Transcript

Good morning. He is risen indeed. Amen. I can tell you I've been to church before. He's risen indeed.

And that's why we celebrate on this day that over 2,000 years ago, Jesus defeated sin, death and the grave. And we're at the climax of our series that we've called the story. We are in week 10 of 12 weeks that we've been going from the book of Genesis and we're headed towards the book of Revelation and what we've learned. Even though it is 66 books written by over 40 human authors over a period of 1500 years, it's still one book. And the hero of the book is Jesus.

And that's what we've been looking at over these past few weeks in this 12 week journey. So far in the story, we've begun at creation. We've worked through the garden, the Fall, the flood, God's covenant with Abraham, the Exodus, the law, the conquest and the kingdom under David, through the heartbreak of exile, and then last week, the arrival of Christ Jesus and the long promised Savior who stepped into history to redeem that which is lost. But today we come to the place of the resurrection. And this is the hinge of the entire Bible.

This is the long awaited Savior who came and paid for our redemption. And it's also more than a religious holiday. It's a day that we might celebrate a change in your story, that your story could have a new ending. Ending instead of in death, ending in eternal life. Why are we here today?

It's because deep down we know that our story is a broken story. The story of planet Earth is a story that's broken. And we feel the guilt of past failures. We fear what tomorrow holds and the uncertainty of this world that seems to be spinning out of control. And we need more than a moral lesson.

What we need is a miracle. We need something in our lives to change the end. We need a grave that isn't a dead end, but a doorway into eternal life. And it's that same power that brought Jesus back from the dead that's available to us today. And to understand how we fit into this victorious story, we must look at the that which the Apostle Paul called of first importance.

What is he calling of first importance? He's calling the gospel, which is the good news of Jesus. And in his first letter to the Corinthians, he reminded them of the first importance of the gospel that he preached to them to strengthen their faith in Christ's death, burial and resurrection, and warn them of believing in vain. And we can rightly respond to this good news of Christ resurrection. And as we look at the text today, I think we'll see three right responses for responding to the Gospel of Christ's resurrection today.

So let's dig in. First Corinthians, chapter 15. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. And for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12.

Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers who at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all of the apostles, last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. And then we'll skip down to verse 20. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ, so shall all be made alive. This is God's word. We're looking for three right responses to the good news of Christ's resurrection. Here's the first right response. It's to receive the gospel truth.

Receive the gospel truth. What Paul's emphasizing here is not a new idea. Paul didn't invent this. He says it was passed on to him. And that which he received, he passed on to the believers in Christ Corinth.

As we look at verses one and two, we'll see really our three right responses right out of the gate. You'll notice in verse one it says, now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, which you received. You can circle that. If you go to verse three, you'll see for I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received. And so we see that word twice.

The word received here in the Scripture has more than being. It means more than being exposed to a thing. It means to embrace a thing, not just being aware of it, but to take it in. And Paul's basically saying to the church at Corinth the gospel which is the good news. And then he tells them, what are the facts of the gospel?

This is the clearest place in all of scripture of the Facts of the Gospel. And you might be saying, well, why is it important that we know the facts? Well, every good news story has facts. That might be something we should remind the news media of today. There should be facts, right?

There should be facts. And Paul is passing on the Gospel, which literally means good news. And he's telling us, here are the facts of this news, of this good news. And he lists, christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried, he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

And. And he appeared. And he has a long list of people that appeared. So there are four facts. Christ died for our sins.

He was buried, he was raised on the third day, and he appeared to many eyewitnesses. These are the facts. And he said, that's what I received. I didn't make this up. It was given to me.

It's like someone rolled up the newspaper, the Gospel, put a rubber band around it. They handed it to Paul. Paul said, I didn't invent this. This was revealed to me. I received it.

And what I've received, I've passed on to you and those of us that believe today. That's how we got was passed from generation to generation from the eyewitnesses. And it was preached and we heard it, and we've received it. And so this idea of receiving, it's more, as I've said before, it's more than exposure to it means to embrace it, to take it in. Now he has this repetitive phrase where he says, according to the Scriptures.

He says it twice. Christ died for our sins according to Scriptures. He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. In other words, he's saying, not only did we receive this, but it was being revealed way back in the day that this is this news of God's Son coming to be raised from the grave to die for our sins. This is not brand new.

It was. It was revealed and hinted at by the prophets and the writers beforehand. Just consider Isaiah 53, 700 years before Christ came. Isaiah writes this. But he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds we are healed all we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity and us all.

Isaiah caught a glimpse of the cross. He caught a glimpse of the Son of Jesus coming and all the sin of mankind being laid upon him. Isaiah saw it. But not only Isaiah But David, King David, as He wrote Psalm 22, a thousand years before Jesus, he begins Psalm 22 like this. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why have you forsaken me? That's what Jesus says on the cross, verbatim, that Jesus is fulfilling this. Many people question, like, why did Jesus say that? Did he feel like he was a failure? Did he feel like somehow he'd gotten caught up in some political mess and accidentally got crucified and now God's turned again?

No, nothing like that. He's fulfilling God's Word, written a thousand years before he came to fulfill it. He's on the cross. And the reason he's crying out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Is because all the sins of humanity have been put upon him.

He who knew no sin became sin so that we might become his righteousness. And when all the sin came upon him, the Father turns his back on the Son. And for the first time in all of creation, in all of history, he felt separation from the Father on our behalf. He cries out, my God, my, my God, why have you forsaken me? And so David is writing this, and he senses this.

And he gets even more detailed in Psalm 22. He says, they have pierced my hands and my feet. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. And so Paul writes, christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. And he's thinking of these kinds of passages.

And then he says he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. And again we are reminded of what David wrote in Psalm 16, you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your Holy One see corruption. I think that was one of Peter's first sermons there at Pentecost. He quoted from Psalm 16. The prophet Hosea writes, After two days he will revive us.

On the third day he will raise us up that we may live before him according to the Scriptures. On the third day, Jesus gives this sign. People were asking him, give us a sign that we might believe. And he says, the only sign I'm going to give you is the sign of Jonah. He says, forever Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish.

So the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. So he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Paul says, to receive Christ is to welcome him, to believe in him, to invite him fully into your life. It says in John, chapter 1, verse 12. But all who did receive him, who Believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God.

Have you received him? You know, if you were to hear at the doctor's office that you have a disease that is life threatening, but just so happens a new medicine has been invented that would save you, perhaps you would hear this news and you would think, I believe, I believe this medicine will work. I googled it, I looked it up and you admire the pharmacist who invented it. Perhaps it was a well known person that, oh, this person's a genius. I know, I know.

And then you, maybe you went to ChatGPT and begin to study it. You know, you called in an AI and started going, now does this, is this got a good, you know, you did all the background work on this medicine. Would that save you? I know who made it. I believe it could help.

I've studied it closely. Would that save you? No. Unless you receive the medicine, it'll not do any good for you. It'll not help you.

It's not enough to know about it and it's not enough to know about Jesus. It's not enough just to go to church and to try to be a good person. It's not enough. You must receive and believe. You must take him as your Lord and Savior and follow him.

This is the testimony that we heard from our brother Kirk earlier, that he came to a point where he needed to receive Jesus. This is what we heard from the testimonies of those that were baptized this morning, that they came to a point where they said, I'm counting my old life dead and my new life risen in Christ. Have you received Jesus? Have you received the resurrected king? That's the first right way, the first right response to the good news of Jesus.

Here's the second. Stand firm. Stand firm on the gospel witness. Look back at verse one. It says, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, in which you stand.

Stand firm. Now, it's not your power to stand that Paul's calling you to here, but it's that which you stand upon, the foundation, the platform. It's not how strong your legs are, but how strong the platform is that Paul is talking about here. He's given us the facts of the gospel that you've received. Have you received the facts of the gospel?

Christ died for your sins. He was buried. He was raised on the third day and he's appeared to many eyewitnesses. Have you believed and received, have you taken that in and called him your Lord and Savior. But then he says, now there's a place to take a stand.

And he continues as he gets to verse five and he begins to talk about the appearances. And he appeared to Cephas. He said, now who in the world. Cephas. That sounds like a guy I grew up with in East Tennessee, Cephas.

But it's just another way of saying Peter. That name means Peter or rock. It means Petros in Greek, means rock. So he's talking about Peter. He says Christ appeared to Peter, Then he appeared to the twelve.

He appeared to the disciples, verse six. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time. That was quite a crowd. This is him after he was raised from the grave, over the 40 day period between his resurrection and his ascension. And so we see this, his ascension, but prior to that.

But he appeared to 500 brothers. I don't know when this happened exactly, but that was quite a gathering. That was like an Easter service like we were having today. And he got up and spoke and he says this. He says, I can give you their email addresses.

I think it's in there. I was looking. Then he appeared to more of whom are still alive. In other words, I can get you references, I can give you names and numbers here. Although some of them have fallen asleep, which means some of them have gone on to glory.

They've passed away. They're with the Lord, but most of them are still alive. It's like Paul has said, let's have a courtroom here and let me start calling some witnesses to the stand. Believing in Jesus is not a blind leap of faith. No, we're standing on the platform of eyewitnesses who saw the risen Lord Jesus.

It's a well attested eyewitness, historical fact Jesus was raised from the grave. You see, you're not leaping blindly like, oh, it's the power of my faith. No, your faith's not. It's not your faith that saves you. It's his grace that he was raised from the grave.

And we place our faith in that. It's not great faith in God, but it's faith in a great God. It's faith in the facts of the gospel and the fact that he's raised from the grave. That's our platform on which we stand. And then he keeps going.

He keeps describing eyewitnesses. He says, then verse seven, he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Now he already said disciples. Why is he saying James? Well, this is a different James than the 12.

There were two James's, James the Greater, which was the brother of John and then James the Lesser. Those were disciples of the 12. This is not a disciple of Jesus. This is the half brother of Jesus. Now listen, if someone's little brother believes that their big brother is the son of God, the savior of the world, he did something to prove it, and that's what happened.

And then when you go over here and look in the book of James, which was written by the half brother of Jesus, I say half brother because God is his father. Mary was his mother, right? And James is the son of Joseph and Mary. And he writes this book. Here's how he opens up in his book, Little Book of James.

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, something happened that made this little brother say, my big brother, I'm a servant of his. What happened? He saw the risen Lord Jesus. See, he didn't believe before the resurrection.

Gary, how do you know that? Because he was saying silly stuff to his brother like this. Hey, if you really want to be famous, you need to go up to Jerusalem at this time of the year, let people see you. And he says to his brother, Jesus says, he goes, hey, anytime's the right time for you, little brother. But God's timing is not your timing.

See, James didn't believe yet, but, boy, when he saw the risen Lord Jesus, he believed. He became the pastor of. Of the first church of Jerusalem after this and became very important. Then he appeared to all the apostles after that. And then last of all, verse eight, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

Here's the Apostle Paul saying that he changed my name from Saul to Paul. He blinded me on the road to Damascus, and I was the last to see the risen Lord. And. And this is who I'm describing to you. He appeared.

He appeared. He appeared. He appeared to many. And I can give you names and addresses if you want to meet him. But I saw him too.

I saw him too. He is the one that you can take your stand upon. You can take a stand. It says in first Corinthians, be watchful. Stand firm in the faith.

Act like men. Be strong. We're standing on the platform that Jesus has risen and that people were eyewitnesses the night of Easter Sunday. That morning, he appeared to the women, to Mary Magdalene and a couple other Marys, if you read all the gospels together. And they went and told the disciples, the Lord is risen.

And they went. You're just having an emotional episode. Woman and ladies, can I get an amen here? That's how Men will treat you sometime. Am I right?

You're just being hyper emotional here. You need to calm down. But no, they saw. It's amazing to me that Jesus appeared to the women first. And go tell your brothers.

Go tell the disciples. I'll meet them in Galilee. But then Peter and John, it says in the Gospel of John, headed over there to see the empty tomb. And I know John is the author. I think he was one of the younger disciples because he made a point to let us know that he outran Peter.

He was young, still had good legs. He outran Peter to the tomb. But when he pulled up in there and got to the mouth of the tomb, he chickened out. And Peter Rambyman just bolted right in, because that's how Peter rolled. He went right in there.

And then John comes in, and they both saw laying there the burial cloth. And the part of the cloth that's laid around the face was folded neatly like a son who his mother taught him to make his bed. He was raised. And they saw it that night as the disciples go back, like, you know what? I think the women were right.

At least the tomb's empty. What if somebody stole the body? What happened to our Lord? Where's he at? You know?

And so they were afraid because Jesus had just got executed. And so they. They were in a room and locked the door because they were scared. And it was at that moment, that Easter Sunday evening, that the Bible says Jesus appeared to the disciples while the door was locked. Apparently, his new resurrection body, his glorified body, has no need of doors.

He appears in the room, he says, peace be with you, man. They were pretty freaked out, but then they were so excited to see him. Guess who wasn't in the room that night? Thomas. I don't know where he was.

I don't know if they sent him out to get fast food. I don't know what happened.

He missed it. And when he comes back, they were like, the women were right. They told us, when we saw Jesus, the tomb is empty. And he appeared. And he was like, unless I see him with my own eyes and touch him with my own, I'll not believe.

Now, you can call him Doubting Thomas if you want to, but if you would have missed it, you would have been probably partly hurt that you missed it. And you would. I don't know how. You know, we all think we're. We got better faith than Thomas, but Thomas said, I got to see it.

And so Jesus comes back to that same locked room eight days later, and he appears and he says to Thomas, come here and see. See my hands. See, put your hand right here in my side and believe. And Thomas doesn't even have to come near. He falls on his face and he says, my Lord and.

And my God. These are just a few of the eyewitness testimonies that we see in the Scripture. Jesus is raised from the grave. He lives. He lives.

Our God, Jesus, he lives in a court of law. The most powerful evidence that you can give is eyewitness testimony. And that's what Paul says. We have that when we stand. It's not the strength of our stand, but it's the strength of that which we stand upon.

We stand upon the good news that Jesus is raised. It's not how I stand, it's where I stand. Jesus is alive and I have received him and I believe it. And that leads us to the third. To the third right response, and that's to hold fast to gospel hope.

Hold fast. So we've said to receive, which is like the starting point, isn't it? It's a place where there was a place where you had not yet received Jesus. You had not yet received and believed the gospel. Then there's that day when you do.

And then having received him, now you stand. Although some days you might slip and fall. But if you fall, the best place to fall is to fall upon Jesus, to fall on that stance with Jesus. But now we come to the place where he says to hold fast to the gospel with hope. To hold fast to the gospel with hope.

Let's look at verse 2. He says, and by which you are being saved. So you're being saved, you have been saved, and you're actively being saved. If you hold fast to the word, to the gospel I preach to you. Unless you believed in vain.

Hold fast, hang on. Unless you believed in vain. How could you believe in vain? You could take hold of the wrong gospel, the wrong good news, or you could believe it without believing that which has been presented to you in the gospel. The gospel facts.

It seems that in the city of Corinth they were being influenced by the culture that still affects us today. Often the culture around us will affect what people believe, whether they are going to believe God's word or whether they're going to allow the culture to influence what they believe about God's word. And Corinth loved Greek culture. I've been to Corinth, and they have a temple there to Apollos. And they were known for their beautiful temples and their Greek philosophy.

And the Greeks had this idea that the body, this was something called a Gnostic philosophy, that the body was evil and only the spirit was good. And so when Paul came preaching to Athens, for instance, and he preached the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of believers, they were listening up until that point, and they went, this man's crazy. They didn't believe in the resurrection. And. And so apparently that had infected the city of Corinth.

The believers there, they believed. Perhaps they believed in the resurrection of Jesus, but they didn't believe in their own future resurrection. May I say to you that this Easter Sunday is not just us celebrating that Jesus overcame sin, death, and the grave, but that one day, if you're a believer and you've received and you stand upon the gospel and you hold fast to it, that one day you will be raised and you will get a body like Jesus, a glorified body that is built for eternity, built for the presence of God. Christianity stands alone in this teaching that we will receive resurrected bodies and that even creation itself will be resurrected so that there'll be a new earth and a new heavens. And so this is what's in front of us.

This is why it's so important to think about what Jesus has done for us on Easter Sunday is because he's the firstborn from among the dead. He's the first fruits of resurrection. We get a body like his, fit for glory. And so when he says, hold fast to the Word, he says, don't believe it partially. Don't believe it in vain.

Some of us are here and we believe in the wrong gospel. We think, if I'm just good enough, if I try to be good enough, then I can go to heaven when I die. The problem is no one's good enough. Or if I do this or I do that, and notice, all of those sentences start with if I, if I, if I. But we're holding fast not to I, I, I, but He, he, he, that he did these things.

He has overcome sin, death, and the grave. And I want to hold fast to him and to his work and his grace and his salvation. And so we hold fast to that. And then he goes, we can apply this. Hold fast to.

Go down to verse 20. He says, but in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. This is him, you know, correcting the Corinthians here, the first fruits of those who've fallen asleep. That word, first fruits. It connects all the way back here to the.

To the law, to Leviticus and, and numbers and Deuteronomy, that there was a festival, a feast of first fruits. And that when you gave first fruits, you were basically given the first part of your crop or the firstborn of your flock. And it represented the entirety, the whole. So if I gave them part of my harvest of barley, I was saying, God, you gave me all this barley, it's all from you. And by giving you the first fruits of it, I'm saying the not only is that yours, but all of it is yours.

And so giving you this, now I'm saying, I'm going to steward all of this for you. And so that's the doctrine of first fruits that's taught in the scripture. And now Paul applies it to Jesus. Because this, like have I been telling you, this is all one story. You have to understand the whole story to understand the whole story that Jesus is the first fruits.

So if he's the first fruits, that means the rest of the harvest, which is us, is just a** surety that that's. That hope is. We can have confidence, certain hope that just as the first fruits are given, so the rest of the harvest will be brought forth too, that we will be raised from the grave. And so he says, in fact, Christ has been raised the first fruits from those who have fallen asleep. Which is Paul's way of saying how the believer dies, that it's like going to sleep.

For as by a man came death, referring to Adam and his fall in the garden. His sin that brought death into the creation by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. Speaking of Jesus. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. This is what Paul is teaching us here.

Hold fast to this. Hold fast. So we receive it. We take it in. We receive Jesus as Lord and Savior.

We take our stand on the facts of the gospel and on the eyewitness testimony of the gospel. And we hold fast to that which Christ has done. It says In Hebrews, chapter 10, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. In this latter part of the verses 21 and 22, it reminds me of what Paul wrote in Romans, chapter 6. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Have you ever seen someone repelling? Repelling? It's where they go off a cliff backwards and they're hanging onto a rope. They've got a break right here. And they hang on, they hold fast to this rope and.

And they just. I mean, it takes a leap of faith in a way. You just jump off the cliff Backwards, and then you rappel down. You ever seen that? Maybe you've seen it on tv.

I've seen people do that at Mount Pilate when there's a little park up there. I've seen them come off of that first service. I was trying to tell that story, and I forgot the name Mount Pilate because my son Jonathan named it Broccoli Mountain some years ago, and we've been calling it Broccoli Mountain ever since. But I've seen people rappel off of Mount Pilate before. And I remember some buddies of mine, when we were teenagers, we decided we were going to rappel off a backbone rock up in Damascus, Virginia.

We about killed ourselves. But that first jump off like that, and you got to think, holding fast, that seems like the most important part, right? You'd be wrong. The most important part is to make sure the rope has an anchor at the top. Otherwise you got a rope that's worthless.

That's important. You got to have an anchor. And the second most important part is that the rope is good enough to support your weight. Really, the least important part. It's important, but it's.

The least important part is hang on to the rope. Because if you're doing it right, it's got an anchor. And it's not how strong your grip is, but it's just hanging onto the rope. That's hold fast to the rope. And Gary, why are you talking about repelling?

Well, Paul said to hold fast. Hold fast to what? The good news about Jesus, which is your hope. He's the anchor for our souls. His hope that we have in him is like a rope.

It's like something certain that you can hang on to. And so it's not the strength of your grip, but it's the strength of his grip on you. So that he says In John, chapter 10, no one can snatch them from my hand. And my Father, who is greater than all, no one can snatch them from his hand. I'll never leave you nor forsake you, he says in Hebrews.

And so when he says hold fast, he's saying, hold fast to the one who's got a hold on you. Do you know him? Do you know this Jesus? It's not how strong your grip is, but how strong is what you're trusting in. As we conclude, we didn't just come to a place with a happy ending.

We've reached a new beginning. And notice the divine scheduling of the story as we close. That on Friday was Passover for the Jew, for the Jewish people. And it was on the day that they would be sacrificing the Passover lamb. And at that very day, Jesus was being crucified as the Lamb of God on the cross.

On Saturday after Passover, it would be Passover, Sabbath. And the day would be resting. And as they were resting and worshiping, Jesus lay resting. His body lay resting in the tomb. And on Sunday after Passover, that's the day you're supposed to bring your first fruits in.

That's the day, according to the book of the law, that the priest takes your first fruits and does a wave offering of the first portion. And on that day, the first fruits of glory, Jesus got up out of the grave. There's nothing accidental in this Word of God. It's all one book. And Jesus is the hero.

He's the first fruits from among the dead. He's the firstborn from among the dead. And we know not what we shall be, but when we shall see him, we shall be like him. For we shall see him as he is. Do you know Him?

Have you received Him? Do you take a stand on his gospel? Do you hold fast to what is true? Let's pray. Lord, thank youk for your word.

Thank youk for Jesus. We lift up to you those in our hearing this morning that may have never received you, never believed. In your name. I pray for you right now, right in your seat. You can pray with me.

Pray like this. Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I need a Savior. I believe the facts of the gospel. I believe that you died for my sins and that you were buried and that you were raised on the third day.

That you appeared to many. I believe it, Lord. But more than that, I receive you now as my Lord and Savior. Come into my life. Forgive me of my sins.

Adopt me into your family. I want to be a child of God. I want to follow you as Lord and Savior. And if you're praying that prayer faith believing he'll save you. Others are here today and you're a believer.

You're here worshiping today and, and you're happy for what Jesus is doing in your life. But I would pray for you too that you would grow to be more like Him. Lord, help us to grow up in you and help us to tell others as the day approaches, all the more to worship and follow you. We pray it in Jesus name, Amen.