The Cross (It’s Empty Now)
The Story - How the Bible Explains Everything April 5, 2026 1 Corinthians 15:1-8,20-22 Notes
So far in The Story, we’ve traced it from creation and the garden, through the fall and the flood, to God’s covenant with Abraham; from the exodus and the law, to the conquest and the kingdom under David; through the heartbreak of exile—and then last week, to the arrival of Christ, the long-promised Savior who stepped into history to redeem what was lost.
But today, in this message, we reach the climax. If the Bible is the Story of everything, then the Resurrection of Jesus is the hinge upon which everything turns. We aren’t just celebrating a religious holiday; we are celebrating the day the ending of your story might be rewritten… from “Death” to “Life.”
To understand how we fit into this victorious story, we must look at how we respond to the “first importance” of the Gospel, which is the Good News that Jesus saves!
In the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he reminded them of the first importance of the gospel he had preached to them in order to strengthen their faith in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection and warn them from believing in vain.
Audio
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.
Audio
Morning, church. Happy Easter. Very thankful you're here today. Really a great morning to be with you. And I'm so excited to be continuing.
We perfected, like, our timing this week of how we would get to this very moment in the story. It was certainly not by an accident. We were planning ahead. And so here we are arriving today in the New Testament in the book of First Corinthians and talking about the clearance picture of the Gospel. And for sure, this is the climax of God's story.
It's the climax of human history. And so it's such a privilege to be up here preaching it every, every year. It is. But it's a reminder on Easter of, like, for me personally, like, who am I that I get to do this? So I'm really blessed by it.
I'm thankful to be preaching this morning. But of all days, man, what a privilege. And the Lord has done miraculous things in not only my life, but the life of our church, and I'm sure in your story. And, and so we gather here today for Resurrection Day because this is why the church, this is the primary reason the church exists and the church gathers is because our Lord and Savior, he got up. He is risen.
He is risen indeed. This is great news today. And that's where we're going to spend most of our time today. And I promise you, if you'll dig in with me, there's something here for you, believers and non believers alike. There's something here for you that the Lord would love to impress upon you.
And we've been going through this whole story together for several weeks. And now we reach this point. We've talked about creation and the flood, and we've talked about the covenants of Abraham and David. We even talked about the difficulty of their captivity and their exile. And we kind of did little snapshots as we're going through.
And we're taking another snapshot today. So I just want to admit something to you. If you have not recently read the Gospels, do yourself a favor and spend some time there this week reflecting on what Christ Jesus has truly done for you. Especially I would. If you want to know where to start, start right there with the Book of John, one of my favorite gospels.
I love them all. But that one boy, he really gets to the divinity of Jesus. That's his primary focus. And so as we're digging in today, we're reaching the point of God's story where he really tells us who the hero is. We've been preparing for it.
The whole Old Testament is really A picture pointing to, hey, there's somebody coming. Hey, you guys are still messing up. Hey, things are going poorly. Hey, you need to come back and show faith and repentance. Hey, grace and mercy.
This is all pointing to someone who must come. The hero of the story. And now here we are. And this is why, 2,000 years later, we gather as a church. So thank the Lord we're here today.
Here's what's interesting. The whole story of Scripture is so much like our story in that each and every one of us are wrestling with some brokenness in our story. I bet for you, if you would kind of look back, if somehow I could go back and preach your story, if I could look at the highlights, the moments of your story. This is a roller coaster, right? There's some ups, there's some downs, there's heartaches, there's successes, there's failures.
There's relationships that worked and others that didn't. It's a mixture. And that's the story of Scripture. It's a story of humanity. And the story, so much like our story, sometimes feels completely out of control.
Sometimes it feels like it's spinning in such a way that we can no longer put our hand in it and try to stop it. It's like it has spun to a level like a fan, that if we tried to stop it, it would cut our fingers off. And some of us are feeling that. And that's the story. Scripture.
What this means, then, what this is reminding us of is not that we need another moral lesson, not that we necessarily even need more intellectual information to try to figure it out. Here's what we really need. We need a miracle. We need a miracle because what we're seeing in Scripture and what we've probably seen in our own lives up till this point, is there are certain things that occur and certain things that are happening that it doesn't matter how strong I am, how smart I am, how dedicated I am, there's stuff that's way out of my control. What do I do with that?
There's nothing you can teach me, no moral lesson, no tools you can put in my hands, other than one. And that is we need a miracle. And the miracle has come. This is why we gather today. This is the ultimate miracle.
This is why Easter exists, is because the ultimate miracle has happened. Christ has been crucified, and he has risen from the grave. And so here we are. I pray today that this would move you, that that's what it means to take a first importance to the Gospel, the Good news of Jesus. And this is where Paul spends his time today.
First Corinthians, chapter 15. If you're curious, ever, if anyone's ever asked you, hey, what is this gospel? What do I need to believe to to be saved? Here's one of the most obvious places I would take them. First Corinthians, chapter 15, 1 8.
Really? And you'll see here as we dig in, that this is a clear picture of what God has been doing, what he is doing, and what he will do. So we have three opportunities to respond this morning to this good gospel. So let's read it together. First Corinthians 15.
It says, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. That Christ died. Hear this church. That one Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.
Number two. That he was buried. Number three. That he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. And then he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12.
Cephas. Here is another name for Peter. So that might be unfamiliar, but that's Peter. Then to the 12. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. Let's look at verses 20 through 22. It says, in fact. 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, but also by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. God bless the reading of His Word. Amen. This is fantastic news. Yes, death has come into the world.
Those of you with your eyes open are fully aware of this. There is darkness, disease, and death. It's true, and you've experienced it. And it is sad and difficult to deal with. And this has happened because of the sin of Adam, the sin of man, and the sin of mankind.
Now Paul is teaching us that a second Adam has come. A Christ, a Messiah has come and has brought life, eternal life. But more than that, life that even begins now. So how do we respond to that? That's where we're going to spend our time today.
Here's the first. Here's the first way to respond to this good news of Christ's receive the gospel truth. Now, that might sound like it's straight up just evangelistic, and it certainly is, but it's also for believers in the room, for the church, it's for both. The reason I know it's for both is because Paul perfectly here says he's particular in his word. He says that the gospel is saving or you are being saved by.
So it has the process of not only setting you free, but continuing to set you free until Christ comes again or takes you home. So this is for all people at all time everywhere. So first receive the. The gospel truth. Okay, so what is it?
What is the good news? What is the climax of the whole story? Where does the gospel lead me? Who is the hero? What has he done?
If somehow you've missed this, I can't wait to tell you. I can't wait to tell you about the hero, the one that's been prophesied of old, the one that Paul says, hey, this guy has been talked about by the prophets, by the Torah, by the whole testament has been pointing to him. Great news, here he is. Take a look. And here's what that means.
He's died for us. In accordance with the scripture, he's died for us. He has died for our sins. This word here in the Greek is the word hamartia. It literally means to miss the mark.
It was an ancient archery term. It means to miss the target. And so there are times where I think people are confused as to what that even means. I've observed with like, even little children, they pick this up best. Little children notice pretty soon, pretty early on that, hey, we mess up sometimes.
Like, hey, should you disobey mommy? Hey, should you hit your brother? Hey, should you lie? And kids kind of notice, Yeah, I shouldn't be doing that. Adults, something shifts.
Something shifts in us. I start talking about sin and they're like, eh, I'm not sure I really do that. Really. When did you get so holy? When did that happen?
You never lie, Never. You never think. I mean, Jesus makes this even more difficult. Jesus, just in case. And I think he does this on purpose because there was people walking around going, man, I got this.
I never mess anything up. I've never stolen, I've never murdered, I've never committed adultery. I followed the ten Commandments. I keep the Lord's name. He says, hey, you ever called your brother a bad name?
You ever been angry at your brother and said, hey, you're a dummy? Some of you are like, I've done a lot worse than that. I bet you have. So have I. You ever looked at someone's stuff and thought, man, I wish I could have that.
Really? Never? You ever looked at a man or a woman with lust in your heart? It says you've committed adultery in your. In your mind, in your heart.
Well, thanks for that, Jesus. We thought we were good. No, you were not. He's just clarifying it. And most of that stuff you were doing.
Outwardly, we have outward missing of marks constantly. Because the mark that we're missing is not some kind of human. Hey, I'm the best human. The mark is Christ. The mark is God.
His justice, his mercy, his grace, his idea of perfection. That's the mark. And we're well short. And so am I. I mean, I'm not even close. And I wouldn't be able to say that with a smile on my face if not for this resurrection.
Don't miss it. He says, first of all, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. This means that all along he's been telling this story that someone's going to have to come and pay the price that you deserve, but you can't pay.
There's many scriptures I could take you to. I'll take you to two of probably the most clear. Isaiah 53. It says, he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.
Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. With his wounds, we are healed. We, like sheep, have gone astray. We've turned every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Who's he talking about? This is hundreds of years before Jesus. Does Isaiah do this? No, he didn't. Did the kings of old do it?
No. None of the minor prophets? No. Who is this? Hey.
Those of us looking at the person of Jesus now, who was pierced, whose wounds healed us by his pain, we have peace. Wow. Don't miss it. The Bible's been teaching it. It's been pointing to it.
This is a clear gospel. It's been really clear from the beginning. The psalmist David here write. He writes about something that never happened to him. He catches a glimpse, I think, of what it would be like to be as Christ would be.
One day. He says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That probably sounds really familiar to you. He says, they have pierced my hands and my feet. They have divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots none of that ever happened to David, nor the kings of old.
But all of it happened to Jesus. King Jesus, it says. He died for our sins. We've all made mistakes. It doesn't take us long either.
This message isn't meant to discourage you, but encourage you. And here's why. Because here's what I love about the gospel is it isn't sugarcoating this whole thing. You've got plenty of people in your life that probably tell you from time to time, hey, man, it's all good. You're doing fine.
You're mad at your wife. Show her. Just live your life. Live your truth. Do your thing.
You got lots of people that will do that for you if you chase that rabbit long enough. You go down that trail long enough, you'll start finding out that's not good advice. Because that's not true. Because my heart is often wicked. It often leads me towards things that aren't good for me or anyone else.
So should I follow it like that? Not always. In fact, very rarely. Now, this is what I love about the Gospel, is it comes and it tells me something I need to know. I'm not okay.
I already knew this internally. I don't really want anybody else to know it. I mean, let's be honest. I want other people to think, boy, he's looking good in that suit. I mean, he's got it all together, you know?
Don't let this surprise. There's a mess going on inside, all right? I'm sweating everywhere right now. You can't even tell that it's terrible. I'm a mess.
I'm a mess tomorrow, just like you. If I don't wake up and do what you should do. If we don't do the same thing tomorrow morning and get right with the Lord Jesus and start our day in prayer, we'll all be a mess. All the same, I'm no more fixed. That's not a thing.
My healing comes daily, just like it did for the apostle Paul, just like it did for the disciples. Nothing has shifted here. Christ has died for our sins. And that doesn't just save me once. It saves me over and over and over.
This is why every single day, I have to wake up and immediately start my day with him. And at the end of the day, we have a ledger. He and I have to go. Wow, man, I was really walking with you. But I gotta admit, I thought this.
Lord, for me, I don't know how it works for you. I try to talk to him all day long because I forget Stuff. I'm like, lord, you just heard that? Thought no one else did. But would you help me with that?
Because I shouldn't be that way. I should not be that way in the way I think. I shouldn't have driven to work that way in such anger and rage. I should have not treated my wife with such shortness. She doesn't know that I had this really difficult thing over here, but she received my impatience, or he or my kids.
Daddy, we're happy to see you. Don't talk to me. It's been a day.
I don't do that too often, but there are times where I reflect on the day and go, wow, man, that's not the guy I want to be. Missed the mark. Christ died for that. Church. Christ died for that.
And he was buried for that. And he loves you more than that. He was buried. The Scriptures speak of this. In fact, Isaiah puts it so uniquely interesting.
It says in Isaiah 53 that they made his grave with the wicked and. And with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth. So he was perfect. And yet they put him in the grave. And it says, they put him in the grave of a rich man.
Now that is a curious extra, because Joseph of Arimathea, who we just heard read about, was a rich man who requested the body of Jesus and put him in a tomb that had not yet been used. So this is a very unique occasion. Isaiah saw it. Isaiah prophesied, and then it says, he will rise again on the third day. Now, the Bible talks a whole lot about this in a lot of different ways.
I'll give you a few. He was raised on the third day. Psalm 16 tells us that you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your Holy One see corruption. So he's going to rise before his body ever decays. That's what that verse is talking about.
Hosea, a prophet that you've probably rarely read. I would encourage you to do so. It's a fascinating book where God really talks about the brokenness of us and how we often look for everything else but Him. Anyway, Hosea is great, but Hosea 6, it says, after two days he will revive us. On the third day, he will raise us up that we may live before Him.
So we have this third day resurrection that now seems to be corporate. And including us, what grace, what mercy. Jesus. He uses a very interesting one. I would have thought he would have gone anywhere but this.
But he goes to Jonah. He goes to Jonah to Cite the three days in the tomb. Jonah is not particularly the best prophet. You know, he's actually kind of a guy who's running from God. The whole fish story is about his disobedience.
But in the belly of the well he remained for three days. This is the story Jesus used. Matthew chapter 12. It says, Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. So receive this that you might embrace Christ and the gospel and let it take hold in your life.
John 1 says to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. There's some of you in the room right now that have maybe heard this story. A whole bunch of you live down here in the south. It's hard to avoid this story. I find that most people have heard it.
They've heard at least, hey, there was this Jesus, he died on the cross. It's in film, it's in books, it's everywhere. It's hard to avoid. You may have even heard about this idea that he got out of the grave. There's an empty tomb somewhere and they can't find the body.
You might have heard all that. But here's what's really, really fascinating about that.
You can know all of those things and it be completely meaningless. Because salvation is not about knowledge. Knowledge is important. Sure. I mean, you don't come into this blindly.
You come into this with some knowledge. But knowledge will not save. Oh, I know this is. There's a guy. It's kind of like this.
Here's how some of us have lived and maybe are currently wrestling with this. It would be like being aware of a life saving medication and knowing all the details of it, knowing the person who created, knowing that their intentions were all good, knowing that their desire was to truly help people, knowing the chemicals that go into it, knowing everything about it. And this is truly a medicine that would save you, would cure your great disease, whatever. You would know all those details. But I'll ask you this.
Until you take it, will it help you? No. Oh, great. You know a lot about it. You trust the doctor, you trust the medication, you trust everything about it.
But I'm just not going to swallow it. I'm not taking it. This is how so many people treat the gospel. Oh, I like it. I like the story that God would save me, that God cares enough.
Has it become your story though? Has it moved from here to here? I'VE heard it once said, this is the greatest distance on Earth that you would move something. You understand here to finally say, you know what? I believe it.
And I'm going to stake my life in it. I'm going to make my purpose be the purpose of God in my life. Because if indeed church. If in fact he was God, if. If in fact he is God, if in fact he died on a cross for your sins, if indeed he resurrected.
I don't really understand how you can keep living. Like, however, it doesn't really make sense. It's illogical. If that stuff is true, and I believe it's true, and I pray you believe it's true. If that's the case, then my life is totally flipped upside down now.
No longer do the things that matter that people say matter. They're no longer that important. It doesn't matter that, hey, I don't have a ton in my account, that I don't have the greatest house, or that I don't have all of my kids in the Nike shoes. I mean, what you feel in your. That I don't have the comfort that I greatly.
That I'm not able to retire at 65. Some of you are looking towards that. I gotta be honest, I've been hearing my dad just kind of these things running through my mind. He's 67 now and I really want to be like him in a lot of ways. And one of them is this.
He keeps saying this to me. He keeps saying that as we get older, we don't take our foot off the gas, we press it down. And sure, you can retire, that's fine, but that doesn't mean your mission for God changes. In fact, it gives you more time, more opportunity to put your foot down. And I want to be like that.
I'm praying for you that you would be like that. And that's what it means for the heart to completely be shifted. That it moves from here to here to now. When I look at other people, and some of you needed to hear this this morning. When you look at other people, you no longer just see all their flaws and all the ways they unnerve you and all the ways they just get under your skin.
And there's people like that in your life. But then the more you walk with Jesus, the more you look at them and say, this is somebody God cares for. And they're not always going to make it easy on me. But that isn't even the point. That's not even the point.
People are the mission. And it's not just the pastor's, the church's mission. No, friends, no people are the mission. They're the only thing coming with us.
Take the medicine. Know the Lord. There's this good news. Have you received it? Move it from here to here.
No more saying, hey, I grew up in church. Yeah, I know the stories. Yeah, but do you know the Savior? Do you know him? Do you talk to him every day?
Do you spend time reading His Word? Do you spend time with him? Do you know him? Here's the second Paul says, stand firm. He says, receive it.
Then he says, stand firm in it. And what he quotes next is very fascinating and very important to us. It might seem like just a long list of eyewitnesses, but that's really important because that's what we stake our faith in. Our firm foundation is. He said, look, stand firm.
Because guess what? He's appeared to a ton of people. There is a great cloud of witnesses who saw the resurrected Jesus. Now, I have to admit something. We're many years later, we're 2,000 years later.
These people have long been with Jesus. They've long passed away. But at the time when Paul records this, he's saying, hey, there's 500 people that saw the resurrected Jesus. And you can go visit them. You can go see him.
Most of them are still alive. And if that's not enough for you, he went and appeared to the disciples who, most of which did not treat him particularly favorably at the end of his life. I want to remind you of something. When Jesus takes the cross, he takes it pretty much alone. 12 disciples, one of them betrays him.
So 11 left. How many of them were by the feet of Jesus at the cross? How many? One. One.
I don't know what your network of friends is like. I don't know what kind of people would show up for you, but I would expect better. I've invested in some lives. I've really poured out with people I trust. Some people.
There's some people that I love that I would count on would show up for me. Jesus does this for years of his life. And 1 out of 11, 1 out of 12, man. And it's to them that he appears. And they weren't expecting to see him.
They should have been. Most of them went back to doing the stuff they were doing. They went back to fishing. They didn't know what to do. They locked themselves away.
They're hiding from people.
Peter's so happy to see the Savior, though. Let me just say, he's so happy to see the Savior, he jumps out the boat and swims to shore. He doesn't even take time to row back. That's how pumped he is. And Jesus says, do you love me?
Do you love me? Do you love me?
And Peter's life is like that. It's not always up and down. It's not always up, it's sometimes down. And it's to those 12 disciples that he appears to John. And to them now they're believers.
Now things have shifted. Now they're willing to take this to the point of death and persecution. That's a great testimony. The 500 believers, most of which, those 500, a lot of which, were persecuted and martyred for their faith. Then he comes to a guy named James, which might look like nothing to you in your story, but that's James, the brother of Jesus, the pastor of Jerusalem.
I can tell you right now. I've said this many times at church. I have an older brother. It would take a lot for you to convince me he was the Messiah. I've seen him live.
I've seen the way he treated me growing up. It wasn't good. You know, I'm little brother. There were times. There were times where he let me have it.
You know, I was claustrophobic as a kid. I worked this out. I wrestled in high school, which helped me. But I gotta admit, I still don't love a cave. I don't want to be in a little cave trying to get through that.
Right. The reason I tell you that is my brother was fully aware of this and was a lot bigger than me. And so at times, he took it upon himself. He decided, I'm going to break my little brother of this phobia. Going to help him by laying on him on his face.
And I technically could breathe, but it didn't seem that way to me. I thought I was dying, and this was a regular occurrence.
He was good at his timing. He would time it at a time where no one would notice. These are the kinds of things I experienced growing up with a big brother. Now, me and him are great friends now. He's as sweet as he can be.
He's really gotten sweeter over the years. I've gotten meaner. I don't know what happened to us. I was a sweet kid. I'm trying to work on that church.
But you, I'm telling you, unless he was to resurrect from the grave, you would never, ever. Well, that's exactly what happens for James. James actually had a great big brother. He was wonderful. I mean, the Bible teaches that he's sinless.
He's. Now, they didn't understand him. They didn't know what he was up about and doing. There's a moment where James even says, hey, when we go back to Jerusalem, why don't you really be coming in kingly? Why don't you really do this thing you've been claiming to do?
He totally didn't get what Christ was doing. But it's James that becomes the pastor of the most prominent church in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Church. And it's James who, for his brother, he so believes it that if I remember right, he's beheaded for his faith. Now, I got to tell you, this list might seem like nothing to you, like nothing to stand firm in until you remember this fact. No one is taking a lie to the grave with them.
I don't know many people that, hey, they hear this lie, they're believing it, and maybe they see that it'll help them have more money, more power. There's reasons you might defend a lie because it helps you to gain. What did they have to gain? Nothing. The only thing they had was to lose.
Because everywhere they went, they were persecuted and killed for it. And yet they did not. They did not at any point rescind their faith. This should give you a firm foundation. This is why Paul writes later in First Corinthians, he says, be watchful.
Stand firm in the faith and act like men and be strong. When Jesus first starts appearing to the disciples, I'm not sure they acted supermanly, to be honest with you. There's this moment in John, chapter 20, where the Bible, it's clear John the apostle is clearly written in. He says, hey, we're hiding from the Jews. We're hiding because we don't want anyone to find out we were believers in Jesus because they're cleaning house in Jerusalem and we don't want to get to Acts 2.
We're not trying to get caught up in it. It says specifically we'd lock the door. And it's in this moment that Jesus just shows up. He just appears in the middle of the room. So apparently the resurrected body church no longer needs to use doors, which I don't know how that's going to be beneficial, but it sounds pretty cool.
I've been saying this a lot. I think maybe flight's still possible. I'm putting that out there. I mean, there's stuff coming in the resurrected body, and Jesus just hops in the room. And no longer are they afraid of what's on the outside.
They're afraid of what's on the inside of the room. Thomas wasn't there. He's like, I don't believe. I know. You guys said that.
So Jesus, being so gracious and merciful, he appears to Thomas, too, says, hey, you don't believe unless you touch my hands, unless you touch my side. Oh, here, come on. Thomas is like, I'm good. You got me. You got me.
These eyewitnesses matter. They matter because what do you put your firm faith in? Where do you plant your foundation? Shouldn't be health. Shouldn't be the economy.
What do you do when the anxieties rise? What do you do when. When things aren't going right? What do you do then? Oh, it's easy to walk with Jesus when things are good.
What if they're not? Where do you plant your firm foundation? I believe in this. I believe the sure footing of the gospel makes us unoffendable. It makes us courageous.
It makes us able to face bad news with courage. This is why you'll notice believers when they get a bit of bad news about their health, True believers when they get a bad news about how the economy is rising and falling. I gotta admit, some people come to me like, hey, Jonathan, what do you think about this? And this and Israel and this and this is happening, and this rising nation and this. I probably am annoying to talk to about this because it's not that I'm apathetic.
It just doesn't matter that much.
I'm not even an American citizen first. I'm proud of my country. I serve my country. I'm a citizen of heaven first. And that kind of news makes me completely courageous.
Now I can face the news about the world or me. Sometimes we get bad news. Now I can face it and go, okay. I mean, I started looking. This is way more small, way more petty.
But I started looking ahead. Hey, we're going to have rain on Easter Sunday. It looks like. Like, I guess that's still happening. I haven't been outside most of the day.
Been in here. It's dark in here. Hard to tell what's going on out there. But I started getting this news all week, and guess what? I was thinking about getting bummed about that.
I'm like, man, we're planning on doing big Easter stuff, you know? But then I remembered something. You know, if God wants rain on his day, he can have rain on his day. If God wants me to be a little stuffy today, which he has, I hope that's not obvious to you. The pollen got me Finally, Friday, I was like, man, I'm toast.
Thank you.
That was my own daughter back there. Keep it down in the back.
But that's what the Lord wants. Could he have protected me from such pollen? Sure. It could have gone one nose, one nostril, and out the other, and I'd have been just fine. Didn't happen.
Got congestion. All right. Lord, you want a nasally pastor Sunday, you got it. You want rain on your day? You understand what I'm saying here?
So now when I look at people, it's totally changed. Like, I see people that God desires and wants and saves and died for changes the way I feel. And here's the third. I'm having way too much fun. I don't even know if that timer's right.
Let's just assume it ain't. Y', all. What do y' all think? The third is this. Hold fast to the gospel hope.
Hold fast to the gospel hope, that is, receive it. Stand firm in it. Believers in the room. This is especially for you. Hold fast to your gospel hope.
This is why Paul writes, hey, you are being saved by it. Being saved, meaning having been saved, being currently saved, and will be saved. This word is meant to give you all three of those tenses. This is great news. He has done it.
He is doing it. He will do it. Salvation then, is sustaining you, not just saving you once. Unless he says in verse two, unless you've believed in vain. This means that perhaps you would take part of the gospel and not take the whole.
That for some reason, you would make the determination. Yeah, I'm into the Christ died for me thing, but I don't know about this resurrection. That miracle's beyond me. That was the primary issue of Corinth. They had an issue with the resurrection.
They had a bigger issue about flesh and the Greek philosophy. They had allowed culture to confuse them. The culture said the flesh is bad. So there's no real way that mankind could be resurrecting in the flesh. That can't be right.
Paul says, if that ain't right, we're pitiful. If the resurrection of the Savior and the resurrection of his people isn't true, then we are wasting our time. That's how Paul puts it. It. Because then we just serve.
We serve a dead king. We serve a guy who died but didn't get up. That's a problem. But there's Corinthians who are struggling with it. Why?
Because culture has caused them to struggle. Now, I could preach a whole sermon on that. Because we are no different. We might be different on the specific issue. We're not different on the problem.
That culture would inform us that this can't be true. Surely that can't be the gospel. I'll tell you where people would probably struggle in the culture now is whether or not we sin at all.
Oh, but if it makes you feel good, if it makes you comfortable, you know your truth is your truth. That's insane, by the way. There can't be separate truths. There's just truth or there's no truth. This is the language of our culture.
And so then the idea of even needing a savior becomes a problem. We might be wrapped up in that and get stuck on that. No, he says, hey, you haven't believed in vain. Here's why. Because in fact, verse 20, he was raised from the dead, he's alive and a whole bunch of people have seen him and we're taking it to the grave, we believe it so much.
The writer of Hebrews says, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. This is what Paul writes to the Romans too. He says, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We have life in him. This is for you. No matter how you've come today. And I pray it's going in that you can hear it, that the gospel is not a one time thing. It has saved, is saving and will save.
And you need that miracle. You don't just need it in the past, you need it today, you need it tomorrow. And this idea of holding fast, this is the truth of Christianity, is not this one and done thing. And now I'll just, you know, I'll talk to God every once in a while. I'll come to church on his big days.
And maybe that's how you've come today. I'm not mad at you for that. I'm glad you're here. But I want you to hear something. That walking in Christ is way more than that.
That there's a better, a greater privilege in holding fast to the Gospel. Holding fast to something. I spent a few years in the military as an army chaplain and a lot of our newer people aren't aware of that. I got out in 2018. We were in the midst of planting this church so it was no longer working too well.
I couldn't deploy and pastor a church that wasn't going to work. So I got out. But I loved my time in. And there were many opportunities while I was in the army to do what we might call very manly things. And pastoring the church isn't always super manly.
I don't know how you guys grew up. This might not even speak to you, but for me, I like every once in a while to do something that makes me go, ugh. You know, some of you did not get that. Like Tim Allen. Like, you know, I just.
Every once in a while, I want to do. As soon as we bought our new house, the first thing I said to Nicole, I said, first thing I'm going to do is buy a chainsaw. There are some things that need cut, but I'm cutting more because I just want to just get back there and just. You might just see me in the backyard just walking around with it. Yeah, I'm happy.
But in the army, there was times like that where you got to do something that was, you know, kind of manly, kind of scary. And I'll be honest with you, I'm not the most. I'm not the most courageous guy you ever meet. There are things that scare me. I'll be honest.
I hate scary movies. I do. You will never catch me. Watch one. I will dream about it for a month.
No, I'm jumpy. You could scare me in the broad daylight if you approach me right, which is crazy. I hate that. But it is what it is. I don't like heights.
I really don't. I'm constantly challenging myself with this. Like, I love a roller coaster because it kind of almost breaks me. And that's why I love it. And we used to dive off of high dives and things, things like that still just.
They break me a little bit. But I had this opportunity a few years ago to rappel in the army, and I gotta admit, that day almost got to me because I didn't even really have to do it. They told me I was a chaplain, which means kind of like a pastor for the army. I got to counsel and teach, and mostly a lot of counseling. But anyway, they were like, you don't have to do this today, chap.
We're doing rappelling today. And I'm like, is everyone doing it? And my policy had kind of always been. And still I am trying to still be this as your pastor, that if you're suffering, I'm suffering with you. I'm trying to be that kind of guy.
And certainly when I was in the army, if they were sleeping out in the dirt, I'm sleeping out in the dirt. If they're repelling, if they're getting tased or pepper sprayed, there's some great videos of me online for that. If you just want to see me in excruciating pain, why you would want that? I know why you'd want it. I'm sadistic.
A little sadistic, too. But anyway, like, man, I'm never coming back to this church. This dude is messed up. All right. Anyway, so I'm rappelling.
I get this opportunity to do this thing that really scares me. And the reason I'm telling you this story is because there's a moment in rappelling where you're standing on the edge. You've got the rope in your hands. You've got one is kind of. They call it the break.
You've got one underneath, and that's the thing you use to stop. But the first step is extremely hard. You're many stories up. You're looking over the edge. I'm gonna die today.
At some point, they're like, hey, hey, chaplain. You gotta go. You just gotta let go.
Cause you can't hold. I just want to hold it up here. I'm like. I'm really close to the edge. I'm one of these guys.
I don't even really like getting too close to the edge in case somebody is just so mean they're gonna push me. Like, I'm that scared, but I'm on the edge, looking over Chap. You just gotta lean back, and you really do. You gotta release a little bit and lean back and trust the rope. You gotta trust the rope.
Now, I can tell you this right now. You can't trust your own strength. You can't trust your grip. If you ever see a movie where somebody just rappels down with it out here? No way.
Ain't no way. Maybe for a story, possibly, but they're not coming down the side of a skyscraper. Just. No. That's not how any of this works.
This thing is all about trusting the rope. And the reason I tell you that story is because some of you are going through life and you're thinking, I might be strong enough. My grip might be good enough. I might be smart enough. I might be okay in the answer to you.
And this isn't bad news, friend. But the answer is no, you won't be. You might be strong enough to face the next decision. You might be smart enough to get to the next step. But there's something beyond your vision.
And if you look to that place, you go, I don't know what to do about that, because I don't know what comes next. There's a dark spot on the other side that I can't see. And at that moment, I've got to do like they said to me, hey, you just gotta trust the rope. You just got to lean back. Believer in the room.
You need to hear this. This doesn't just stop on day one. You do this every single day. You wake up tomorrow and say, you and me, God, what are we up to? And you spend time with him.
You pray, as Paul says. You pray without ceasing. You keep short accounts. All day long, you're saying, lord, did you see that? Did you hear my thoughts there?
Lord, I confess that to you. You're walking with him all day long. A non believer in the room today. Whatever has caused you to be here today, I'm thankful for you. I want you to hear this.
Today's the day. Today's the day to start a new beginning. The question isn't, how strong is your grip? How strong are you trusting? How smart are you?
No, no, no. The question is, do you have resurrection, hope? Are you trusting in the gospel, which is this rope for us? Let me end with this thought. The way this weekend ended so many years ago was such a beautiful picture.
Friday, we call it Good Friday. It was Passover. Passover is this moment where the Passover lambs are sacrificed. It was on that day that the Lamb of God was on the cross. The Passover lamb had come Saturday, where they celebrate the Sabbath.
It was on that day when the people rested that the author of the story was silent in the grave, resting in the grave. And then today, Easter Sunday, also in Jewish tradition, called the day of first Fruits. On that first day of the week, at that very moment, the Hebrew priest would come up, the Hebrew high priest, and would stand in the temple waving the first sheaf of a harvest before God. It was at that moment that Jesus came walking out of a garden tomb. Well, the picture is beautiful.
The question is, do you believe it? Has it moved from here to here? Let's pray now together. Church. Heavenly Father, we ask.
We ask that you would encourage us in our faith for the church, for the believer in the room, that you would move us to hold fast, that we would stand firm in our faith. That the testimonies of old would give us confidence, but that we would never get to this place, Lord, where we would think, I got this. I'm good. I know enough. I'm strong enough.
Help us, Lord, your church, to never think that way. That tomorrow when we rise with you, that we would rise with you, that we would spend our days, our weeks, our many years, Lord, that they would be spent walking beside you, following you, holding onto the rope. Lord, thank you for this good gospel that has saved, is saving and will save us. Lord, I pray for that person who's come today. I'm so grateful for them.
They're hearing this message of truth, the gospel that Christ died, was buried and raised again. And that that has resulted in an eternal salvation for them. Lord, would you allow them this morning? Would you urge them to take a step of faith that today would be the day, Easter Sunday, 2026, that they would say, yes, Lord, yes. It's no longer just something I know, it's something I trust, something I believe.
If that's you, my friend, would you pray a simple prayer with me? Jesus, I believe today that you died on the cross for my sins. That you were buried and that you rose from the grave three days later. That you are the Messiah, the Christ. And you are my Lord and my Savior.
And Lord, I'm asking you now, I'm inviting you to be the Lord of my life, to be the king on my throne. And guide me where you desire, lead me where you desire. Show me the purpose you created me for. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for saving me. Dear friend, welcome to the church.
Welcome to the family of God. We're praying with you, Lord. Guide us. Help us to be a light in our city. People are indeed the mission.
Help us to take our mission seriously. Help us to hold fast to the rope of our salvation. We pray all these things in Jesus name. Amen.