Castlebar Christian Fellowship

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

THE REALITY OFTHE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST

Intro - What is the ground beneath your feet?
I'll never forget the words of a good friend of mine at least 10 years ago. He'd lost his dad when he was in his teens, and now on this particular week he'd lost his mum who had passed away after a long battle with cancer. He stood up in the young adults group in my home church to preach only a few days after, and said these words that I've never forgotten. He said "This week I hit rock bottom, but when I did I hit The Rock that is Jesus Christ."
True Christianity is a hope filled reality, even in the lowest points of life! But it will only remain a hope filled reality if we continue to hold tightly to the priceless gospel which has been passed down to us through the ages. The one that we have received, the one on which we stand, the one on which our salvation rests completely! Bill Hybels reminds us that the local church is the hope of the world! If he is right, which I believe he is, that means we are the hope of the world around us, here, in this locality. However the local church is only the hope of the world as long as it holds tightly to the gospel it has received, the one preached by the Christ appointed NT apostles. If a church let's go of the gospel then it has no more hope to offer than any of the false religions or false world views that exist today. This hope filled chapter opens with these words:
[V1-2esv] "Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which your received, in which you now stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you - unless you believed in vain."
We are told here firstly, that if we have received the gospel then it is the ground beneath our feet! It's what we stand on, it's the foundation of our lives here and now, and it's the foundation of our future hope. Christ's death, burial and resurrection is The Rock we stand upon. When we hit rock bottom we hit this hope filled reality!
Secondly in these opening verses Paul points out that this gospel is the hope of our salvation. This gospel is the reality on which our salvation depends because this gospel proclaims the saviour who died for sin, was buried and on the third day was raised to life. It's interesting to note that no other world religion even boasts of a saviour, which leads me to ask the question: How can Islam save if it only has a prophet and no saviour? How can Hinduism save if among its many gods it has no saviour? This world needs a saviour and the Christian gospel alone proclaims Jesus Christ the saviour of the world! We have received the only message which proclaims the saviour of the world! This is why it must be proclaimed in all the world. This is why we must live lives worthy of the glorious truth we proclaim! And here is the truth we are to proclaim:
[V3-4 esv] "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received (Paul said): that Christ died for our sins in accordance with scripture, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures."
1. The Most Important Thing

## List some things that Paul could have said were of first importance... ##
The reality behind this creed... is what make Christianity a hope filled reality! This is what makes the gospel good news... This is what fills us full of hope. If this most important teaching was not contained in the scriptures, then Christianity would be no better off than any other religion. This is what sets us apart. Believing this with all our hearts is what makes us Christian. Being a Christian can be a very vague thing these days. Loads of people call themselves Christian in some sense. Some people even suggest no one can be sure if a person is a Christian or not. However with Paul there's no uncertainty in regards to what makes someone a Christian. A Christian is someone who believes a definite message, and is transformed by the reality of that message. A true Christian believes wholeheartedly "that Christ died for our sins in accordance with scripture, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures."

Now let's think about the three parts of this creed. Firstly it says Christ died for our sins. It mentions both the event of Christ's death and the reason for his death. Some take a very sentimental view of Christ's death on the cross. They see it as nothing more than God showing us how much he loves everybody. I guess it's easy to tell people that. Now of course, the cross is the ultimate demonstration of God's love for us, but it is much more than that. Christ's death was needed to deal with our sin. Christ was, in fact, bearing in his own body the sins of humanity, and in doing so satisfying God's just and holy wrath against us sinners. On the cross God made him who knew no sin to become sin in our place so that we could be forgiven and restored to God forever - and yes he did that because he loves us. The apostle John ties it all together when he says: "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation (atoning sacrifice) for our sins." The cross was God's plan of redemption from before the foundation of the world. A plan foretold in the OT scriptures like Isaiah 53.

The second part of this creed of first importance is that Christ was buried. At first glance this perhaps seems an insignificant detail. However the burial of Jesus is an essential part of the creed because it confirms the reality of both his death and resurrection! If Jesus was buried, then it highlights more fully the certainty of his death.

This of course brings us to the third part of this most important reality. The body that was dead, and was laid in the tomb came out alive after three days. Jesus Christ rose from the dead! And Jesus' resurrection like his death was the fulfilment of OT prophecy! It must also be emphasised that without the resurrection the story would end with Christ dead and buried and we would be no better off. We would still be in our sin without hope and without a saviour!

David Jackman puts it like this "Without the death of the Lord Jesus there would be no atoning sacrifice, no satisfaction for God's wrath, no penalty paid, no justification, forgiveness or reconciliation. But without the resurrection there would be no guarantee of these realities, no victory over sin and death, no conquest of the devil, no eternal life. [Christian] joy is the confirmation of all the gospel realities in the affirmation: 'The Lord is risen.'"

But of course Jesus did rise from the dead and Paul goes on to point to the evidence of the resurrection:

2. The Evidence of the Resurrection
This might surprise some people but there is in fact overwhelming evidence to confirm the resurrection of Jesus! God hasn't left his people without a strong argument for Christ's resurrection. As impossible as it may seem to the rational mind all the evidence seems to cry out that Jesus truly died and was raised from the dead. In fact so much so that people have said things like this:
Sir Edward Clarke (A British High Court Judge) "To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling. As a lawyer I accept the gospel evidence unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to the facts that they were able to substantiate."
Historian Thomas Arnold wrote "The evidence for our Lord's life and death and resurrection may be and often has been shown to be satisfactory. It is good according to the common rules for distinguishing good evidence from bad. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons have gone through it piece by peice as carefully as every judge summing up an important case. I have myself done it many times over, not to persuade others but to satisfy myself. I have been used for many years to the study of history of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is better proved by fuller evidence than the great sign that God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead."
Hans Von Campenhausen (German Historian) "This account meets all the demands of historical reliability that could possibly be made of such a text."
If we had the time we could look at the medical evidence which would prove that Jesus really died! The circumstantial evidence which includes things like why would people die for something they knew was a lie? And why would thousands of Jews almost instantly drop more than fifteen hundred years tradition by changing their day of worship to a Sunday? And that's just one major adjustment these believing Jews made almost overnight! Then there is the evidence of the missing body and course the eye witnesses which all tell one story - RESURRECTION! If I had the time we could go through each of these categories and see overwhelming evidence for the resurrection. Instead let me recommend you read The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel and I will focus on the line of argument Paul uses here, the eyewitnesses!
[V5-9esv] "That he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred 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. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God."
Let's take a quick run through the appearances noted in scripture. Jesus appeared
" To Mary Magdalene, in John 20:10-18;
" To the other woman, in Matt 28:8-10;
" To Cleopas and another disciple, in Luke 24:13-32;
" To eleven disciples and others, in Luke 24:33-49;
" To ten apostles and others, with Thomas absent, in John 20:19-23;
" To Thomas and the other apostles, in John 20:26-30;
" To seven apostles, in John 21:1-14;
" To the disciples, in Matthew 28:16-20;
" And he was with the apostles at the Mt of Olives before his ascension, in Luke 24:50-52 and Acts 1:4-9.
And of course we have this account in 1 Corinthians 15 of which the creed part can be traced back to within a few years of Jesus, which kind of ruins the theory some people have that the resurrection was a myth that developed over hundreds of years. People believed in the resurrection right after it happened because they seen Jesus, this is what convinced them to gave their lives for Christ and the Kingdom!

So here in 1 Corinthains 15 we're told that Jesus appeared to Cephas which is the Aramaic name for Peter, then he appeared to the twelve, then he appeared to more than 500 people at one time. Now of course Critics have their theories. Some say they were hallucinating. But the thing is lots of people don't hallucinate about the same thing. An expert in psychology puts it like this:
Hallucinations are individual occurrences. By their very nature only one person can see a given hallucination at a time. They certainly aren't something which can be seen by a group of people... Also, hallucinations are comparably rare. They're usually caused by drugs or bodily deprivation. Chances are you don't know anybody who's ever had an hallucination not caused by one of those two things. Yet we're supposed to believe that over a course of many weeks, people from all sorts of backgrounds, all kinds of temperaments, in various places, all experienced hallucinations?

Others think perhaps it was simply wishful thinking, or group think where people talk each other into seeing something that's not real? In other words people were seeing only what they wanted to see. As Atheist and Christian critic Michael Martin puts it 'A person full of religious zeal may see what he or she wants to see, not what is really there.' However fellow atheist Andrew Flew points out that he doesn't like that argument because it cuts both ways. As he puts it you could say 'Christians believe because they want to believe, but atheists don't believe because they don't want to!'

The fact is there where hundreds of people who seen Jesus alive after the resurrection, including sceptics like James the brother of Jesus who refused to believe Jesus' claims before his death and resurrection, and persecutors like Paul who violently opposed Christianity until he said he had an experience with the risen Jesus! And Paul even told the hearers of this letter that many of these witnesses were still alive. So if they didn't believe him they could go and check it out for themselves. Why would Paul encourage such a thing if he did not have complete confidence that Christ had in fact been raised?

"Let me try and put things into perspective, if you were to call each one of the witnesses to a court of law to be cross-examined for just fifteen minutes each, and you went around the clock without a break, it would take you from breakfast on Monday until dinner on Friday to hear them all. After listening to 129 straight hours of eyewitness testimony, who could possibly walk away unconvinced?"
From every angle the evidence points to the resurrection - something major happened at this point in history that caused a social earthquake as many people quickly changed their beliefs and way of living. I've hardly touched on the evidence available this morning, so I would encourage all of you to go and study the evidence for the resurrection so you can obey the words of the apostle Peter when he says we should "always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you." The Resurrection is the hope that is in us! The resurrection is our hope!
(FINISH THIS SECTION BY READING THE ACCOUNT IN PAGE 345-347)
3. The Ongoing Reality of the Resurrection

Paul finishes this section with these words of personal testimony:

[V10-11esv] "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed."

Paul simply points to the difference the risen Jesus has made in his own life. This once persecutor of the Christian church had an encounter with the risen Jesus which changed his whole thinking, and transformed his life completely. All he can say is "But by the grace of God I am what I am" and by the grace of God I now do what I do!
I didn't know about all the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus 13 years ago when I gave my life to him in a little room in an Old Fire Sub-Station in east Belfast, which a local church were using for a youth outreach event in the area. No I simply believed the clear message I heard delivered that night, that Jesus died for my sin was buried and was raised on the third day. And when the youth leader asked me after if I wanted to become a Christian, much to his surprise and by the grace of God I said YES and that YES has lasted over thirteen years! That summer something undeniable happened in my heart. God awakened me to the fact I was a sinner and to the reality that Jesus was my saviour. By his grace he kept me awake many nights thinking about my life and where it was going. Asking me if I was going to go my way or trust in him. He pointed me to the reality of his power working in others and said that could be you, and on the 22 Aug 1995 he provided me with the perfect opportunity to say YES - and by his grace I did! In short I had an encounter with the risen Jesus and it transformed my whole life!
## Talk about the transformation Jesus has made in my life by noting who I was when I came to Jesus. What I said to Satan and to God shortly after! And how I'm glad of what I was like when I came to Jesus because it enables to highlight more fully that "By the grace of God I am what I am." ##
Call to Action
1. Ask yourself this question. What does the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus mean to you? Is it of first importance in your mind? Does it thrill your heart more than anything? Because believing this with all your heart is what makes you a Christian! Build everything on the hope it gives. Perhaps you've never placed you trust in Jesus, in how he died on the Cross to atone for sin, and on how he was raised to life as the victorious saviour who can restore you to God. You can trust him today! You put all your trust in his death, burial and resurrection today!
2. If you're a Christian be prepared to give a defence for the hope you have, with both the external and internal evidence... And if you're here and you're not ready to become a Christian yet then at least explore the evidence for the resurrection and the claims of Christianity with an open mind.
3. If you're a Christian go away and think about how the grace of God has changed you and transformed you... If you're not a Christian yet then allow the message of Jesus to open the door of your heart to a direct encounter with the risen Christ and experience what the grace of God can make of you! Are you ready to do that now?