Resurrection

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1 Corinthians  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  33:59
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Welcome for joining us online. If you have a Bible you can open up to 1st Corinthians chapter 15.

And I'm just going to read a handful of verses that we're going to cover the vast majority of this chapter here this morning. We're going to begin in verse 20, but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep for his by Man Came Death. Spider-Man has come the resurrection of the Dead present Adam all die. So also in Christ shall be all made alive. But each in his own order Christ the first fruit that is coming those who belong to Christ then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule every Authority and power Remus rain until he has put all his enemies under his feet The Last Enemy to be destroyed is death Lori just invite you into this time. To speak into our hearts and lives in an area that for many of us is all too real all too painful yet. You speak any men's amount of Hope through Paul's Words, which are you her words into our lives injecting who you are giving us promise giving us the ability to have joy that permeates our lives toward me that be so in this gathering in Jesus name. Amen. Amen, well this last Wednesday, I was driving down Black Butte and headed to study this text specifically and as I was driving down I saw the Skylander church and Inns Kristen and she was walking with her mom and her a couple of kids in a stroller and I thought they were going to have coffee at proust. I see them they're often on Wednesdays. And as I was driving down I just began to have these tears come down my face. This is a story that I won't get into all of the details and all of the nuances and that good that we seen But as many of you know 45 she passed. And my oldest daughter was just nine months at the time and I was I wasn't driving down. I just had the emotions flooding over me that this is not fair. Not just because of me missing out on relationship with Michelle, but all that my wife and my kids have missed out with her and I begin to think about that and then I begin to think about the numerous stories. In this church two of whom I sat down this week and have similar situations and I went sometimes life just sucks. And sorry if you don't like that word sometimes life just sucks. It's difficult. It's hard and I got into this text and even this morning I wrote this organized detailed is the only area in my life where I'm somewhat of a perfectionist after Michael every other areas is just chaos and disorder and I just felt God saying in my heart this morning in a way more than ever and body this text. I can't just be a lesson. It can't just be a Sunday morning when we learn something in my mouth every week There's an embodiment of the tax that captured my heart. It's captured my life. But in a way that I've never seen before In this passage, it is becoming something of an Anthem for my life. In which Paul is telling us to be fiercely realistic about life and joyfully pessimistic. fiercely realistic and what I mean by that is this world is just a shadowy figure a mundane moments where there's an actual our cheetahs to come Christians are headed towards there's a trajectory that Paul is placing in here and it's not that when you get saved in this world around some linear track to life just gets better and better and better but there's an Ultimate Reality that overshadows whatever we see now that says ultimately this is not the only like you have the only family you get the only money you'll have there is much more Can I have in store for you? And then this idea that were to be joyfully pessimistic that sounds like an absolute Paradox, doesn't it? Get the way we can embody. This is as a people we can go life is hard. Finn has wrecked havoc. on marriages families and churches in a community yet because of Christ. There is a joy that can permeate the follower of Jesus it all begins to give this for me and anthem of Life a position on why this is even possible for every single person and in 1st Corinthians 15 it against to talk about this resurrection of the dead and the resurrection of the believer and there's some nuances in there. We can go out to coffee if you want to talk about the baptism of the dad in the twenty-plus examples that people have come up with him what was going on there, but the reality is and what this text is going to embody for each and every one of us and want us I want I want us to hear is the importance of all places on our hope being in a risen Jesus Darrell Bock. He said without the resurrection Christianity is just another human approach to reach God. Is empty a transforming power and hope it is a mere shell not worth the energy one devotes to it Christians all know non-christians know that the resurrection is the hinge upon which Christianity swings for Paul himself declares in this text earlier on if Christ has not been raised from the dead by a boat and go boating on Sundays. There's no reason to gather. In fact, we have all people are most pitied. This is ridiculous and we shouldn't even be gathered but he says in verse 20, but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead and he's declaring that Christianity that is not something that we do but being a Christian is something that we become earlier on he said I am what I am not I believe what I believe I think what I think but my whole life Because of the Resurrection has been radically transformed and Incredibly changed because of who God is and this morning why open up in a serious tone is because the last thing I want to do in this room is to come across as cold or callused to anybody who's brushed up to death. Last thing I want to do is be a 36 Cummings Tuesday 37 year old who goes how I got it down and for you to leave here thinking yep, he's a pastor his life must be Untouched unscaved unbruised by the pain and the Troubles of this world and my life my wife's life. I've been anything but that but I'll tell you what in the midst of it. There's been a joy that terminates. So what I want to do before we actually explain the text and I took too much time to even do this is I want to take a moment to pray for you.

You would not become calloused or called a different not feel simply like. A lecturer in a classroom talking about the afterlife what's to come or why we should just be happy but yet we can have a joy that permeates our life want to place a struggle and travel and so you can raise the real hand in your heart right now as I pray for you, but if you're like man, I'm struggling with this and this whole idea to Paul's going to declare and talk about it is so painful. It is so real it's been so present and I just need some prayer and if you join me in prayer that you're sitting here going that's not me right now, but I want to pray for the people around me. Your head and I'm skipping people a moment to take a few seconds to hear from God and then I want to pray for you if you want to do that right now.

God we love you and we believe the scriptures that you are good. We understand. Some degree the way that's in his wreak havoc in our own personalized another lives around us and that the sting of sin is death and if I can poison that's gotten into us and impacted Us in so many different ways. Not right now I pray for those.

This has the potential to really either derail. Are you become cold or hard are calloused for Debbie opposite effect, as we read Paul's words that we have a future. Hope of future Glory because of what Jesus has done and it wasn't just him saying go and do this like me he did it for us so we can do it in him, but if not by our power that we will be raised like him in the very power of God and what he has done. It's a major be a deep sense of Joy amongst your people today who are hurting. Any we hear your words today? And he moved by it in the name of Jesus. We hostage thing. Amen. Hey this morning the words of Paul and what he talks about is resurrection and Resurrection. Min-ho now hope is a really weak word in English translation. Hope kinda is like this man. I really hope Michael plays at him in the next. You don't know if he's going to do that or not. It's maybe something your heart would Delight in and you're just wishful thinking that maybe that will take play RG. I hope my team wins today or I hope it doesn't snow next Saturday like give me a break Central Oregon we have this term that we use hope and that is not the way in which the scriptures declare and talk about the help that we have in Christ. I would be doing you a disservice if you walk away from this room and you turn the word hoe. If you some sort of positive way of thinking and maybe even that was an influence the future if that's going to happen and we talked about how it doesn't mean I'm not sure but the Christian word. Hope in the Bible is this joyful conviction? on the basis of compelling evidence

Paul is telling us here in this word help. Is that a Naples us to face anything? It enables us to face anything. It gives us a buoyancy and ability to stay afloat in the midst of the mess of this world and of this life, it means were Unsinkable in those terms and the scribes and talks about his hope is that you can even take my life and in the way he speaks of it in 35 all the way through 50. It's all you're doing is burying the seed that is going to come back to life. Once again. Paul said things like this for me to live in Christ and to die is gain and I'm like, are you really sure about that tall? Because it sure doesn't feel like that at times. I didn't he in prison writing that letter has the Unspeakable Joy a buoyancy about him that allow for him to look at his circumstances and be realistic. Shego this is hard. But there's a joy amongst my life because of what Jesus Christ has done. One of the biggest lies that can be promoted amongst the church is a false gospel and which represents an idea that the moment you walk with Jesus life goes from this do this do this. Do this do that if you walked with Jesus for Anytime lights were to goes like this. Right, maybe some steady Eddie moment. We hope so we have this gospel that God preached come to Jesus and one of the first things you'll hear on a Sunday is that Mary said struggling it will get better. Let me tell you something. I believe that if two people follow love serve Jesus die to self put one another before them self esteem one another above themselves that your marriage will have a much greater chance of standing on firm ground based on Jesus and anything else absolutely but this short sale of come to Jesus and all of a sudden it's just simply better. That's not necessarily with the gospel is saying wrote Resurrection is teaching or come to Jesus and your kids won't hate you. I wish that were true. I wish that was going to be the way that it always goes come to Jesus relationships will be Blissful come to Jesus will get a raise come to Jesus and you will be like and if you subscribe to this kind of theology that promote promote a false sense of hope that we place our lives in saying if I come to Jesus he's going to do all this for me and yet Paul paint a radically different picture in the set of scripture you're headed for a tremendous amount of dysfunction if that's your understanding of the Gospel is that your understanding of Hope but true Christian. Hope allows you to be more fiercely realistic about the world were facing because there's this magnificent beyond the mundane that were all headed for. And that's why even the children shouts and that's why we have as Christians the ability to face. The very thing that is the worst and look at it in the face and say do your worst to me. Because we know that this is not all that there is. Now there's two things Paul talks about here that we actually have to allow to grip our hearts and is going to have any meaning for you any value for you. Any sense of really only taking it with you. First of all, he declares the defeat of death the death of death II Saint Paul presents here is the hope of glory and you have to have both of these things in your heart in your thinking to really understand Apollo's discussing here to have this stubborn buoyancy that is not going to shake in times of difficulty in trouble. We need to be reminded at the hope of the Resurrection is what we clean to and it's going to radically alter our view our philosophy our mindset even on our worst enemy. Which is not a political party, which is not some foreign dictator with the worst. Enemy. The enemy to be put to death is death itself. You guys familiar with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. If you're not familiarize yourself with his work the cost of discipleship. He said this death is the Supreme Festival on the road to Freedom. I don't think I've ever looked at that that way. I don't think I've ever seen it in those terms the Supreme Festival celebration on the road to Freedom Dietrich Bonhoeffer know about death. Yeah, he was kind of rising up against Nazi Germany. He stays death himself put in prison. I mean, he probably has a pretty good handle and grip on what it looks like to have your life in the hands of somebody else and being determined your face by somebody else and he same there is this whole that you can have house. Oh, well, if you flip over a few vs. Towards the end of this chapter Paul writes these very famous words in verse 56 154 excuse me, when the perishable puts on the imperishable the Mortal puts on immortality then shall come to pass the saying that is written death is swallowed up in Victory. Oh death. Where is your Victory? Oh death. Where is your Sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is law, but thanks be to God who gives us Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ the word. Sting here is a very specific word that Paul uses in Greek attention on purpose and doesn't just mean kind of like a bite or sting. What is a poisonous sting. It's something that once it bites you and actually get into you and it effects and impacts all of you and he staying here when he uses this word this poison. The poison of death. It is law. It is the fact that we don't measure up. It is the fact that even in our best efforts in our best intentions, we still fail each other and let one another down and the world around us is incredibly broken. Where is the sting it's that sin has gotten into us. It's impacted us and it's destroying the very fabric of our culture and our society.

There's another man. He was a contemporary of Paul but he lived a little bit before him. His name was epicurus and he has a fascinating statement about death. He says if we can be sure her death was Annihilation, then we'd be no fear of it for as long as we exist exist death is not there when it does come we no longer exist. We cannot be totally sure. It is Annihilation. What people fear most is not that maybe death is Annihilation that death is maybe not so we're going to have these two thoughts and ideas one is this Ultimate Reality that stems from when you died the other is because of sin, it's almost like this daily death that is happening inside of each and everyone of us. We can feel it broken if we can impact and Paul is going to look to Resurrection and he's going to say because of Resurrection. There's a present hope now and is also a future reality an F in college. Call reality one in which we see that is Future and we're bringing that helped into our lives right now. Now I have to take this idea of what he says. The problem is that we as human could not be totally sure that death is just simply a nihilation. Nobody can be absolutely sure that after death there is no judgment and I would go on record and I've said this before and I believe it's incredibly true. You might know somebody who's not a follower of Jesus, but they talked about this idea of some sort of morality our way to treat humans are that we ought to be really good people. Why do people think like that if there's no judgment, there's no final decree the upon your life. Why can't we just simply Liv and do as we please in order to benefit Our Lives the most that it can right now because deep down within each and every person Is this what you thought that captivates that captures our minds and says what if there is life after death have I actually done enough famous poet Alfred years ago. Dr. Samuel Johnson. He said no rational man can die without an EZ apprehension. Russo said he who pretends to look upon death without fear lies Johnson went on to say to his students. It's not rational to die without fear people would say to him, but who knows what's happening in afterlife? He says, yes, that's the reason why it's a rational to die without fear. Everybody in this room knows we failed as parents. I have young kids already know that everybody knows in this room. We failed as children. We failed as a spouse. We failed as a citizen. We failed as lovers. We failed as a people and we know those shortcomings exist in the shortcomings are there and there is judgment and this judgment is coming. What are we going to do to escape that judgment and so mankind has developed all sorts of ways to try to reach up to the Divine to try to make himself herself right before the god or the god sacrificing obey in an every effort. We continue to fall short and positive. I've got some incredible news for you this morning. There is an afterlife.

There's a life to be had that we're going to press into and there is a God who stood in the way and took that Spear of judgement for you? Reality is death scares.

Terrified of it and there's this prominent idea that it's just his natural thing. We should simply accept lots of books in today's day and age that I just accept it and break its natural. Nobody steals deep down or sensitive that it's natural. We all know something in it feel completely and utterly off because we weren't built for it from day one in the garden. Because of sin in others and Dad and now we have to deal with the ramifications of it and we couldn't and so Paul says there is one who could sting of death is sin anybody with their hearts truly want is love is peace is Joy they want significance, but they know that this is troubling reality and their lives that prevents that from happening because we disrupt relationship. We hurt one another there's all these little deaths that happen in our lives. College declaring to the church year is there is an ultimate Victory there is an Ultimate Reality and yet your faith in that which allows for us to look at death and he says laugh at it. It has no power over you the sting of it has been taken. He then says allow for that to get into your life now and let it change. How you view everything going on around you. When you view death as a gardener and not an executioner you realize that you'll spring up into New Life George Herbert. He was a pastor he put it this way deaf used to be an executioner. But the gospel has made him just a gardener when I realized what God has done for me in the gospel when I realized Jesus has taken my sin for me. He's taking my punishment when I meet death of death can do is be the gardener. He plants me to make something wonderful. He plants me a as a seed and I come up a gorgeous flower. This is a heavy heavy topic.

A sitting around the dinner table with some friends last night and our discussion talked about the idea that has American we really pushed this idea away from us. We don't want to view it. We don't want to look on it until we're faced with it. And if you want to quickly move past it Paul dedicates the longest chapter in 1st Corinthians to this specifically death and Resurrection any forces us to get out of our typical ways of thinking Monday through Saturdays on a Sunday morning and to look at this and ask the question. How am I going to handle?

How am I going to process death? And he says I want you to do it in a radically different way. If you are a follower of Jesus, it is not the end but is the beginning of a life that he has for you? The heat it's working something new and you because he has saved you called you and it gives us this new outlook. He doesn't want us to be defiant to be defiant mean you just don't think about it. You just don't think about that thing. If you're not it's just say a little bit lighter heart topic your argument with somebody you're in some turmoil of somebody one of the things you can do with the problem is just not think about it and be defiant towards that problem. Hope though. It's radically different the defiant. Hope is thinking about it and thinking about it a lot but thinking about in light of what Jesus has actually said about it. Hope is think more not think less and when it come to this idea of death itself, Paul the same don't think less don't ignore it. Don't turn a blind eye to it. In fact, I think more not on The Morbid idea of it, but the real reality that Christ has for us in it. But he's going to renew you. He's going to make you knew and let that thought overwhelmed you as you think on the goodness and the glory of God and nothing can take away your real well. The nothing can grab that from you that death has no sting. Right now just this cultural moment. Do we not live in one of the most paranoid times in the history of all of our lives? And I'm not saying is not reason to wonder and have some thoughts of like man. I don't want to get sick or what's going to happen. November 4th Ark all this turmoil is taking place in our culture and one of the ways that we can kind of deal with the problem is just to be defined say I'm not going to think on that whatsoever, Paul is going to challenge us and what he pushes us to do is to say thank think a lot. Think about Jesus. Think about what Jesus has said on the sting. Think about what Jesus has done in these things will what exactly has Jesus done going to leave you with just three thoughts. I'm going to worship Jesus Praise Jesus commune and listen to Jesus. The resurrection will Paul is talking about here means god intervene now. He entered your life and he's captivated your heart. He have captured your heart and me Redemption initiated and what I mean by that is that weird to be happy. When life is hard when it is difficult. We don't just make lemon lemonade out of lemons Riley.

We think on the continual goodness of what God has done in our lives. That you as a Christian have a future hope that God has given you and you apply that to your life right now Redemption initiated allowing for us to be long-suffering and merciful and gracious the 1st Corinthians 13 kind of people. The next thing that we have to do is think about Redemption accomplished. We can be heavy laden because of our own guilt our own sin our own hand in the problems of the circumstances we faced. There is a Redemption that has been accomplished in which Jesus just said you are forgiven because I have finished this work on the cross for you. I have given myself for you. You did not earn forgiveness or right standing but it has been granted towards you you can have hope because of Resurrection that your guilt has been dealt with and you don't have to live a life that is troubled by your past because he is taking shape is taking your guilt and he is Rogue you in his righteousness, and then we have Redemption applied relying on the Holy Spirit to fill us to grow up to continually change us. This year with Paul wants us to see redeemers. We're going to be a raw group of people. A rock group of people invested involved in one another's lives and that means there's going to be tears. There's going to be hard conversations and it is going to be painful but there is a boy that permeated 5th group this church because we have a deep understanding of what Jesus has done. That's the only way day by day for 9 years. I've watched my wife moved forward because Jesus because Jesus because Jesus there is a deep hole not only to be reunited in eternity. But right now currently the week to share with one another when I leave you with this Paul wants to be clear that the resurrection is The Rock Bottom reality for Christians, but a strange idea that he dreamed of He and all the others tell the same story is already become a carefully guarded tradition the story. In fact forms, the gospel announcement of the good news of Jesus the Messiah this was the message that Paul announced wherever he went. It was his message They Carried God's power and brought people by the spirit into the living knowledge and love of him into the rule of the Messiah into the kingdom of God. The only point in being a Christian at all that this message continues to be the solid ground on which you stand.

Morning. When you think I'm death? video Is it an executioner or is he a gardener? To think about that this morning and I might even begin to give you a window into what you really think about Jesus the gospel and Resurrection. Is it be simply a gardener? You know too that you have overcome in Christ if that's as the Executioner, let's have some conversations. Let's talk about this Jesus and what he's done was prey. God thank you for today. And from this text more the moment for me just to share my heart. struggles pain realities acknowledgement that life is messy and you are still good and sometimes it feels like a platitude God and it's hard to really grasp at and hold on to it. But we trust it that you are faithful even when we are faithless for the many people who are in similar situation of name. Pray God that are hard to be comforted For the Love of the Holy Spirit For the Love of the father. But a love of your son Jesus that we would know you deeply and you care for each and every one of us. We have two things in your name. Amen.

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