1 Corinthians Chapter 15 - "The Resurrection Reality: Proclaimed, Proven, and Promised."

Would you open your Bible, please, to the book of First

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

Corinthians, chapter 15? So that's in the New Testament.

We've been studying and teaching through First Corinthians.

We're nearly there. We've almost finished the book,

and tonight we're looking at chapter 15, verses one through

28, and the title of the message.

Tonight, the resurrection reality proclaimed, proven and

promised. As you're turning, I don't know

what you might think is the most important thing that you know

that that piece of information or a collective of information,

facts, knowledge that you possess that if you were to come

down to it, we'd suggest and say this is probably the most

important piece of information or knowledge in my possession.

Remember, as a child in primary school, coming into our school

library and just being enamoured with the number of books and

just overwhelmed with the sense of thinking back then.

This is prior to obviously the days of Internet and other, you

know, access to those sorts of things.

Wow, what knowledge there is here.

And then heading into high school and, and again, it just

kind of doubled in size the library on campus and not

changed school into a, a relatively new one that was much

better resource than the one I'd been at.

And I was just like, wow, this is mind blowing.

This library. And then I went to university

and, and university had not only one level, but multiple levels

of books and, and, and all sorts of academic texts and things

that I could access to. And, and then computers were

starting to come about then and we had all of those computer

stations. And, and then now of course,

with technology and what we have access to at our very fingertip,

the amount of knowledge that is, that is possible for us to

access, to consume, to know is, is huge.

Just think of the vast constant influx of information that is

available to you. And I mean, the average

household has multiple TV's and all of the media that's coming

through to us. I mean, statistically they

suggest that the average TV is on 8 hours a day in the home.

And if you've got multiples of those with all of the news

information coming through. So again, it begs the question,

what is the most important thing that you know?

The question, simple yet profound, leads us to 1

Corinthians 15 where Paul answers it directly.

He says in verse 3, what I received, I passed on to you as

of first importance. So Paul declares to us tonight

the first important to him, the first importance to him, the

greatest piece of knowledge, the greatest information that you

can receive that you could ever know, He presents.

And that is this, the gospel, the life, the death, the burial

and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And if you know this tonight, that is the most important thing

that you know. And if you don't know the truth

of this tonight, then tonight's your night.

You can know its greatest, most important of first importance.

As Paul says again, in an age of information, that's what it's

called now seemingly drowning in information, this chapter calls

us to anchor our lives in what matters most, the gospel, the

good news of Jesus Christ centred on the resurrection of

Jesus Christ, and that's Paul's real focus.

The simple truth is this. You see, a dead saviour, if

Jesus is not alive, if he did not rise again from the death,

saves no one. It's a waste of time.

In fact, Paul will declare that we're to be pitied because what

we're doing, what we're gathering here, if Jesus isn't

alive, if Jesus didn't rise again from the dead as the

Scriptures declare and as we believe, then we're just kidding

ourselves and we're to be pitied.

But if it's true, well then, then there's something powerful,

there's something great to it. And this is what Paul declares

to you and I tonight, that the greatest thing of first

importance that you can ever know is that the life, death,

burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ, the gospel message,

because this is what saves A risen Christ, saves all who will

believe. And the idea that Jesus lived a

good life, he was a good person, appeals to some.

And I'll declare that, yeah, I believe Jesus to to being a real

individual. And I think he taught some good

things that we can learn from. I think he taught some wonderful

things, in fact, but then he died and that's it.

And, you know, it was a tragic death and but he never came

back. And I don't believe that.

And so that begs the question, well, So what then?

There's been plenty of people that have espoused great things

and had some wonderful teachings and so on.

But what separates Jesus from just being a philosophy from a

guru is the fact that he rose again.

That's transformative. That takes a philosophy and

transforms it into the powerful. You see, this dead guy got back

up again. This dead guy isn't in the grave

anymore. He rose again, the Bible says,

and he's alive, which means this, that he can conquer death.

The death, that great nemesis, that great fear that holds much

of humanity did not hold him, that he had the power to conquer

death. And that means that if he has

the power to do that, then he has the power to do anything

that he promised. He said a number of things, and

we'll see the relevance of that. So tonight I want to look at the

powerful truth and fact of the resurrection of Jesus.

And what we're going to see in our text before us is that it is

proclaimed as the core of the gospel.

And then what Paul will do to to address any doubts at his

audience and that we might have is he he goes and proves the

resurrection. And then he builds on that and

gives the promise that the resurrection holds for you and I

tonight, that because Jesus is alive, that he is resurrected,

that he is immortal forever to live on, then that means

something for you and I. So let's look at these verses

and let's look at verses 1 to 4 to begin with.

Moreover, brethren, I declare I'm reading from the New King

James Version of the Bible. By the way, I declare to you the

gospel which I preached to you. Gospel simply means good news.

It's the good news of Jesus Christ which I preached to you,

which also you received, and in which you stand, by which also

you are saved if you hold fast. That word which I preached to

you, unless you believed in vain, or was emptiness or a

waste of time. For I delivered to you first of

all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins

according to the Scriptures, and that he was verse 4 buried, and

that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.

Now, brothers and sisters, he begins with I want to remind you

of the gospel that I preached. You see, there was a challenge

in the church at Corinth that was questioning.

And this was big in in Greek philosophy.

In fact, they weren't big on this idea of being resurrected,

that when you died, they would much prefer that, well, the

spirit was released from the body.

And this idea of, of having some kind of a resurrected body was

just altogether foreign. And that was creeping in to the

church there in Corinth. Remember it was a a Roman

province, but lots of Greek philosophy and influence there.

What Paul here gives to us in verses 3 and 4 in particular is

often being called an early Christian creed, something that

the early church had developed an an earliest record of, of

what the gospel is, of what they would confess.

This is what we adhere to, this is what we believe.

This is what makes us Christians, followers of the way

as they are known followers of Jesus Christ.

And that is that Jesus died, that Jesus was buried, and he

rose again according to the Scriptures.

And so the message of the Gospel is exactly that, that Christ

Jesus when he came to this earth, lived fully human, but he

died and he was buried, but he rose again three days later.

And Paul's words aren't simply an introduction to this chapter

here. They are called to to stand on

what truly matters. It says, I want you to be firm

on this, to be secure, grounded in this, because this is what

truly saves. Paul says he reminds the

Corinthians and us tonight the gospel that he preached.

This is what I delivered to you from the very beginning.

This is what you received. This is what has transformed

your lives. And now stand in this gospel

because the gospel is not just good advice, it's not just some

wise words and some things that, well, we can glean and maybe get

some good understanding out of it.

It is good news for you and I that God entered into human

history in Jesus and that He came and He is able to

sympathise with all that we experience and go through as

human beings here in this fallen world, this earth as we know it.

He knows what it is like to be human.

He knows what it is like to suffer, to to feel hunger, to

experience pain, to to mourn the loss of loved ones, to

experience betrayal. All of the things that we go

through, Jesus was acquainted with, and yet He lived sinlessly

in this life. So all of the pressure that we

face, that we succumb to, the temptations that we endure, He

was able to stand against and to resist.

The pressures of life in this fallen world were there for him.

But he was strong and he persevered and resisted.

And then he died sacrificially at the age of 33.

And he did die, despite what people might deny and try to

claim. He was beaten, he was flogged,

he was whipped, he was crucified.

Expert witnesses, the centurion at the cross declared that this

man was dead, so much so that when it came to breaking the

legs of the other criminals that were crucified alongside of him

to to speed up their death process when they came to Jesus,

No, he's gone. He was already dead and he died

in our place for our sin. The Bible says to pay the

penalty, the wages that that we had earned through our sinful

lives. And he came to take that and to

make the way possible for, for sinful fallen humanity to again

gain access, entrance to a holy, righteous, sinless God.

And he rose triumphantly 3 days later.

This is all part of the gospel, defeating death, conquering the

grave, displaying his power over sin and the grave and the enemy

Satan who thought he'd won his greatest victory.

You see in a world that is overflowing with bad news and,

and there is much of it, if you turn on the TV, listen to the

radio, read the headlines, it's death, it's injustice, it's

wars, it's tragedy after tragedy.

Paul declares that Christ died for our sins, that he was

buried, but he rose again on the third day.

And this, he says, is good news. This is the gospel for the

Christian. This is not optional truth for

us to go. Yeah, I kind of like bits and

pieces of the Bible and and and I'll glean from that and I'll

apply that. But this is a non negotiable,

this is foundational when it comes to what makes us

Christian. So just as reporters announce

world altering events, so we as Christians and I as a preacher

and anybody that proclaims the good news, the single greatest

event in history is the death, the resurrection of Jesus

Christ. And the meaning of the gospel is

this. It's for our sins, it says.

This was no ordinary death. It was what's called

substitutionary, penal and purposeful.

It says Christ died for our sins.

He bore the judgement that we deserve.

He took our place absorbing the wrath of God on our behalf.

Paul says indeed, as we look into this, that without Jesus

the Christ, we have a problem. And the problem is simply sin.

And we're all sinners. Not, not a single human being is

exempt from that. We all have in Word and in deed,

in thought, done what we're not to do and not done what we were

we were to do. These are called sins of

omission. The things that we have not

done, that we should have been doing, that we've omitted doing,

and sins of Commission, things that we have done that we should

not have done, we've all perpetrated those things and

we've all had those things committed against us.

And we know the full experience of sin in our existence of

humanity. And the result the the Bible

says the wages, the penalty of sin is death and we all die.

It's been said again and again, statistics are that 10 out of 10

people will die. And that is the bad news,

because if we're to die in our sin, then we are doomed and we

are lost and, and, and we're we're separated for all of

eternity away from God. But the good news is that Jesus

the Christ came to love and to save us, to rescue us from

ourselves and the perilous eternity that we faced without

him. And Jesus didn't just die.

That would be a tragedy. Yes, as we read the story and we

go through it and we see all that he experienced and, and

there have been many people throughout history that have

died and experienced all, all sorts of forms of, of terrible

tragedies in their death. But no, we remember Jesus

because of the significance of his death.

He died for you, it says he died for me, for our sins.

Like a a firefighter rushing into the flames to rescue the

trap. Jesus faced the fury of God's

judgement to bring us out and to rescue us and so on.

The meaning of this the Gospel, the good news of Jesus life of

Jesus death of his burial of his resurrection is is that have you

trusted Jesus, not merely admired him, not merely

appreciated him, but have you surrendered to him?

Have you received this gospel not as a philosophy, but as your

hope for what lies beyond the grave because the message of the

gospel must not only be received but retained.

That's why he says to them, stand firm in this not only what

I preached to you that you heard, but but listen to it,

receive it. This gospel, you are saved.

If you hold firmly otherwise, he says in verse 2, you have

believed in vain. You see, it's not just what you

hear, but what you believe and what you cling to that saves.

And all of this is so important because early on in the book of

Romans, Paul said these words in chapter 10, verse 9.

If you confess with your mouth, listen to this, the Lord Jesus,

and believe in your heart that what God raised him from the

dead, you shall be saved. That's the promise of the

Scripture. In other words, you cannot be

saved. You're not a true believer, a

saved person, if you deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That's how important it is. It's part and parcel of the

historic Christian gospel, this declaration of Jesus life,

death, burial and his resurrection.

And Paul sees this as our first importance.

So let let me remind you that the most important thing that

you can know, our first importance is this.

We need the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ and we are

they were to stand firm in this. And again, do you have this

tonight? Is your faith a passing phase?

I'll check out this church thing for a little bit and I'm curious

about the Bible or is it a permanent foundation, the

gospel. Do you stand in the gospel, the

good news of Jesus Christ? Are you wavering an opinion,

habit and loyalty? You know, I'm not sure, I'm not

sure. So the gospel firstly is

proclaimed, but let's look at in case you say, well, how can I

trust that the resurrection is real?

Are you kidding me with all of this?

I mean that's 2000 years ago just because some text says it.

And yes, I am wavering an opinion.

And are you expecting me to believe that someone came back

from the dead? Paul pre empts those lines of

questions in the verses that come.

And so now he proves with convincing evidence in verses 5

to 11 the gospel and in particular the resurrection of

Jesus Christ. And verse 5 he says that he was

seen by Cephas that that is Peter of the disciples of the

apostles. Then by the 12.

So in reference to the other disciples, followers of Jesus,

that's a collective term. After that verse 6, he was seen

by over 500 brethren at once. So 500 people gathered at one

point in time had seen Jesus resurrected, physical body as it

was, of whom he says the greater part.

You can ask them, he says at the time of this writing, of whom

the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen

asleep. This is a euphemism for having

died. You see, for the Christian, when

our physical body dies, it's gone.

That's not the real us. It's akin to falling asleep.

And the Bible says after that, verse 7, he was seen by James.

This isn't James of the disciples of the apostles.

This is the half brother of Jesus, James.

We'll talk a little bit about him later.

Then by all the apostles. These were others beyond the 12

as well. Then last of all, he was seen by

me. Paul's own personal testimony as

by one board out out of due time.

For I am the least of the apostles who am not worthy 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 toward

me was not in vain, empty or a waste of time, but I laboured

more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God

which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or

they, so we preach, and so you believed.

So again here in these verses, Paul anticipates those that

might doubt the Verity of the resurrection.

And he answers and he doesn't appeal to blind faith in the

verses that we read. He builds his case on eyewitness

evidence, on fulfilled prophecy and on transformed lives, and he

gives for a scriptural proof. First of all, he says according

to the Scriptures, and Paul here is appealing to their knowledge

of the Old Testament here when he says this and and perhaps

what comes to the mind of the audience and of of those hearing

this. And for you and I tonight are

passages like Isaiah 53. Or the likes of Psalm 16 or

Psalm 22 and go ahead and be a student of the Word and look

into those and see how they connect with Jesus of the likes

of the book of Jonah. In fact, Jesus himself, when he

was asked for a sign, spoke of the example of Jonah having been

swallowed in the belly of the great fish as being a

declaration of what would happen to him upon his death and for

three days being in the grave but prior to his resurrection.

But maybe the greatest illustration in the Scriptures

is in the book of Genesis. You might recall the story in

Genesis 22 of Abraham being called by God to sacrifice his

son, his only son in Isaac. Now Abraham had another son in

Ishmael, but did God say that God said your only son, Isaac?

No, I don't recognise the son of the flesh, for that was what

Ishmael was, but your only son, the son of the promise, the son

of the covenant, your only son in Isaac.

And it's a type of this story, a picture pointing to what God

would ultimately go through with that Abraham did not.

But Abraham was resolved in that three days that Isaac is as good

as dead. But God is faithful because he

has promised. Then he will raise him back from

the dead because there's yet many promises to be fulfilled in

and through Isaac. Abraham did this.

And Abraham tells Isaac when Isaac questions, well, where's

this sacrifice? And Abraham tells Isaac God will

provide himself a sacrifice. And it was on Mount Moriah that

that episode took place. Later known as Calvary, the

place where Jesus would be crucified and the prophecy was

fulfilled, where God would provide himself a sacrifice.

And so Paul here proves the resurrection by appealing to

scriptural proof, saying there were prophetic words that were

given that have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ in not only his

life, but in his death and his burial in his resurrection.

But then in case that's not enough, he goes now and makes

mention of eyewitness proof. And he spoke of Peter and of the

12 and of the 500 and of James and, and then of himself, Paul.

And he bolsters the evidence given with these eyewitness

accounts and references that Jesus appeared to them.

And he says, if you doubt this, many of them are present today

and you can still go ahead and ask them.

Tells us that the resurrected Jesus appeared to over 500

people, many of whom were still alive at the time of Paul's

writing of this letter. And this was a public fact,

common knowledge for them back then, easily disputable if it

were not so. And So what we know through this

and what we understand from the Scriptures is that Jesus

appeared to his friends, yes, but also to strangers.

And Paul says that over the course of some 40 days, he

appeared to as many as a crowd, numbering 500 at one point in

time. Jesus appeared to large crowds

of people after his resurrection.

And at the point the time of writing, we're looking at a more

of a rural type of living people who are scattered about, busy

about their, their, you know, endeavours in an agrarian

society and culture. So for 500 people to come

together was a very major, significant public event.

And what this tells us is that Jesus was not in hiding, that

after his resurrection he was widely known and seen an

experience. This would have been the front

page of the newspaper today. The leading story in the nightly

newscast would have been the discussion at work, the

discussion at synagogue, the discussion around the dinner

table. Jesus was alive.

Did you hear he appeared to the two on the road to a Mass?

Did you hear that he appeared to Peter?

He appeared to Thomas and all of those people and he was walking

around and and visible publicly. It's like he's scheduling

meetings, going to meals, making appearances with people.

And everybody had an opportunity to verify that he had indeed

risen from the dead. And Paul says, if you don't

believe me, then go to the eyewitnesses.

Many of them are alive still. And Paul references some

specific appearances as evidence.

He speaks of Peter first of all and and what he has in mind is,

is Peter being the not a leader of the disciples.

But we know that he was cowardly in that denial and three times

before the Russo had crowed denying that he was a follower

of Jesus and Jesus specifically sought him out.

So Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me?

Peter, do you love me three times and extending that

forgiveness that opportunity. The other disciples who were

afraid in the upper room as the record in the goth in in the

book of Acts tells us and of and of Thomas who was absent who

later when when Jesus had appeared and Thomas was there.

Thomas, you doubted me. You said if if you would stick

your hand in the side and and touch mine.

Well, here you go Thomas. He appeared and I mentioned the

two on the road to Emmaus. All of this here, but I want to

focus on on this one in particular.

He says and he appeared to James, James, Jesus sceptical

half brother. Now, Jesus had two brothers, at

least that we're aware of, James and a fellow called Jude, who

while Jesus was alive, did not believe in Jesus as Messiah.

In fact, at one point in time we read in the Gospels that they

thought Jesus and his teaching as a rabbi had gone so far that

they wanted to hold some kind of an intervention and bring him

out and kind of save him from himself.

Now, I don't know about you, but most of us probably would not

feel comfortable in worshipping our Big Brother, right?

Your Big Brother says to you, I'm God, what are you going to

do, Knock it off you? And we would say a whole number

of things, right? And yet after Jesus

resurrection, his own brother said, you know what, it's true.

We lived with him. He's our brother.

And as I look back, he never sinned.

And we saw him die and we saw him buried and we went to the

funeral and we saw him rise and and it's our brother.

Yes. And he said he was God.

And he came down from heaven to live without sin, to die, to

take away sin. And I didn't believe it at the

time, but but now I do. And it changed their lives.

And, and he said he would rise and, and he proved that he was

God by doing so. And, and now I'm on this mission

of salvation because I believe it.

And it's exactly as he said it would be.

And they began worshipping their brother as God.

And they both James and Jude became pastors and they both

wrote books in the New Testament named after themselves, the book

of James and the book of Jude. James becomes a very prominent

leader in the early church pastoring the the very pre

eminent church in Jerusalem. And Paul says effectively this

what would it take for someone to worship their brother as God?

Speak to James, speak to Jude. Extraordinary evidence is what

that would take, right? Such as the resurrection.

Now, all of this combined, if you were to think of it in court

today, if 500 eyewitnesses would testify of the same event, that

would be an unshakeable case, would it not?

In in our modern day courts, we're satisfied and happy with

2-3 witnesses, as was the case back then.

But 500 Paul says you want 2-3 witnesses, Let me give you 500

all at one time extraordinary evidence.

Now this wasn't some mass hallucination or emotional

delusion that was taking place here.

This is verifiable truth, but still not done.

Paul now having provides scriptural proof and eyewitness

proof gives personal proof of the radical transformation

that's happened in his life. You see, Paul, as he was

previously known as Saul, once hated Jesus with a passion, so

much so that he thought about murdering Christians.

Followers of Jesus tried with all that was within him to

destroy the early church. What changed him?

Seeing the risen Christ last of all he says verses 8 through to

10. He appeared to me also as to 1

abnormally born, but by the grace of God, I am what I am.

You see, some would say, and maybe you might think it with

all of the evidence given today so far.

Well, they're his friends, maybe his acquaintances and and his

family, and perhaps they're predisposed to eagerly yearn for

the coming of Jesus from from death.

Maybe, maybe they worked together out of their hearts

longing and yearning because of what they really wanted out of

Jesus. Maybe they needed this and they

managed to conjure up enough people and they're all in on the

lion. And some people say that and

believe that, right? And maybe they all suffered for

no apparent reason. That's a bit of a stretch, I

reckon. And to make the final point

here, that absolutely nails the case of the resurrection of

Jesus. Paul says I saw him too and man,

Jesus changed my life. Now Paul wasn't an acquaintance

of Jesus. He wasn't a friend or a family

member of Jesus. He was an enemy of Jesus.

He hated Jesus with a a deep seated kind of hatred that few

have ever had for Jesus or anyone else for that matter.

And as I said before, he despised Christians.

One of our first introductions to Paul, as he was called back

then, is Saul in the book of Acts is where he is

participating in the public execution and unjust murder of

an early Christian leader, a fellow called Stephen, because

Stephen worshipped and exalted and preached the resurrected

Jesus. And Saul, as Paul was known back

then, hated that. And Paul's mission was to murder

people who worship Jesus until he saw the resurrected Jesus on

the road to Damascus. It's called the Damascus

conversion. We read it in the book of Acts,

and upon seeing Jesus restored to life, Paul was struck with

this incontrovertible fact that Jesus is the Christ, that Jesus

the Christ is God who has taken away sin and conquered death and

deserves our worship alone. And it radically transformed

Saul's life. He became known as Paul.

He went from a murderer of Christians to a pastor of

Christians. He went on three missionary

journeys as we read through in the book of Acts.

He would write a large chunk of the New Testament.

Ultimately he would be beheaded by Caesar for being a follower

of Jesus. That's a change.

That's a transformation that takes something significant to

effect such a change. There's a modern day example, a

fellow called Frank Morrison. He was a sceptical lawyer who

tried to disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

He thought if he could disprove the resurrection and

incidentally disproved the transformation of Paul from

going going from Seoul to Paul, then he thought that you could

disprove Christianity. And he's true in fact, if you

can do that. So he set out to do so.

Of course, you know how those stories go.

In the process he became convinced, convicted and

converted and gave his life to Jesus as the Christ, believed in

him as his Lord and Saviour and and wrote a book called Who

Moved the Stone, A powerful account of faith built on

evidence. You see, no one is beyond grace.

Paul is proof, he says that it was the grace of God upon me.

And you here tonight might feel unworthy.

We've been hearing the gospel mention of our sin and of our

need for a Saviour and of Jesus and the importance of him coming

and of him dying and our place for our sin.

But you know, the resurrection is not for the worthy, It's for

the broken. It's for the sinful, it's for

the hopeless. And it changes everything, just

as it changed Paul. And so he firstly proclaims the

gospel message, verses wonderful, and then he proves

the gospel message, focusing specifically on the

resurrection. And now he goes and builds from

verses 12 through to 28 on the promise of of what?

Hope this should fill in our hearts in understanding and in

knowing this truth. And I want to read all of these

verses together and they're actually quite simple in their

flow, and I think easily digestible and understandable.

So we won't need to dwell a whole heap on these verses.

We'll find ourselves finishing very soon verses 12 to 28.

Now if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the

dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of

the dead? But if there is no resurrection

of the dead, then Christ is not risen.

So as I said to you, there were some in the church at Corinth

were denying that there was a resurrection altogether.

So Paul says, why are some saying that?

And let me tell you that if that's true, then Jesus isn't

alive. That's the first thing.

And then he goes on verse 14. And if Christ is not risen, then

our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.

It's a waste of time. We're kidding ourselves.

Yes. Verse 15 and we have found false

witnesses of God. In other words, we're lying

then. And basically what these people

are saying is I'm a liar, that you're a liar, that you're

deceived, that you're deluded and and that you're mad in this

because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ and he

did not raise up. If if resurrection's not real,

if in fact the dead do not rise. 4 verse 16 if the dead do not

rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ has not risen,

your faith is futile. And look at this, you are still

in your sins. Bad news.

Then also those who have fallen in asleep in Christ to perish.

And he says then even worse, those that have died before us

and believe this, we're fooled and deluded and they're perished

and they're gone forevermore dying in their sin.

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, verse 19, we

have of all men the most pitiable.

He says, then we're an absolute bunch of fools if this is all we

have and we have to be pitied for being so delusional.

But now verse 20, Christ is risen from the dead and has

become the first fruits, the prototype, the example, the the

prediction of what is to come for those who have fallen

asleep, who have died. For since by man came death, by

man also came the resurrection of the dead.

For and now he goes back to the problem.

Because of Adam we all die. Verse 22 Even so, because of the

second Adam, Jesus the Christ, all shall be made alive.

Just as it was so for one in Adam, it shall be so for the

other in Christ Jesus, but each one in His own order.

Christ the first fruits, afterward those who are Christ

at His coming. Then comes the end, and now He

gives His wonderful eschatology a breakdown of future events for

us. Then comes the end, when He

delivers the Kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to

all rule and all authority and power.

For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.

The last enemy that will be destroyed is death, and we read

of that in the Book of Revelation, for He has put all

things under His feet. Verse 27.

When he says all things are put under Him, it is evident that He

who put all things under Him is accepted.

Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son

Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him

that God may be All in all. What Paul does here is his

wonderful promise in these verses that we've just read.

He moves from Christ's resurrection to the promise of

ours, that if Jesus rose, and just as Jesus rose, so here is

the promise. We'll we, here is the hope, here

is the security. Our resurrection is tied to

Jesus Christ. That's what this passage

conveys, and as I said to you, I think it's fairly

straightforward and makes sense why I read it all together.

You see again, some in Corinth, influenced by something called

Greek dualism, denied bodily resurrection.

Greeks thought of resurrection is ridiculous.

Death for them was again a releasing of the soul from the

captivity of the body. And similarly the Romans denied

a resurrection. They didn't think much of it.

And remember Corinth being a Roman province.

Some of that thought was influencing those in the church.

You might in fact recall in the book of Acts when Paul was

before a fellow called Festus talking to him about the

resurrection. Festus stopped Paul and said

Paul, much learning has what made you mad because it was the

subject of resurrection. And even amongst the Jews there

was this sect. There's a group of people known

as the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection.

Remember when Jesus was alive and they came to him and they

posed this question about the resurrection Jesus.

If this woman married a guy and he died and then she marries his

brother and he dies and then there's another brother and he

dies and so on through. And then at the end if there's a

resurrection Jesus, well, whose wife will she be?

And Jesus, to paraphrase, basically says you're idiots,

you're ignorant, have you not read, you're you're mad.

And so Paul dismantles that thinking about the resurrection,

just as Jesus did back then. And, and whatever its source in

the church in Corinth, ultimately he declares this

truth. If there is no resurrection of

the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ is not raised, then our preaching is useless.

It's a waste of time. Our faith is futile.

We're kidding ourselves. We're still hopelessly lost in

our sins, the dead who have gone before us, a loss God knows

where, and we are to be pitied. Above all people are to just

think of us as the most deluded bunch of ignoramuses out there.

And when you think and what you know of early church history,

Christians were tortured and martyred, beheaded, burned,

flayed for one reason. They believed that Jesus had

risen and that they would rise too.

You see, without the resurrection, Christianity is a

hoax. It's a waste of time.

But with it, even our suffering has purpose, even to the point

of death, because death loses its sting then.

Because this body, you can kill it all you want, but Jesus, who

has the power to defeat death, is alive, is resurrected, and he

has promised that I'll be alive with him.

Because Jesus is the first fruits, he says the first fruits

were the first sheaf that was in Jewish custom waved before God

in the harvest festival, symbolising that the full

harvest, the promise of the harvest was coming.

Because there it is, there's the first fruit and we know what

that means. The rest of the crop is coming.

And so Jesus was when it says the first fruits here, it means

he's the template, as I said, the the prototype and his

resurrection. Then what's wrapped up in this

from Paul is this Jesus resurrection is the guarantee of

what will follow for you. And I-1 guarantees the other.

The first fruit guarantees A crop to come because this is so,

because Jesus is a lie, because Jesus is resurrected, He's the

first fruit, Paul says. Then it is so it is guaranteed

that the resurrection will come for you and I as believers in

him. So like the first apple picked

signals more to come. So Jesus resurrection assures

that ours is on the way and that means this it means that victory

is certain that Christ will reign and that is what's there

in in the verses 24 through to the end of what we read in 28

that because Jesus is alive we will be for as in Adam all die.

He said so in Christ or will be made alive and Jesus reigns

until every enemy including death is crushed and then he

hands the Kingdom to the Father, having secured eternal life for

his people. You see your resurrection.

My resurrection is not a maybe not AI hope so cross my fingers.

It's as certain as Jesus Christ. Resurrection is historical, and

because of that, you and I, we can live with resurrection

confidence. That's what this passage is all

about. And so going back to my opening

question, what's the most important thing?

You know, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most

important thing that you can know.

Paul has proclaimed it tonight. He has proven it, and he reminds

you and I that we are promised it too.

It is historically credible. It's theologically essential.

It is the foundation that we're to stand firm and be secure in,

and it is personally transformational.

Just as it changed Paul's life, just as it changed the church in

Corinth's lives, just as it has changed millions throughout

church history's lives and has changed many years lives, it can

change yours. And so to the seeker, to the

unbeliever in Jesus Christ tonight, believe in Jesus not

just as a man in history, but as your risen Saviour tonight who

came and lived and revealed God to humanity.

And he died and he was buried, but three days later rose again,

and now he is seated at the right hand of the Father, making

intercession for you and I and the Bible.

He promised. He said, I go to prepare a place

for you, that where I am you may be also to the Christian, to the

believer tonight, stand firm. Be secure in this gospel

message. Your labour in the gospel is not

in vain. Your life, whatever suffering,

whatever you're experiencing, whatever you're going through,

resurrection is coming. And to the suffering, that would

be the same. Hope is alive.

Death is not the end. And to the church for all of us

tonight, live, worship and witness like people who believe

in the power of the empty tomb.