Mary - Rejoice for the Lord is with you

A Sunday school teacher was speaking to a group of four-year-olds about Jesus, Joseph and Mary.
After the lesson the kids were to draw a picture depicting their favorite part of the story. The teacher shared the pictures the children drew with the entire class.
She got pictures of the Baby Jesus in the manger with animals, she got pictures of the three wise men and the like.
Then she got to a picture from little Jimmy, a picture of an airplane with four people on it. She called Jimmy up to explain his picture.
She told Jimmy that she could see Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus, obviously in their 'flight' to Egypt.
She didn't understand why there was another man on the plane. Jimmy quickly explained, 'That's Pontius, the pilot.'
Sometimes we think kids understand what we are teaching them in Sunday school class and what we say to them.
It is funny what we might think they understand and what they really think we are saying.
One subject that I want to talk about this morning that is muddled and sometimes never discussed is the role of Mary of Nazareth in salvation history.
Today I hope that we can leave here understanding how her role in God’s plan was important and some practical examples we can take from her life.
Most of us when we think of Mary we automatically think about the birth of Christ.
We conjure up images of the manger and Mary looking upon the infant Christ in love. This is all good and nothing is wrong with it.
But there is so much more to be learned from her role and her life.
In the earliest days of the Church Mary’s role in the history of God’s plan of salvation was hotly debated.
There were groups of people in the early church called Gnostics.
The Gnostics taught that Jesus did not come in the flesh. They taught that Jesus was really a ghost or apparition.
The reason they taught this was a mixing of Greek philosophy with Christianity. The Greeks saw flesh as evil and that nothing good came from flesh.
To the Gnostics it was unthinkable that God would take on flesh. The best one could do was to escape to pure spirit.
I will propose to you this morning that if Jesus Christ did not take on flesh and blood and become a human being you could not be saved.
Now, we may think that this is not important but to the earliest Christians the incarnation of Christ was foundational to everything.
IN other words the doctrine that God became a human being in Jesus of Nazareth was viewed as a foundational doctrine.
A non-negotiable- and even to the point that if God didn’t become human we could not be saved.
What that means to us is that baby in the manger that many people nostalgically think about this season is more important than you could ever imagine.
God becomes flesh – God comes to take on humanity.
Now this makes your head hurt when you think about it but God who is One God – true God – is Father, Son, and Spirit.
The Eternal Son – the Logos – who has always existed, who had a part in creating our world, took on humanity.
God became a man. So where did Jesus get His humanity. Jesus is fully 100% God but where does He get his fleshly body?
Lets go back in time. – Genesis chapter 3 we get what is called the Protoeuangelion – This word literally means the first Gospel
– PROTO – means first – this is where we get the world PROTOTYPE – Euangelion is the Greek word for Good News or Gospel – So literally –FIRST GOSPEL
In this account God is issuing a curse upon the Serpent and the Woman. The Serpent deceived the woman and God speaks of a war that will go on between the Woman’s Seed and the Serpent.
In other words the Woman will have a descendent that will one day be at War with the Serpent.
Genesis 3: 15
15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed ; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel."
IN other words it will be a Woman’s seed that will fight the Serpent.
Isaiah 7:14 tells us that God will give a sign of deliverance and it will be that a Virgin will give birth.
Now when we think about it all of this comes together and makes sense.
It could only be the seed of the Woman that would wage war with Satan, so Jesus would only be born of a woman.
The Virgin birth of Jesus will be a fulfillment of this promise –
the only humanity that Jesus will receive will come fully from Mary.
The womb of Mary will give Jesus his humanity.
John 1:14 tells us in very stylized language that the Word became flesh – the eternal God –
The WORD which is another way of saying the Son, became flesh, and dwelt – literally Skene – tabernacle among us.
God will become human and his Temple will be the Temple of flesh – Immanuel God with us –
As Isaiah 9 tells us the child born will be called Mighty God.
God’s dwelling will no longer be in the Temple but in the Human body of Jesus of Nazareth.
With this let us turn to the account in Luke 1


Luke 1: 26-38
26Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David ; and the virgin's name was Mary. 28 And coming in, he said to her, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." 29 But she was very perplexed at this statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. 30 The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary ; for you have found favor with God. 31 "And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. 32 "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High ; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David ; 33and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end." 34Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin ?" 35 The angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God. 36 "And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age ; and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month. 37 "For nothing will be impossible with God." 38 And Mary said, "Behold, the bondslave of the Lord ; may it be done to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.
There are several things that we need to unpack from this famous passage this morning for us to learn from the life of Mary.
Luke packs this passage full of information that we tend to miss if we read too fast.
First of all Mary is a descendent of David- this is important because a famous promise made to David in 2 Samuel 7 was that God would raise up an eternal ruler from the House of David.
The flesh of Jesus had to be Davidic Flesh – this is important.
Verse 28 starts with some explosive information:
The angel greets here with Greetings in my translation but a literal translation of the Greek should read like this:
REJOICE!!, Full of Grace, The LORD is with you!
This word Rejoice is very important in the Greek of this passage because this exact word is used in the Greek translation of the OT on four different occasions. Those four occasions are all Messianic prophecies.
Zepehniah 3:14, Zechariah 9:9, Joel 2:21, and Lamentations 4:21
All the places this word is used the OT refers to God’s promise that he would raise up a Messiah – a time of rejoicing in a dark world.
This is a time that light will shine in the darkness – a time to truly rejoice – God is going to bring about His work that man had been waiting on.
We will see later in Luke 2:14 that the Angels are rejoicing because of the birth of Jesus


They sing out in joy:
14 "Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased."
As a matter of fact joy is the theme surrounding the coming of Jesus.
Joy is the announcement of John the Baptist in Luke 1:14- the one that will announce the coming Messiah will be a time filled with Joy at his birth.
In Luke 1:44 when Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth the baby John the Baptist leaped in the womb of Elizabeth at the coming of Mary and the announcement of the baby Jesus that will be born.
The time of the coming Messiah is a time of great joy – light is coming to this dark world.
Hope is coming for the hopeless.
So how do you get this Joy today that is talked about in this passage?
1) God is with her
Literally in this passage we see that God is with Mary – this is cause for Joy
When God is with us and walks with us then we have reason for great joy.
The question is, “This idea of God being with her, does this only apply to Mary?”
In other words, is God with you today? Do you have this same promise as made to Mary?
Jesus tells the disciples in Matthew 28:20 that he will be with them until the end of the age.
This promise is for us and all Christians that will come after them.
To the 2nd coming of Christ He will always be with His followers.
But what about when times seem tough? How can I have joy if it seems the world is falling down around me.
I think we can learn from Mary’s example –
She is chosen by God to bear His Son. In her womb will be the very creator of the universe.
Was her road easy?
Was the journey to Bethlehem a cake walk for her?
They travel while she is greatly with child about to give birth any day and this journey would be perilous.
This is not a jump in your SUV and go down the interstate –
this is a journey in the elements on rocky terrain, not an easy road.
They get there and there is no where to stay and she gives birth to the Savior in a stable that is fit for only animals.
How did she get through it? God was with her.
Paul the great apostle was in prison.
Some think he might have been a terrible prison at the writing of Philippians but what does Paul tell us:

Philippians 4: 12-13
12 I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity ; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. 13 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.
No matter what the circumstance – Paul can say it is Christ who strengthens him. He doesn’t say Christ makes it easy but he does point out that Christ bears us through it.
2) She can be joyful because she is grace filled.
God has given her unmerited favor – God has chosen her.
It is interesting that Grace and Rejoice come from the same root word of Charis
So we can see from the language that Grace and Joy come from the same idea – in other words to experience true Joy we need to understand that we are in a state of Grace.
What we fail to realize is just as Mary was chosen to be a vessel of God’s grace we have also been chosen to be vessels of God’s grace.
Paul lays out his theology of being chosen in Christ in Ephesians 1
Ephesians 1: 4-7
4just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love5He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight
We have been chosen in Christ – God chose to pour out his grace on you if you are in Christ.
This is freely bestowed something that we could earn or do on our own.
Paul speaks of the riches of His Grace that he lavishes on us.
This free gift should bring joy – imagine wining a sweepstakes or something that you didn’t earn, you didn’t expect it to happen.
That is how Paul speaks of our salvation in Christ – we had no hope – who would have ever thought God would send His Son and just open up the flood gates of grace from Heaven?
This is awesome –joyful news.
3) You can rejoice like Mary and have this type of Joy if you take on the attitude that she had.
I love her response to the Angel Gabriel.
We forget that Mary was human with human desires- she probably had dreams of growing up like the rest of her kids in her village – Joseph would be her husband , she would be a normal person and live a normal life.
What the angel Gabriel proposed was a scary path – how would she explain to the townspeople that she was with child
Imagine those conversations around the well at Nazareth – How is
Mary with child if she is not married, O, I get it an angel told you the Holy Spirit would hover over you and bring about this miraculous birth.
Could you hear the sighs and the people saying Sure – Sure that makes sense.
She would be an outcast in her hometown, looked down upon and scorned, Just looking at Joseph’s first response shows the shame in her story.
But not just this but now you are going to carry the Messiah of Israel – God’s Son – God in flesh – do you think there might be a little pressure on her.
But look at her response to Gabriel.
Behold, the bondslave of the Lord ; may it be done to me according to your word.
She is emptied of any self-entitlement – she freely gives up her life for God.
But she continues with this attitude throughout the rest of her life.
At the wedding feast at Cana when Jesus works His first miracle – she says – Do as he says!
Do whatever Jesus tells you to do. What an awesome example – you want to be a true woman of God – here she is – here is your example – Do as God tells you. Do as Jesus tells you.
Simeon the old prophet in the Temple prophesies to Mary in Luke 2 that she will experience something like a sword piercing her heart.
She will be heart broken, she will pour her life into her Son and watch him march to the cross.
These words will resonate in her heart –
you know her entire life she probably wondered when these words of Simeon would come true.
When would her heart be pierced?
We see that she is there at the cross –
her son that she raised was now beaten beyond recognition, marred beyond belief and was experiencing the worse 6 hours any human could go through on the cross.
From the context we can believe that she was there through the entire ordeal.
And what is interesting is that she was there on Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles in Acts chapter 1
She is there from the announcement of the birth of Christ to the birth of the Church.
This is an amazing lady- there through the entire story of the Gospel – but what does her life tell us the entire time.
Do as Jesus tells you.
Today she would tell you the same thing. Do as Her Son tells you to do!
In Luke 13 Jesus tells us that we must Repent – we must all repent of our own selfish desires.
We must repent and tell God behold I am your bondservant and do to me as your word says.
That is what repentance is all about.
Jesus also tells us that whoever Believes in Him and is Baptized will be saved.
Is there anyone here this morning that needs his lavish grace and salvation,
Jesus calls you today and His mother would tell us to listen to what He says.

A Child will be born

Have you ever had a situation of good news and bad news:

Something like:
You women’s softball team finally won a church league softball game
The bad news is they beat your men’s team

Your boss asks you to write a job description of your job
They like it so much they decide to go out and hire someone that fits that description

The preacher is told that church attendance has risen drastically over the last 2 weeks but the bad news was that he was gone on vacation for those 2 weeks

Your youth group comes to visit your home
The bad news it is the middle of the night and they have toilet paper and shaving cream.

This is what life is like many times – good news and bad news. It never seems that good news is the only news.

Many people today in the holiday season suffer from depression because they have lost a loved one or they are in financial trouble.

While some people are merry with the spirit of Christmas others are suffering.

Do you have hope today or are you hopeless?

A man approached a little league baseball game one afternoon. He asked a boy in the dugout what the score was. The boy responded, "Eighteen to nothing--we're behind."

"Boy," said the spectator, "I'll bet you're discouraged."

"Why should I be discouraged?" replied the little boy. "We haven't even gotten up to bat yet!"

Charles Dickens started his book A Tale of Two Cities:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. . . .”

In today’s Scripture passage we are going to experience the best and worst of times.

The time period we will look at to begin with is a bleak time in the history of God’s people.

It has been 200 years since Solomon reigned. The Kingdom was now divided between the North – Israel and the South – Judah

Ahaz was king of Judah.

Ahaz was evil and did evil in the sight of the Lord – his 16 year reign was marked with great evil and false worship.

He sacrificed his own children to the pagan god Molech. Things had gotten really bad for Israel.
Things were so low that a Davidic King was now sacrificing to the pagan gods.

But the bad news is that things will get worse. Just a few years after this Jeremiah will being his career as a prophet and in Jeremiah 16 God will tell Jeremiah not to have a wife and kids because things are going to get so bad.

It will not be long until the Babylonians come and destroy Judah and take the best and brightest into captivity.

It is into this situation that Isaiah the prophet takes up council against king Ahaz in Isaiah chapters 7 through 9.

In today’s passage Isaiah will paint for Judah a picture of hope in the bleakest time.
There will be a bright future and a hope for all.

Isaiah 9: 1-7

1 But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish ; in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. 2 The people who walk in darkness Will see a great light ; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them. 3 You shall multiply the nation, You shall increase their gladness ; They will be glad in Your presence As with the gladness of harvest, As men rejoice when they divide the spoil. 4 For You shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian. 5 For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult, And cloak rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire. 6 For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders ; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7 There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore . The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.

Then he gets to the point that I want to focus on today.

He tells us a child will be born – future tense
There will be a day of liberation in which this child will be born into this world of pain and no hope.

Isaiah is painting a picture that is bleak for Judah

Darkness will dawn to day – Galilee will have light shine on it.
The region spoken of by Isaiah is the very place this Assyrian and Babylonian oppression will start.

This king that will come will bring about a victory like Gideon over the Midianites (Verse 4).
Just as Gideon overcame the odds and won the victory this child will.

Some things that Isaiah tells us about this child:

1) Wonderful Counselor – He will be a wise king- his guidance and direction will be like no other before

2) Mighty God – this child in some way will be called God.

Earlier in his lament against King Ahaz, Isaiah said the following:

Isaiah 7:14
14 "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign : Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.

There will be a great sign of this renewal of all things – this brining light and hope into the world- A virgin will give birth and He will be called Immanuel.

Literally – He will be called God with us.

John’s gospel in John 1:14 tells us that the Word became flesh – the very word that had been with the Father for all eternity became flesh.

Out of the womb of Mary came the very Son of God – God with Us- God in flesh as a human baby

3) Eternal Father

This is a perfect Father that will never abandon His people – think of the perfect human father and you don’t even have a slice of what this Savior will be like.

He will be like our Father forever – God the father shows us his true love by sending His Son.

4) He will be the Prince of Peace – this is an odd saying.

We know that Isaiah is speaking of a time some 700 years later when Jesus of Nazareth is born to the virgin Mary.

We have heard the story so many times that our ears are dulled to the message. We see the seasonal images of Christmas but we loose the Biblical radical nature of this story.

This story is explosive – this story will make kings shake in their boots.

Lets set the stage for this radical entrance into Human history.

Galatians 4:4 tells us that at the fullness of times God sent forth His Son – times had to be just right for Christ to come.

By the time Jesus was born, Augustus had already been monarch for a quarter of a century.
King of kings, he ruled from Gibraltar to Jerusalem and from Britain to the Black Sea.

He had done what no one had done for two hundred years before him: he had brought peace to the wider, Roman world—peace at a price.

What an irony – the Prince of Peace is born during the Pax Romano – the peace of Rome

A price paid in cash by subjects in far-off lands.

Augustus "gave peace, as long as it was consistent with the interests of the Empire and the myth of his own glory,"

There you have it in a nutshell: the whole ambiguous structure of human empire, a kingdom of absolute power, bringing glory to the man at the top, and peace to those on whom his favor rested.

Yes, says Luke, and watch what happens now.

This man, this king, this absolute monarch, lifts his little finger in Rome, and fifteen hundred miles away,

in an obscure province, a young couple undertakes a hazardous journey, resulting in the birth of a child in a little town that just happens to be the one mentioned in the ancient Hebrew prophecy about the coming of the Messiah.

And it is at this birth that the angels sing of glory and peace. Which is the reality, and which the parody?

Here we have to pause, because the passage from

Micah 5, which Luke intends to awaken in our minds, is so well known and so little attended to:
"But you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah, little among the clans of Judah—from you shall come forth the one who is to rule in Israel" (Micah 5:2).

The passage is regularly cut off a verse or two early when read in public.

Verse 4 launches a project that ought to make Augustus anxious:

"He [the coming King] shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of YHWH, in the majesty of the name of YHWH his God; and they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth." But the next verse goes on: "And he shall be the man of peace."

Here is the old king in Rome, turning 60 in the year Jesus was born: he represents perhaps the best that pagan kingdoms can do.

At least he knows that peace and stability are good things; unfortunately, he has had to kill a lot of people to bring them about,
and to kill a lot more, on a regular basis, to preserve them.

Unfortunately, too, his real interest is in his own glory. Already, before his death, many of his subjects have begun to regard him as divine.

Here, by contrast, is the young King in Bethlehem, born with a price on his head.

He represents the dangerous alternative, the possibility of a different empire, a different power, a different glory, a different peace. The two stand over against one another.

Augustus's empire is like a well-lit room at night: the lamps are arranged beautifully, they shed pretty patterns, but they have not conquered the darkness outside.

Jesus' kingdom is like the morning star rising, signaling that it is time to blow out the candles, to throw open the curtains, and to welcome the new day that is dawning.

Glory to God in the highest—and peace among those with whom he is pleased!

Who do you want to put your hope and trust in today?

Do you want to put your trust in human kings and human agencies?

Today are you hopeless?

Does this story of the coming of Christ – prophesied fall on deaf ears because you are so consumed with depression – lonliness?

Or does this story warm your heart with hope?

I think before this story can warm your heart- before you can appreciate the reason all of this happened I must challenge you to do something.
JUDGEMENT

Imagine if today I told you that you had to sit as judge.

So many times we question God and wonder why He lets bad things happen to good people.

We may shake our fist at God and say WHERE ARE YOU???? Why do I feel alone?

I think we all have had those moments of doubt.

Moments where this story of hope of this baby coming in the world may seem hopeless to us.

Let me put you in God’s shoes.

What if I told you today that you had to pass judgment.?

What if you have more than one child and I told you that one of your children can go to Heaven and one had to go to Hell and you had to pick which one went to Hell.

Could you do that?? Could you sentence your own child to Hell while letting the other go into Heaven?

Do you love all your kids the same? I have three wonderful daughters that God has blessed me with.

When we first had Carlin I thought there is no way I could love another like this, but then all the sudden we have another in Emmy and I have just as much love.

They are different – I have different experiences and different things I appreciate about them, but I love them the same.

If I were asked by God to make that type of call of trying to decide between which one of my kids went to Heaven I could not do it.

But what if you had to do it – what would you say to God?

I think I would fall down begging and ask that God send me to Hell instead.

I would beg that God send me to Hell and not send any of my kids.

How many of you hear could identify with that feeling?

Well that is exactly what God did for us!! We were estranged on a collision course with Hell – we are His children and he Loves us.

He loves us so much that Jesus chose to come and die for us. God doesn’t want anyone to go to Hell and he doesn’t so much so that He sent Jesus to die on our behalf.

Jesus literally experienced Hell so we don’t have to. Jesus took on what we deserve.

When we think of that baby in the manger – we must see some 33 years in the future. Those perfect hands – those little baby hands will grow one day and be pierced by nails for us.

When you think about that message of love and think that you are hopeless you better think again.

God loves you so much that he sent His only begotten Son.

Next,
God now sends us to tell others this message of hope.

Imagine If your child was in danger – imagine if you were hurt and incapacitated and you knew your child was in danger and you sent someone to warn your child.

What if your child was walking toward a cliff and you sent a friend to warn them to turn back?

How would you feel if that friend never warned your child? What if that loved one was hurt because that person never warned them?

That is exactly what God has called us to do.

God loves all His children and has called us to go out and warn them to tell them of the Hope they have.

We cant ignore them but are called to share this message of hope.

Conclusion: Hope

From Parade magazine comes the story of self-made millionaire Eugene Land, who greatly changed the lives of a sixth-grade class in East Harlem.

Mr. Land had been asked to speak to a class of 59 sixth-graders.

What could he say to inspire these students, most of whom would drop out of school?

He wondered how he could get these predominantly black and Puerto Rican children even to look at him.

Scrapping his notes, he decided to speak to them from his heart.
"Stay in school," he admonished, "and I'll help pay the college tuition for every one of you."

At that moment the lives of these students changed.

For the first time they had hope. Said one student, "I had something to look forward to, something waiting for me. It was a golden feeling."

Nearly 90 percent of that class went on to graduate from high school.

They had a goal in mind they had hope held out in front of them.

Today I want to encourage you and exhort you to hang on to hope.

Having Hope will show in how we live our lives:

One night at dinner a man, who had spent many summers in Maine, fascinated his companions by telling of his experiences in a little town named Flagstaff.

The town was to be flooded, as part of a large lake for which a dam was being built.

In the months before it was to be flooded, all improvements and repairs in the whole town were stopped.

What was the use of painting a house if it were to be covered with water in six months?

Why repair anything when the whole village was to be wiped out?

So, week by week, the whole town became more and more bedraggled, more gone to seed, more woebegone.

Then he added by way of explanation: "Where there is no faith in the future, there is no power in the present."

When you think as many people will this season about the birth of Christ cut through all the noise of our culture and hear the voice of God in Scripture.

The story of Christ’s coming and birth all boil down to God’s love for you.

God loves you and wants you to spend eternity with Him.

God doesn’t want anyone in this room to perish but to have life everlasting.

Today how do you see your future? Are you just wrapped up in this life or do you see the eternal?

Do you see yourself living forever with Christ?

If you don’t we encourage you to do something before it is too late.

Resurrection the Task of the Church

Today we continue our series on the resurrection of Jesus.
Two weeks ago we looked at evidence of the resurrection, last week we looked at what the resurrection means to us personally, and today I want to look at what the resurrection means to the Church as a whole.
First of all – I want to propose that the Resurrection is not just a resuscitation of a dead corpse. It is not just the fact that God brought Jesus’ dead body back from the grave.
The Scripture paints a picture that when Jesus came out of the grave something far greater was achieved.
What God did in Christ was bring God’s future plan for this entire Creation into the past.
Once again God brought His future – the Grand future of what God has planned for the world and us into the past – He brought that future right into April of 30 AD.
We must start seeing the resurrection that way to truly grasp what it means to the Church
Secondly – the Resurrection is part of Christ’s Achievement. Christ achieved victory over death, and victory of the principalities and dark spiritual forces at work in this world.
Christ’s achievement opened up heaven to flesh and blood. Christ’s achievement made it possible for us to be saved.
Our second task as a Church is to implement the Achievement of Christ – we are to take that story and put it to work in this world. We are to become heralds of that Gospel that truth.
This morning I want to propose to you that if we are going to understand what the resurrection means for the Church we have to go back to the beginning of the Bible.
So today – I want us to walk out understanding that we have been sent into the world – we are sent knowing two things that Jesus resurrection was God’s future crashing into our fallen and corrupted world.
And Christ achieved something wonderful through His resurrection that is good news for the Entire World.
STARTING POINTS:
We must start in Genesis to get the proper perspective on how to implement the resurrection.
Jonathan Edwards was an American preacher in that lived right before the Revolutionary War. He was big and important player in the 1st Great Awakening in American Society.
Edwards claimed that the purpose for God’s Creation was to pour forth and proclaim His Glory – Part of the Great Awakening in America was a waking up to this reality – that everything we do should be about putting that back together.
In other words the Genesis account was about God making a Creation that proclaimed God’s Glory and Part of that was the creation of man.
The way man was to do that was that we are God’s Children.
Literally Luke’s account of the Genaeology tells us that Adam was the son of God.
When God created man we were to be His Children – part of God’s Family – literally.
Also that original purpose was for man to have Dominion. Another way to say Dominion is to say KINGSSHIP
Dominion and kingship go hand and hand in the ancient world.
Genesis 1: 26-27
26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness ; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them
God created man in His image – that doesn’t mean that we look like God or have some type of physical resemblance but the easiest way to say that we reflect God’s image is that we are part of His family
Later in Genesis 5 we will see that Adam’s children are made in his image – in other words being in the image of someone means that you are their child.
That means that being in God’s family carries with it the responsibility of reflecting God’s just rule and dominion.
In other words – we are God’s stewards- He made this earth to reflect His glory and put us in charge of making sure that it was cared for.
In that responsibility we are to bring God’s just rule and glory to every situation.
Now without getting into detail we know that Adam and Eve failed at that task. They chose to obey Satan instead and began a rebellion against God.
So to speak they were kicked out or estranged from God’s family.
In times past I have shared with you in great detail how God has enacted a great rescue plan in Scripture that begins with the Fall in Genesis 3 and ends up in Revelation.
I would propose that in Genesis God’s plan all along was that man would produce societies, cultures, and situations that would manifest God’s glory.
Many people including Jonathan Edwards caught fire to this idea and that is why they believed that this truth carried over to every aspect of society – even government.
Genesis 1:28
28 God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
God wanted man to advance – to grow – to multiply – have families, have culture – and always increasing in our dominion.
Science, Art, Law, architecture – all of these studies are not bad – they are good because they are part of this creation mandate – we are to grow in our Kingship and rule over this earth.
False Dichotomies:
Many preachers have wrongfully told people to hate this world and have not clarified what they mean.
God’s Creation Mandate to have dominion and be fruitful and multiply was not revoked. It continues to this day.
What has changed is that mandate has been twisted and corrupted by the Fall – by Sin and rebellion.
We are to love the part of this world that is God’s – there is nothing wrong to experience a beautiful ocean scene, a mountain vista, or hug your child and just glorify God because that is good.
I will say to you that you are getting a glimpse of what God has in store for us for eternity.
But there is a part of this world that we must hate.
It seems there is a contradiction in the Bible and many times we don’t clear this up and become sharp and concise about it.
First of all, John 3:16 says that For God So Loved the World.
God loves the world and sent Jesus for the sake of the world.
But then James in James 4 says:
James 4:4
4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God ? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
How can you reconcile that God loves this world but we must be enemies to the world.
Let me give you an illustration that might help.
Imagine if you lived during World War 2 in Nazi Germany and you were a good Christian German citizen.
You would love your homeland – you would love Germany.
At the same time you would hate the Nazi regime. You would despise what Hitler was doing to your country.
So at the same time you love your country but there is something about it that you hate.
The same is true for this world. We love the good part – the God inspired created part but we hate the fallen sinful part.
Do you think God would leave it like this? Do you think that God will just burn this world up and let it go away and just throw up His hands and say – Devil you win. You destroyed my good creation so I am just going to take my Christians to this far away space land called Heaven and destroy this earth.
Do you know a lot of Christians think that this is exactly what God is going to do? They have a muddled understanding of what God is really going to do.
They have no vision for God’s exciting future for all of us.
Most think there will be a judgment day – the earth completely obliterated and then we will go off to some Valhalla Viking type of disembodied Heaven playing harps and singing songs for eternity.
Do you want to know why young people are not excited about being Christians? Probably because they have no vision for what God truly intends. That is not the Biblical view of what God has in mind and will bring about. When Jesus came out of the grave that was the advanced sign – the gauntlet being thrown down saying that this project is underway. God will put things right – God will renew Creation and the resurrected body is that future flooding into our fallen space and time.
CURSE VS. RESCUE
So keeping this all in mind let me give you a paradigm or way to see the current situation: There is the world that is under the Curse – that is the sinful fallen bad parts of this creation.
Listen to the Language of the Curse:
Genesis 3: 14-19 14 The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field ; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life ; 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed ; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel." 16 To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children ; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." 17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. 18 "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field ; 19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken ; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."
The curse was upon the Serpent, Upon Adam, Upon Eve and even upon the physical world. This curse would bring about pain in childbirth –
It would rupture the family dynamic – man would abuse his authority and this would be manifested when husbands lord it over their wives and will even play out in our political scenes.
How many men today in public office have abused their God given authority just like this curse says is going to happen.
Adam’s labor will become cursed- Realize Labor is not the curse – Work is good and God ordained but Labor under the curse will become fruitless labor.
How terrible does it feel to go to work all day and have fruitless labor – like you went to work and dug a hole and then had to cover it back up again.
When you have days like that just pick up and read Genesis 3 and you will see that it is part of the curse that sin brought to our world.
But an Invasion has happened. - The Curse and living under that way of life is no longer the only answer
REDEMPTION – God has redeemed part of this Creation before the end of time.
Paul says in Galatians 1:3-4
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father
When one becomes a Christian they have been rescued from this cursed or fallen state. We are setting up a new society – the rebellion against God is now being taken on by those that choose to be obedient to God.
1 Corinthians 7: 31 tells us
That the world in its present form is passing away
In the work of Christ the principalities and powers have been put on notice that the current hold that sin has on this world is coming to an end.
That is the message of the Book of Revelation. For so long people have focused on the book of Revelation as a message of an Antichrist or Tribulation but they are missing a main theme of that book.
One of the main themes in Revelation that is so overlooked is the idea of Throne or Dominion. God is going to reign completely.
God is now reigning over this present fallen state of affairs but in the future God’s reign is going to come crashing in and His Kingdom rule will be evident.
Revelation is moving toward the idea of God reigning over all – that brings about the explosions and convulsions that this present fallen world undergoes throughout that book of visions of John.
The Church is the beginning of that rule on Earth.
Maybe this may help us understand what I am saying – Just as Christ’s resurrection is an advanced sign of what is going to come in its fullness – the resurrection of all of us.
The Church is an advanced sign of God’s full Kingdom rule – God’s rule through the Church – his kingdom Lordship is evident in the local Church will one day be fully manifested to all.
That is when God will put together what has been broken.
When man has become fully what God intended for him to be –His Child part of his family.
SONS OF GOD again:
Galatians 3: 26
We are all Sons of God through Faith in Christ – When we put our faith in Jesus – we become sons again.
Welcomed back into God’s family – God’s original intent
Romans 8: 16-19
16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
Even the Cursed Creation longs for us to be revealed- The creation longs for the image bearing sons of God to be revealed
There will be time when God puts it right – the curse will be overturned.
New Heavens and New Earth:
Isaiah the prophet speaks of a time of renewal. A time when God will renew the covenant.
Isaiah picks up the three themes of New Covenant, Suffering Servant that leads to New Creation.
For the longest the Jews could not figure out passages like Isaiah chapter 60
Isaiah speaks of a time of an end to violence, and a time when a city is built that’s gates are never closed.
In the ancient world that would be unheard of – a city whose gates were never closed.
No one understood what Isaiah was predicting until John wrote the book of Revelation.
In Revelation chapter 21 John quotes Isaiah 60 extensively to build a picture of a new city – a city called New Jerusalem.
Now what is John talking about what is this new city?
In John 20 we see two themes:
1) 1000 years of the binding of Satan
2) Satan freed after this period and then destroyed ultimately
3) Great throne and Judgment scene of the entire world.
People get so fluffed up about Revelation 20 they fail to read Revelation 21 which maybe the most beautiful passages of Scripture in the Bible.
Here is the magnum Opus – God will put is all right – the fall in Genesis is overturned.
Man is resurrected – we are given new bodies – glorified bodies like Christ’s but where will we inhabit with these new bodies?
We need to get a picture of what this is all about.
Revelation 21:1-6
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth ; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes ; and there will no longer be any death ; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain ; the first things have passed away." 5 And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." And He said, "Write, for these words are faithful and true." 6 Then He said to me, "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.
John tells us that the first earth and heaven have passed away – this heaven that has passed away may be better understood as the cosmos – not the Heaven where God dwells.
So the earth and cosmos as we know it have passed away – but they are not obliterated forever.
2 Peter 3 speaks of them burning up with fervent heat but they are not obliterated but transformed.
Now we have a New Heaven and New Earth. You see God is putting it right again.
Remember in Genesis God walked with man – face to face – now God’s presence – his tabernacle is among us again- no need for a Temple because God will be there in the New Earth with us again.
God will be so intimate with us that He will wipe away our tears and we will be in His presence for eternity.
Other places in Revelation liken it to a great banquet feast of the Lamb. A reunion of us and loved ones as well as us finally seeing God as He is in all of His glory.
God is making ALL things New. Satan does not win – the body is redeemed it doesn’t stay in the grave- the earth is renewed and the fallen curse is lifted.
Isaiah 65 predicted that God would create a new Heavens and New Earth and here it is in all its glory. Now look at the end of chapter 21 of Revelation:
Revelation 21: 22-27 22 I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. 25 In the daytime (for there will be no night there ) its gates will never be closed ; 26 and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; 27 and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.
Think about this city – the grandeur – kings coming into – gates never closed –
These Kings of the Earth or us – those who Reign with Christ – we will be glorified in Christ and bring our glory into this new City.
Christ will be there and He will illuminate the city.
Only those that are Christ’s will be allowed to enter this city.
No sin – no lying no filth – no immorality – no R rated movies – no smutty TV shows will be in this city – I guess there will be no HBO in this city.
And in Chapter 22 verse 3 it all comes full Circle
God’s plan – original intent comes out.
Revelation 22: 1-3
Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month ; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 There will no longer be any curse ; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him;
Notice how this all ties back together – there is a river (think back to Eden), there is the tree of Life that has been missing since Genesis 3, and now the Curse is lifted.
The curse that was issued in Genesis 3 is now gone because of what Jesus did for us.
And what does that mean to us?
REIGN:
Revelation 22:3 we will serve Christ – we will see Him face to face and serve him.
2 Timothy 2:11-12
. 11 It is a trustworthy statement : For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him; 12 If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us
If we live for Christ – we will reign with Christ.
What was Paul’s argument against Lawsuits with the Corinthian church?
1 Corinthians 6:1-5
1 Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints ? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world ? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts ? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels ? How much more matters of this life ? 4 So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church ? 5 I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren,
They should be able to decide matters between brethren because they are going to judge the world even angels in some way will be judged by Christians.
Now I am not completely sure what Paul is talking about but I know for sure he is telling the Corinthian brethren that they will have some role to play in dominion and judgeship later so they better be able to be good judges and arbiters now.
Revelation 7:14-15 tells us that the reward of those that came through the tribulation that John speaks of will be rewarded with Service.
Service is a blessing – God will give us the ability to serve Him.
You see Heaven is not some retreat where we rest for eternity – it is a place where we will see God face to face and Serve Him.
Just like Service to God now means worship – that will be part of it – when we see Him we will not be able to do anything but just want to cry out Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty – but in that we will be given tasks.
I fully believe that comes from the Bible- we will have tasks to do in which we are in training for right now.
Part of that training is humility – we are to be humble and God will exalt us when the time is right.
1 Peter 5: 5-6
5 You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders ; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. 6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,
Our humility in this life will end in God exalting us.
Jesus gave us this model in His life – he humbled Himself as the book of Philippians tells us in chapter 2 unto death – even a cross and he was exalted.
We too will be exalted with Christ.
IN some way it is a mystery but we are already exalted with Christ – Like I said earlier – two paradigms – fallen and redeemed –
We are already redeemed – raised up by the Achievement of Christ.
Paul talks about our former condition but now we are raised up – Paul says we were in sin – hopeless but Christ raised us up.
Ephesians 2: 5-6
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved ), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
We have been RAISED up – past tense
When we became Christians – in some way that we cannot yet fully see or understand – we are already reigning with Christ.
So are you ready for that type of service and reigning with Christ.
That comes with a two-fold exhortation:
1)if you were put in charge of Fayetteville, TN by God today what would it look like. Could you reign over this city as God plans for it to be run?
You may think that is a bizarre question but that is exactly how you should look at your preparation in this life.
You are preparing to reign – you are practicing humility now so that you can understand how God rules.
God rules through humility and service.
2) Are you living a pure lifestyle that would be at home in the new Heavens and the New earth.
Remember there will be no uncleanness there.
If your filthy, violence ridden entertainment were taken away from you today would you be upset about it? Because its not going to be in this new place that God is making for us.
Lastly, can you say like John says at the end of Revelation – Come Lord Jesus
He is begging Christ to return – Do you want Him to return now? Are you ready?

The Resurrection - what it means to you

The preacher stood before the congregation and said "I have bad news, I have good news, and I have more bad news."
The congregation got quiet. "The bad news is: the church needs a new roof!" the preacher said. The congregation groaned.
"The good news is: we have enough money for the new roof."
A sigh of relief was heard rippling through the gathered group.
"The bad news is: it’s still in your pockets"
The story of Scripture is one of bad news and good news.
It starts off good. As a matter of fact God calls the creation Good and calls the creation of man Very Good.
God’s creation was good but it was marred by sin. All was beautiful and right until sin came into the scene.
Through the disobedience of Adam and Eve came decay, sin, and death.
Cosmically speaking everything got out of whack. We must have a healthy biblical view of how sin affected the creation.
Sin brought about changes even in the earth. Man would now suffer separation from God, physical death, decay, but something about the creation changed.
The relationship with the animal kingdom would change, and even agriculture would change.
The relationship between man and woman would change and not for the better.
DEATH-
Today the one consequence that I want to talk about is death. The physical death of our bodies because of the Fall in the Garden.
Our reality is that our physical bodies have problems, we get sick, we have physical ailments and problems.
God didn’t create us to be that way. God created us to be whole and right and healthy and to live forever.
Sin and Satan are an affront to this good plan. Death has come to destroy God’s good plan. Death is not something to be celebrated but is an intruder.
Death is not something that was meant to be. This was not how it was supposed to be.
Today – The Resurrection of Christ is God’s answer to this problem.
The Resurrection of Christ has cosmic dimensions and is bigger than we could ever imagine. It is something that brings about God’s implementation of His grand rescue plan.
We saw last week that Paul told us in Acts 17 that God has put the world on notice. God has demanded that all men repent – the world will be judged by Jesus Christ and the proof that this is true is His resurrection from the dead.
JEWISH HOPE:
To understand fully what is being told to us in the New Testament we need to dial back the time machine and go back to 1st century Palestine.
What were the Jews expecting in the time of Jesus?
There were giant expectations and folks were waiting in expectation on the coming of the Messiah.
Here are some basic hopes of the Jewish people:
1) Yahweh would return to Zion. In Ezekiel we witnessed the glory of God leaving the Temple.
The Jewish people knew that the end of exile would be marked by the return of God to Zion.
They were home in the Promised Land from Babylon but the 10 northern tribes have never returned and the Shekinah glory of God never returned to the 2nd Temple that was built during the return from Babylon.
2) The Nations or Gentiles would stream to Mount Zion to hear about the Law of God. The Gentiles would look to Zion for their authority.

3) Israel would be vindicated from their suffering at the hands of the pagans

4) The Messiah – the King from the House of David – would be enthroned and reign.

5) The dead that were faithful to the covenant would be resurrected to take part in this new Kingdom of God on earth.
JESUS – FULFILLS ALL OF THESE HOPES
No one in 1000 years would have imagined that that these promises would be tied up and bound together by a single person.
In other words instead of these things happening to the nation of Israel – they would happen to a representative of Israel.
1) Expectation #1 – Jesus was God in flesh – John 1:14 the Word became flesh and Tabernacled (Templed) among us.
Jesus Comes to Jerusalem in Luke 19:44 for the triumphal entry on the week of His passion.
He looks upon Jerusalem and says: This is the TIME OF VISITATION
This is a specific reference to God’s return to Zion and Israel. – God will revisit and return to Israel.
They have missed the point – Here is God in flesh – God has literally returned to Zion to make His visit and what will happen?
It was now what they expected. The visitation of God is not a positive event because He comes and finds the Temple becoming a den or robbers.
He cleanses the Temple right after this – he in Verse 14 of Luke 19 goes right to the Temple.
This is exactly what the Jewish people expected – Yahweh would return to Zion. He would return to the Temple.
Instead of the glory returning to the Temple – the Temple is judged – the purpose for the Temple is over, Now God will dwell with his people through Christ.
Eventually God will dwell in each individual Christian through His Holy Spirit and make us His Temples.
The temple is judged on this day in April 30 AD and will be destroyed utterly by the Romans in 40 years never to be rebuilt.
The new Temple will be God’s people as His way to dwell on this earth.
2) Through Jesus we will see that the Gentiles will hear the good news from Zion. The Gospel spoken of in Isaiah 40-55 will be proclaimed and will start at Zion.
On Pentecost the Church will start and the good news that Isaiah will start out at Zion literally – from the Temple mount the Gospel will be preached and all the Gentiles will hear it.
We will pick up the book of Acts and find that all kinds of people are there at Pentecost and by Chapter 10 we find a pagan roman soldier becoming a follower of God through Christ Jesus.
3) Jesus will suffer at the hand of the pagans and be vindicated – we look a few weeks ago at Psalm 22 and how that Psalm ends in triumph.
Christ will be crucified at the hands of the pagans but be ultimately vindicated by God. He will not stay in the grave but be resurrected.
God will rescue Christ from the hand of the pagans.
4) We see that Jesus is enthroned.
A few weeks ago I preached sermon to you on how Mark’s gospel portrayed to us a coronation scene of a new King.
The irony is that this coronation occurs in the strangest way. The coronation of Israel’s king begins on Sunday of Passion week with the triumphal entry.
Jesus comes from the Mount of Olives riding on a donkey. This is all dripping with imagery of David and the new Davidic King.
Jesus will ultimately be crowned and announced as the king of Israel on the Cross.
The Cross will be His, as John puts it, LIFTING UP. He will crowned and announced as the King of the Jews.
This is the first time that we see Jesus identity come out loud and clear that He is the King of the Jews.
Ultimately his coronation ends with Resurrection and ascension into Heaven.
Romans 1: 3-4
3 concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, 4 who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord,
According to Paul – Jesus ultimate declaration of His Kingship is through the resurrection of the dead.
5) The fifth and final hope of Israel was the general resurrection of the dead of the faithful.
Never would they have imagined that God would have raised up someone before the general resurrection.
God had raised Jesus before the general day of resurrection. This would have been mind blowing to them.
Why would God do such a thing? Why would he raise someone from the dead?
Imagine how the Jewish people had to deal with these new realities. They knew the OT scripture and God had fulfilled all those prophecies explicitly but He did so in a way they had never imagined.
This is Our HOPE – because God has done something Amazing in Jesus Christ that is really good news for us.
I want to switch gears here and talk specifically what the resurrection means to us
Why does it matter? Should you care that Jesus rose from the dead?
First of all, you know deep in your bones that things in this world are not right.
When you watch someone get sick and you watch their bodies break down you know that this is not right. There is more to the story.
The good news this morning is that God is going to put all this right.
We are going to be resurrected from the dead – Get a new body that never gets sick or decays.
1) The doctrine of 1st Fruits
Paul makes an argument to the Church at Corinth as to their hope in the Resurrection that may sound odd to our modern ears.
1 Corinthians 15: 20-24
20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. 21 For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own order : Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming, 24 then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power
Paul calls Jesus the first fruits of those who are asleep.
Adam brought death through disobedience in the Garden of Eden. Jesus brings about resurrection from the dead.
Christ is the first fruits of those who are IN CHRIST at his coming. What does Paul mean by First fruits?
Two feasts of the Jews celebrated the first fruits of the harvest.
Passover celebrated the first fruits of the Barley Harvest
Pentecost celebrated the first fruits of the Wheat Harvest.
Both feasts celebrated salvation history events in the story of Israel.
Passover celebrated God’s deliverance from Egypt and the first fruit celebration celebrated God’s promises that the Land would be fruitful.
The first fruit celebrated the harvest and looked forward to the hope that more was to come.
Let me go back to the feasts of Israel to explain this passage and I hope it will come alive to you.
To Understand First fruits we need to understand what happened at the Feast of Passover when Jesus was crucified.
Passover had a high Sabbath. On that Sabbath Jesus was in the grave.
On that very same day that Jesus was in the grave the Jews celebrated a feast that came on the heels of Passover and was really a part of that Passover celebration.
It was the feast of Unleavened Bread.
On That SATURDAY of the SABBATH grain was planted in the ground for the hope of a good grain Harvest.
A grain of wheat was buried symbolically to look forward to the grain harvest that was to come.
Now imagine that imagery – the day Jesus was in the tomb the Jews were planting grain the ground looking forward to the harvest later.
On Sunday of that Passover – the Day Jesus came out of the Grave the Jews celebrated the Feast of First Fruits.
They celebrated the first barley harvest in the Promised Land.
Now think about this image – On Sunday when Jesus came out of the Grave they were celebrating the barley harvest but looking forward to 50 days later when the grain harvest would come.
So this may make sense – Jesus was planted in the ground – rose from the dead and because Jesus came back from the dead we can now look forward when the great harvest will come.
We can look forward to the day when people will come out of their graves.
We LIVE IN THE IN BETWEEN TIME
We live in the time between the resurrection of Jesus Christ the First Fruits and the coming day of great Harvest when we will all be resurrected.
We know that things changed when Jesus rose from the dead – God has established His new Covenant and is bringing about the New Creation
But we are in this tension – we look expectantly to the future but the Bible tells us that our life in Christ begins NOW.
How do we work this out?
Acts 2:38 tells us that the those that were baptized into Christ received the Gift of the Holy Spirit.
This gift of the Holy Spirit was opened up on Pentecost that great feast of celebrating the 2nd Harvest of Israel the Grain harvest.
Now this new Harvest is being realized. These people who are becoming Christians are receiving New LIFE – NOW
So what does that role of the Spirit play? What does that mean to us?
2 Corinthians 1: 21-22
21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, 22 who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge
When we become Christians God gives us the Holy Spirit as a down payment. The word used here by Paul that is translated in the NASB as ‘pledge’ is the Greek word ARABBON
Arabbon is better understood as a down payment.
It is God’s way of guaranteeing us that we will be raised from the dead. If we become Christians now – God gives us the Spirit as a pledge, down payment to show that He will raise us from the dead.
Paul goes on to specify this role of the Spirit in Romans 8
Romans 8: 9-11
9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Paul specifically tells us that if the Spirit of God dwells in us that He will be the one that energizes us and brings about our Resurrection from the dead.
The same Holy Spirit that was there at the empty tomb and brought Jesus back from the dead will work in us and bring us back from the dead.
The same Spirit that hovered over the watery chaos of Genesis and brought about order from that chaos will bring life back to our bodies.
2) In the in-between time we groan in expectation.
We are waiting people – we want God to come and put this world right.
We want God to come back and bring order to the chaos and give us new glorified bodies.
Romans 8: 18-23
15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba ! Father !" 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. We are waiting and groaning for His return.
Earlier I talked to you about how the Earth has been cursed to and in some way the Earth will be put right.
Next week we will look in detail about what it will be like after we are resurrected –w hat will we do and how will we live.
But for today we are concerned with the fact that we are waiting in expectation.
We groan when we look at a world rocked with sin
We groan when we see people get sick that we love – we want God to make it right. The Holy Spirit within us groans within us.
Paul even goes back to the language of first fruits when he describes the Spirit’s role in crying out in our hearts.
Here is the awesome part – that same Spirit of God that articulates our cry to God – that helps us pray when we don’t have words for God – will be the same Spirit that will bring life to our bodies.
It will be this Spirit that will somehow bring about life to our bodies and set the world right.
God is not going to allow this Creation to keep rocking along like this but will make it right.
We are hoping for our revelation of being sons of God so that the entire Creation that is under bondage will be released.
3) We are waiting as aliens – we want our Lord to return because our citizenship is of another place.
Acts 1:11 sets up this hope and expectation
Christ returns to Heaven and we are told that He will COME AGAIN. This word used in the Bible for Christ’s Return over and over again is the Greek word
PAROUSIA – this word has a specific meaning and was used in two ways during the time of the Bible and I think it will help us understand our hope in Christ.
Literally Parousia means to be near or to be with
It also means Presence – that the second coming means that in some way Christ’s presence will be here in a more visible and concrete way.
2 meanings of Parousia in the ancient world :
1) God’s presence in healing or rescue
A good example of this would be when God healed Hezekiah and delivered Israel from the Assyrians. This is a classic example of God’s presence by rescue or redemption – or vindication
2) Imperial Visits of Rome
One way that Parousia is used is when the Emperor would come and visit a Roman colony.
The Romans were king at planting cities all around the world they looked just like Rome and those cities carried Roman culture with them.
You could find these cities in Palestine, Britain, or even Spain.
The Romans would then populate these cities with Roman Colonists that were charged with bringing Roman culture to that area.
Sometimes the Roman Emperor or a high official would visit that colony – this visitation was called a Parousia – He would come and they would meet him outside the walls- and then in victorious procession go with the Emperor into the city and celebrate his coming.
Now we can see that Paul borrows from this imperial language in the New Testament.
Philippians 3: 20-21
20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ ; 21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
Paul tells us that we are like these colonial outposts but we are bringing the rule of Heaven to Earth.
Every Church that Paul plants across the empire are outposts of Heaven. Just like the Lord’s Prayer of bringing God’s will to earth as it is in Heaven - that is the role of the Church – God’s rule coming to earth in us.
We are citizens waiting for our Lord and God – we are waiting for the true King.
When he comes we will be transformed.
When the Parousia –or Coming happens our bodies will be transformed
We will be transformed into conformity with His Body.
Do you want to know what your resurrected body will be like?
According to Paul just look at Jesus’ body – Jesus body was resurrected and glorified.
His body had some continuity with the old body – He still had scars from the crucifixion but something was different.
He could eat – they could touch Him, but he could walk through walls. Amazing stuff- a corporeal body but an enhanced body- not confined to our space and time dimensions.
A body that will never get sick, tired, or break down. The body God had always wanted us to have.
John talks about Christ’s coming – His Appearing and how we should be ready
1 John 2: 28
28 Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.
And what will happen if we are ready for this coming of Christ – This Appearing of Jesus
1 John 3:2
2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
We will be able to See Christ just as He is at his coming because we will be made to be like Him – our new bodies will be like His glorious body.
Paul tells us that He is coming – Our King will return and it should be a time of victory and excitement like no other party that has ever happened.
1 Corinthians 15:24 told us earlier that when He Comes we will be raised – When Christ returns – when He is revealed we will be resurrected from the dead.
Now we can put it all together with Paul’s exhortation to the Church at Thessalonica:
1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Paul wants them to know that those that have already died are going to be okay.
The Lord will descend – Remember in Acts 1:11 the Angel promised that He would return just like He left – he will come down from the sky.
The King returns to vindicate the colony of Heaven the Church
We will hear the shout – the trumpet of God – the dead in Christ will rise First
Those that are in the graves will be raised up to new glorified, resurrected bodies.
Imagine that picture of people coming from the graves – those that have had ashes scatter over the oceans bodies coming back together miraculously.
And we are that are still here when he returns will be transformed – somehow – Caught UP together would be synonymous with Paul said in Philippians 3 the idea of transformation
We will be like Christ and we will be with Christ forever.
What a hope – what a wonderful to consider that we will be with Him forever with these new bodies.
And we will have tasks it will not boring.
Are you ready for this? Will you rejoice when He comes? Or will you shrink back?

The Resurrection of Christ - the evidence

Do you ever have trouble getting your kids ready for church?
Does your house look at a mad house on Sunday morning?
I remember growing up in a house where Church attendance every time the doors were opened was a non-negotiable- I had the proverbial drug problem growing up – I was drug to church every service.
Now – I know why and I appreciate getting to come to Church abut as a kid sometimes my attitude was not the best.
There was one such boy that was like that.
The little boy was not exactly happy about going to church on Sunday morning.
His new shoes were to tight, his tie pinched his neck and the weather outside was just too beautiful to be cooped up inside...so as he sulked in the pew his parents heard him mutter to no one in particular.
"I don’t know why we have to go to church, anyway; they keep telling the same old story and it always comes out the same in the end."
Have all of us got to this point – we keep telling the same outcome?
Well, today I want to share with you that this outcome this story is critically important.
I want to talk to you about the very reason we are here today.
Let me ask you, Why are you here today? What if Jesus were to come in and ask you the question He asked Simon Peter- Who do men say that I am? Who was Jesus?
Are the stories in our Bible accurate? Some say Jesus was just a good man.
Some say His teachings are good for people to pattern their life after sort of like Buddha – He was a good man but not the Son of God.
Today we are going to take up this argument and discuss why you should put your faith in Him.
I will propose to you have one of three options. Either Jesus was exactly Who He claimed to be – the Son of God – or delusional or crazy or even worse a liar and deceiver.
You see a good person would not make claims of Divinity unless it were true – you can’t say Jesus was a good person and at the same time say that He was not the Son of God.
I don’t think I would ever call someone good that willfully deceived thousands of people so that those people would die a violent death due to persecution because of a false belief in a false claim.
Now I will also propose to you – that if today we build a case for Who Jesus is then your life will change – You will have to reorder everything in your life based on that claim.
If He is the Son of the Living God and reigns now in Heaven to return one day – you will have to change everything about your life and live for Him.
HISTORY:
History if full of people that have met this man Jesus Christ and have been changed. One such man is Justin Martyr.
You may have never heard of Justin Martyr but he lived just 100 years after Christ’s ministry on Earth.
He was a Gentile born in Samaria in the Holy Lands. He was born near Jacob’s Well that we read about in John Chapter 4
He was a very good student and a learned philosopher of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
He was looking for pure philosophy. He wanted to know the truth and he felt like he had found the truth in Jesus Christ – he investigated the resurrection of Jesus Christ and felt that Jesus was the true son of God and that He was the way the truth and the life.
Justin went about defending the faith and wrote his famous Apology or defense of the Christian faith around 150 AD. He continued to wear his philosopher’s robe because he thought the Christianity was the true philosophy of life.
He ended up dying for the faith – hence he is called Justin Martyr – because he was martyred.
Justin’s Defense of Christianity hinged on one key component and I think we can learn something from Him.
It was based on this – that Jesus Christ was crucified by the Romans, buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea and then He rose Bodily from the dead and appeared to His followers – risen from the dead.
Now If you haven’t noticed dead people don’t come back to life and they didn’t any more in the ancient world than they do today.
This resurrection would happen in a world where the majority of people didn’t even believe in bodily resurrection.
IN Judaism only the Pharisees believed in Resurrection and this idea was rejected by the Sadducees and the Greeks and Romans. The majority of the world into which the Gospel would spread would not believe that people are raised from the dead.
The Romans and Greeks this idea was detestable – they thought the best you could do is die and escape the body to become a pure spirit.
So this idea of resurrection will be explosive, strange, and a challenge to many people. But Justin Martyr was not the first to begin his argument for the Lordship of Jesus Christ based on the Resurrection from the dead.
We must first turn to the Apostle Paul.
Paul is speaking in Athens, Greece the cradle of ancient philosophy and learning – and if you look at the ancient world it is the closest you can find to how people think in the modern western world. In other words Paul is talking to people that would think a lot like modern skeptic Americans or Europeans.
When he gets to the end of his sermon at Athens he says the following:
Acts 17: 30-31
30 "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, 31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."
God is now calling all people to repentance – He is not calling all men to relationship with Him. He is now proclaiming that all people will be judged based on Jesus Christ . He is going to judge all of humanity through Jesus Christ and the proof that he provides
He raised Him from the dead. That is proof positive that Jesus is the one through which the Entire world will be judged.
To Paul the linchpin argument for believing in Jesus is that He rose from the dead.
Now Paul elaborates on this and shares with us that the if there is no resurrection then there is no hope for us as Christians.
At Corinth many were saying in the Church there that there was no resurrection from the dead and what was worse they were calling themselves Christians.
Paul goes on the attack in 1 Corinthians 15 and shares with them how pitiful their position is:I Corinthians 15: 13-19
13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised ; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. 15 Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised ; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless ; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
He goes on to show that our faith is in vain if there is no resurrection from the dead.
If the dead aren’t raised – if Christ was not raised then we are wasting our time.
Paul goes on to say that it is so critical that if there is no resurrection of Jesus Christ then we have no forgiveness of sins and those that have died are locked in their graves forever.
In other words when we die it is total annihilation – we cease to exist.
But today – just like Paul we will lay down a defense for the resurrection.
We are going to go about this different. Today I am going to treat you like a skeptic. I am not going to appeal to the inspiration of Scripture.
I know that the Bible is God’s inerrant and unalterable Word – I know that you do to for many reasons I believe this.
But today I am going to step back and we are going to let the Bible be an ancient document that gives what some think, and I think are eyewitness accounts.
We are going to look at the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and let you draw a conclusion to what you think.
I will propose an objection to the resurrection and then we will take that argument apart piece by piece.
1) First of all, they made the story up
What if the apostles made the story up? What would a made up story look like?
So the argument would go something like this – the Apostles after Jesus was crucified got together and decided to concoct some story that had Jesus rising from the dead.
A) MOTIVATION
Every lie and fabrication has to have a motivation. If a human being lies they have reason to tell a lie.
For example, a student doesn’t have their homework for class – there is motivation to lie to keep from losing the grade or making a bad grade.
A person late for work would likely have the motivation to make up a story to save their job about traffic or car trouble to keep from getting into trouble.
So did the apostles and followers of Jesus have a motivating factor to lie about His resurrection? I want you to really think about that with me this morning.
So let us go back in time to Jerusalem around 30-33 AD. Jesus has just been crucified, brutally beaten and humiliated by the Romans after a 3 year up and down ministry that saw his following go up and down.
Maybe at the time of the crucifixion Jesus had a following of 500 people.
Now 50 days after the resurrection the Apostles of Jesus, who watched their leader killed brutally, come out on a major Jewish feast day – just 50 days earlier at Passover Jesus was killed, and come out in the Temple and proclaim that He was indeed the Messiah and that believe it or not was raised from the dead.
Basically their argument was this – you tried in vain to kill Him, but God the Father raised Him from the dead to show that He was indeed the Messiah of Israel.
Now let’s think about think about this critically.
Slow down and think- what would they have to gain by making this story up. They could easily go back to Galilee and return home to fishing – lead a quiet life and die a natural death. Love their families, raise kids.
No harm no foul the movement is over- Jesus was just misguided and killed for it.
But they do the unthinkable – they throw their lives away – they go out into the Temple and accuse the people that were there shouting Crucify Him, Crucify Him – they tell that group hey You killed the Messiah of Israel and guess what He rose from the dead.
So to begin with – if the story is fabricated we have to doubt its motivation – every lie is motivated or it wouldn’t occur.
So I would propose to you that there is no real reason to lie – No normal human lies to make their life really hard – such as losing everything and dying. Most humans lie to get out of something or to bring glory to themselves.
So I would propose to you today that the motivation to lie really is not there in the early Church.
It is actually the contrary. Jewish Law in Deuteronomy 21 says that cursed is anyone that hangs on a tree.
It would be very difficult to craft a story to make Jews believe that Jesus was the Messiah because he was hung on a Roman Cross – was made unclean and was cursed under Jewish Law
If you wanted to make up a Messiah Jesus would not be your best candidate.
B) The Story they made up does not have the signs of a made up story.
Let me share with you some details from Jesus resurrection accounts are recorded that would not have been made up by anyone in their right mind.
If you wanted to make up a story that Jesus rose from the dead who would you present as the first witnesses to His resurrection?
I would have maybe a Roman Centurion, maybe a Jewish priest, maybe someone held in high regard by the people.
Let me ask you this, Who were the first people that witnessed Jesus resurrection?
This is really important because it would have been mind-blowing in the 1st century Palestine.
Luke 24: 1-11
1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing ; 5 and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living One among the dead ? 6 "He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, 7 saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again." 8 And they remembered His words, 9 and returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James ; also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles. 11 But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them.
Now who were the First witnesses to the Resurrection?
Women – they were Mary Magdalene and the women – now why is this important?
Look at the reaction of the apostles and they thought it was nonsense.
Now I am not a chauvinist but I am just telling you about ancient society – but in Judaism according to the Talmud and Mishnah (Rabbinic teaching) a woman’s testimony was untrustworthy.
I Judaism a woman could not give testimony in a court of Law – it was impermissible.
Let me ask you this – If you were going to make up a story why in sam hill would you say that the women were the first witnesses?
Do you know why this is recorded? Because it happened. There is no other normal explanation – they would have whitewashed this out of the story if it weren’t true.
It would have been Peter of John first as the first witnesses not the women – this is Luke at his best – he is giving you the exact precise Greek way of showing the evidence – He doesn’t care if you don’t like the testimony of women – it is just the facts.
So I would propose to you that this is more evidence that the story is not made up.
Another aspect of the story of Jesus that doesn’t sound made up is the interjection of Joseph of Arimethea.
We saw last week that Joseph came and asked for the body of Jesus – he buried him honorably.
The reason this part of the story would not have made it in to a made up story is that Joseph belonged to the Jewish high council.
The Sanhedrin was responsible for having Christ put to death.
Why would you put some one in the story that belonged to the very group that killed Jesus and then put him in a positive light.
Joseph is portrayed positively but the Sanhedrin was held responsible by the early Church for the crucifixion of Christ.
The early Church experienced persecution by the Sanhedrin and this was the group that condemned Christ – so why would you put one of their members in a positive light as the very one that buried Jesus.
This doesn’t sound made up but sounds like it had to be factual.
So as far as the argument goes – for a made up story on two accounts I would propose to you this morning that the position is weak and bad.
First of all there is no motivation to lie
Secondly the information in the account does not bear the signs of embellishment – let me give you an example of what I mean.
If a person is late for work and wants to lie about what happened they would make up a believable story – not that an alien abducted them or an old friend drove 3000 miles to see them right when they were leaving for work they showed up unexpecently.
They would say traffic, wreck, etc. – the same is true for the resurrection account – why in the world put women and a member of the hated Sanhedrin in the story – that makes no sense.
2) Argument - the Empty Tomb- most scholars liberal and conservative agree that something happened to the body of Jesus
In other words – Jesus tomb was empty.
How do we describe the tomb being empty? What is the best plausible evidence that Jesus’ body was not in the tomb after 3 days.
We know that the Jewish authorities never argued that Jesus’ body was missing.
That is an important point - the enemies of the Church never argued that the tomb was empty.
Let me illustrate why this is important. If your Mom told me that you were an honest trustworthy person I would think that is nice but that is your Mom of course she is going to say that.
Well, what if one of your mortal enemies came to me and said – Hey he is honest trustworthy and a good guy- I would say OK I have to believe that because his enemy has no reason to have rose- colored glasses.
Now consider that the enemies of the Church concede that Jesus tomb was empty.
I will tell you this that on Pentecost if the tomb was not empty they would have brought it out. In an arid climate like Jerusalem after 50 days the body would still be recognizable – don think for a second they would not have brought out the body of Jesus.
So how do we go about describing that the tomb was empty?
What is the best answer for that question?
1) Swoon Theory –
Some say that Jesus didn’t die on the cross – that he passed out and in the coolness of the tomb was revived and then rolled the stone away and went to His disciples.
This is the most ridiculous of all the arguments.
A story may illustrate the absurdity of this argument.
One lady wrote in to a question and answer forum.
"Dear Sirs, Our preacher said on Easter, that Jesus just swooned on the cross and that the disciples nursed Him back to health. What do you think? Sincerely, Bewildered."
"Dear Bewildered, Beat your preacher with a cat-of-nine-tails with 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross; hang him in the sun for 6 hours; run a spear thru his side...put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens. Sincerely, Charles."
The Romans were experts at killing and there is no doubt that they killed Jesus.
He was a wanted politically charged character they would make real sure He was dead.
Realize also that scourging on its own killed many people.
Now imagine this swoon theory.
Jesus beaten half to death, dehydrated, thumbs no longer work because of the radial nerve damage, probably exposed internal organs, rolls away a stone walks into the city and inspires His followers to say that He had risen.
You have to be kidding.
So what could the other argument be –
2) They found the wrong tomb.
The disciples went to the wrong tomb – this is crazy because the tomb was close to the site of crucifixion and would have been well-known
Also, you would have had to have multiple trips to the tomb and multiple people get the wrong site.
I would think the very site of Jesus burial would have been important enough for them to remember where it was.
Also, Joseph of Arimathea’s burial plot would have been well known because he was wealthy and well-known in Jerusalem.
This may be one of the worst of the arguments against the empty tomb.
3) The Disciples stole the body to set up their claim.
This goes back to the first century and is actually found in the Bible.
In Matthew 28:13 we see the chief priests get together with the elders and tell bribe the soldiers into saying that the disciples stole the body from the tomb.
Now lets consider this argument and see if it makes sense.
First of all, it goes back to the idea of motivation.
Jesus would not have been a good candidate for a the Messiah because of his curse from hanging on a tree as well as they disciples had no reason to do this.
The could have easily slipped back to Galilee to fishing and living a normal life.
If they steal the body – they will have to fight a group of trained professional soldiers.
We learn that the government had put a seal on the tomb meaning that it would have been punishable by death to take the body.
Why would they steal the body?
They had become cowards when Jesus was arrested, why now would they act courageous with a nutty act like this?
But the most compelling argument against the Apostles stealing the body is the changed lives of the apostles.
Between the crucifixion of Jesus and Pentecost just 50 days later something extraordinary occurred.
They were transformed and convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead.
They were willing to be beaten and eventually would die for this testimony.
You might think well on 9/11 the hijackers died for their belief in Islam. You might think that dying for some cause is not a sure fire indicator of the truth of a claim.
And I would say that you are right in that assumption.
The difference in the apostles and the 9/11 hijackers is that 9/11 hijackers could not know for sure that their beliefs were false.
If the apostles stole the body of Jesus they would have known for sure that it was all a hoax.
There is no one in their right mind that would die for something that they knew for sure was a lie.
Bartholomew was beaten to death with rods
James the son of Alpheus was stoned and clubbed to death
Andrew was crucified
Peter was crucified upside down
Matthew and Thomas was killed by a spear
James was beheaded
Philip was scourged and crucified
Simon the Zealot was also crucified
Paul was beheaded
The only Apostle that we know that died of natural causes was John. The rest died brutal bloody deaths.
I will propose to you that the only plausible explanation that could account for the changed lives of these men is that they saw Jesus Christ risen from the dead.
They were changed forever by what they saw.
The only way we could account for the empty tomb, the unlikely story of the women, the changed lives of the apostles is that Jesus Christ really did come back from the dead.
HE APPEARED TO OTHERS
Paul names specifically four groups that Jesus appeared to:
1 Corinthians 15: 5-8
5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep ; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles ; 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.
Jesus appeared to 500 people that were still living at the time of the writing of 1 Corinthians.
About 30 years later there were still many people that saw the risen Christ.
Paul is telling the Corinthians Church – Hey don’t take my word for it just go ask the over 500 that He appeared to.
He mentions the 12 apostles but he also mentions a very important person.
James the brother of Christ.
We know from John’s Gospel that Jesus brothers did not believe in Him. During Jesus earthly ministry James his brother did not believe that He was the Messiah.
Something happened to James because he ends up writing the book of James but also becomes a pillar of the Jerusalem Church.
We see from Paul that Jesus appeared to James resurrected. Imagine what that meeting would have been like. Think about James and his reaction when he saw his Jesus risen from the dead. That is how we account for the dramatic change in James’s life and attitude. His mind was changed because he saw Jesus resurrected.
The last person that I want to present to you is the Apostle Paul
Paul who was a persecutor of the Church was transformed by something. WE know that he saw Jesus and it was his vision of Christ that changed everything.
Paul went from a persecutor to a preacher of the Gospel because he knew that God raised Jesus from the dead.
As I close our lesson this morning I want to let the Apostle Paul an eyewitness to the resurrection give us a closing message from the book of Philippians.
Philippians 3: 8-11
8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death ; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead
We encourage you this day to lay hold to the hope of the resurrection of Christ.