The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: The Best News in the World - Holy Week

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Holt.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

How many of you believe in the resurrection?

How many of you believe that because Jesus rose from the grave, you can rise from the grave?

So I was just getting ready to get up.

A bunch of young guys came up to me over here to tell me of something that happened yesterday.

So yesterday, this group of guys and gals were coming back from a trip.

They came in to loaf and jug, and there was a guy laying on the ground dead.

And he had taken some fentanyl.

And someone was pumping on his chest, and he was not responding.

And they went over, and in the name of Jesus, they spoke the word of God over this young man.

They cast out his demons, and he was raised up, and he's with us today.

So, Josh, would you stand up, Josh?

There's Josh right there.

Come on.

Come on.

I want all you guys, all you guys who are part of it, would you guys stand up?

Yeah.

Awesome.

Love it.

He's alive.

So the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest news in the world.

Our whole life, we don't even know how much our life is changed by the Jesus Christ.

So if we even look at our dating system, this is 2024.

What's that based on?

That's based on ano domini, the year of our Lord.

Jesus' birth, we wouldn't know anything about if he hadn't risen from the grave.

He'd just be some crucifixion that occurred in Roman times who claimed to be a Savior, but he died and he rose again.

His resurrection has affected our entire dating system.

Now some of you here have Bibles with you.

Hold up your Bible if you have a Bible with you.

Alright, we wouldn't have this Bible.

The Old Testament, which was written before Christ, is a prophecy of a Messiah that was going to come.

And the fact that Jesus died on the cross and rose again gave us the New Testament.

So the entire Bible comes because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We look at our Western civilization, the arts, the science, and all aspects that we just take for granted every day is because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The pilgrims and the Puritans came to found America, a new nation, a new nation based on equality, a nation based on freedom of religion and freedom of speech was because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And so, men and women, this is the greatest day of the year.

Easter, the resurrection is the greatest day of the year.

And you're here.

And I just want to say hi five to all of you for being here.

Because this is the greatest day of the year.

And sometimes we take it for granted in America.

They don't take it for granted in China.

They don't take it for granted in parts of Muslim strongholds in Asia and in the Middle East.

I mean, they're being persecuted for their faith.

May we never, ever take it for granted that Jesus rose again from the grave.

And we can walk in that and we can experience that and we have freedom right now to worship the Lord.

And so I'm just so thankful all of you are here.

I'm Steve Holt for you that have never been here for.

I'm the senior pastor, and we welcome you.

We have baptisms today.

I didn't even know this.

We just did this because I like doing it when I was at my other church, and I do it here sometimes.

I don't do it every year.

But actually, historically, the tradition is to get baptized at Easter.

And I've been studying St.

Patrick and the Celts in Ireland and some books that I'm reading right now, and I just realized that in ancient times, in the first probably five centuries of the church, you always got baptized on Easter.

So we're following with tradition, which is really cool.

Isn't that fun?

All right.

If you have a Bible with you, turn to 1 Corinthians, it's in the New Testament, chapter 15.

If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the slot, maybe in front of you, but knowing that on any given week people don't have Bibles, that's fine.

We're going to put the verses up on the screen.

So I would challenge you that have Bibles, and if you're one of those like the road people are, they like have pens and you take notes and everything, these verses I'm going to give you, I hope, will be inspirational as you look back at 1 Corinthians 15, because this is the greatest passage in all of the Old or New Testament on the resurrection of Christ.

It's key to everything.

You couldn't go wrong by memorizing the entire chapter.

Now, I'm not going to go through all of it because of time won't allow, but I'm going to skip around and we're going to talk about why the resurrection is so important.

So look at verse 1.

Start with verse 1.

It's really important.

It says, moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel.

You ought to underline or circle the gospel, which I preach to you, which also you received, and in which you stand and by which you are saved.

Now, gospel, how many remember, how many are old enough here to remember the Broadway hit God's spell?

Okay, God's spell.

So gospel, God's spell, means good news.

And in the midst of fake news, false news, and fearful news, we have great news.

It's the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's good news, and this is what makes it really good, is that it's true.

Anyone gotten the idea that sometimes the news you get isn't true?

Okay, and sometimes what you think is true is actually called a conspiracy theory, and then they find out a year later, you are right, they were wrong, but they never admit it.

But that's okay.

We have good news because Jesus rose from the grave, and it's better than any news.

No matter how good the news might be, there's no better news than the good news of what he's about to say.

So here's what he says: For I delivered to you, first of all, first of all, so this is the first thing that we need to know about the good news of the kingdom of God.

Of all that which I received, this is the first thing, this is the main thing, this is the foundation of everything, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures.

So the best news concerning Jesus Christ are these three points.

The first one was Jesus died for your sins.

You say, well, I'm not a sinner, I'm not a robber, I've never killed anybody, I've never robbed a bank.

That's the way we view sin today.

But sin simply means, in its term, in the Hebrew or the Greek, is missing the mark.

It's the idea of missing perfection.

And if anybody here raises their hand, if I ask you, are you perfect?

Then I'm assuming you're not married.

Okay?

So we're not, nobody here is perfect, and so we're all sinners.

We're all, we all struggle with sin.

Another way to say it is we're selfish.

We're selfish people.

We all are.

I'm as selfish as anyone, and I'm trying to grow into that and out of that and expose it so that I can grow into being a better person.

Well, Christ died for your sins.

Past, present, and future.

Not just your sins now, not just the things you've done, but He's actually, He actually died on the cross, knowing your future sins, that if you receive Him, He forgives you.

Now, if you haven't received Christ, then you're still in your sin.

But this is the good news.

You can, even today, Easter, 2024, Resurrection Day, 2024, you can be set free from your sin and completely forgiven.

So that's the first thing he says.

Number two, he says, he was buried.

Now, the Romans were not only good at building roads, they were also good at killing people.

And so they were probably the best killers of all time.

As a matter of fact, you did not survive a crucifixion.

When you were crucified, they waited until you died, and they knew when you were dead.

And if you weren't dead, they uh deadened you.

They either broke your legs or they hit you with a spear.

Jesus was actually pierced on the side, and they saw blood and water come out, and they knew that he had had a broken heart.

So he was dead.

The third thing that Paul says here is that he was resurrected.

So he says here that he was, he died for our sins, he was buried, and then on the third day he rose again from the grave.

Now that's the good news.

That's the gospel.

So if someone said to you, what do you mean, what do you Christians mean by the gospel, that's it.

Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

He was dead and was buried and was put into a Jewish tomb, and on the third day he rose again from the grave.

That's the greatest news the world has ever known.

Now, Paul, anticipating when he wrote 1 Corinthians to the Corinthians, those who were in Corinth where Christianity had really not penetrated yet, he gives an apologetic next for how we know Jesus really died from the grave.

I mean, he's using modern, he's using modern courtroom evidence.

Verse 5.

He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.

After that, he was seen by over 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part even remained of the present.

In other words, he's giving us the classified information, if there was a courtroom trial about the resurrection of Christ, that over 500 people, eyewitnesses, saw him alive.

And it's one thing to make that statement, and you're in some faraway place, but he says, actually, those people who saw Jesus risen from the grave are still alive today.

They can verify that they saw him alive.

Dr.

Thomas Arnold, professor of modern history at Oxford, said, I've been used for many years to study the histories of other times and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.

Dr.

Simon Greenleaf, while professor of law at Harvard, wrote a volume examining the legal value of the apostles, that's the 12 disciples' testimony to the resurrection of Christ.

Greenleaf concluded with this.

The resurrection of Jesus is one of the best supported events in history, according to the laws of legal evidence administered in courts of justice.

So why?

Because this is really the most important thing today for us.

Why is the resurrection of Jesus Christ the greatest news that the world has ever known?

Well, 1 Corinthians 15 gives us four clear reasons.

There's probably eight, but I'm gonna camp on four distinct reasons in 1 Corinthians 15 as to why the resurrection is so important in our faith.

Why it's the foundation of Christianity, why it can change your life.

Here's what it says.

Look at verse 20.

So jump down to verse 20.

But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the first fruits, underline, circle, whatever you like to do, first fruits, and put number one right next to it.

First fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For sins by man came death.

By man, notice that's a capital M, man, that means the second Adam, Jesus.

Also came the resurrection of the dead, for as in Adam I'll die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

Here's my first point.

Jesus' resurrection is the first fruits of your resurrection.

It's the first fruits of your resurrection.

Well, Steve, what's first fruits mean?

Well, when I grew up on a ranch in South Carolina, we had first fruits.

And so that meant that the garden at Grand Eddie Hab, which is about the size of the sanctuary, when those turnips were ready, or those cucumbers were ready, or those turnips, I mean those uh tomatoes were getting ready, usually around June, believe it or not, June, okay, that's the South.

We would, you'd get a little tomato, or you'd get a little turnip, or you'd get some collard greens, or something like that, and and we had hands that would go out and they would gather them into this basket that grandmother had and bring them in, and here we were in the kitchen hanging out first fruits.

In other words, first fruits means it's an indication of what's to come.

It's an indication of what's to come.

So by seeing that first tomato, by seeing that first turnip green, that was an indication.

There's gonna be a harvest.

There's a harvest coming.

That comes from Leviticus 23.

So in the Old Testament, Leviticus 23, which we call the Passover, which we're gonna celebrate here, a Jewish Christian Passover that we do called the Seder, that we're gonna do on the 22nd of this month.

You'll hear when Haim leads us in that, he'll talk about the Passover related to the first fruits.

Okay?

So the first fruits is that Jesus died, rose again as an indication of the harvest in your life and in my life.

We're gonna rise from the grave because Jesus did.

In other words, when Jesus conquered sin and death, he set us free to conquer sin and death if you're a believer in Jesus.

So it's pretty cool.

The first fruits.

Now in Colorado, you don't see first fruits for a while.

So we have summer, fall, winter, sp, winter, sp, winter.

And then it's summer, right?

So in but in most places of the world, you actually have a spring.

And in the spring is your first fruits.

And so you you're and you're gonna see first fruits.

It's just a little bit later, but you'll start to see that little sprig.

You know, in your lilac.

So you'll see that little sprig on your aspen trees, or whatever it is you have, or if you have flowers, you're gonna have that first flower.

That's first fruits.

That's important.

The resurrection of Christ is a first fruit that you are going to rise from the grave.

And guess what?

When you rise from the grave, you're gonna have a perfect body.

Now, some of us in this room, I'm included, work pretty hard to try to have a perfect body.

I exercise and I take my vitamins and I walk, I do stuff like that, and some of you do that too.

If you're part of the road, you do it a lot because we're just the health, we're the healthiest church in Colorado Springs.

We are the healthiest church in Colorado Springs.

And um, some of you are doing wholehard 45 right now, which if you don't know what that is, ask your neighbor, they'll tell you, but not now.

Wait till later.

But anyway, you you you do that because you want a perfect body.

So say to your neighbor, I want a perfect body.

Well, you ain't gonna get one.

But there's good news and bad news.

The bad news, you ain't gonna get a perfect body here.

But guess what?

There's a day coming when you'll be diseaseless.

Okay?

You you will be uh heart pressure, uh blood pressure free, and you're gonna have a perfect body.

This is the first fruits.

You're gonna get a perfect body.

Work hard at it now, but you are gonna get one.

I want to encourage you in that.

Look at verse 24.

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, that's important.

He puts a he's gonna rule over all authority and power, for he must reign, underlying reign, until he has put all enemies under his feet.

Number two, Jesus' resurrection is just the start of his reign over all authorities, powers, and enemies.

So the if Jesus hadn't risen from the dead, we have no power over demons.

We have no power over Satan, and we have no power over death.

But because Jesus rose from the grave, he went to hell.

In that three days, if you ever asked yourself, what did Jesus do in those three days?

Well, we know in Scripture that he went into hell, and I don't know exactly what the transaction is, but we have these cryptic verses in the New Testament that would indicate he preached the good news.

He preached the gospel to Satan, demons, and the dead.

And we have this real cryptic story where in one of the gospel accounts, where right after Jesus died, people rose from the grave.

Talk about first fruits.

So that they rose from the grave.

And they came in and they and they actually showed themselves in Jerusalem that they had risen from the grave because Jesus went down.

He went down where there was paradise and there was Hades, and you see this in the in the story of Lazarus and the rich man, and he preached the gospel.

And I think what he did is he he came up to Satan and he said, I'll take the keys.

Give me the keys of sin and death.

You had them for a while, you ain't got them now.

I'm not dead, I'm coming back, see ya.

Okay, now that's more of a southern way of saying it, but but that was the beginning of the defeat of Satan.

So when I've had to cast out a demon, and I think these guys had to do the same yesterday, demons get really quiet when I walk in the room.

Especially when I call them out.

And I say, in the name of Jesus, stop doing that.

And they stop doing that.

Because it's not because I have authority, I just have confidence in his authority.

Every one of you in this room that is a Jesus follower have the same authority and you have the same power.

And if you say, Well, how do I get more of that?

Meet more demons.

You meet more demons, you'll get more power.

Okay, and so demons are all around, but they set you, they we get to set people free.

So we had this young man when I was living in Japan who had epilepsy.

That's how it was diagnosed by the industry called health care.

He's got epilepsy.

But after I cast out three demons at him, he never had epilepsy again.

Years later, he's never had epilepsy again.

So that's the power that the resurrection of Jesus by him going into hell and announcing the resurrection and the power of Jesus that we have today.

And so Joel, in giving his testimony, suddenly had power, Joel, over cocaine, over heroin, and over alcohol.

You didn't believe it, you believed it and you received it, and you're baptized with power.

And God can conquer any obstacle in your life.

I'm telling you, man.

You can see his conquering power working through you.

So Jesus' resurrection, first of all, is the fruits of our resurrection, our resurrection.

Number two, Jesus' resurrection is just the start of his reign over all authorities, powers, and demons.

Now look at verse 42.

So also is the resurrection of the dead.

The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.

It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.

Number three, Jesus' resurrection enables us to experience God's power.

We can experience God's power because we've received his power because of the resurrection that he came forth from the grave in power.

Now, the problem we all have is what he said.

We struggle with our own corruption.

We struggle with dishonor.

We struggle with shame.

Everyone in this room struggles with shame.

We've all felt shame, and it's it's a bummer, man.

It's like one of the worst things.

It's a struggle with some of you carry shame in a big, big way.

It makes you insecure, it makes you angry, it makes you bitter.

But I'm here to tell you from personal experience and from thousands of others that if you'll surrender your dishonor, if you'll surrender your shame, if you'll surrender your addictions to Christ, his power will come in.

It may not be overnight.

Now, sometimes it is.

I think for Josh, he would say that's pretty overnight over there at the loafing job.

And so sometimes it happens that way.

But most of the time it's a process, you guys, of knowing Jesus, growing in Jesus.

And Josh is going to have to do that too.

He's going to have to grow and be discipled in Jesus in his life.

So Jesus' resurrection enables us to experience God's power in our life.

So why is the resurrection the greatest news in the world?

It's the first fruits of our own resurrection.

It starts his reign over all enemies.

And then fourthly, Jesus' resurrection makes you unshakable.

The resurrection of Christ can take you a shakable individual and start making you enter within an unshakable person.

We are all subject to the fear of death.

Man, COVID really showed that to us, didn't it?

How many of us were actually very fearful of death?

God can make us unshakable by taking away our fear of death.

Look at verse 54.

Look at verse 54.

So when this corruption has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

Oh death, where is your sting?

O Hades, where is your victory?

Now jump down to verse 58.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain.

Men and women, you can become a person who has no fear of death.

C.S.

Lewis said that all that death is, is moving from the room that we're in right now, a door opens, and we enter another room of eternal life.

So we have nothing to fear.

Now, if you don't know Jesus in a personal way, you have a lot to fear.

But I want to challenge you today.

That fear can be broken.

That fear can be replaced with faith.

You can become a flying creature.

You can win your wings.

To quote Clarence in It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey's Guardian Angel.

Here's what C.S.

Lewis said.

God became man to turn creatures into sons.

Not simply to produce better men of the old kind, but to produce a new kind of man, a new kind of woman.

It's not like teaching a horse to jump better and better, but it's like turning a horse into a winged creature.

In other words, what happens when we receive Christ is it's not a reformation of you, it's a transformation of you.

It's not a reformation of the person you've always been.

It's actually a revolution of a new man and a new woman that you can become in Christ.

That's what Easter Sunday is about.

That's what the resurrection is about.

Thank you for listening to the Born for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steveholtonline.org.

God bless.