The Resurrection and the Hope of the World | Josh Landen

If Christ is not raised, nothing matters. If He is, everything does. Discover why the Apostle Paul says the resurrection is the key to hope, faith, and the future.

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Chapters

• 0:29 Introduction to Christ the King Sunday
• 13:25 The Consequences of Denying the Resurrection
• 34:10 The Hope of Eternal Life

Transcript

[0:19] Well, amen and amen. It is a blessing to have the Jellybean Choir here and singing those songs that I'm sure that you sang, that I sang, that we sang all in our youth if we grew up in the church.

[0:29] I'll try not to be offended that you've taken your phones down and you're not recording me to put onto Facebook and Instagram later. Oh, look at what my pastor said this morning. Yes. So anyway, welcome. It is good to be with you. My name is Josh Landon. I get to serve as executive pastor here. We are continuing with our series on the prodigal church from the book of 1 Corinthians. So I'll go ahead and give you time to turn to 1 Corinthians 15. Today we're going to pick up where we left off last week with verse 12.

[0:59] But I want to let you know that today is Christ the King Sunday. Maybe you picked that up in the songs that we sang. We don't recognize it as much in this service, apart from the big seasons of maybe Easter and Christmas. But Christ the King Sunday is the final Sunday in the church liturgical year. So the church liturgical year doesn't line up exactly January to December. It goes from the first week of Advent, which is next week. You've got four weeks of that. Then you've got Christmas. You've got 12 weeks of Christmas. Then you've got Epiphany. Then Epiphany, you have until Lent, and then Lent is 40 days before Easter. We have Easter. We have the great 50 days after Easter. Then we have Pentecost. And then after Pentecost, we have kingdom time, kingdom tide, ordinary time, whatever you may have until today. And so the calendar year for the church mimics the Christian life with Christ coming, coming into our life, being crucified, dead, resurrected, the birth of the church, and then how we live that out the rest of our time until Christ comes back in final victory, final glory as King of all creation. Now for Paul, King of all creation begins really at Easter.

[2:13] And so this church doesn't do it as much, but I've been a part of churches before where we have a sunrise service. You guys have seen that before, right? Where you gather in the dark, depending on when Easter is. If it's a late Easter, then it's very, very early in the morning that you gather. But you worship, you pray, and then as the sun sort of goes, raises up a little bit, gets close to the horizon, it begins to light the sky. You have a canopy of light overhead, letting you know that even though the sun is not yet up, that a new day has dawned, that light has broken, and that darkness is on the run.

[2:48] It is the first initial action, letting you know that what has happened first is now going to affect what happens later. And the reading that we'll get to in just a moment, and it is kind of a long reading, so instead of reading it all at once, we'll just take it bit by bit, Paul talks about what that new day means for the church, and that includes you. So last week, on background, it was the first 11 verses, and Grant preached in this space really the heart and the essence of the gospel, the foundation, what is of most and first importance. That Christ died for her sins. He was buried, dead, resurrected, appeared to hundreds, including Paul, chief of all sinners, the one who murdered Christians, the one who persecuted Christ and his church. And that this is what the faith was based on, that death and resurrection. In those verses, Paul was looking back, what Christ had done, and then what we're going to get to today, Paul is looking forward. What it means for them now and what it will mean for them in the future. So, he's looking ahead because these Corinthians were apparently asking a lot of what-if questions. What if Christ wasn't really raised? What if resurrection wasn't a real thing. What if I won't be raised?

[4:12] When you go to seminary, sometimes you have a question that's put to you like this. If there was incontrovertible proof that the grave of Jesus Christ had been discovered and therein was his body slash skeleton slash bones, if it was undeniable that Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph the carpenter, if his body had been found, if his bones were still there, would you still be his disciple?

[4:41] If leaders that you trusted, leaders that have filled this pulpit, leaders that have led you across your life said, you know what, that actually is his body there, would you still believe? And at first glance, our response might be, well, of course. Jesus, I'll follow you anywhere. Even if you weren't resurrected, the teachings and the life are a good enough example for me to follow. But you'd be wrong. Paul says, if the resurrection did not occur, then it all falls apart. If the resurrection did not happen, then it all comes tumbling down. There is no gospel. There is no good news without that resurrection. Otherwise, this is just another good teacher, another guru, who's been killed by the authorities in an ignominious death. The text today has Paul showing us that where Christ goes, we will follow. That what he has done and what he has received will be done and received by us and to us. Because he is our victorious king, taking that analogy from last week. And he is sharing with us the spoils of his victory. Let's pray.

[6:05] Heavenly Father, what we do not know, teach us. And what we do not have, give us. And Lord, by your grace, what we are not, make us. For your son's sake. Amen. Won't you imagine that a cast list has been posted outside the drama teacher's door? Maybe it's a roster that has been posted outside the basketball or football coach's office. And that list tells everybody who made it. And there's a kid in class, and he hasn't seen this list, but his friend has seen this list. And his friend comes to him and says, hey, your name was on there. You got the part. Hey, your name was on there. You made the team. And the one who receives this news is happy. He's excited. He's glad. He's elated. This wonderful thing has happened to him. And so he goes through the rest of the day on cloud nine. He hasn't made it down to see the cast list himself. He hasn't seen the roster. But he's excited about it and he's sharing with people his own personal good news.

[7:16] And then his other friend comes to him and says, you know, it's not how it works. There's no cast list posted. They don't do it that way. They don't put a piece of paper on a wall and say, here's who made it and here's who didn't make it. All of a sudden, he's crestfallen. All of a sudden, he's defeated and he's deflated.

[7:37] Because he's been told that's not how it works. That's what was going on with the resurrection. There were people who were being told, Christ has been literally, physically raised from the dead. This isn't a spirit. This isn't a collective imagination. His body, dead and cold for three days, was raised and lifted out of the grave. But there were doubters in the early church. There were doubters in Corinth. They said, that's not how it works. God doesn't bring people back from the dead. Paul writes to them, and beginning in verse 12, he begins to walk out that argument. He begins to tell them, if that's what you believe, then here are the consequences of all that belief. Verse 12, it says this, Now, if Christ is proclaimed and raised as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? Now, it's not quite clear here. Are they saying that Christ wasn't raised and therefore nobody will be raised? Or are they saying that Christ was raised, but nobody else will be raised? This is taking that idea from last week that the gospel is good news and it is good news for you.

[9:00] And it can be applied to your life. If it's too good to be true, it doesn't happen this way. That's not how God works. God wouldn't do that. Or if you think it's too good to be true for me because I'm too far gone and I'm too horrible and wretched a sinner.

[9:19] If you think that, then you don't understand the power of resurrection. There are terrible consequences. If the resurrection itself is denied. Verse 13 says, But there is no resurrection of the dead. If there's no resurrection, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith in vain. We're even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he has raised Christ, whom he didn't raise if it's true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you're still in your sins. Then those who fall asleep in Christ, they have perished. When we deny the resurrection, these horrible consequences follow. That we've preached and believed in vain. It's useless. It's of no effect. It's made no difference. We've misrepresented God. We've lied about him when we said that he raises the dead. We violated the third and the ninth commandments. We've believed futilely, of no use, idly, empty, fruitless, useless, powerless, without truth. We're still in our sins because there's no atonement. There's no victory. There's no justification.

[10:45] And those who have put their faith in this Christ, in this man who wasn't resurrected, remember that's the premise then they have died and their bodies will rot and return to the earth like everything else.

[11:02] And they've believed in vain. They have perished alongside of Christ. Paul sums it up in verse 19. He says, If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. We've been made out to be fools. We've put our hope and our trust. We've hitched our wagon to the wrong star. And the only emotion that we can get from people is that they feel sorry for us. But this is the rest of the story. What God begins in us with Christ's death on the cross, forgiveness, what he continues to work in us through his Holy Spirit, sanctification, ends with his glorification and with ours. Without the resurrection, it all falls apart. Only because of the resurrection does it all make sense. Throughout his ministry, Christ is telling this to his disciples, even though they don't always get it, even though they don't always see it. When Lazarus dies and he goes to the home of Mary and Martha, they're upset. They said, you should have gotten here faster. Why did you delay? And Jesus says to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

[12:25] Martha, do you believe this? If Christ isn't raised, then what's really just a house of cards comes tumbling down. That's why Paul warns against it so strongly. When he's writing to the church in Galatia, here's how he begins in chapter 1. Verse 8, it says, But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we've said before, now I say again, if anyone's preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. If anyone is telling you to doubt the resurrection, if anyone's telling you that it didn't occur, Paul says, let that person be cursed. When we go back to last week, hold fast to this faith that has been delivered to you. Because as one theologian put it, Jaroslav Pelikan, He says.

[13:26] If Christ is not risen, nothing else matters.

[13:31] There are terrible consequences if Christ was not resurrected. And so Paul moves from what Christ's resurrection means for believers now to what it will mean for them in the future. Because there's a direct connection between his resurrection and the resurrection of his followers. When I was a teacher, my favorite class that I taught was APGov. Anybody here take APGov? A few hands, high schoolers, okay. Grant, did you take it? All right, I'm not going to ask you what your score was. But my favorite unit in that course was about the Supreme Court. We got to it at the very end, but we talked about the Supreme Court. We talked about civil rights, civil liberties, different court cases. And there's an idea called judicial supremacy.

[14:18] And that principle, simply put, is that when the Supreme Court decides something, it applies to all the lower courts. When the Supreme Court rules on an issue, the lower courts cannot then contradict that issue. What the Supreme Court has decided at the top then flows down to the bottom. For Christ, what he has done, what he has received, will be done and received by us. And that is the reversing of the effects of sin and the effects of death in our life. Christ's resurrection restores what was corrupted through Adam. The corruption from the fall is undone by the faithfulness of the Son.

[15:03] In verse 20, Paul says this, he says, But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who've fallen asleep. This idea of firstfruits is an Old Testament principle. If you go back to Leviticus 23, you can see where all the festivals are outlined. And the festival of firstfruits was this idea that when a harvest comes in, barley or grain or anything else, it specifies barley or wheat. But when it comes in, the first portion goes to the Lord. It is an act of faith where you give it to the Lord. And in Leviticus 23, it says this, You bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, and he will wave it before the Lord so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it. So they say, These firstfruits are the Lord's, and the people respond, He is the God of the harvest. The firstfruits are the down payment, and God will make good, on paying off the rest of the balance, if you understand the analogy. That what has happened to the first fruits will happen to the rest of the harvest. It's this idea that God will provide, that we have faith that he will act, that what is symbolized by the sacrifice will account for the rest of the harvest. And don't miss that it happens on the first day of the week, the same day as the resurrection.

[16:24] Paul continues on, verse 21, For as by a man came death, by a man has also come the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. A man had gotten us into this mess, and a man was going to get us out of this. He says it differently in Romans. In Romans 5, he says this, Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. Sin and death comes to us through our father, Adam. Just as we are all born of Adam, we are all born into a state of sin. It is our natural predilection.

[17:07] But Christ, remember, was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He had to be fully man to be a man, to account for man's sin, but he had to be fully God to be sinless and holy, the one who could atone, the one who could reconcile us back to God. And so we see what Christ and Adam do. What Adam does, Christ undoes. The effects of sin and death on us are taken away by Christ. You can read through this in Genesis 3 and then compare the Gospels to it. You can see that Christ is our new Adam, our second Adam, our new head of the new covenant. And this has been God's plan from the beginning. If you go back to Genesis 3, you can see that God says, I will make a plan, it's called the Proto-Evangelion, it is the Proto-Gospel, so that the head of the serpent shall be crushed.

[18:04] Paul continues on here, verse 23, he says, But each in its own order, Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to him. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom of the God the Father, after destroying every rule and every authority and power, for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. Christ is the firstborn. He's the first one that's resurrected. And then in due time, we will follow. Christ will give the kingdom of God back to the Father. Now, what Paul is doing is quoting Psalm 110 here that says that your enemies will be made into a footstool for you.

[18:41] And he says, the last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God's put all things in subjection under his feet. But when it says all things are put in subjection, it is plain that he is expected who put all things in subjection under him. He is accepted, excuse me. When all things are subjected to him, then the son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. This is some convoluted language here. This is some Trinitarian language here. But it's saying that Christ has delivered the kingdom to God, but he's not subordinate. He is also fully God, but he is working as God's agent. He's God's emissary. He's God's representative to the people to come to this world and to do this work. And then when it is fully done, he will give the kingdom back to God. And it is because of this work, Christ is putting everything back in order, the way that it was intended from the start. And when that happens, all creation will recognize him as Lord. Paul says it this way in Philippians. He says, therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed upon him the name that's above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

[20:02] This is where heaven and earth are headed, friends. Where Christ has gone, we will follow. And the end is that death itself is defeated.

[20:14] Some of you in here today may be mourning the death of a friend, the loss of a family member, someone who has already recently died. And you are right and you are good to mourn because you have loved that person and you will miss them for the rest of your life. That is good. But there is one day when even death itself will be undone. That's why we don't mourn as people without hope, as he says elsewhere That's why we don't have to be consumed by this grief, Unceasingly Because we know that the world does not end with death If you go to the very back of the book, if you go to the very last chapter, The very last page, it'll say this He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more neither shall there be mourning or crying nor pain. For the former thinks, the sin-sick world, have passed away. If God has called you, and I believe that his grace works on everyone and is calling everyone unto himself, if you've accepted it, then he is faithful to carry it out through your own resurrection. Because where he goes, we will follow.

[21:41] Romans 8, Paul says it like this.

[21:45] For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to His Son's image, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. That's you. And those whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified. When we say yes to Christ, when we continually say yes to Christ, When we respond to his grace in our life, it ends in our glorification. Just like that Supreme Court case that's decided at the highest court of the land, they make that decision and everyone else follows suit. It happens to us. Logically, this is called an A4TRI argument. What happens to the greater applies to the lesser. What happens to Christ happens to us. He was baptized. We're baptized. He died. We are called to die to self. We are called to take up our crosses to follow him. even unto death. He was raised and we will be raised too. It is his resurrection that undoes the curse from sin that Adam brought into our lives.

[22:55] And so then he closes with this, some ethical implications of the resurrection. If God does not raise the dead, Paul says, then what some people in Corinth are doing is absurd. But since God does raise the dead, then what some people in Corinth are claiming is absurd.

[23:17] Verse 29 says, otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead. If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? Now, this is a difficult verse, and we don't really know what it means. Something I read this week said there's 200 interpretations of this. Take your pick. We don't know. But the implication is this. Whatever it means, whatever the Corinthians were doing, baptizing in the name or on behalf of the dead, whatever that means, it means it didn't have any effect if the resurrection doesn't occur, which is the point that he's making. Verse 30, Why are we in danger every hour? I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. I die every day. Paul reminds him of the danger that he puts himself in on behalf of Christ. Every day I go out and I preach this, and very many times I have come close to my own death because of this. The world doesn't want to hear this when it's dominated by sin. But I've preached it, and I would not stake everything that I have and everything that I am on an untrue gospel.

[24:27] Paul continues on, and he will tell us that Christ's resurrection allows us to remain faithful through life's most difficult circumstances. These difficulties are only for a moment. For us, even our greatest enemy, when we know Christ, that enemy is death, When we have to face it We can face it well And for us it is just as we are going to sleep, Because one day he will wake us up for the new creation.

[25:04] Verse 32, what do I gain, he says, if humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus. If the dead are not raised, let's eat, drink, for tomorrow we die. He's not talking about literal beasts here at Ephesus. If you read the story, he ran into a lot of trouble there. The people there didn't like what he was saying. He says if the gospel is not true If there is no resurrection If this life is all that we have If our final fate just rests in death And when we take our last breath We will exist no more, Then I guess, yeah Eat and drink and be merry For tomorrow we die Live however you wish.

[25:52] But he argues no. He gives them three commands and a rebuke. He says, don't be deceived. Bad company ruins good morals. Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.

[26:13] He gives them these three commands and then a rebuke. And he says, you are made for more than this. Your life is more than merriment and having fun, and your life is more than just the accumulation of wealth. When you live this way, it reveals that you do not believe and you do not trust in the promise of resurrection. Friends, that's the message for you here today. There is more to this life than what we have and what we see and what we do right now. And you're made for more than that. So wake up. Don't go on sinning. Don't let deniers fool you. When Christ is talking to the Sadducees who disavowed the resurrection, he said, is this not the reason you're wrong? Because you neither know the scriptures nor the power of God. If you don't live and believe like the resurrection is true, you don't know the scriptures. And you're denying the power that God has. God has power over all. There's nothing he can't do. and that includes raising the dead. So sober up. Come back to your senses. Come out of this drunken stupor. Stop sinning by lying about God, by living unfaithful lives.

[27:35] And come back to Christ. You should be ashamed of yourselves, he says. These Corinthians prided themselves and prized their knowledge. But he says, you don't know God, and you don't know the Scriptures when you live this way. When you know God's power, you'll be able to put the troubles of this life into perspective. Because your understanding of the present motivates your life into the future. Now, the gospel will arouse opposition. Christ tells us, expect to be hated. They hated me first. Expect to be betrayed. Expect to even be killed for following him. And that's to say nothing about the deteriorating effects of sin, death and sickness, accidents, natural disasters. But you can endure them all. because you know that it's not wasted, that the power that death has is temporary.

[28:39] This item of faith, the idea of the resurrection of the body, is shown to be a determining factor for Christian life and Christian living. It's a stimulus to faith for the living. In Hebrews, we have that hall of fame of heroes of faith. They've received what was promised to them, and they compel us to press on. It's a bulwark to those that are facing adversity and persecution, because death doesn't have the last word. It strengthens our faith in this stressed life. Your understanding of this present motivates your life into the future. So it gives you hope for the sick and the dying and the mourning, that death isn't the end of the body, that life's temporary end no longer proclaims the end of bodily existence. No longer is there an eternal separation from loved ones. We don't get rid of our bodies, but we're resurrected to a new glorified state, one without the weight of sin and death. And when that resurrection comes, we'll be raised with bodies that never die. Real physical bodies, an eternal unification of our mind and soul and body and spirit living together in the new creation that God has reconciled to himself.

[30:00] And this enduring hope is built on Christ's resurrection. Now, there might be some unbelievers who say, well, when is this going to happen? It's been 2,000 years. Peter writes to the early church and he tells them, he says, a day with the Lord is like 1,000 years and 1,000 years as a day. The Lord's not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but he's patient.

[30:29] He's patient toward you. not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. He tarries to give you time to come to faith and to reckon with this truth. When Christ was speaking to Martha at Lazarus' home, his tomb, he asked her, do you believe this? And her response was, yes, Lord. I believe you're the Christ, the Son of God, who's coming into the world. Friends, Christ has come into the world Pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities But the power of the grave didn't hold him Because he was raised to life and raised to heaven In the presence of God the Father And we will be too, Until then, we have work to do, Last week, as part of the gospel presentation Pastor Grant mentioned the three circles, After we repent and believe and trust in Jesus we grow in sanctification and then we go back into that same world that he came to heal, because we follow Christ where he's gone we follow him in this world to go and seek and save the lost to proclaim that good news and we follow him into the world to come, as resurrected into the new creation.

[31:55] When he walked out of that grave, a new day, a new age began. The gospel this morning is that Christ gives us what's already his. He shares with us righteousness and reconciliation with God through forgiveness of sins. He shares with us his holiness for today as we are sanctified entirely. And he shares with us his resurrection for eternity. That eternal glorified body to live and reign with him forever in the world to come. When Paul's writing to the church at Ephesus, he tells him this. He says, awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

[32:46] When Christ walked out of that grave, eternity began. It is now in session. We have received this firstborn of the resurrected new creation, and we wait to follow him. So my question is, do you know him? Do you follow him? Have you considered this just a good idea? Have you thought, these are great, great teachings, but I don't trust that he can save me. I'm going to try to live a moral and ethical life. I'll try to love people as I wish to be loved, but I don't know about Savior, and I don't know about resurrection. Friends, it happened. Christ is our victorious King. We will follow Him in this life until He returns or until we die, and we'll follow Him into the next as resurrected people in glorified bodies just as He was and is. And we will live in a glorified new creation state. No more death, no more destruction, no more violence, no more pestilence, no more famine, no more war, no more natural disasters or earthquakes or tornadoes or hurricanes, no more hunger, no more illness, where the Father rules in His heaven and on earth with His Son at His right hand and the masses gathered around the throne, shouting, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Heaven and earth are full of His glory.

[34:12] Friends, if you're not among those redeemed, this world, this life, is the only heaven you'll ever know. What a wretched possibility that is. But if you are, if you know Christ as Lord and Savior of your life, then this is the only hell you'll ever know. This is as bad as it could ever get. And because you know what comes next You can endure and persist For right now, So do you know him? Eternity has begun Christ's coming was the announcement Of the kingdom of God And to do the work to usher it in As we close out this Liturgical church year, I remind you That this kingdom of God is here It's not here yet fully.

[35:11] But one day and maybe soon and he invites you to be a part of it with him, this is the rest of the story this is the direction that this world is headed in that the light has broken that the darkness fades that Christ's reign is being established in the hearts and lives of men and women and children, among those teams in Asia and those teams here in Memphis, and the powers of this world they are fighting back. You've seen that on the news this week, I'm sure.

[35:43] But his rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure, as the hymn tells us. In just a moment, we're going to gather around Christ's table. And there's a phrase that we use for that sometimes called, we remember the future. This is not just a memorial of what Christ has done, but we believe that Christ is here present with us now at the table, through the bread and through the wine, to mediate his grace to you. And it can be convicting grace. It can be edifying and sanctifying grace. It can be healing grace. But we remember the future also. While we recall what Christ did for us on the cross and how he was resurrected, there's a day when he's coming back. And the cares and concerns of this world will pass away and we will live and reign with him. That's what it means for Christ the King Sunday, that he is Lord of all creation. He is Savior of the universe, and that includes you, in your life, in your heart, in your spirit, your mind, your home, is what He wants you to be a part of.

[36:56] Friends, believe this gospel. As you make these confessions, I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified and buried. The third day he rose from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. Let's pray.

[37:27] Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this gospel that you have given to us. God, thank you that you do not leave us in our sins, but you call us unto yourself, and that through your Son, Jesus Christ, we can have new life, life that begins right now and is completed in eternity. God, thank you for the resurrection. Thank you for the hope for the future. Thank you for the grace to endure this life and the arrows that come at us through it. Thank you, Lord, for your holy table Where we can gather as brothers and sisters, Where we can gather as believers To remember your future In Jesus' name we pray, amen.