Victory Accomplished (April 21st, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

Wow, well why don't you go ahead and get your Bibles uh open right now to uh 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

By the way, if you don't have a Bible, you don't own one, or you forgot to bring yours, or you don't have an app on your phone that's a Bible, uh you can put your hand up right now, and we've got our ushers at the back right now, and they will spot you and uh they will give you a Bible.

And again, if you don't have one, it's uh it's yours.

Keep it.

It's a gift uh from us to you.

And so uh don't be shy, just get your hands up there, and uh they'll come and uh make sure that you get one.

All right, as you're getting flipped over to uh 1 Corinthians 15, which is in the New Testament, uh question for you.

Um, how do you like to spend your days off?

Or like how do you how do you like to spend your free time?

Okay, in in our home, uh my wife Ange is the one who wants uh there to be a plan, right?

Like I want that plan to be you know specific and productive.

You know, for her, she's like, you know, let's get up early and and you know, let's have uh let's get a full day in, let's go do something, let's complete a task and you know, make memories and be spontaneous and creative and and adventurous and you know, all of those things.

You know, when she's engaged in those types of pursuits, it it gives her this satisfying feeling of accomplishments.

All right.

Uh I, on the other hand, can appear to have uh zero plan when it comes to my days off, and I seem perfectly uh content to accomplish uh very little.

All right, and of course, this has caused zero tension, right, in our marriage.

All right, I'm sure for you as uh as well.

You're probably wired one way or the other.

Honestly, though, I wish I was, I wish I was more like her to be perfectly uh frank about uh all of that.

Because for me, I love to like you know not set the alarm, you know, sleep in a little bit and catch up on some of that.

I like to take my time in the morning and you know, just wear sweats or whatever and you know, check up on the news slowly, scroll on my phone through the sports highlights and you know, slowly sip a coffee and then make like five more pots of it, you know, never leave the house ever, just kind of goof off with the kids, take a nap, right?

Like that's why are you laughing?

Right?

That is just the ideal, ideal day off for me.

Now, it doesn't mean that I don't want to accomplish anything, it just means that those are the things I want to accomplish, right?

That's that's me.

Now the point here though is that no matter how you're wired, maybe you're more like Angela, maybe you're more like myself, but both types are trying to accomplish something, right?

And actually both uh values in terms of what to accomplish are are important and they're necessary at times.

There's times where you need to recoup and recover after a long week and you need to catch up on sleep and just you know watch movies all day or something like that.

There's times for that.

There's a time uh where you need to get, you know, kind of get off your you know your lazy couch and and and get up and actually do something, accomplish something, do some housework, get out there, make some memories and do all of it.

Both are appropriate uh at times.

Okay, well, Easter Sunday today is about the greatest accomplishment ever achieved, right?

No question about it.

How God accomplished victory, right?

By defeating sin, defeating the power of sin, which is death, and defeating Satan himself, uh sin's champion.

Right, and just last weekend, seven days ago, we looked at how God's plan to do that very thing was all foretold to us in the very beginning.

It was shared with humanity very early on, actually, immediately following uh the aftermath of Adam and Eve's revolt against God uh in the garden.

On Good Friday, just three days ago, you know, we saw how that plan appeared to be done, right?

It was it was it was it was destroyed, it was hopelessly lost and defeated because of the cross.

Jesus died.

Of course, we know because of today that that was only for a moment.

Because Easter Sunday is the stunning turn of events that our victory has been won, right?

Accomplished.

The grave is empty, Jesus is alive, God wins.

And so today we're gonna look at this what the resurrection of Jesus Christ means for you and I, it means for the world.

And we're gonna look at this through the through the lens here of 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

We're gonna be looking at the first 11 verses, and if you've got that handy in front of you, I just ask you to stand even now as I read this.

And if you don't have a Bible, don't worry, the verses are gonna be on the screen uh for you.

So just follow along.

This is what the apostle Paul says.

He says, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached you, unless you believed in vain.

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

And here it is that 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, and that he appeared to Cephas, and 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 of God.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward 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 within me.

Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed.

God again, we thank you for the gospels, we thank you for uh this great text, Lord, that just points us to the fact the grave is empty, sin and death have been obliterated, Satan no longer has any ultimate strength and power over us, Lord, because the victory has been won.

And that victory is Jesus.

And so, God, as we look at these things and explore what these things mean for us, for the church, Lord, I pray uh that you would open up our eyes, Lord.

I pray that you would soften our hearts to these things.

I pray that your Holy Spirit would work in us, Father, to continue to transform us and make us people who live absolutely every operation of our lives, and the thoughts of our hearts and the actions of our hands, Lord, I pray that they would be tied inextricably to the truth of our victory through the resurrection.

And so, God, we worship you, we praise you, Lord.

Give us joy in these things.

We pray all this in your name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, you can take your seat.

And here's the first thing uh here today in the notes and on the screen.

The resurrection means that victory was accomplished, and it reminds me of what my hope is really tied to.

All right, now, 1 Corinthians, it was written, I kind of mentioned this, but it was written by the apostle Paul, and he wrote it to uh the Corinthian church.

They were uh a struggling church, uh to be honest.

It was from the the town or the city of Corinth, and I mean they were they were really battling.

I don't know if you're familiar with that church and that story, but they were struggling through various sins and you know, hidden sins and very, very public sins, a lot of foolishness and immaturity and all of that.

So they had a long way to go there in terms of their uh growth, yet they had genuinely, genuinely uh expressed or put their faith in the saving work of Jesus.

Paul mentions that at the very beginning and a couple of times uh all throughout.

And so in chapter 15, as we're jumping into it here, Paul devotes uh a significant amount of time in real estate here in this letter, uh, explaining uh the importance of the resurrection.

And he goes on, he says, like, you know, if Jesus didn't actually, you know, rise from the dead from the grave, he says that our faith is in vain.

He says that that our that our faith is futile is another word that he uses.

He he goes on to say that we're still in our sins, we're still stuck in sin, we're under the condemnation of sin.

If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, we have no power over our sins.

He says that, you know, we as those who who claim to be Christians, we're the most to be pitied if Jesus didn't rise from the dead.

Right?

Our faith is worthless.

We're a bunch of fools and chumps and wasting our time entirely if Jesus did not rise.

And so the resurrection is the pivotal, the crucial accomplishment that all of human history hinges on.

And it's our only hope.

It's the hope for all who believe.

You know, take a look at this with me as we go through this, starting in verse one.

Here's what Paul says to them.

He says, Now I would remind you, brothers, that's an important word, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel.

Okay, the core of which is the resurrection.

Right?

That's the core of the gospel.

He says, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved.

Now, how critical it is for you and I to be continually reminded of the good news of the gospel, that's that's not a new concept for us if this is your church home.

Right?

We talk about that uh a lot, right?

We need to remind ourselves of the gospel, we need to preach the gospel to ourselves.

We talk about that uh quite a bit.

We talk about the the value and the urgency to do that and the and the reasons behind reminding ourselves of what Jesus has done.

Because we we know that that even as you know Christians, right, we we know this, that even as those who claim Christ as Savior, we're so far from being perfect.

Right?

Did you did you sense that this week in your life?

Like, yeah, like I did not obey perfectly everything that God commands me to do, right?

I was not perfect.

I I I messed up a lot.

Right?

There was battles within my, you know, the relationship with my spouse.

My mind and heart wandered.

I I did things that were were wrong and evil and and all of that, right?

We've we've all got this sin in our lives that that threatens the vitality and and the intimacy and really the effectiveness of our walks with Christ.

We know that even as Christians who you know believe in Jesus, we we know that we suffer from that gospel amnesia Paul Tripp talks about, which is where our hearts, like on a on a heart level, we've we forget what Jesus has already accomplished through the cross and through the resurrection.

He's accomplished that for us.

And how for us, our our natural default setting of our of our hearts is to kind of forget all of what he has done and to revert back to you know trying to fix ourselves.

You know, if I just behave properly, then you know, then God will be impressed.

See how that's like self-effort?

That's you trying to fix yourself and make yourself impressive to God.

We forget that that God is already impressed by us because of what Jesus has done, because we're claiming that to be ours.

Right?

So we revert back into those ways and trying to earn our salvation or our redemption or trying to add to it as though like Jesus, you know, it isn't quite enough.

I still need to add to it through being, you know, a good little Christian boy or girl or whatever.

We try to add to his work through, again, our efforts and our works and our moral goodness, so to speak, or by running to idols, these things will fix me, these things will make me feel whole, these things will give me my heart's you know deepest desires, they will fulfill me.

Right?

And so we need that continual, and I would say daily, moment by moment, reminder that our salvation has been accomplished.

Right?

It is it is done entirely through the work of Jesus Christ, through what we are looking at here today, through the resurrection.

It is given to us as a gift, right?

By grace, received by us through faith, by trusting that that this is what Jesus did, and that was for me.

I'm gonna I'm gonna trust his work, not not my own, not in anything less.

Again, our hearts, we so do you notice this for yourself?

Like we need this truth desperately, like just delivered and downloaded to us day and night.

Right?

Always.

And the great thing here about Paul is that he just he totally gets it.

Right, and that's why he he reminds, it says there, he reminds his brothers.

This isn't just talking about well, it's just reminding men.

What about the ladies?

No, brothers referring to Christians, like men and women.

He reminds his his his brothers of the gospel, it says that that I I preach to you.

Likely multiple times, likely a lot of times.

He preached the same message, it's the same gospel.

That's our only hope.

We got nothing other, uh, nothing uh to offer you as preachers than that.

Right?

He and he, you know, he was the one who planted this church, and so he's reminding them again of of the gospel.

And then he said, the gospel that that you received, right?

Again, by faith, by repenting of their sins, by by by confessing all of that and trusting Jesus' work on the cross.

He says, You've received that.

I would I want to remind you of that as you become foolish and start to go after other things and reject the truth that you claim to receive.

I'm gonna remind you, I'll bring you back to that.

I also love how he says this in which you stand.

So he didn't just receive it.

I'm reminding you, this is where you stand.

Christ, the gospel, the resurrection.

That is their solid foundation and what their hope is tied to.

That's it.

You stand on that.

Do not move off that place.

You go, you go into other things, you're gonna get yourself into trouble.

You start to stand on your own religiosity, your own morality, you know, stand on idols and go after those things.

Listen, that's that's shaky.

He's like, don't do it.

You stand in the gospel, that's the victory.

You know, look at verse 2.

He continues, it says, and by which you are you are being saved.

You might be thinking, well, hang on a second, like I thought, you know, I thought the moment that I you know put my faith in Jesus Christ, I am saved.

I thought that was, I I I was saved.

It happened already.

What is this whole continuous thing?

What is this whole uh our being saved?

Well, the moment that you put in your your faith in Jesus Christ, you repent of your sins and trust in his finished work, you are justified, right?

We've talked about that word.

That's a biblical word.

It means that you were declared righteous.

That is a one-time thing that happens in an instant, the moment that you trust Jesus.

So you are saved when you did that.

So many of you can you know think back to your testimonies, the moment that your mom led you to faith in Jesus, that you know, at in your bed, you know, as she read the scriptures, you know, at night.

You can think through your particular story.

So again, what is this whole our being saved thing?

Well, this is the part of our salvation understood as the biblical word sanctification.

Okay, so we get saved, we are justified, it happens in a moment, and our sins have been wiped away.

God looks at us as though we are Jesus, right?

Heaven is guaranteed to us in that moment.

But the reality is, practically speaking, in an everyday level, in our hearts, we've still got sin, right?

We've still got issues.

We've got things we're still working through.

We've still got, you know, flare-ups of rage at times.

Our minds are can still be a cesspool.

Uh we we hate people, we have unforgiveness in our hearts.

These are the things that need to be worked out of us throughout life.

That's what sanctification is.

It's the part of our salvation, it's the process where the Holy Spirit forges holiness in us.

That happens from the moment you get justified until you die.

It's a lifelong process.

We learn to live as holy ones.

We learn to live in line with the awesome truth of the gospel.

Now, Paul says that all of this is true of you.

Look what he says.

He says, if you hold fast to the word I preached you, unless you believed in vain.

Okay, now I don't believe that this is to suggest that you know genuine believers are in danger of losing their salvation.

I don't believe that.

It is to say that it's possible to believe in Jesus as the demons believe in Jesus.

James chapter 2, verse 19 says that even the demons believe and shudder.

James 2:19

Right?

They shudder, meaning that people can can believe that he existed, right?

They can believe some certain things about him while not possessing saving faith.

This is a warning against ineffectual, non-saving, vain faith.

Holding fast to the word I preach you, the gospel, is what genuine Christians do.

We persevere by clinging to that truth, to the victory that we have through the resurrection.

Now, listen, some of you want me to do like a deep dive into all of that.

We're gonna get to that in a couple of weeks.

Uh, so just be patient.

Okay, but listen, in these first two verses here, Paul's reminding the Corinthian church, and he's reminding us that the gospel, which again is is punctuated by the victory Christ accomplished in the resurrection, something that Paul's about to you know zoom in on here in just a second, right?

He's reminding us that that this is where you and I, we stand.

Right?

Right, this is it.

This is our wheelhouse, this is this is our true hope, this is where it's found, this is what it's tied to.

So, pretty basic question here for you.

Is yours?

Is your hope tied to this?

Does your life, and think about all that your life and who you are encompasses?

Your thoughts and your emotions and your attitudes and and and the different values that you have and how you spend your time and and how you act and behave and and and the different relationships that you have, and it goes on and on from there.

Does does all of that, does your life look like someone whose hope is inseparably tied to Christ and the victory that he accomplished?

Is that what your vo uh your life looks like?

Does the fact that Jesus came back from the dead as the one who made atonement and payment for your sins, does that, does all of that literally drive every aspect of your being and of your life?

That's what the resurrection demands.

Okay, it does.

Another way of kind of asking this here is really like, what are you looking to for victory and ultimate hope?

What are you looking to?

I mean, think deeply about this.

Don't give surfacey answers.

Start to mind down on your motivations and your desires.

Do deep dive on all that, a heart desire, motivation level.

Are you looking for you know hope and and and ultimate meaning and and victory through things like your financial success?

Right?

So many are.

The world is going after that.

I I will find satisfaction if I would just have a certain amount of money and accumulate stuff.

Is that what you're looking for hope in?

Are you looking for ultimate meaning and victory and hope through your marriage?

Or if you're single in getting married?

If I could just find that person, then I would you know feel a sense of like inner victory and peace and joy and fulfillment and purpose and all of that.

Or if only my marriage was more healthy, if only my spouse was better, then I would find what my heart is most looking for.

Then I will finally find my hope.

Is your hope anchored to that?

Looking for victory and hope and your physical appearance.

You know that you are if you are incredibly insecure about it.

Maybe you're looking for victory and ultimate hope in something like just trying to get people to like you.

And for you, it's it's a real you're you're a people pleaser.

And I get it, I struggle with that.

And for you, maybe it's like, you know, I for you just really want that certain person to approve of you.

And I want validation.

And if I would just get that person's validation, if they would just talk to me, if they would just like me, love me, then I would feel whole.

Those are the things, those are the questions you need to ask.

What am I looking to for ultimate hope and fulfillment and victory?

Listen, Christians stand on the accomplished, finished work of Christ for our victory.

That's what we do.

That's the hope that we hold fast to that Paul talks about.

But because we struggle, don't we?

We struggle to actually do that, and we're so tempted every time we leave this place to go and start to find hope in those other things again, right?

And it takes, you know, a lifetime of shaking those idols free and all that.

Because we struggle, we have to remind our souls of what he's come to do through the gospel.

That he alone is our heart's deepest hope.

The resurrection victory confirms that.

Resurrection means that victory was accomplished and testified to by the scriptures and those who saw him.

Verse 3, take a look at that.

Here's what Paul says.

He goes on.

He says, For I delivered to you as of first importance or as of greatest significance.

So he's like, this is the biggest deal ever, that which I also received.

And here's the gospel.

That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

He's talking about the Old Testament, that he was buried, okay, all of that is Good Friday stuff, right?

And then he says this, that he was raised on the third day, it's Easter, in accordance with the scriptures.

Right?

The Bible told us that this was all gonna happen.

Now I got I gotta tell you, church, I mean, the the Bible, I was just thinking about that this this week.

The Bible is just, I mean, more incredible to me these days than I think it has ever been in my entire life.

Right?

To just to just see and start to understand even the more ways, the different ways that the Old Testament scriptures testify to Christ our risen Savior.

It's like like it just it blows my mind.

I mean, it really does.

This whole thing was put together so well by God.

Only he could do it.

Now you might be thinking, well, where do we see this in the Old Testament?

Well, I mean, just last week, again, right, we looked at Genesis 3.15 and how that forecast right there in that verse that Satan will bruise Christ's heel, it says there, alluding to the crucifixion and and and the temporary setback and sorrow of all of that.

And yet it says there in that verse that Jesus will will bruise or or crush, depending on your translation, Satan's head.

Again, the kill shot we talked about.

That alludes to the decisive defeat of Satan through the resurrection.

Right?

And so he says, this is this is coming.

Right?

But there's more ways, and in different places that we see all of this in the scriptures as well.

In Peter's sermon at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, he quotes King David from the Old Testament, from the scriptures, right?

Acts 2 · chapter mention

In Psalm 16, when David prophesied of the resurrection.

And this is what he says he says, for you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your holy one see corruption.

And so we know that this would be fulfilled in Jesus.

Jesus would defeat death, he would defeat Hades, and rise as the as the uncorrupted holy one, right?

The sinless Savior.

Even uh a little bit later on in Acts chapter 26, Paul shares his testimony.

Acts 26 · chapter mention

He's dragged before this court, he shares his testimony before King Agrippa, and this is what he says.

He says, I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass.

Where do they say that?

Well, in the Old Testament scriptures, right?

And this is what they said that the Christ must suffer, and that by being the first to rise from the dead, there's the resurrection, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.

Right?

Jesus, who he is and what he accomplished, as you and I we read this in the New Testament scriptures, was the fulfillment of and and in accordance with what was proclaimed in the Old Testament scriptures.

I don't know about you, but that is like a mega boost to our faith.

Right?

Don't you think so?

It really, it really is.

To know that the resurrection, it wasn't like you know, some hastily thrown together plan, some kind of last ditch effort where God sees that you know Jesus is murdered on the cross.

He's like, oh no, like how am I gonna how am I gonna respond to this?

And I better just throw a bunch of a bunch of options out there and see what sticks, and oh, phew, he rose.

Like, thank goodness.

It wasn't like that.

It was it was it was determined.

It was perfectly drawn up from the beginning.

It was testified to all through the Old Testament and expressly fulfilled in the new.

He says that those who saw him alive also testify to the empty tomb.

Take a look at verse five.

It says that he appeared, talking about Jesus.

Jesus appeared.

Now, this is a post-resurrection appearance, okay?

He appeared to Cephas, okay, that's Peter, okay, one of the disciples, then to the twelve, and then to the rest of the disciples.

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

He means that they died.

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

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

Now the disciples have long been accused of kind of making the resurrection up, right?

Of just fabricating the whole thing and, you know, some kind of elaborate scam or hoax or or something to that effect in order to trick people and you know and try and control them through religion and you know, all of that stuff.

But I mean, that doesn't really account uh for much.

I mean, it doesn't account for how they went from these, you know, defeated and and demoralized cowards as Christ is being led away to his crucifixion and they they scatter, they they go and hide, and then Peter denies him three times.

You know, we see that that's how they were.

It doesn't account for how they went from that kind of attitude and and mentality to bold evangelists, right, on fire for this truth, willing to suffer and die for what they claim to saw.

Right?

No one dies for what they know is alive.

All right, so they at least believed that they saw him alive.

The theory that they were, you know, all hallucinating.

That doesn't really hold water either, because you know, 12 people beyond that, because we know there are 500, right?

Hundreds of people don't all have the same hallucination.

That just doesn't happen medically, scientifically, it doesn't.

The hallucination thing doesn't hold up.

Again, it doesn't account for the fact that Christ appeared to more than just the 12, right?

Again, it says that more than 500 people at one time, right?

And at the time that Paul wrote this, most of those people he says were still alive.

But how cool is that?

So this wasn't just a you know convenient example to try and twist somebody's arm that Paul you know uses as though those claims couldn't be corroborated or verified because they'd they they conveniently all died.

You know, sorry, they're dead now.

I guess you're just gonna have to take my word for it.

That's not what Paul is saying here.

No, he would have likely told doubters, he's like, go talk to these people who said that they saw him, hear their accounts, see if their stories line up.

Go go test these things out, go ask them.

Maybe the wildest example of who saw him alive, in my mind, anyways, was James.

Okay, James is what you know it's widely believed.

Most agree that this was James Jesus' half-brother.

Right?

The same guy that wrote uh James in the New Testament.

He was a major, major leader in the Jerusalem church.

Now, why do I think this is so wild?

Well, because I have a brother.

And I'm telling you right now that brothers growing up together, we see the worst of each other.

Right?

We do.

And so no guy would ever, ever be willing to testify that his brother was the sinless, perfect Messiah.

Like no, no brother's doing that, much less be willing to suffer and die for that fact, unless he'd actually seen Christ post-resurrection with his own two eyes and believed, uh, believed that, and it all kind of made sense with what he had seen of Jesus growing up, that he was sinless.

Now, lastly, here it mentions that Jesus appeared to Paul as well, the author of this in Corinthians.

Now, this was not just a post-resurrection appearance, but a post-ascension one.

Okay, where after Jesus had gone up to be with his father, we read about that in Acts, but we read about that in Matthew 28 as well.

He completed his earthly ministry.

Acts chapter 9 tells us the dramatic conversion story of how Paul or how Jesus had appeared to Paul on the on the road to Damascus in a bright light and had you know spoken to him audibly.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

Right, amazing.

All this to say the victory accomplished through the resurrection actually had eyewitnesses.

Listen, understand this.

Whether you're a Christian or you're a doubter, you're a skeptic, maybe you're an atheist and you've been dragged here today against your will, understand that we do not ever advocate for blind faith.

We don't.

You're not supposed to just believe what a guy says without doing a bit of homework and thinking through the facts and using the brain that God gave you.

Right?

We're not advocating for that.

It's not uninformed faith.

Honestly, honestly, there is insurmountable evidence that a miracle was accomplished here and that Jesus actually came back to life three days after being crucified and being buried.

The scriptures testify to this.

There are plenty of eyewitness accounts that testify to this.

So listen, if you remain unconvinced, or you're struggling to understand this or whatever, listen, just do some digging.

Explore this a little bit, do some research, take a look at the criticisms of the resurrection, explore all of that, the theories against it.

They then come to a conclusion.

Right?

And a great resource that I would commend to you and recommend that you would you know read and take a look at would be uh Lee Strobel's uh Case for Christ.

Right?

It's gotten a lot of uh press these days because there's also uh a Netflix uh movie version of it if you're like not much of a reader.

I don't know.

I would encourage that you to watch that as well.

It's pretty good.

And Lee Strobel was an investigative journalist in Chicago, and his wife got saved after being invited to church.

And Lee decided, you know what, this is ridiculous.

Her faith is a joke.

I'm gonna I'm gonna do some research here, and I'm gonna pull this whole faith down brick by brick.

And so that's what he does.

He goes after it, he and he talks to the experts, he talks to Christian experts, he talks to secular experts, and and he starts to weigh all of the evidence and all of it, all of it.

He puts it all together, and at the end of it, he realizes I can't I can't argue with this.

He ends up surrendering his life to Jesus.

Listen, he and many, many, many others have come to realize that the resurrection, there's evidence, it happened.

It means a victory was accomplished.

And then the third thing here, it results in a changed life by the power of God's grace.

Okay, Paul tells us again, we just read it, that Christ appeared to him also as one untimely born, he says, because verse 9, look, because I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to even be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

That's true.

Paul originally hated Christianity, he hated Jesus.

He was a he was a Pharisee, he was a leader within Judaism, and he hated the burgeoning, you know, early church that was starting to develop, people that belonged to the way, as they were referred to at that point.

And so he thought that this whole thing needed to come down and needed to burn, and he committed his life to that end.

And so he persecuted Christians.

He dragged believers off to prison, and he even presided over the stoning of Stephen and his death, and he gave approval to it.

And so, here now, though, in this moment, he's he's so quick to see his own depravity and all of that.

I'm so broken, I'm so unworthy, and in humility, he just recognizes how undeserving he is of his salvation and the ministry that God has given him, and he doesn't he doesn't want to waste the grace that's been shown to him.

He doesn't want to at all.

That's why he says there in verse 10, look, but by the grace of God I am what I am.

And his grace toward me was not in vain.

On the contrary, because of God's grace and his goodness and his love, because of my salvation, I actually worked harder than any of them, he says.

Though it was not I, he's like, it's not really my own strength, but the grace of God that is with me.

He says, whether it was I or they, referring to others who had ministered to the Corinthians, he's like, he doesn't care who gets the credit.

He's like, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Now the transformation that the apostle Paul went through, right, as an ardent opponent of all things Jesus, right, to becoming arguably our faith's greatest cheerleader and champion outside of Jesus himself.

It was astonishing, to say the least, the transformation in Paul.

Okay, but it was all connected to what?

The resurrection.

Paul recognized that because Jesus had accomplished victory over his sin, right?

He saw the risen Lord.

Because of that, he received salvation by grace.

He says, but by the grace of God, I am what I am.

By grace I have been saved.

He says that later in the scriptures as well.

And then he says that that grace essentially motivated him to change and it produced results in him.

Right?

Where he became a completely different person inside from the heart, which translated into being uh devoted outwardly to the fulfillment of God's mission to preach the gospel, plant churches, make disciples.

Right?

This guy was a completely different dude because of what God did in him because of grace.

God's grace towards him was not in vain.

It was not wasted, it was not without results.

Listen, church, Easter Sunday isn't just an opportunity for us to get together and get all happy, slappy for an hour or so here, only to go out from here, go home and live life for ourselves and not transform by the grace of God.

Hey, do we agree with that?

The resurrection means that God has accomplished for you what you couldn't: victory, right?

Victory over sin.

So that you and I could be forgiven, we can have changed hearts and transformed lives.

Listen, in every single way imaginable.

Because Jesus has accomplished victory over the grave.

We have the power to be saved from sin.

And the power that produces a radically changed life.

All of it how?

By grace.

By grace.

So, hey, if you're hearing that here today, and you know you're wondering why a drastically transformed and changed life doesn't really seem to be your experience lately, and and you feel like your flesh has really been struggling, and it actually maybe even feels like there's it's getting worse, and there's no there's no power in my life, and I can't seem to experience victory.

I can't overcome my anger, or or maybe it's just fear that plagues you, or you know, it's it's harsh words towards your kids or your wife or something, and maybe it's it's the lust of your eyes and your heart and your mind, it's it's legalism, or you can't seem to express joy, and maybe there's joylessness in your life.

Why can't I seem to have victory over these things?

Well, I would say this: pray for more grace.

Ask the Lord for that.

Grace is power, that's God's power to overcome all of these things.

Grace alone produces these results.

You feeling a little bit helpless about your ability to change your life, that's exactly how God has drawn this up.

It's like you can't do it, man.

Have you started to learn that yet?

I'm completely at the mercy of God's grace.

I need more of that.

Thankfully, grace exists.

It exists.

And as you're praying for grace, pray beyond even just the personal growth that you would love to see in yourself.

Pray for grace to be more devoted to, work harder for, as Paul puts it, for for the mission of God to make disciples.

Right?

That's that's the mission, that's the great commission.

It's not just about you know self-help.

Grace isn't just about self-help and you feeling better and being more at ease in life.

That's not it.

God's like, he's gonna transform you, but he's gonna do that while you get to work serving him.

While we all you know band together and get our arms linked and and build this, build this church, pray for that.

Pray that you and I would respond to the victory of Christ's resurrection that he accomplished and secured through the empty tomb by doing our part, by the power of God's grace, of course, to see a healthy and strong and fruitful and faithful church established here.

That we could have a great impact on our town.

Man, it's so amazing to think here about all of this and how none of it is possible whatsoever apart from what Christ did that Sunday morning 2,000 years ago.

That his victory means victory for you and I.

It's all accomplished.

And it'll continue to be accomplished until he returns.

Listen, I want to pray for us right now.

Before I do that, allow me to urge you, if you have not done this yet, please put all of your hope, all of your faith in Jesus Christ.

If you do not know him, make that happen today.

Here's how we do this.

We do this by admitting our brokenness.

Admitting the sin.

Understanding that you've sinned, you've rebelled against your Creator.

Wait a second.

Isn't that against people?

Isn't that really just harming myself?

No, it's against the God who made you to know him and to exist in a relationship with him.

Confess all of it to him.

Trust that what we've talked through today, what we're celebrating today, the resurrection, that was for you.

That was an act of love.

That was an act of grace to pay for your mess, to cover it up, to wash it away, to make you new.

He did it.

You can't trust him.

That's a prayer.

God, we glory in the cross.

We celebrate the empty tomb.

So, Father, continue to help our stubborn and hard hearts and our minds that are so slow to really get it and so slow to absorb.

To just every time we gather and every time we open the scriptures and every time we preach the gospel to ourselves and think about these things, Lord, I pray that you would soften the hardness that our hearts often are.

We rejoice in what you have done.

We rejoice in our amazing, incredible Savior.

And it's in his name we pray these things.

Amen.