1 Corinthians 14:1-20 – Easter Sunday

Good morning.

Happy Easter.

Our reading today is taken from the book of First Corinthians, chapter 15.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

If you could follow along in your instrument of scripture on the screen, it would be beneficial.

And now I read.

Now I will remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved.

If you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.

That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain.

On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Whether then it was high or day, so we preach, and so you believed.

Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how come some of you say that there is no resurrection from the dead?

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

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 not true that the dead are not raised.

Or if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.

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

Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If in Christ we have opened this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are falling asleep.

Happy Easter uh to you all.

Uh, great if you're here and visiting or a guest with us.

Uh, thank you for joining us.

My name's Mark.

I'm one of the leaders here, and what a great Sunday to be here, Easter Day.

Every Sunday is a little mini Easter, uh, but once a year we get to celebrate that Jesus did not stay dead, that he is indeed alive.

And the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is not a is not some Christian tradition uh that we celebrate today.

It is the pivotal moment in all of human history.

It's the foundation of the Christian faith.

It is the thing upon which Christianity rises or falls.

It's the heart of our hope for the future that transcends all other circumstances that may happen in our lives.

The fact that Jesus was raised from the dead, that he is ruling and reigning in heaven, is the ground of our hope and of our assurance that God is for us.

All who trust in Jesus, that we have been forgiven because of his death for us, that thing that we remembered uh just a couple of days ago.

That we are adopted into his family, that we now call him father.

Why?

Because our older brother, the Lord Jesus, walked out of that tomb that first Easter Sunday.

The resurrection from the dead has broken the power of sin over the believer's life.

That you can now say no to sin, as Paul says elsewhere in the book of Titus and worldly passions.

He has destroyed the dominion of death.

Death no longer has the final word.

He has defeated the forces of darkness that would seek to accuse and seek to remind you of past shame.

He has put them to open shame and triumphed over them in him.

In their place, he has given us the power of his spirit.

To live for him, he has brought us into the kingdom of his eternal life.

If you're a follower of Jesus, your eternal life has already begun.

Your physical death will not interrupt it.

He has brought you into his light, his life, his grace.

For us today, and Christians all across the world and down the centuries, today holds that sort of special and central significance.

That everyone here in this room who trusts in Jesus does so because of the power of his resurrection.

Because Jesus is alive, he has transformed your life.

As the video which we showed right at the start of the service, that people testified to, people have testified to how Jesus changed their life and is central to their life now going forward.

That is because he was raised from the dead.

The significance of this day cannot, therefore, be understated.

And Paul, in this passage, and we'll not have time to go through all of the details, wonderful passage though it is, shows us the central importance of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

He begins by saying that this gospel, this good news, that death no longer reigns over humanity.

The Christ now reigns over all people, all time, all places.

This good news is the basis on which you are being saved.

Sin done away with, eternal life, yours forever.

It is the ground on which you build your life.

And he makes four brief, basic points about the resurrection that I'm going to draw out for us this morning.

The first is that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is historical.

He begins by saying that I delivered to you of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried and raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures, that he appeared to Kephas, that's Peter, that's his uh his Aramaic name, and then to the twelve.

They appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time.

Most of them are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

That's not that they're taking a nap, it's that they've died.

But when when the resurrection of Jesus is true, death is just like falling asleep.

Remember that story that uh in the Gospels of Jesus uh going to the little girl, Jairus' daughter in Mark chapter four, uh, where Jairus uh has uh has lost his daughter, this little girl of twelve, and he goes and he wakes her up.

Or in John chapter 11, when he learns that Lazarus has died and he waits four days.

John 11 · chapter mention

Why does he wait four days?

Well he waits four days in order to show that Lazarus really was dead.

Jesus wasn't just going to go and do some CPR and some resuscitation.

And after four days, he says, My friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, and I must go and wake him up.

That's the power of the risen Lord Jesus.

That for him, death is exercise is no more dominion than you having a nap.

Paul says, Some of the people have fallen asleep, though many of them are alive.

That the resurrection is a historical, verifiable reality.

Verse 3, he he talks about a historic event.

He says, Christ died.

That's in history, crucified under Pontius Pilate.

Historic event.

And then he gives us the theological reason for the historical event.

Christ died.

Why?

Why did Christ die?

For our sins.

That he was buried.

And on the third day, he was no longer dead.

On the third day, he rose again.

And Paul doesn't just say, take my word for it, because that's a strange day, right?

People coming back from the dead doesn't always happen.

But Paul doesn't say, just take my word for it.

He points to evidence.

He points to the eyewitnesses.

He says, he appeared to Peter, to Kephas, and then to more than 500 people at one time.

So this is not, there's not mass hallucinations, many of whom can still verify to the first century reader what Paul is saying.

All the way through the New Testament, you get this in the Gospels as well.

The Gospel writers are at pains to show us that what they are talking about are historical events and to write to their first century writers and say, if you would like to go and verify this, you can go to Judea, Samaria.

There's 500 people nearly that you could still talk to and say, Did you see Jesus after he was raised from the dead?

Yes.

Yes, we saw him.

The eyewitness testimonies, though, are only one aspect of the argument explaining that the empty tomb is a historic event.

That Jesus really did rise from the dead, and that is the best explanation for why the tomb is empty.

It does not work to say that the tomb wasn't empty because even Jesus' enemies agreed that the tomb was empty.

There was never any dispute after three days that there wasn't a dead body in the tomb.

Even the Jewish leaders agreed with that.

There's nobody in the tomb.

The only thing that they disagreed about was how it got empty.

And so they spread the rumor that the disciples stole the body.

But that doesn't work, does it?

Because you got 12 guys, probably more actually, who then go on to live a life and to suffer the most horrendous horrendous persecution and execution.

And not one of them ever goes, well, actually, we were just joking.

It never happens.

They all go to the most horrendous deaths claiming that Jesus really did rise from the dead.

So the resurrection was public, verifiable, testified to by many.

It invites our scrutiny and our questions.

But there can be no doubt that the empty tomb stands in history.

Secondly, the resurrection is not just historical, it's biblical.

Paul twice in this section uses the phrase, in accordance with the scriptures.

Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

What scriptures is he referring to?

Is he referring to the uh to the New Testament guys, to Mark's gospel, maybe?

No, he's actually referring back to the Old Testament.

He says, you don't need to, you don't need to read my letter, you don't need to necessarily read Mark's gospel in order to know about the resurrection of the dead.

You read the Old Testament.

It was pointed to there.

All of this has already been foreshadowed, and we are now living the culmination of it.

Paul is saying that the death and resurrection of Jesus was part of the definite plan of God to rescue humanity and bring them back to himself.

It's the fulfillment of all of the promises, all of the types and shadows of the Old Testament.

Here are the words of Isaiah 53.

He was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

They made him a grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, though there was no deceit in his mouth, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

He has put him to grief.

And when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offer and shall prolong his days.

The will of the Lord shall prosper his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.

How does the Lord prosper the hand of a corpse?

Isaiah is pointing to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Or Psalm 16.

Therefore my heart is glad, my whole being rejoices, my flesh also dwells secure.

For you will not abandon my soul to shale the grave, or let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life, in your presence our fullness of joy, at your right hand our pleasures forevermore.

Peter uses these words in his first sermon at Pentecost when the Spirit is poured out and he is proclaiming the resurrection to the thousands that are gathered in Jerusalem.

And he's thinking, Well, how can I point to the fact that the resurrection of the Messiah, God's chosen, appointed, anointed king, was always going to happen.

Where does he go?

He goes to Psalm 16.

He says, You'll not let your holy one see corruption.

He goes, Well, David wrote the Psalm and he's rotting somewhere uh up uh up the hill over there in Jerusalem.

And so it can't be about him, it has to be about somebody else.

It's about the risen Lord Jesus.

Or Jonah of whale or big fish fame.

How long did he spend in the depths of the earth in the belly of the whale?

Three days and three nights in that great fish.

And Jesus, when the religious leaders come to him and say, Give us another sign, give us another miracle, do another trick for us.

What does he say?

In Matthew chapter 12, he says, No other sign will be given to you except for the sign of Jonah.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

What is the sign of Jonah?

Well, just as Jonah was as good as dead in the belly of the fish, and then was raised from the depths of the ocean back to life, he said, No sign will be given to you except for the sign of Jonah.

That as the Son of Man, that's Jesus' name for himself, spends three days and three nights in the body of the earth, so too, he will rise again.

The resurrection fulfills the scriptures.

The reason why that matters here this morning is it means that we can have confidence in God, in his word, and in the promises that he makes to us.

That God always keeps his promises, that he will never renege and change his mind and go, well, actually, I'm a bit fed up with you.

I've decided that I don't like you very much anymore.

No.

The resurrection is the confirmation that he really has taken our sin away, that he has adopted us into his family, and that we can trust him for whatever our future holds.

It is the confirmation that you are his forever and that nothing and no one can snatch you from his hand.

The empty tomb stands as the fulfillment of all of God's plans and promises.

The empty tomb stands as the culmination of all of human history.

Third, the resurrection is essential.

Historical, biblical.

The resurrection is essential.

Listen up to what Paul says in verse 17 to 19.

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.

You are still in your sins.

And those who have fallen asleep, those who have died, well, they've perished.

If in Christ we have hope for this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

If Christ is only a good teacher, if we only get some good life lessons from Christianity for this life, Paul says we are the most pitiful people in the whole world.

If the resurrection is not true, then Christianity is dumb.

There's a story years ago, and I've told it here before, probably on Easter Sundays, uh, where um where the former Archbishop of uh of Perth uh in Australia was uh was interviewed by a journalist and he was asked, uh, do you know if um if scientists uh with the help of modern science uh um excavated the tomb of uh Joseph or Joseph of Arimathea and they found a body there and through DNA testing they were able to uh to verify that this actually was the body of Jesus of Nazareth.

What would that archbishop uh do to your faith?

And the archbishop answered the way lots of archbishops like to answer, with a kind of pious, it would not matter because he is risen in my heart.

Well that sounds lovely, but it's nonsense.

If the resurrection of Jesus is not true, then Christianity falls apart and should be disregarded.

It is the single event, if you're here and you're asking questions about uh whether or not to follow Jesus, this is where you aim your scrutiny.

Not at the Big Bang or creation or the dinosaurs, it's at the resurrection.

Did Jesus bodily in history die and then three days later walk out of his tomb?

Yes or no?

And if the answer is no, then I'm getting another job.

And you should go somewhere else in your Sunday morning.

Paul says that if it isn't true, then Christianity should be disregarded.

If it isn't true, then you're not forgiven.

Your sin is still on your shoulders, and what's worse, there is no means for which that you can deal with it.

And so you have no hope for the future.

The resurrection, therefore, is essential for our faith.

It is not an optional extra, it is not an illustration or a metaphor.

It is central to what we believe and what we proclaim.

It's becoming increasingly popular.

If you're a particularly online person, you'll know this, but it's becoming increasingly popular to uh to try and take the positive life lessons uh from Christianity can say, well, uh, you know, the the West is founded on Christian values.

That's true.

But Christianity rises and folds on whether or not the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead.

If Jesus was not raised from the dead, why would you take any of the values of this person who predicted that he would rise from the dead and then didn't?

He's either bonkers or he's a liar.

What sort of values is that to build a civilization upon?

No, it's such such a view of, well, I I want to take all of the good stuff from Christianity, all of the all the love your neighbor, and uh and and all human beings are made in the image of God and uh and judicial systems and uh uh and desire for for justice and equality and all of this.

I want all of that stuff, but I don't want the I don't want the the supernatural stuff.

I don't want the the resurrection.

Of Jesus from the dead.

Well, actually, to do that, it hollows out what Christianity is about.

Christianity is by nature a supernatural religion.

We believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

And incidentally, that makes total sense in a Christian worldview.

Have you realized that?

That if we believe that there is a God who made this world, that he made the laws of nature, the laws of physics, that he made us, well, that stands to reason, therefore, that he has both the right and the ability to tinker with those laws.

And after all, what is a miracle?

But tinkering with the laws of nature.

So the resurrection of Jesus makes total sense.

And to want to take that out and still be left with something resembling Christianity, you're best left with a zombie version of Christianity.

Without the resurrection, the life lesson don't matter because we have no hope beyond the circumstances that we find ourselves in.

Without the resurrection, we might be tempted to see Jesus as a wise teacher, a profound example, a sacrificial leader.

And certainly it is true that in some part he is all of those things.

But the resurrection is essential for how we understand who he is.

The empty tomb tells us that he is Lord of all, that he is the one who has all authority at all time over all people.

The crucified Savior is the risen Lord.

Amen.

Amen.

He will reign forever.

And he calls us to follow him.

The empty tomb stands as the essential, non-negotiable center of our faith.

Fourthly, the resurrection is transformational.

It's historical, it's biblical, it's essential.

Finally, it's transformational.

Verses eight to ten, Paul gives something of his own testimony, his own encounter with the risen Lord Jesus in this oblique language.

He says, verse eight, last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy 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 towards me was not in vain.

Paul recounts his testimony of the transforming power of the love of Jesus.

He goes from persecutor to preacher, from denier to disciple.

Paul was essentially an ancient Near Eastern terrorist who longed to see other Christians thrown in jail and executed.

He held the coats and stood watching as they stoned Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and gave approval to that.

And Paul recounts something of his transformation in order to say, This is how much the risen Lord Jesus can try can change a life.

And so if you're here this morning and thinking, I am too far away from his transforming power, he wouldn't want to change someone like me.

I feel out of his reach.

Paul's answer to you this morning is not true.

Look at what he has done for me, in me.

He has transformed my life.

And then in verse 20, after laying out these reasons, these dreadful reasons or implications rather of the resurrection not being true, he says in verse 20, the last verse of our reading, but in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

What does it mean that Christ is the first fruits from the dead, those who have fallen asleep?

It's that his risen life is the sign of more to come.

He was raised to newness of life as a sign that more and more people would come into his kingdom.

The people would come to find new life in him.

But for all who trust in him, as he was raised to life eternal, glorious life, never to be extinguished again, you will rise as a result of his glorious grace, through the same power that raised him from the dead.

And until that day, he continues to transform people all across this world and in this room.

Each of you this morning who know him, you know his transforming power.

You know what he has done in your life.

Some of you can scarcely believe the person that you are now when you remember how you were before you met the risen Lord Jesus.

The Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead, and Jesus has poured his spirit out into the world.

And that same spirit continues to bring to life day after day little resurrection miracles.

For those who are dead in their trespasses and sins find themselves alive in him.

I love his words in John 5, where he says, The day is now coming and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and will live.

You know, if the Son of God calls you, you cannot stay dead.

You will live forever with him.

The empty tomb stands as a testimony that Jesus transforms lives today and until he comes again.

So what is the resurrection?

It's historical, it's biblical, it's essential, and it's transformational.

Today let us celebrate that glorious truth.

Let us draw new courage, particularly if your faith is weak this morning.

Look to him, the risen one who took your sin, who defeated death, and ask him again to restore to you the joy of your salvation.

And if you have not yet come to him, broken sinner, find forgiveness, find healing, find eternal life at the feet of the risen Lord Jesus.

Happy Easter, everyone.

Thank you for listening to this week's sermon.

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