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I’m glad to see everyone here today. What it says to me is that we’re not an Easter church, which means you attend on Easter and Christmas, right? So welcome back. The week after Easter, you people who love Jesus, that’s wonderful. I’m not playing. No one else does. But I’m glad that you do. Right. I think that the Easter season is the best time to just be committed to Christ as a as his follower and recommit your life, or just to become a follower of Jesus. I think the Easter message is a beautiful message. In fact, the Easter message is the pinnacle of what Christianity is about. I think it’s worthy of our faith. You might find this hard to believe, but out of all the holidays we celebrate, Easter for me, just crushes Christmas. Yeah. Jesus came on Christmas. At least we celebrate on December 25th. But he died and rose again. Amen. Proving himself victorious over death in the grave and different than all other belief systems in the world. This says something to us about the living power of who Jesus is in our world. You want to find, as I’ve studied the nature of Christ, the person of Jesus, and the claims of Christianity is that there are so many things out there to validate and prove and testify to the power of who Jesus is, being a real figure, overcoming the grave. God in the flesh, living for you and for I. This morning, I just want to simply share an idea that kind of plays off of Easter.
We’re going to just focus these next couple of weeks on Jesus. Last week we talked about the importance of Jesus. We had a very emotional peel. Looking at a lady who was suffering from an illness in Christ healed her from it. And this today, I’m going to appeal more to your intellectual side, which will affect our hearts and our lives as we follow after Jesus. But the focus should always be about Jesus here at church. But today, specifically, we’re going to talk about the nature of Christ and the testifying ability and the proof of Jesus and everything that he is. In fact, when I’ve studied Jesus and as I’ve looked at Jesus in my own life, something I just want to simply share from my heart this morning is this I want to share why I only have enough faith to follow after Christ, and therefore why I don’t have enough faith to believe in anything other than Jesus and His resurrection. I think religiously in this world to accept any other belief other than Christ. And I know this is very blunt and putting it this way, but I’m going to be frank in the beginning, it requires a faith that equates to blind ignorance. A hopeful, more of a wishful thinking. But when it comes to the idea of who Jesus is and his nature and the identity of Christ for us as a believer, it’s not merely wishful thinking.
It’s a faith that can be validated because it’s a faith not based on a religious idea, but on the identity of a person who can be historically validated and proven through Scripture and throughout history. Jesus’s life was so important. He didn’t want anyone to miss it. We believe in Jesus and His resurrection. First of all, I should say this morning because of prophecy. Prophecy is kind of like the equivalent of Babe Ruth calling a shot. You know what I mean? When you know you’re good at something or great at something, and you step up to the plate and you just say, you know, I’ve done this a million times, I’m going to go ahead and tell you, this one’s going over the fence. You’ve heard the historical shot as a young boy. I know when I’m ten, 11 years old, you believe there’s nothing this world can stop you? You’re just like your heroes, right? So you step up to the plate. I can remember in minor league, pointing over the fence like you’re going to crush this pitcher only to find the whole season. I never hit a home run. I am not Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth and calling his shot is one of the most incredible things that exists in baseball history. All kids mimic it even to this day. And you think about the prophecies of Christ. Everything about the coming of Jesus into this world. How God called his shot.
Let me give you another illustration. It’s like this Mike Tyson coming in front of you and saying, I’m going to knock you out. I’m not going to do it with the third or fourth punch. I’m going to let you know the fifth one’s going to do it, and it doesn’t matter if you block it, because I’m going to hit you so hard in the hand. Your hand is going to hit your face and that’s going to knock you out, right? There was power in that statement because it comes from a person of power, one who is proven. And prophecy does the same thing for us when it talks about the nature of who Jesus is. In fact, this morning, if you look in your notes, I simply outlined a chart for you of some of the prophetic statements made about Christ in Scripture. In fact, I wish I could have listed them all, but it would have been a page that would have taken up every side of your bulletin this morning. Over 300 prophecies of Jesus have been fulfilled in Scripture. I just picked 25 and put them in randomly. And the interesting thing about these prophecies is if you looked in the middle column, you see where there’s reference in the Old Testament, you see that all these prophecies come hundreds of years before Jesus came to this world. In fact, one of the prophecies prophecies that’s given to us in in Psalm 22, it tells us that Jesus would literally be crucified in his hands and his feet would be nailed.
The interesting thing about this prophecy, a thousand years before Jesus, is that the the torture of the cross had not even been invented. You can imagine dividing up prophetically in Scripture, writing about the death of an individual through a torture device that doesn’t even exist. How confusing would that be for you? And yet, prophetically, it was shared to us about the Messiah Bible says this. I’m going to focus on two passages this morning, relating to the truthfulness of our faith and the resurrection of Jesus. The first comes in Second Peter. It says in 119 and we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place. And Peter’s writing this portion of scripture to us and he’s saying, guys, listen, do you want to validate the resurrection of Jesus in your life? During the time of Peter, some people challenged the idea of Jesus literally being resurrected from the grave. He’s saying, you want some proof. You want some hard, tangible evidence that you can look at in your life. Go look at the Old Testament. I mean, this prophecy is worth paying attention to what it’s saying about Jesus. Babe Ruth has called his shot. God came. Look at the picture. 300 prophecies. You can’t make this stuff up a thousand years before Jesus came to this world and it’s foretold.
Matter of fact, in Genesis chapter three, the in verse 15, the first prophetic statement of the coming of Jesus was made known to Adam and Eve. In verse 20 it says, above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. I like prophecy in Scripture because what it what it does for me. According to verse 20, Paul calls prophecy of Scripture is prophecy helps us to validate what is and isn’t Scripture because God called his shot. We can see how God called his shot and evidence in the world by coming into this world. It helps us to understand this is from God and vice versa. If we see the prophecy in the scripture, it reminds us that it is Scripture. But in verse 21 he goes on and tells us, how did God get this so specific? How does this 300 prophecies of Jesus? How do we maintain this today? And he tells us the reason that we have this, and the reason is so specific, and the reason we can identify Jesus through this, is because it wasn’t written just by some typical guy. It’s written by the Holy Spirit. Amen. We understand that the reason that we have prophecy to validate the nature of Jesus before he came is because it was God given to us.
Prophecy confirms the truth of Jesus above all else. I like what he says. Peter says in first Peter, let me just read this to you. He says in verse ten as to this salvation, talking about the coming of Jesus, the salvation we have in Christ, it says, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries. He’s saying, all these guys that talked about Jesus in the past, they were just looking at these verses wondering what in the world how is God going to move in the future? How is he going to bring all of these things together? And they inquired and they searched. And it says in verse 11, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was, indicating as he predicted, the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. And could you make sense of that in any time bc before Christ? God is coming in the flesh, and he’s doing what? He’s laying down his own life as a king to become a servant for sinners. When’s he going to do this? I mean, what is this going to look like in the prophets? Begin to search throughout Scripture, and it says in verse 12, it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you. I could think in our lives we may say to ourselves, you know, I wish I lived in any other time in history, maybe even when Jesus was walking.
Wouldn’t that be cool? And Peter is saying to us, man, forget that guys. Everything that the Bible talks about is the coming of Jesus and Jesus working in his people for his glory. And you live in that moment. And people used to inquire and search into these moments as to when Christ would fulfill all of this. And he’s done it now, and he’s living in you. Prophetically, God has declared his shot. I like how people have dealt with this throughout history. They’ve looked at the prophecies of Christ, and they’ve considered how if we don’t want to believe in Jesus, must we accept these things? Until 1947, there was a particular belief that skeptics held according to Jesus. They said to themselves, that’s nice that the Bible has prophecies that contain the coming of Jesus. Um, but obviously to be as detailed as they are, if you’ve ever read Isaiah 53, you can see the extreme detail of the torture of Christ on the cross. But obviously, to be as detailed as it is, it was written much later than Jesus after Jesus’s death. These prophecies came after Christ and skeptically that worked for people, for those who didn’t want to accept Jesus for quite a while. But then, in 1947. A little shepherd boy north of the Dead Sea. It’s taking care of some goats. One of the goats strayed from the pack, and the boy, young boy, had to go find it.
And it was on the top of a cliff where goats usually are. Right. You ever try to go get a goat on the top of a cliff? I’ve done that. They knock you down. This brave shepherd boy went on top of this cliff, and he and he and he grabbed the goat. And upon leaving the cliff, he saw a cave. And he took a rock. And he happened to chuck it into this cave. But rather than hear this rock bounce around in the cave, he heard the shatter of what sounded like pottery. The boy goes into the cave and what he finds is manuscripts. Thousands upon thousands of fragmented manuscripts located in this cave. Over the next ten years, archaeologists discovered over 11 caves that contained manuscripts within them. We call these manuscripts the Dead Sea Scrolls. These Dead Sea Scrolls date well over 200 years before Christ came to this earth. These Dead Sea Scrolls took the skeptical response of people saying, these prophetic statements about Jesus had to have come after Jesus. And just in one Babe Ruth shot, just swiped all of their skepticism out of this world. Now we have scriptures that Jesus literally would have read from. We talk about the Old Testament and validating the truthfulness of the Old Testament. Whether or not the book that you have today contains literally the words of God, we have manuscript evidence older than Jesus, the Bible, that Jesus would have read, the prophecies of Jesus, older than Jesus himself.
And Jesus even told the Pharisees they were criticizing him about who he was, and they wanted a sign from him. He said this you want one sign? I’m going to give you the pinnacle of all signs. It says in Mark 12 and verse 38. Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, teacher, we want to see a sign from you. And Jesus answered, A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Jesus is saying, you want one evidence to understand that I am everything that I say I am. It’s my death, burial, and resurrection. That’s your evidence. There is no belief in the world that can even compare to the prophetic ability of the Bible and validating itself. Jesus is everything that he said he would be. And he didn’t want us to miss it. And Peter told us that it’s worth. And in first Peter, excuse me. Second Peter 119, it’s worth us just investigating and seeing how glorious our God is, that from the beginning of creation, all the way from Genesis chapter three, he has continued to work his will out in this world.
He’s called his shot after shot, and nothing that we could do could stop or hinder his plan for us in this world. And he came and he did it. Amen. Jesus’s life and resurrection was also so important that others began to share it. You know, we don’t just have to believe in Christ’s coming to this world and his death and resurrection, because the Bible says so. It’s a good place to start. But there’s also other evidence outside of the Bible that includes historically and understanding that, yes, Jesus did come. Yes, Jesus did die, and yes, Jesus did rise. It wasn’t an illusion or wishful thinking. Jesus came and rose from the dead, and history records it to us. Listen to this, Lucia, of some semi soda that rolls off the tongue. I know Lucian of Samosata, right? Yeah. He was the second century Greek philosopher and historian. This is what he wrote about Jesus. Jesus was worshipped by Christians. He was never a Christian and was crucified for them. Christians lived according to Jesus and believed themselves to be immortal. What I find striking about his statement in these Christians is, how did Lucien know that Christians believe that they were immortal? That’s because in the second century, Christians were just laying down their lives in belief of the resurrection for Jesus. Nero began persecuting the Christians around 60 A.D. and the slaughtering of Christians continued. Nero’s persecution was so violent that he would take Christians into his garden next to his castle.
He would tack them up, crucify them, and they would light them on fire to provide lighting for his garden at night and for the parties that he wanted to hold there. And the persecution of the church started around that period. It’s the persecution that killed Peter and Paul, but it continued until about 325 A.D. for 300 years, believers laid down their life not over a philosophy, not over a teaching, but over having seen a resurrected Jesus. The statement of the earlier early followers was that they saw Jesus overcome the grave. When you read about their lives in the gospel account, you see, when Jesus was crucified, the disciples immediately dispersed and Lucien is remarking here in the second century, beginning of the second century, that these Christians believe they’re immortal. And where did they get that belief from, and why are they continuing to lay down their lives? It’s because they’ve seen the resurrected Christ, and they believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Pliny the Younger said this early Christian worship practices includes the fact that Christians worship Jesus as God and were very ethical. Flavius Josephus, another individual, never became a Christian in his antiquities, wrote this. He was a Jewish historian, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ. Excuse me, he’s referring to James here it says there is a controversial verse that’s in Josephus’s writings that say, now there was a time about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was one who wrought surprising feats.
He was the Christ. He appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and 10,000 other wonderful things concerning him. The Bible isn’t the only thing that testifies to the resurrection of Jesus. Historically, there is a list that goes on and on of individuals who talk about the nature of Christ living in this world, his death, and his resurrection. But maybe possibly the most positive testimonies that we get about Jesus do come from his followers. You recognize some of these names because they’re individuals who formulated the New Testament that we read from today. Matthew was referred to as the tax collector. The way that he would have been received in his time. You can imagine this. Most of you probably have filled out your taxes already, right? If you haven’t, you better jump on that. Yeah, or you’re going to have somebody come visit your house and you know who that is, right? The IRS. Matthew would have been like that. The day that you hand in your taxes, you also give a kiss to the individual who takes your money. Matthew was the tax collector when he came to town. No one would want to meet him or greet him or welcome him openly. Though you should love the IRS. Okay, Jesus wants you to love everybody.
Sorry if you work for the IRS today. But Matthew went on to write the very first gospel, the very first book in the New Testament. History tells us that Matthew believed so much so in what he wrote about Jesus, that he was literally stoned to death for Christ. The next gospel we have comes from an individual named Mark. Mark went on Paul’s first missionary journey. On his first journey. He got scared of the bandits and robbers who lied in the Highlands, and he vacated and left. Paul and Paul became very angry. Mark went on to write the gospel of Mark. History tells us right after Peter and Paul’s death, Mark went back to the town that he was from in Egypt. When he arrived to Egypt, he helped start a church in Egypt. The people there became so angry at the conversion of the individuals from pagan religions to Christ that they grabbed hold of Mark. They tied them and they drag them through the streets for three days. The first day he died. The next couple of days, they were just bragging. Luke was a historian with the third book of the Gospels, traveled with the Apostle Paul, investigated into the life of Jesus, and compiled the book, the gospel that we refer to as Luke. Luke was hung for his faith. John was the only follower of the first century that formulated, helped formulate the New Testament that didn’t die for his faith. John was exiled to the island of Patmos.
At one point, he was even boiled alive in a large vat and survived. John wrote the Gospel of John in his old age, according to the nature of who Christ was, and the need for our faith in him because of his resurrection. Peter wrote just a couple of books in your New Testament, but he was a he was an early follower of Christ and considered the leader of the early church. Peter was sentenced to death in Rome, and he was to be crucified. But he said to the the people who was crucifying, he was so unworthy to be to die the same way that Jesus died, that his request was to be crucified upside down. Peter was crucified upside down. James was Jesus’s brother. Perhaps out of all these guys, the testimony of James speaks louder than any of them, because the Bible tells us this specifically, specifically in the Gospels that were recorded that James didn’t believe in Jesus. You think about that for a minute. What would it take for you to be able to worship your sibling and call them God? Right. I know mine ain’t happening. Matter of fact, they should do that. No. Just kidding. Don’t do that. Don’t repeat that to my family if they ever visit. But Mark says this in Mark chapter three and verse 20, the response of his family when Jesus was going out to this world and proclaiming his name, they literally said he has lost his mind.
And the text tells us that they go in to grab a hold of Jesus and John seven and verse five, it simply says, his brothers did not believe. Yes, Jesus had brothers and James after his resurrection. Then we see in history according to the scriptures that James then professes Jesus as Lord and Savior and begins to follow him, and he starts to lead the church in Jerusalem. And James later wrote the book of James, and he was stoned to death for his faith in Christ. And Paul, perhaps the most famous. He’s not up here, but Paul suffered a martyr’s death as well in Rome. Being persecuted for his faith in Christ countless times was eventually beheaded. These guys wholeheartedly believed that they had seen a dead man walking. In fact, their belief in in seeing Jesus resurrected was so strong that they could never recant. They had seen the resurrected Lord with their own eyes, and they couldn’t deny what Christ had done. And while these men stood as cowards while Jesus was being crucified, something magnificent happened in their lives that they could no longer deny him, and that was seen through the experience of his resurrection. And some people make the attempt to divorce the resurrection of Jesus from the teachings of Jesus. They look at Jesus as if he’s a nice philosophical teacher. He’s worthy of just inspiring us in our world. But if we divorce the resurrection of Jesus from the teachings of Scripture.
We we undermine the very reason these disciples wrote the books of the Bible. They looked at the resurrection of Christ, and they said to themselves, this is a story that can’t die. This is a story that must continue because Jesus overcame the grave. This is worthy of us to declare to this world. And they begin to write the New Testament for us as believers to begin to accept. In fact, Paul wrote first Corinthians 15 and he and he starts his story in verse three. He says, for what I have received, I’ve passed on to you as of first importance. Paul saying, guys, this this isn’t something that I’ve just made up. This is something I’ve also received in my own world. This is something that’s been passed generationally down. First Corinthians was written 20 years after Jesus’s crucifixion and the early church according to First Corinthians 15 3 to 4. This is a creedal statement that Paul is making. This is what the church is standing on. You can find this written in history within the first couple of years after Jesus’s death. And he’s saying this thing that I’m passing to you. I didn’t make it up. I’ve received it from other followers of Jesus. In verse one he tells us what this is he’s about to share. First Corinthians 15 one he says, this is the gospel. He says that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.
It’s the gospel isn’t because of Jesus. The gospel is Jesus. The gospel that Christ shares through Paul in this passage of Scripture has nothing to do with anything of who we are as people or anything that we’ve we’ve done or will do. It’s everything that Jesus has done. And so Paul is telling us, listen, he’s writing to a group of believers that don’t even believe in the resurrection. That’s why we have First Corinthians 15 in our Bible. They were doubting the resurrection. And Paul is saying to them, guys, listen, this is the message that the church stands for. If we don’t have a resurrection, we don’t have a message. Everything that we hope and the reason that Lucien said that the church lived as if they were immortal was because of the resurrection of Jesus. And the gospel has nothing to do with us. It has nothing to do with believing in this philosophy. It has everything to do with believing in Jesus as he’s overcome the grave. Amen. Thank you Mark. Some people have looked at portions like this in Scripture and have objected. They’ve said, well, Paul wrote this 20 years after Jesus’s resurrection. I mean, your New Testament. No one started to write it until 15 years after Jesus’s resurrection. How are we to accept this as truth? Let me ask you a question. Who wrote thriller or who sang thriller? Okay, good.
Here’s a more challenging one. This comes from where I’m from. This is going to embarrass me. Who wrote Achy Breaky Heart? Cyrus. Who directed Star Wars? Man, you guys are. Who was in the main actor in Saturday Night Fever? My goodness. Do you know all those things I’ve just mentioned are more than 20 years old showing your age today? But do you realize that no kids, if you didn’t know the answer to that, know that you’re not old, right? But how did you know that? You’ve lived it. You’ve experienced it. You’ve seen it. You’ve danced to it, right? I hope not. If you got that on video, I will work that into next week’s sermon. All right. And the cool thing about Paul telling us about the resurrection of Jesus, he’s writing this 20 years later. And he says to us in verse six, after that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time. Jesus didn’t keep this a secret. When Jesus was resurrected from the the grave, the grave. When he resurrected from that, he appeared to all sorts of people. A matter of fact, at one point there was such a large crowd that even 500 people saw Jesus resurrected at one time, and Paul saying this I like this next phrase most of all, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep, meaning died. Amen. Paul is saying this if you don’t believe what I’m talking about in Corinth, buy your bus ticket and head to Jerusalem, because these people are still walking the earth and they’re walking like they’ve seen a ghost, and they’re living like this has changed their lives.
He appeared not only to the disciples who wrote the Gospels, but he appeared to hundreds of people. And Paul continues to write to the believers in Corinth. He says in verse 12, but if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? People are going to challenge you this to this in the world. How do you know Jesus really overcame the grave? And there’s all kinds of reasons in history that we could point to. But this morning I just wanted to look at maybe the two most persuasive arguments. And that’s the testimony of the disciples, what the early history is written about Jesus and the prophecy about Christ itself. When we ask ourselves this morning, how do you know Jesus really overcame the grave? The people in Corinth were challenged in this. They began to doubt his resurrection. And Paul saying, if you’re doubting this, you’re doubting the message for which you stand for. And so he says in verse 14, and if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God.
For we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead, but he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. Paul is saying this in verse 15, you think about the foolishness of not believing in a resurrection. You’re saying to yourselves that these disciples who are facing massive persecution got together and decide, you know what? Let’s formulate a monstrous lie and then validate truth on top of that. Paul’s looking at these disciples, even John, who was at Jesus’s crucifixion and was the first one to his tomb when he was resurrected, and he’s saying, you guys are looking at individuals who have done nothing but walked with integrity, who have suffered massive persecution, and we’re calling them liars. We have hundreds of witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus, and to deny that Jesus was resurrected is denying your own faith. You think about the fear of death looming over you as a person. There’s a lot of things that I will not die for. Amen. One of them is a lie. Forget that when I’m stating belief. And I’m trying to even persuade people to get some kind of monetary gain off of it. When my life comes to grips in that moment because someone is about to kill me, I will recant. Especially when we consider that the mode for which I’m about to die could be something as gruesome as torture and crucifixion and being lit alive by fire. I mean, but do we even see this even remotely in the lives of these disciples who are following after Jesus? What’s funny is I was reading some of the historical accounts of individuals, and one Roman leader wrote this.
He wrote to his authority above him he was a governor and wrote to the Emperor, and he said, I keep killing these Christians. This is the the crude remark, I keep killing these Christians. But it seems like the more I kill, the more multiply. How am I supposed to handle this? You cut one head off and two come from it. The testimony of the early church. It’s been quoted from the first few centuries that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. They believe that they’re immortal, so bad that nothing was going to stop them. But by the time of the the middle of the fourth century, the entire known world became Christian. Amen. And Paul is saying to these people, because the minute you confess at the resurrection isn’t truthful, you did not like the very message that we stand on. The disciples wrote the Bible not because they thought Jesus’s statements were really cool. It is they wrote the Bible because Jesus overcame the grave. You can’t divorce the resurrection of Jesus from the teachings of Jesus. I mean, do you like the statement God is love? I know I do special when I’m being bad, right? John wrote that and John believed in the resurrection.
Do you like it when the Bible says, Love God with all your heart? I do. Mark wrote that. Mark wrote it because he believed in the resurrection. Do you like the statement that love is patient? Love is kind. It is gentle. It does not envy. It does not think of itself. It does not boast, does not act unbecomingly. Paul wrote that as a matter of fact, Paul wrote it just a couple chapters before this chapter. Paul is sharing with us about the resurrection. If you accept the teachings from the Bible without believing in a resurrected Jesus, you’re accepting things that were never intended to be so. So Paul goes on in first Corinthians 15 and verse 17, he says this. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. Paul poses for us an interesting point the need for Jesus’s death and resurrection. Because if you think you’re earning your way to heaven, you’ve got no shot to get there. The Bible tells us in verse 17 that without Jesus’s resurrection, we’re still in our sins. Give us an illustration of thinking about this. There’s an individual who’s lived his life as a model citizen. In fact, he was like Eagle Scout of Eagle Scouts, right? He this guy was MacGyver of Macgyver’s loved, did everything nice. And then one day he goes berserk and he kills somebody, comes before the judge and says to the judge, judge, you know, I’ve been such a good person my entire life that could you just overlook this one murder to, to to all the good things that I’ve done and let me go.
How would the judge respond in that moment? No way. Why? Because the judge is just. A just judge will let justice happen. You don’t just get to skate free for doing things against the law. You’re held accountable and judged for it. And Paul saying this to us as well. Listen guys, you you have may live the just cleanest beautifulest life in the world according to other people. But you still have sin and God is a just judge and he’s still going to judge you for that sin, regardless of of how much good that you’ve done. Because he is a just judge. The unfortunate thing for us is that we sometimes compare the laws of God to the laws of our land, right? But God’s laws are stricter. See, in our country you may get away with lying and cheating, not with God. God sees the heart of every man. God sees every lie that we tell. God sees every lust that we conduct. Every time that we cheat. God sees the hate in our heart. That’s what that judge is judging on. And he is just. And you think about what Paul is saying in this passage of Scripture. Listen, if you don’t believe in a resurrection when you come before that judge, woe is you on that day.
Mhm. And those who have died since the time of Christ are even lost. He tells us in this verse to divorce the resurrection of Jesus from the gospel, from the story of Christianity, is just to simply say, I’m not a true follower of Jesus. I’m not a Christian because it takes the resurrection of Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, to validate to us that he has overcome death and sin in the grave. Amen. Amen. Amen. I think the beautiful thing is that no other religion in this world has a living teacher. It says in verse 19, if only for this life we have hope in Christ. We are of all people most to be pitied. Paul saying, if all you’re doing from Jesus is just taking his fluffy, wonderful teaching, the only hope that you have is just how it helps you in this world. That’s it. It’s just a nice little model. And if that’s the case, because his resurrection is true, then the more pathetic people today, if you’ve surrendered your life to follow after Christ, if you’ve given any sort of time to Jesus, if you’ve given resources to Jesus, if you’ve tithed money to Jesus, if you’ve if you’ve prayed to God, you of all people in this world right now, have a hopeless future in your most to be pitied. You understand the significance of the resurrection, the importance of standing for it.
I mean the teachings of Jesus are wonderful and we abide by it as a church, but it’s built on the foundation of his death, burial, and resurrection. He is the Babe Ruth of all Babe Ruth’s. Mike Tyson of all Mike Tyson’s. He called his shot and he defeated this world and sin and Satan and death. And so I like what Paul says. But now Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by a man came death, by also a man came the resurrection of the dead. And Paul is saying to us today the way that we look at Easter isn’t just a message where a lot of people come to church and we, you know, applaud Jesus and move on with our lives. The resurrection of Jesus impacts our lives every day. That’s right. We are a people that are immortal. We are people that experience the presence of God at any given moment Because God is still alive. Amen. Amen. We are people that when we pray, God hears our prayers. Where are people that we have a hope for eternity? Where people that is loved dearly by God, who looks upon us as we sit in this earth and we we worship his name and glorify him. Amen. I like how he says it. You know, one of my favorite words in the Bible is. But. I wish they’d make it bold and proud.
Christ has been raised from the dead. For us, his people. This is the hope that Jesus gives us. We don’t follow an empty religion. We’re not believing in a philosophy, though. Jesus taught truth. What our trust becomes is in Jesus himself. It’s not in a belief, it’s in a person. And everything that Christ has done for us on the cross, being crucified and resurrected has proven to us that we have hope in him. Amen. And so, John, the last disciple to write a book. I like how he concludes the final book. We’ve seen this verse a couple of times together. He says this in first John 511, and this is the testimony God has given us eternal life. And this life is not in a philosophy. It’s not in a belief, it’s in a son. Whoever has the son has life, and whoever does not have the son does not have life. I think it’s John in his old age who was the youngest of the disciples. He was near death at this point As he writes these words to us, the hope of the people that read this message is that we would turn from anything that we think is going to save our soul and just run to Jesus, because trusting in him and seeing that he’s already overcame the grave will bring us life as we put our faith in who he is and what he’s done.