of that kind of thinking, I say without any hesitation and with great confidence, he is risen, he is risen indeed.

Now, I don't have a problem uh with honest doubts you may have, and God doesn't seem to have a big problem with them either.

My concern is really a little bit different.

As a pastor and as a friend, I really care about and am concerned about what's going on in your life spiritually, what's the state of your soul?

That's what the gospel is is all about.

My real concern is that you will have trusted Christ for forgiveness of sins, that you would have a future and a hope, that you would be being transformed by the power and the reality of Christ.

What I'm most concerned about is your relationship with Christ.

I doubt that don't bother me.

But I'm deeply concerned when we begin to realize that I really trust in Christ or haven't really trusted Christ.

So what I want to say on this Easter Sunday morning is have you accepted Christ as your Savior?

Have you appropriated by faith the work of Christ on the cross for which he died, was buried, and resurrected?

Is that your personal faith?

Have you put your faith in Christ?

Have you asked God to forgive your sins?

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

That's good news.

And my question is for you have you done that?

There would be no better day in the year than on the resurrection morning to make sure, to make sure that you have personally, in your own being, trusted Christ for salvation.

So I'm gonna pray.

And I'm gonna pray for that.

Would you pray with me?

Heavenly Father.

Um I simply ask you that you would help us with our doubts.

I thank you that you're so gentle and patient with us.

But Father, for anyone here this morning who really knows that they have never put their faith in Christ in a personal, specific, and real way.

I pray, Father, that they would come to you and they would simply say, Oh God, I need you.

I can't make it without you.

I am weak and I am sinful.

My sins stand between me and you.

Oh Lord God, forgive my sins on the basis of what Christ has done.

I put my trust in you.

I receive the free gift of salvation.

Oh God, help me.

Help me.

I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Hymn number two seventeen.

Christ the Lord is risen today.

Now, my friends, go into the world in peace.

Go into the world in peace.

Have courage.

The Lord loves us and He sent us forth.

Proclaim the gospel, comfort the grieving, restore the wandering, share the gospel.

And may the grace and the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all.

God bless.

Amen.