Easter In September - [1 Corinthians 15:1-11]

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If you're new to the church, we're just preaching verse by verse by verse through 1st Corinthians.
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We're several years into the book, and we just want to pick up where we left off last week. Now, last week's message was important.
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I would like to say it was very important, not because it was my message, but spiritual gifts in 1st Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 is an important topic.
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This is a more important topic. We'll see even from the text, this is going to be called more important, or of first importance.
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While spiritual gifts are important, everything in the Bible is valuable, there are some things more important than others.
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There's a hierarchical truth structure to the Bible. And so today we're going to hone in on one of the most important doctrines of all the
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Bible, and that is the resurrection. And so the most important doctrine is the gospel, and the resurrection is a component to that gospel.
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And that's why Paul's going to call this of first importance. And so what's going on in the
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Corinthian church is this. They had a problem with what they were doing in the church, that is tongue speaking without interpreters, prophesying, not waiting for their turn.
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There was order and chaos. It was bad behavior. It was carnal behavior. But now
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Paul moves from 1st Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 of ethical misconduct to a belief system that had gone wrong.
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There actually were people in the Corinthian church who thought the resurrection of the body would not take place.
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And Paul wants to let them know in 1st Corinthians 15, the resurrection is true.
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You will be resurrected. And don't buy into any Greek body, bad spirit, good stuff that was probably at Corinth.
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Don't buy in into anything today where people say, modern day Sadducees, you know what,
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I just want to live my life today. And this whole idea about being resurrected and standing before God on judgment day, that puts a crimp in my sexual immorality.
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That puts a crimp in my bad business behavior. That puts a crimp in my sin. I don't want to think about the resurrection.
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I want to think about my hedonistic life today. So no matter where we're coming from, back in those days or today, you need to know, and it's important for you to know, that the resurrection is true, the resurrection of your body.
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And if you look at verse 12, Paul gives us really the purpose or the reason of the chapter a little bit later.
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He doesn't say it in verse 1 or 2. He tells us in 12. So if you'd like to know what 1st Corinthians 15 is about, 12 will help you.
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And this is about the resurrection of not Christ primarily, but of us.
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And then he'll use the argument, Christ must be raised, then we will as well. 1st Corinthians 15, verse 12.
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Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
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So did you get that? People were saying in the church, no resurrection. You're not going to be raised from the dead.
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We eat and drink and tomorrow we die. And that is upsetting.
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2nd Timothy chapter 2 says this upsets the faith. This is upsetting because then you live differently.
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If you're living with an eye towards eternity and judgment and accountability, that's a lot different than if it's just today we live, tomorrow we die.
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And so Paul is going to say in verses 1 to 11, of course there's a resurrection from the dead because Jesus was raised from the dead.
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How do we know there's a resurrection? How do we know it's true? Because Christ himself was raised from the dead.
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And so that's the focus today. And that's why the sermon is called Easter in September. Now there are certain holidays that I really don't like because I think they're just kind of made up stuff, you know,
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Kwanzaa just made up or I don't know if Columbus Day is made up. I'm not sure about that one.
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But some holidays don't really thrill me. And in the sense, don't throw any rocks to hit my other eye quite yet.
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But in a sense, Easter doesn't thrill me. Because every single day we worship the risen
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Savior, don't we? It's not wrong to have a Resurrection Sunday service up from the grave he arose.
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But I know Steve Cooley, Pastor Steve, he always likes to sneak in a resurrection song throughout the year.
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You know, like, you know, this is not Easter. But it is Easter. It's Resurrection Sunday.
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Jesus is raised from the dead. And your body is going to be raised from the dead. And if anybody tries to tell you that's wrong, you, like the
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Corinthians, should be reminded the certainty of the resurrection according to the Scriptures.
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So let me do this. Let me give you an outline today from 1 Corinthians 15, 1 to 11.
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That's our section today. As Paul moved from bad behavior to bad belief, which by the way, leads to bad behavior.
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Let me give you five certainties about the resurrection. That will be our outline this morning.
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Five certainties that Paul gives the Corinthians, and then by implication you, so that you can be certain, you can with white knuckle grip say,
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I believe Jesus was raised from the dead and I will be too. By the way, if there's someone here who says they're a
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Christian and they do not believe in the literal bodily resurrection of Christ Jesus, you are not a
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Christian. This is central to Christianity. You must believe in the revealed
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Jesus of Scripture who was raised from the dead. And we'll get into that a little bit more later. So I hope if you're an unbeliever, you hear these claims of Christ and that you repent and believe in this
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God. You have to believe in the God of the Bible. Faith in faith won't do. Spirituality generally won't do.
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But it is faith in the risen Savior who is our substitutionary sin bearer.
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Five certainties about the resurrection that you must not abandon.
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Number one, let's just skip ahead here just for a second of my notes.
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Number one, be certain that the church has always been taught the resurrection of Christ Jesus.
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In particular, this is Corinthians, but for us it's the same thing. The Corinthians were taught this before.
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You've been taught this before. I can say you've been taught this as a kid. The resurrection of Jesus is a central truth that you have been taught.
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By the way, when you look at Paul in Acts, sometimes read Acts this week if you want a homework assignment. Paul preached about the resurrection so often they thought he was preaching two gods.
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Remember in Acts 17? They thought he was preaching strange deities. Because Paul preached
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Jesus and he preached the resurrection. And Jesus is masculine and the resurrection, where we get the word
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Anastasia, is feminine. He talked about Jesus and Anastasia so often he must be preaching two gods.
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Because for Jesus, for Paul it was linked. And Paul taught the
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Corinthians this. He was there for 18 months. And see what it says in verses 1 and 2. Now I would remind you brothers of the gospel
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I preached to you which you received. Remember Acts 18? He was there 18 months. In which you stand and by which you are being saved if you hold fast to the word
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I preach to you unless you believed in vain. The church of Corinth had been taught the gospel.
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Go to chapter 1 if you would just for a second. I want you to see early on in chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians verse 17.
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This was something that Paul had taught. Obviously it was important doctrine and he had taught it to them.
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And he said I pass this along. It was like a baton that I was given and I pass to you and you took it.
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You received it for me. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 17. For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel and not with words of eloquent wisdom lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
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Corinth when I showed up I had a message and the message was good news. And when you think about the gospel of good news this isn't good news.
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Ready? It isn't be better parents, work on your communication, be nicer to people, help the poor, love one another.
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That's not the gospel. The gospel is good news proclaimed about what
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God did not what we're supposed to do, not what we could do. We're sinful, fallen, depraved, unable and so this is the message of what
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God did. You're a general fighting back in those days and you send your runner up to the front lines.
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You send your herald up. He does a little I spy business and he says you know what the enemy's almost destroyed.
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We're winning. We're going to win. And he runs back to the general and he proclaims to the general good news.
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He doesn't talk about himself. Well this is what I feel and this is what I was feeling in my heart at the time and this is how
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I understood this emotionally. No, that's bad reporting. The reporting is of the facts.
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It's external. It's outside of yourself and he says we're winning. That's what the good news is.
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It's a proclamation of news. Not to do anything. Oh of course the response is believe but here this is just good news preached to you.
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Can you think of other times where we have just good news just bellowed forth, super happy about it? Josh and Natalie a week ago.
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Was it Sunday night? No, last Sunday morning. That's why they weren't here at church. I thought they were backsliding but she's giving birth to a baby.
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Liam Noah was born. That's good news. How about this?
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Maybe this was bad news for some of you, good news for some of you. Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980.
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It's good news. Well, maybe it's not good news. It's old news, that's for sure. Good news is something that's told forth and it's proclaimed about Christ, the substitutionary representative who dies for the sins of his people and was raised from the dead.
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Here's what Paul says of the Corinthians. I was there and I taught you that and by the way, you received it from me.
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Now some other weirdos have come in and started teaching there's no resurrection from the dead. Wait a second, Paul says. I handed you that baton and you said yes,
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I believe that. But see, there's a faith that doesn't save. It's a faith that stops believing and it says in the text, do you notice?
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Which you received, verse 1, in which you stand, by which you are being saved progressively.
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If you hold fast to the word I preached to you unless you believed in vain.
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There is a faith in Christ Jesus that doesn't save and it's a faith that doesn't remain.
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It's a faith that doesn't hold fast. It's a faith that doesn't keep on believing. When you think about your salvation, if I were to ask you today, are you a
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Christian? And you were to immediately say to me, yes, I know I'm a Christian because in 1985
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I asked Jesus into my heart, therefore I know I am. Paul would say, well
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I'm glad you didn't deny him in 1989, 1985, whenever that was, but here's what he would say and so I'll say to you, are you believing right now?
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Because if you're not believing right now, you're not standing. It's a faith that is a board of faith. It's a faith that says get me out of hell only, but it's not a faith in this good news.
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Are you believing right now? That's what Paul would say because there's a faith that doesn't save, but too much of Christianity today is we just got to get them in, get them sealed, signed, sealed and delivered it in, prayed the prayer, walked the aisle, signed the card, you're in good.
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If someone ever comes to you and they've come to me many times, Mike, I'm struggling to know if I'm a Christian.
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I don't say to them, tell me when you got saved back in those days when you accepted
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Jesus into your heart. I never do that. Let's talk about what you think about Jesus right now.
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And are you believing in this Jesus, a substitutionary atoner right now? Some of these people at Corinth were saying they believe the joyous proclamation of God's redemption early on, but now they're saying, well, you know what?
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No, I'm not too sure about the resurrection. And they were being influenced. Paul says, this is the gospel that saves you.
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Don't you like the word salvation? It is so great. Somebody says, when did you get saved?
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You could also approach it this way. This is always fun to do. This is theological fun. Want to know what
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I like to do in my spare time? This is it. Mike, when did you get saved? Oh, I got saved in eternity past when the
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Father and the Son and the Spirit with an eternal compact, an eternal redemptive promise agreed that I would be saved.
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When were you saved? I was saved at the cross when Jesus died for all my sins.
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I got his righteousness. He got my sins. It was an act of imputation, of substitution.
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When were you saved? It was 1989, around September, when God crushed me and regenerated me and made me born again.
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When are you saved? Well, I'm being saved right now, saying no to sin and yes to righteousness in a progressive way.
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And I will be saved when I'm glorified and I meet God face to face. Which one are you talking about?
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Well, the one that Paul is talking about here, by which you are being saved. I think it's the one where he saves us by regeneration, which leads us, obviously, into progressive sanctification, in which you're being saved if you hold fast.
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This has nothing to do with you can lose your salvation. This has everything to do with Paul has the means and the end in mind.
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The end is you can't unsave yourself because you didn't save yourself. And the means to keep yourself saved is by believing through grace, by responding to God through grace.
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He who endures till the end will be saved, true or false? Does that mean you can lose your salvation?
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No, it means if you endure to the end, you'll be saved. That's the means to get to the end by using these warning passages to keep us on this road.
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Paul's not saying you can lose your salvation. He's saying some have abandoned the gospel and never believed initially.
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Second certainty found in verses 3 and 4. Be certain that the resurrection of the body is true by believing in the resurrection of Jesus because the church initially received it.
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Secondly, the Scriptures have always taught the resurrection. Be certain about Jesus' resurrection because the
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Scriptures have always taught His resurrection. And when I say Scriptures, we're going to see the
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Old Testament. Verses 3 and 4, I want you to see if you can see the refrain that's here.
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It's twice given. And I deliver to you as of first importance that I also received or what
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I also received, 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
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Scriptures. Let me read verse 5 as well, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
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All right, let's think about this for a second. According to the Scriptures, according to the Scriptures, which Scriptures were those?
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It was the Old Testament. Paul says Corinthians, the resurrection of Jesus is true, therefore there's got to be a resurrection because the
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Old Testament has always taught that. The Old Testament has taught the Messiah would be raised from the dead.
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Now, don't you like this where he says, I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received? That again is language.
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That's Lord's Supper language of 1 Corinthians chapter 11, where Paul says, under oath, someone gave this information to me as a courier and I received it.
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I signed off on it. You ever sign off on those UPS deals and you just don't even really have to sign.
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You just put an X there and they take it off, take it away. And I received that and then I gave it to you.
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So, Paul receives it from Jesus and then gives it to them. He said, I received that and he says, it's of first importance, more important than anything else, more important than eschatology, more important than ecclesiology, the gospel of God's salvation.
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And there's four key verbs that you should be able to see in verses 3, 4, and 5. These are the four key verbs, died, buried, raised, appeared.
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And they all are Christ -centered words. Christ died, and it doesn't say they buried him, keeping the focus on Christ.
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He was buried, and then he was raised, and then he appeared. So, four key verbs.
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And if you know these four words, you can really summarize the gospel. Died, buried, rose, appeared.
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And the first and the third are modified by the second and fourth. The first one, died, is confirmed by the burial.
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And the third one, appeared, third one to be raised, is confirmed by the appearance.
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So, let's work through this, these four key verbs here, all about Christ and how he's a subject of these verbs.
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The first verb is to die. According to the Scriptures, according to the general tenor of the
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Old Testament, he could say, well, according to the Scripture, Psalm 22. According to the
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Scripture, Psalm 16. According to the Scripture, Isaiah 53. But he doesn't say that. He says, according to the what?
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Scriptures. The general tenor of the Scriptures teach sin, sacrifice, atonement.
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The general Scriptures teach that Jesus, the Messiah, the Lamb of God, would have to die.
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And you see that in your text right there. And Christ died for his sins, according to the Scriptures. You say, well, you've got more problems,
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Mike, than you've got I problems. You've got bigger theological problems. Obviously, Jesus didn't sin.
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Because if he did, he would have to pay for his own sins in Calvary. But he didn't sin.
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He was sinless. He was spotless. Never, ever, ever sinning in thought, word, or deed. So now substitution is true.
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Jesus died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. Jesus, the representative human and the substitute.
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This has Romans 5 and Galatians 1 and Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53.
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Substitution language everywhere you look. He died on our behalf, in our place.
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According, as Acts chapter 2 would say, to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. The Scriptures, true or false, teach that the climax of all the world would be the cross.
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The Scriptures point to this sin bearer, Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22. Yes, they do.
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Now, the tradition said these Scriptures were Psalm 16 and Psalm 110 put together.
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But I think we're talking about general Old Testament teaching bears witness to the fact that Jesus was to die and to be raised from the dead.
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Paul, before King Agrippa, Acts 26. I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the prophets and Moses said was going to take place.
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That the Christ was to suffer and that by reason of his resurrection from the dead, he should be the first to proclaim light both to the
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Jews and to the Gentiles. Peter, on Pentecost, said he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the
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Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades nor did his flesh decay. Here's what
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Paul says. Corinthians, you're denying that there's a resurrection for your bodies.
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I'm saying to you, of course, there's a resurrection. I taught you about the resurrection when I got here.
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And the Scriptures teach about the death of Christ and the resurrection, that here is the sin bearer.
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He died in our place. And how do we know he died? Look at the second key word that I already told you about the verb.
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He was buried. That's rare to find in Scripture. He was buried. Peter, excuse me,
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Paul preached in Acts 13. They laid Jesus in a tomb. Now, some people were saying
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Jesus didn't really die, you know, swoon theory, etc. Docetic people, I didn't really die.
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He died on the cross and was buried with finality. In fact, he died because you bury dead people.
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Third verb is found, raised, right? So we've got died, buried, raised, and he was raised on the third day, according to the
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Scriptures. Now, here's something really cool here. Died and buried are kind of point in time, right?
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You die at a split second, and then you're buried, and it's kind of like static in time, point of time.
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But this is a different word. This is a perfect tense, and it means that he was raised, and he continues on in a raised fashion.
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He's always raised. Matter of fact, Jesus is in his body now, his glorified body, with five marks on those.
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He's in a permanent state of being raised, according to the
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Scriptures. You say, well, what Scripture would say that maybe he was buried for three days and then was raised from the dead?
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What about this whole three days bit? Well, could it be here, Matthew 12, Jesus said, an evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign, and yet no sign will be given it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.
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For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
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Well, here's what we know for sure. Jesus was raised from the dead. He died, he was buried, and he was raised from the dead, and it is essential to Christianity.
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Well, I'm a Christian, but I don't believe in the resurrection. No, you're a liberal trying to make yourself like a conservative
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Christian, but you can't be that. You have to have a risen Savior, because think about what happened on the cross.
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When Jesus said, it is finished, justification happened. But how do we all know it worked?
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God confirmed it and made evidence to the fact by raising Jesus from the dead. Romans chapter 4 verse 25, because of his resurrection, we know justification was complete.
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I have a question for you. If Buddha didn't really exist, could you still be a good
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Buddhist? I think the answer is yes. If Muhammad didn't really exist, could you be a good
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Muhammadan? Think about any, I think Sun Yung Moon, he just died last week, didn't he?
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Sun Yung Moon, could you say to yourself, I don't think he really existed, but we'll just be good
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Moonies. Without Christ, the risen Savior, Christianity, I'll just say it, it's a complete farce.
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It's a farce. Without Jesus being raised from the dead, even if there was a Jesus, Jesus not being raised from the dead shows us one fact, and that fact is,
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Jesus was a sinner. But since Jesus was raised from the dead, justification has happened.
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We can be forgiven people. I don't know about you, but I have a lot of skeletons in my closet. And I have a lot of sin that I personally don't want to pay for.
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Every sin in the universe will be punished. God is just. And so the sin is either punished on you, or it's punished on Jesus, the substitute.
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It would be a wretched group of people who would have to say to themselves, let's get together and sing some songs to this
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God on Sunday, knowing that the death knell was right around the corner, and that we were going to be dead soon, and then paying for our sins.
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How sad. But Jesus even knew that the Old Testament talked about a risen king,
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Luke 18. Jesus said, everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.
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They will mock Him, insult Him, and spit on Him. They will flog Him and kill Him. On the third day,
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He will rise. That's just what the tenor of Old Testament taught. Luke 24, same thing.
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The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. The resurrection is true, or we are to be pitied.
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Certainty number three. You know, one thing about Paul is, he just won't stop until he's made his case.
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And so he says, first certainty, this is what the church has always believed. Second certainty is, scriptures teach it.
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Third certainty is, there were eyewitnesses of the resurrection. Be certain that Jesus was raised from the dead, because there were eyewitnesses, proof.
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Verse five. And there we see our fourth verb there. Died, buried, raised, appeared, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
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How do you establish the resurrection? He showed up later. And by the way, like creation, like salvation,
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Jesus initiates when He becomes visible and appears. They could search for Him all they wanted.
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But creation doesn't create itself. People don't make themselves born again. And they don't find the glorified body of Jesus walking around when they want to.
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He appears. Look at His own sovereign initiative. He appeared to Cephas. He didn't have to appear.
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But He appeared first to Cephas. Now He appeared first to, in this grouping, first to Cephas, then to the twelve, then to the five hundred, then the other apostles.
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He did appear to women first, didn't He? So it's not like He's not saying anything about that in particular.
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Skipping over, somehow He forgot it. Now it could be that He goes to Cephas first because the
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Corinthians respected Peter. It could be that He said Peter is the first one that He appeared to because in a
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Jewish court of law, if we're going to establish witnesses, two or three witnesses, we're going to have to have male witnesses.
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Irregardless, the fact, here He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
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So first He appears to Simon, and then He appears to the twelve.
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Remember the twelve are the twelve apostles minus Judas. It's okay to call the eleven twelve because it's just a general term, general nomenclature for the twelve.
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Then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time. Now, where's that in the scripture? We don't know.
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Most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Where are these people? Some are alive.
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You go up to Jerusalem, if you'd like, from Corinth, and you could meet some of those people. I saw Jesus, the resurrected
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Jesus. Or maybe some of those people have found their way down into Corinth, and some of those people are right there.
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They're still alive. Twenty to twenty -five years later, people are still alive who have seen Jesus. Most are still alive.
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And then He says something really, it's just very kind. For Christians alone, the word sleep is used for the death of a
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Christian, because it looks like they're sleeping. Never used of an unbeliever, though some have fallen asleep.
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Some are sleeping. Some of the Christians who saw Him, they're dead. And so Paul is saying, this is true.
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This is valid. The veracity of this really happened because there's overwhelming proof.
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Then, it says in verse 7, He appeared to James. Remember the half -brother of Jesus, who's the head of Jerusalem church?
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They knew who He was. The same James in John 7, who didn't believe his brother, now believes his brother.
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Jesus shows up and says, I'm the resurrected Messiah. And then to all the apostles.
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You say, I thought the twelve were the apostles. What's that all about? The best way you can think about the word apostle, to send someone out.
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Think about apostle, all caps. Who's the all caps apostle? Jesus is called the apostle in Hebrews.
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Capital A, apostle, is the twelve. But there are smaller apostles, like who?
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Barnabas, Acts 14. Andronicus, Geneas, Romans 16.
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He appeared to other people. Why do we know that the resurrection is true?
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It's because there are eyewitnesses. Number four, we need to get a move on here. Number four, certainties of the resurrection for our
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Easter time here in September. Is the apostle Paul himself testified to the resurrection?
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You can be certain because Paul testified to this resurrection. Now before we look at this verse, let me just say this to kind of get you to think.
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When you evangelize, do you think you should include the resurrection? When you give your personal testimony, do you think you should give the resurrection?
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When you're teaching Sunday school kids about Jesus, do you think you should talk about the risen Savior? The answer is yes, yes, yes.
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Matter of fact, I want you to talk about the resurrection so much, people that are visiting think the resurrection is another God. Did I just say that?
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Okay, I want you to talk about the resurrection so much, they think Jesus was raised from the dead.
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The resurrected Savior. I don't know how many of you have been near someone who has died, but you will give everything in your power to somehow resuscitate that person, and we have no power over death, zero.
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And yet Jesus raises himself from the dead. You bury a loved one, you say to yourself, built in even to the unbelievers who walk past the casket, and kneel down and cross themselves, they're saying he's in a better place because when football games are on, nah, resurrection doesn't really matter much.
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When there's immorality going on, resurrection doesn't really matter that much. But when there's people dead and dying, you want there to be a resurrection.
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And Jesus is the only one who can raise people from the dead, and he has raised himself from the dead.
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This is just the uniform message of Christianity. Last of all, Paul says in verse 8,
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As to one untimely born, he also appeared to me.
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Last of all. Now, I think that's last in order, and it's last in rank.
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Paul says, Jesus appeared to me. Remember when that was? You should read Acts this week and see how many times Paul talks about the
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Damascus Road experience. Can you imagine on your way to Damascus, and then there's Jesus, the resurrected
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Jesus, and Paul said, He appeared to me as one who was untimely born. What does that mean?
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The word untimely born is used one time in the New Testament, and it means miscarriage, it means stillbirth, or it means an aborted child.
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Now, some scholars think this. They don't like Paul, and they gave Paul a nickname.
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Remember he didn't really look too good? Remember 2 Corinthians chapter, I think it's 10. 2 Corinthians chapter 10.
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He didn't really look too good, and they thought maybe he's got an eye problem. Remember some of the other Corinthians said he can't talk very well.
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If you're a pastor that doesn't look good and can't talk very well, then you're pretty much to be pitied, because if you look good, they can just look at you, they can just drown out what you're saying.
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But if you don't look good, they can listen to what you have to say, and then you're okay. So for Paul it was, he looks gross, and he can't talk.
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So some people think, some scholars, it could be true, that this was the nickname given to Paul by these false teachers at Corinth.
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The abortion. And Paul's like, you know what? I am.
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Whether they said it or not, Paul is saying, I am. I'm like one untimely born. These other apostles, they had three years walking next to Jesus.
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They would see Jesus say, Zacchaeus, get out of that tree, I'm going to your house for dinner, you're a Christian. They were there.
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They had three years of gestation. But for Paul, he didn't have three years of gestation.
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He was on his way to go persecute Christians, and on the Damascus Road, Jesus said, you're a
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Christian. He didn't hang out with Jesus on a day -to -day basis like these men did.
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Oh, he was taught by the Lord in another place, but in a different way. And so Paul says, as to one untimely born, he also appeared to me.
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Lest we get too bogged down in potentials, one thing's for certain. Jesus appeared to Paul.
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And then he says in verse 9, I think showing the rank more than the timing, he says in verse 9, for I am the least of the apostles.
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Why? The apostles were building the church, and I was persecuting it. Unworthy to be called an apostle.
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Certainly everybody's unworthy. But Paul all the more, because he's not building the church, he was trying to kill the church, because I persecuted the church of God.
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That's what I was doing. But like John Newton, Paul received the grace of God.
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And I think about that just for a second, and I say to myself, and I'll preach to you, when you say, or when someone else says, you know what,
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I've sinned so much, and I've done so many bad sins, and I've done these particularly heinous sins,
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I don't think God could ever forgive me. I'm unsavable. What would you say to them in light of this?
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The Christian killer, the Christian persecutor, changed into, by the grace of God, the apostle
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Paul. I am so happy that before time began, God not only knew of all my sins that I would commit, and all the skeletons in my closet, of even my thought life, and yet he sent his son to die for me anyway.
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You think you're bad? You can be forgiven. Matter of fact, that's good that you think you're bad, because then you'll know,
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I can't save myself. I am the problem. I need a savior. I need someone who, by his own sovereign initiative, doesn't just show up, but to show up and save me.
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So look what Paul says. Unworthy to be an apostle, because I persecuted the church. And he's just talking about how the risen
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Lord is so great, and how he condescends in grace. Even though ignoble past, he can save.
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I don't deserve to be saved, Paul says, but I was saved. Why? How? Who? Verse 10.
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But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain.
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On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is in me.
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How many times do you see the word grace in that passage? In verse 10. Grace, grace, grace.
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That is good news for sinners. We offer you grace. No wonder we'll even learn tonight in 1
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Thessalonians. In the old days, people would say in Greek culture, greetings. Jewish culture, peace, shalom.
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But grace is such a key concept to Christianity. That's how Christians greet each other. That's how Paul greeted the
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Thessalonians, grace and what? Peace to you. Grace, grace.
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I don't know if you're one of two kinds of people when you hear the song Amazing Grace. Let's please sing Amazing Grace. One group of people says, well, you know what?
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It doesn't seem so amazing to me, and we always sing it, and just kind of try it, and unbelievers even like that, and I'm not too sure.
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But Christians, when they hear about Amazing Grace, I think they're probably thinking like John Newton.
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I'll never forget in his biography, John Newton said, what haunts me as a Christian today is knowing that I would take families, and I would send them to four different slave masters, and they would never see each other again.
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And I live with the fact that I sent the mom to that master, the dad to that master, the kid to that master, and the other kid to that master, and I broke up a family forever.
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God, could you possibly save a wretch like me? Should it be said at all that we want to change like Schuller did?
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Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a soul like me. Why would we want to do that?
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Paul wouldn't want to do that. Anybody who knows how bad their sin is wouldn't want to do that. They want to hear about grace.
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Because if you've been sinning a lot, you're forgiven much, and the praise is much. Look at Paul, I am what
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I am. His grace towards me was not in vain. Some of you Corinthians, chapter 15, verses 1 and 2, your faith is in vain because you didn't keep on believing the resurrection.
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Well, I kept on believing the resurrection. I want you to keep on believing the resurrection. That faith wasn't in vain.
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Why don't we start praying for our unbelieving friends? God, grace them. Send the hounds of grace to get them.
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Grace them. I'm fine that grace is a name for a girl.
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But here this grace is saving grace. And so what did
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Paul do? If you've been forgiven much, you don't try to work your salvation out. You try to respond with gratitude.
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On the contrary, look at verse 10. I worked harder than any of them, though it was not
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I, but the grace of God that was in me. I rented out the house of Tyrannus in Acts chapter 19, and I taught all day, every day for two years.
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As I said, first service, try that for an IBS class. That takes a lot of work, preparing seven classes for IBS.
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Every day for two years. Plus, I worked manual labor.
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And I think the best way to work through it is backwards. And so if you say to yourself, I don't really serve the
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Lord others very much. I don't really serve others very much. I don't really have ministries that I do.
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Then I want to remind you about the grace of God, and I want to remind you about your sin. Because if you realize how bad your sin is, how great grace is, then you'll say,
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I'm not going to work, Lord, to keep my salvation. I'm not going to work to get my salvation. I'm going to work because I can't believe you saved me.
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I'm indebted to you. Paul says it's not without effect.
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It was labor and toil. I remember one man said, lots of Christians work, but not many toil.
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Many work, but not many labor. And that's the whole mindset of, instead of somebody saying, you know, you ought to have a ministry.
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There should be people running around saying, I've got to have a ministry. I've got to serve other Christians. But then what happens is, we look at other
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Christians, and then they have faults, and we say to ourselves, I don't really feel like serving them. We have to see through them and say, I'm serving them because Jesus loves sinners.
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I'm going to love them too. Finally, number five. Certainty number five about Christ's resurrection.
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This is a unified apostolic message. Be certain that this is what the apostles always taught.
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So it's nothing new. It's nothing new, similar to the first one, but he fleshes this out in verse 11.
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Whether then it was I or they, other apostles, whether it was Peter, whether it was
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James, whether it was anybody else, whether it was I or they, so we apostles preach, and so you believe.
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We preach, you believe. All the apostles have the same thing.
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You can read Peter, you can read the book of James, you can read the book of Hebrews, you can read the Gospels according to John, you can read 1
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John, and every apostle says it's the same Jesus, and the same faith in said Jesus. I don't want to take too much time, but if you look at verse 11, when people say to me, why don't you do alter calls, verse 11, well they don't say, why don't you do alter calls, verse 11, but they say, why don't you do verse alter calls?
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No. You know what, it's that I thing that's bugging me. I'm sure I could talk properly if I could just see straight.
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I think of this verse. I don't do alter calls for lots of reasons, like they're not in the
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New Testament, like they were started by a heretic, all kinds of other issues. It's minor, and I guess we have no alter here.
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Those would all contribute. But here is the way people get saved.
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We preach, and when God is pleased, He opens the heart of Lydia through preaching.
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How do people get saved? Mood music, lock the doors, get everybody in here, every head bowed, every eye closed, nobody looking around, let's hope
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God is somehow working, and let us see the evidence of it. No, so we preach so they believe. We preach, you believe.
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If you're not a Christian today, I don't want you to go to the prayer room. I don't want you to come to the front.
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I want you to go and run to the only refuge you have, because if you don't repent, it will be better that you weren't even born than to try to pay for your own judgment.
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Turn, run. Jesus, in His grace and in His love, has died on the behalf of sinners like you.
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And He was raised from the dead. There's hope. I always remember my seminary professor talking about, can you imagine, there's a football field, and you're standing in the center of the football field, and there's a
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SEAL marksman or a Navy marksman, I don't know what these marksmen are, or even what branch of the military, but they've got the sniper rifle on you, and you're at the midfield hash marks.
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You're dead. There's no way out. And then he talked about this whole thing, but there was a tree there that he didn't see in the middle, and the guy stood behind the tree for salvation.
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I thought, that is so right. There's one way to be saved, and that is to have your sins be paid for by Jesus, even though He didn't sin.
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And so for us, if you'd like to evangelize, you don't need pressure tactics. You preach the gospel.
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Can you give them urgings, and can you beg them, and can you plead with them? Yes. But God works through His Word, and He either saves people or He hardens them, and that is
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His decision. We preach, they believe. We preach
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Isaiah 6, they don't believe. Our duty is to preach. It's God's prerogative to save as He pleases.
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But for the Corinthians, in context, this was an apostolic message common to all.
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So to recap it, here's what was happening. I don't really think I'm going to be raised from the dead. Paul says, you're going to be raised from the dead because Jesus was raised from the dead.
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We have a great opportunity to talk about the risen Savior. By the way, I just try to say that. Whenever I say
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Savior, I often just say the risen Savior. A man asked my old pastor, could you critique my message that I gave to 40 ,000 people at a large outside crusade type event, probably 15 years ago.
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Could you please critique my message? The message was done and recorded, handed to my pastor. My pastor listened to it and said, good job talking about sin, good job talking about the sin bearer, but you didn't preach the gospel because you forgot the resurrection.
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Died, buried, raised, appeared. Preach the resurrection.
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Enjoy the resurrection because God said, mission accomplished. Let's pray. Thank you,
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Father, for our time this morning. In your word, 1 Corinthians, I pray that if there's anyone here today who denies the resurrection, that you would grace them, grant them grace, open their eyes so we preach.
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May you take your word that's mighty and open the hearts of the people like Lydia. Father, may you save someone like Paul, Damascus Road.
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I pray that you would help them to be tired of their own sin and sick of their sin and have them run by grace to the cross of our risen
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Savior. Father, today for Christians, I pray that you'd help them to be reminded that in fact, when
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Jesus said it was finished when it comes to all our sins, it was finished. And Father, help us by grace not to run back to the sins that have already been paid for.