So, while we're waiting... Sermon: Resurrection - a necessary truth

I hate not having my computer. Took like 20 minutes for this to load up. Stupid old technology.

Anyway, since I preached a sermon on Sunday, I thought why not stick it up here. Unlike my sermon, though, I can stick all my notes and the stuff I didn't end up saying (after I remembered not to just delete it! So there's not as much of that). Enjoy.

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1 Corinthians 15:12-34 and 35-58

The resurrection – a necessary truth

Fact – someone in Corinth was preaching that there was no actual physical bodily resurrection. This is understandable, because after all they did not have a timetable for what was going to happen, and upon seeing some of their number die without Christ having yet returned, the question would have been raised.

Fact – you cannot say that Christ was resurrected, but that no one else will be. Resurrection is an all or nothing affair. If you say there is no resurrection for us, then that means there is no resurrection for Christ. If God can raise Christ, why not us too?

Fact – without the resurrection, there is no eternal hope for Christians. Our hope is merely pinned to this life, and that is truly pitiable.

Fact – without the resurrection, Christianity is meaningless. There is no salvation from sins.

Fact – the resurrection is a key doctrine of early Christianity. The apostles and Paul and the other early preachers like Sosthenes (remember him? He co-authored this book) have been preaching resurrection as a key part of the gospel. It is the third main point of Paul’s gospel summary in vs 4, “He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures.” If they can’t be trusted to preach the truth on a core part of the gospel, than that’s bad enough. But if this pivotal part of the gospel is not true, then Christianity as a whole falls down.

Fact – resurrection is a necessary step in God’s plan for our eternity. It is the key to Christ’s victory over all things, which includes death.

Fact – people were being baptized for the dead. Paul’s main point here is not about this practice per se, but rather that it points to a necessity for a resurrection of all people.

Conjecture – We don’t know what this means. It could mean that the same people who were preaching no resurrection were also following baptism for the dead.

Fact – Paul risks his life daily for the gospel. Why would he do that if the only thing to be valued is this life? If that were all he had to look forward to, then why not enjoy this life as much as possible and cling to it tenaciously?

Fact – Paul ends with a warning about ignorance and bad company. We must know all of the core doctrines of Christianity, so that we can recognize when someone is speaking against them. The resurrection, for Paul, is absolutely key to the gospel. Without it, Christianity is nothing. Dropping the resurrection from the faith strips it of its power, makes it useless. We can’t risk that! It’s hard enough being a Christian and standing up for what is right, without having our faith undermined by people who, whether on purpose or by accident, are preaching things that are not in keeping with the core doctrines of Christianity.

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Starting at verse 20, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Just as the firstfruits of your crops were offered as a sacrifice to God in the Old Covenant to show that God had claim to all of it, Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection, to show that God has claim to all life. Jesus was resurrected to show us the model for what is to come for us all. Verse 21, “For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a human being. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” The resurrection of the dead is made to completely cancel the penalty of sin. Sin kills, but Jesus saves from death. Since we don’t suddenly become invincible when we’re saved, that means that there must be another answer to death. There is – it is the resurrection of us all. Verse 23, “But in this order: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.” We even get told when our own resurrection will be – when Christ returns! Jesus is coming back (another key part of the Christian faith), and when he does, we will be resurrected just as he was – bodily, from the dead. Verse 24, “Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” So the way it goes is basically Jesus returns; destroys all dominion, authority and power; everyone is resurrected, and that’s it – this earth is then no more. What does Paul mean by dominions and authorities and powers? Verse 26, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” Death is a power that is set up against God, so it must be done away with like all other powers set up against God’s plan. Death is destroyed by resurrection. Paul then finishes with a clarification, verse 27 “For he "has put everything under his feet." [c] Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28 When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.”

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Big Idea: The resurrection is a linchpin to the Christian faith. Without it, Christianity is worthless.

Impact: If we are not living our lives with the resurrection in mind, then our faith is pointless.
 That means taking risks, like Paul risking his life every day.
 That means valuing our eternal life over our current life.
 That means valuing other people's eternal lives.

Big Idea: The linchpins of the Christian faith are always under attack.

Impact: Our faith can become useless if we are ignorant.
 That means knowing the tenets of our Christian faith.
 That means knowing what the core doctrines of Christianity are.
 It means combating those who would seek to undermine or mislead people into thinking otherwise.

Sermon 1 Words

How long do you think it would take to get to sleep if you were lying in an uncomfortable position on a particularly uncomfortable couch? What if you had a powerful light flashing regularly straight in your eyes, and your eyes were taped open so you couldn't look away from the light? What if there was also loud blues music blaring at you? Finally, what if you also had an electrode strapped to your leg that zapped you regularly every few seconds, making your leg spasm? You might think that you would never get to sleep under such strained conditions.

Well, in 1960, a professor called Ian Oswald put a number of people in that exact position, and timed how long it took them to go to sleep. He put a brain scanning machine on them to measure when they fell asleep (since their eyes were taped open). Anyone care to guess the results? All the people in the experiment fell asleep within eight to twelve minutes.

So to make it even harder, he sat his subjects at a table, and told them to hit their elbows on the table and clap their hands in time with the music. Now, these people didn't fall into an extended period of sleep. Instead, their brains would regularly shut off, and they would have spells of sleep that would last between 3 and 20 seconds. Their heads would bow, and their actions would stop for a few seconds, and then they would wake up and keep going as if nothing had happened. One of the subjects had 52 of these micro sleep pauses in only 25 minutes, although he could only remember pausing once.

How did these people manage to go to sleep at all, during the flashing lights, the loud music, the electrodes zapping, and even while clapping and banging their elbows? Because everything that was happening to them was happening on a regular basis, and everything they were doing they were doing on a regular basis, and so eventually their brains shut down and ignored it. You might have experienced this while driving a car on a long ride down a straight, boring country road. This experiment proves that no matter how invasive or shocking (pardon the pun) something is, as humans we can eventually get used to it and ignore it. The common saying is “familiarity breeds contempt”, and we all know it's true.

It can get that way for us as Christians. As Christians, we believe some pretty incredible things to be true. But to hear us talk about them sometimes, you would think that we thought they were totally blasé. Even worse than familiarity and indifference, there are some things in the core of the Christian gospel that can get left aside, not even mentioned, or worst of all, they can be dismissed as irrelevant or as unnecessary. In the Corinthian church, this is what some people were doing with one of the most important, core beliefs of the Christian faith – bodily resurrection from the dead. Some people were saying that there was no resurrection from the dead, and worse yet, others were believing them.

So Paul jumps on this problem in chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians. He doesn't mince words here, the issue is too important. He repeats himself, it is so important. To understand this part of 1 Corinthians, we need to understand why the resurrection of the dead is so important to the Christian faith, why it is a necessary belief for Christians to have. So what does a Christian mean when we talk about resurrection? No doubt the first thing that your mind goes to is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That is the gospel, as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 15 starting at verse 3, “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” and a bunch of people saw him.

But that is only the beginning of the Christian belief about the resurrection. We don't believe that it stops with Jesus three days after his burial. No, we believe that everyone will be resurrected from the dead, in order to face judgment. That is what Paul is talking about here in 1 Corinthians – the resurrection of all people for judgment, and for the Christian, eternal life.

Paul says that people in the church at Corinth have been saying that there will be no resurrection of people from the dead. And those people exist in the church of today! There are Australian churches that would say that they think resurrection is a spiritual metaphor, a story used to paint a picture of our relationships with God, or with each other, or something. We don't know what those in Corinth were saying, but we have a few clues about why they were saying it. The Greek mindset was to try and understand what was going on in the world around them. It's a very similar mindset to that of our scientific view of the world, except they looked to philosophy rather than science. To them, the idea of a resurrection from the dead sounded implausible. We get a taste of the Greek attitude to resurrection in Acts 17. “A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with [Paul]. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.” Later in verse 32, it says, “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered.”

Some of them sneered. That's what happens when you talk to a lot of people today about the idea of a resurrection. They sneer. They say things like, “That's just what those silly people in ancient times believed in. No-one would believe in something so preposterous now, not since we know so much about science and the human body.” So some people try and remove resurrection from Christianity, to try and make it more palatable to the modern scientific mindset. Some people say Jesus 'swooned' on the cross, and that he didn't die, but survived being crucified then stabbed in the stomach and being put in a grave for three days. Others say he died, but returned as a ghost to pass on some last-minute information, as if that’s more believable.

The Bible does not accept such nonsense. Jesus Christ died on a cross outside Jerusalem. To make sure he was dead, some soldiers jabbed a spear into him. Roman soldiers may not have had brain scanners and heart rate monitors, but they knew when someone was dead. Ancient people weren't stupid. Then they threw him in a grave and blocked it with a big stone. We know that. But sometimes we forget that God also raised him from the dead on the third day. Oh, we don't forget, sure. But do we actively remember? When we celebrate communion, we remember the body and blood of Christ sacrificed for us to pay for our sins. But do we also faithfully remember the resurrection? Or has it become for us a regularly flashing light that we can so easily ignore? The death of Lord Jesus, Christ, Son of God, is of ultimate importance to the Christian faith. But if you forget the resurrection, then in reality you are just worshiping Spartacus. You're just worshiping any criminal (or innocent) who was crucified and died. If there's no resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no salvation. In verse 17 of 1 Corinthians 15 Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” Christ's resurrection is the stamp, the guarantee, the proof that he has the power over sin and death. Anyone can say that. Anyone can die on a cross. Some people even do miracles. But without resurrection, without that declaration from God that, “Yes, Jesus has power to cancel sin and its deathly stranglehold”, Jesus' death is meaningless.

But resurrection is more than just Christ on the third day to the Christian faith. That's what these Corinthians were perhaps trying to say –only Jesus for resurrection, no-one else. But you simply can't have Jesus being resurrected and then stop there. Paul says that to them, verse 12, “If it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.” Paul took this as them speaking against the gospel that he had preached, and that the Corinthians had believed. Now some of them were trying to fiddle with it so that it made more sense, was more acceptable to the Greek view of life. But you can't have it both ways - either Christ was raised from the dead, and so will we all be, or no-one is raised, not even Christ. Resurrection is either a fact or it is not.

Our faith is built on this foundation – that on the last day, we will be raised from the dead in bodily form. Paul gives the Corinthians some important corrective teaching on that here in this chapter. I won’t go into it now – I’ll be looking at the ins and outs of resurrection in my next talk. Sufficed to say that the resurrection of everyone from the dead upon the return of Jesus Christ (another vital tenet of the faith), so as to defeat death, is part of God’s plan to bring ultimate glory to himself.

Sometimes I think we, as Christians, have lost sight of the fact that bodily resurrection is a key part of God’s plan and of our hope for the future. Perhaps we think about spirits floating around with angel wings and harps, or we think of ghosts or disembodied spirits, or some other Hollywood fantasy. I don't know what you think. I will bet that we don't think too much about it at all. This should be a challenge to us. Our faith is useless to us if we are ignorant of it. We must know the tenets of our faith so that we can recognize when people are talking garbage about it. We must know the tenets of our faith so that we base our hope on unshakeable ground. We should be seeking the truth. What good does it do us to be confused or mislead about our faith?

How much do you know about your faith? Are you always strengthening your knowledge of the foundational tenets of the gospel? “How can I do this?” you might ask. Do you read your Bible regularly? And I don’t mean read it like a story book. I mean really read it, study it, learn from it, absorb it? Do you pause when you don’t understand something, and try to puzzle it out, or look for answers? Do you attend a regular bible study, so that you can look into deeper questions you may have about Bible passages, or theological ideas, or how to apply this gospel to your life, or perhaps help others who could learn from your experience in the faith? I hope everyone here does those things. If you’re not reading the Bible regularly, and reading it with a mind to understanding it and learning from it, I cannot encourage you enough to start now. It is of highest importance that we are all increasing our awareness of the gospel, and the most obvious way of doing that is through studying the Bible, both ourselves individually and together in groups. Group study is particularly important – after all, if you make a mistake and come to a wrong conclusion at home by yourself, who will correct you? But in a group, you can sharpen each other’s understanding, like iron sharpens iron.

The Corinthian church had people in their midst who were questioning a key tenet of the Christian faith – the resurrection of the dead on Christ’s return. Paul’s message to them about this inadequacy is harsh, in verse 33, “Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character." Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame.” A mix of ignorance and bad company had become a shameful problem with the Corinthian church. Don’t let it become a shame to you, or your church. Make sure that you are equipped to be knowledgeable of God, and not ignorant, and liable to be swayed by the bad company of the incorrect.

The resurrection of all people for judgment is a huge, shocking claim to make, as much today as it was in ancient Greece. But to us, especially if we've been in churches a while, it can become blasé or even forgotten. Familiarity breeds contempt, our brains go to sleep. We can't afford for that to happen, and so Paul's words are to shake us awake. He says that if Christ has not been raised, “Those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all others.” The Christian faith does not promise merely a relationship with God for this life, and then nothing at death. If it did, then we would be truly pitiable, says Paul. All those Christians who you have known, who you have lived under the teaching and encouragement of, and who are now dead, that would be the end for them. If that’s the case, what’s the point of living a good Christian life? A life dedicated to God is worthless if God has no power over death. Paul says in verse 32, if it’s the case that the dead are not raised, then we may as well eat and drink our lives away, because tomorrow we might be dead, and inevitably life will be over.

But we know, you and I, that’s not the case. We know it’s a fact that Christ was raised from the dead, and therefore that we can expect resurrection at the end, just like Paul expected. Or if you didn’t know that, hopefully I’ve convinced you with Paul’s words here in 1 Corinthians. But what of it? If a Christian who doesn’t believe in the resurrection is pitiful, what does it look like when a Christian does let the truth of the final resurrection impact their life? How should the resurrection of all for judgment, and Christians for eternity, affect our life? To answer that question, let’s look at how it affected Paul’s life, because it did, profoundly. Verse 30, “As for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? 31 I face death every day—yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. 32 If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained?”

That’s what it looks like to live as if you believed in your resurrection. Paul endangered himself every hour. He took risks. He faced death every day. After all, why not? So what if he dies – he’s going to be resurrected! Paul was beaten, flogged, imprisoned. People called him names, they blamed him for things he didn’t do. He got so many stones thrown at him once that people thought he was dead. People sneered at him, yelled at him, followed him around and poured scorn on him. But so what? When he died, he’s going to be resurrected!

If you live like you expect to be resurrected, you are going to be prepared to take risks! I don’t mean going bungee jumping or skydiving – although there’s no reason not to. While I was preparing this sermon, I watched the movie Master and Commander– a movie about a British warship and its captain and crew during the Napoleonic wars, so big sails, cannons, rigging, swashbuckling and the like. The thing that really struck me was the quite simple motivations of the regular crew. Most of them didn’t volunteer – they were press-ganged – forced into service on a naval vessel by people with clubs. And yet when an enemy ship came up close, it was their job to take up swords, clubs, whatever was available, and to storm onto the enemy ship and put their lives in danger to seize it, or at least defend their own ship. I was going to show a short scene from the movie depicting one of these battles, but in the end I decided it too gruesome for public viewing.

Why would someone be prepared to risk their life when they had been enslaved into wartime service? After the battle was over, the dead were prepared for burial, and this is the prayer that was read out – a typical prayer for burial at sea from the church’s prayer book at the time.

WE therefore commit their bodies to the deep,
to be turned into corruption,
looking for the resurrection of the body
(when the sea shall give up her dead,)
and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ;

who at his coming shall change our vile body, that it may be like his glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.

Their hope was in the resurrection. They knew that at the last day the sea would give up her dead. That was their hope, and they were prepared to live the lives of dashing adventure and naval heroism that was forced on them. And before you seek to casually dismiss the simple faith of the average seaman, I will point out, as my wife did to me, that every Sunday they had a church service on the ships, not to mention the large number of missions that were built to reach out to seamen, some of which still endure today.

So Christians should be involved in dashing acts of heroism aboard large boats because they believe in the resurrection? That’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is that Christians should be prepared to take risks to serve God and live a godly life because we have the hope of a resurrection for ourselves. Is that what your life looks like? Do you take risks for God knowing that you can look forward to resurrection? Or do you live comfortably for yourself? Sure, you might not be in a position where people will throw stones at you or arrest you, as happened to Paul. But then isn’t that all the more reason to take a risk?

What kind of risks should we be taking? Well, if you’re like me, possibly the most frightening thing you can think of is to shamelessly proclaim Christ openly in every avenue of your life. If you’re like me, you’re afraid of sharing the gospel with people you know. If you’re like me, you’re afraid of even using Christian language. You might find it difficult to talk to non-Christian friends or family, whom you hold in high esteem, about Christian and spiritual things at all. Just two weeks ago I was afraid to tell a non-Christian friend of mine that I’ve been praying for him, for a back problem that he has. Why? Am I afraid that he’s going to have me arrested? Flogged? Throw rocks at me? Of course not! I am afraid that he will sneer. Just like those Greeks that Paul shared the truth of the resurrection with. They sneered. Having a friend think less of me is uncomfortable, and so I am afraid of my own discomfort.

So if you’re like me and you’re afraid of what other people think of you, then join me in taking hold of our faith in the resurrection, and let’s change our language so that it more accurately reflects what we believe. Tell people you’re praying for them (and then of course do it!). Deny yourself, and talk up Christ – give him the glory for the good things you might do. Maybe even take a risk and talk to one of your non-Christian friends about Jesus, and the resurrection at the last day. Will their name be in the book of life? Or will they be resurrected only to be judged for their actions and then thrown into the lake of fire, the second death, hell?

Remember, you’re not just taking this risk to prove to me or yourself or God that you have faith in the resurrection. It’s not a macho thing we’re talking about, a sort of muscle flexing exercise to show how rooted in our faith we are. Paul didn’t risk his life to show how faithful he was. He did it because he wanted to see people reached with the gospel. He wanted to serve his God as much as possible. His way of life was informed by his belief that if his death were to occur (which it inevitably did, at the hands of the Romans) that he was going to be resurrected at the last day. So let’s not speak more boldly about Jesus just to massage our own egos about how faithful we are. Let’s do it because we really want to see people saved, and we believe so strongly in the resurrection that we’re not afraid of death, let alone a little shame or sneering.

Because the fact is that the resurrection is a resurrection for everyone. Just as the resurrection is not just about Jesus, it’s certainly not just about you! Everyone is going to be resurrected. Everyone you have known. Everyone you know. Everyone you will ever meet is going to be resurrected on the last day, and they’re going to have to face their creator. What’s going to happen to them? Have a care for those people for whom the resurrection is not going to be a glorious event, but a fearful one. And remember this - when Paul was preaching about the resurrection in Acts 17, some of the Greeks scoffed and sneered, yes. But look at verse 32 again - some of them asked him to speak again. We live in a hardened country, but we worship a powerful God. If we are faithful to him and seek to glorify him, even simply with the words we speak, then he will be glorified, and people will be touched. People will be saved. And that’s just with our words! Imagine if all of us here really devoted our whole lives to Christ, as if we were afraid of nothing, because we were solidly hopeful of the last day resurrection! But one step at a time. Let’s all of us get at least these two things together this year. In 2009, let’s all be involved in regularly reading and studying the Bible – both on our own, and particularly with other Christians so that we will not be ignorant of our faith. Secondly, let’s seek to take risks as Christians hopeful of a resurrection, with at least our mouths, so that our fear of people’s sneering and the discomfort that might come will be countered by our hope in the resurrection. Let’s remember that our non-Christian friends too are going to be resurrected, and that for them it is not going to be a hopeful or pleasant experience. With their good in mind, let us honour God by taking risks in front of non-Christians.

The truth of the resurrection is a bright flashing light, it’s blaring music, it’s even a shocking electrode. But even so, you can still switch off from it and all too easily go to sleep. Stay focused on the truth, and start living your lives with your eyes set on the hope of the resurrection today.