What a wonderful day, what a privilege it is to open the Word of God with you on this Resurrection Sunday. Let's pray and ask the Lord's blessing. Lord Jesus, how wonderful is your death and resurrection. Show us a fresh God, the wonder of it, so that we would be transformed by it. Spirit, Work in our hearts, even now, through the preached word. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, have you ever noticed that how something ends greatly affects your interpretation and enjoyment of that thing? Let's say you go out to a restaurant. The setting is good, the service is prompt, the food is tasty, But then, there's some kind of misunderstanding with the bill. And it results in an argument. And you end up paying more than you thought you would have to pay. I dare say that this unpleasant ending to your meal will greatly color your whole experience. And despite the enjoyment you may have felt at first in the restaurant, you probably will feel inclined never to go back. or maybe you're working your way through a book, a movie, or a TV show, and the story is engaging, the characters are likable, you find yourself laughing or crying at parts, but then you get to the end and are thoroughly disappointed with how rushed, how inconclusive, or just how plain stupid the ending is. You say to yourself, that's the way the author decided to end this story? Again, such an unpleasant finish will affect your assessment of the work as a whole. And you might find yourself saying, what a complete waste of time. I can't believe I got suckered into this. Or maybe you're watching a team sports competition. You're rooting hard for your favorite team who have amazingly arrived for the championship game. And they're playing well. They're scoring points, skillfully executing their athletic techniques. But as the game reaches the final moments and you anticipate glorious victory, there's a sudden reversal resulting in your team's defeat. The star player gets injured, your team makes a critical error, or worst of all, the ref makes a call that costs you the game. Such a bitter ending, no doubt, colors your whole experience of cheering for your team. Not only in the final game, but even in all the games leading up to that moment, you no longer remember with fondness all the team's previous successes. Rather, they seem to you now more like cruel deceptions that only got your hopes up. After all, your team was not able to deliver at the end when it really mattered. We can multiply examples like these, both positive and negative. The fact is that we humans deep down really care about how something ends. We may tell ourselves in the beginning or the middle that the end doesn't matter so much. But when the ending is good, we feel satisfied and vindicated that all the trouble, toil, and pain that we endured along the way was worth it for that good ending. And when the ending is bad, we feel betrayed, robbed, regretful. We feel that all the work we applied or the enjoyment that we felt along the way was made meaningless, hollow by the bad ending. And if such is true about the trivial matters of life, how much more is this true for life itself? For we are all quickly coming to the final chapter of our lives, which is death and what occurs after death. What kind of ending will death represent for you? Two questions that we often like to ask in evangelism at this church are appropriate for us to also consider now, which is number one, If you were to die tonight or even today, soon after this service, do you know with certainty where your soul would go? And the second is, if you say that you would go to heaven, what would you tell God when you meet him there as to why he should let you in? Your heart's answers to these questions are very revealing as to what kind of ultimate end you will encounter. It is a tragic fact of infinite proportions that there are many people, many precious everlasting souls who believe that they will arrive to a good ending when in fact they will not. Or perhaps they tell themselves they don't really know, but they also don't really care what happens after they die. But they will care when they get there. Because friends, when your eternal ending is bad, all the good, the accomplishments, the enjoyments you experienced during your life will seem so meaningless, only serving as fodder for your everlasting regret. But when your eternal ending is good, All the suffering, all the sacrifice, all the shame you endured for the Lord's sake during your life will be realized as worth it and will only increase your joy forever. Is there a way to be sure that your eternal outcome will be good and not bad? Well, there is, and it's in this thing that we call the gospel, which is a word that just means good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. This Resurrection Sunday morning, I wanna look directly again at the gospel with you, with us, who should care about the end. And if you're in Christ this morning, may this message be an encouragement to your soul, enriching to your confidence that Jesus Christ has been raised and you will be too. And if you're not yet in Christ this morning, may this message bring you to a real change of heart about yourself, about God, about your sin, and about the Lord Jesus. I'd like us to examine just one main Bible passage together today, and that's in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3 to 5. So if you would, please take a Bible and turn there. 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3 to 5. The title of the message today is Christ Has Been Raised. Christ Has Been Raised. If you didn't bring a Bible, or you're not super familiar with the Bible, that's totally fine. As Khalif mentioned, We do have Bibles in the pew or near your seats if you're not seated in a pew. Please feel free to take one and turn to page 1152. 1152 where you'll find our passage. Let's read it now. 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 to 5. for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas then to the twelve in chapter fifteen of this letter from the apostle Paul to the Corinthian church in Roman Greece Paul is correcting the understanding for that church when it comes to the resurrection. There apparently were some teachers who had gained a following among the new believers at Corinth who said that there's not going to be a future resurrection of believers, at least not with a physical body. And Paul confronts this wrong idea and he does so by way of simple reminder. He says, when it comes to the resurrection, Christians will have the same experience as their Lord did. If Jesus was raised bodily, then believers will be too. But if believers will not be raised bodily, then the Lord must not have been raised bodily either. There's a tight connection. Now, 1 Corinthians 15, 1-11 is the beginning part of Paul's argument towards this end. It's a reminder of what the gospel actually is, as taught by Jesus' specially commissioned representatives, Paul being one of them. And verses 3-5, which we just read, is the core section of Paul's gospel reminder. In these verses, Paul presents what is an essential gospel outline, a summary of what the gospel is. Some Bible commentators believe that because of the symmetrical structure evident in these few verses, that they represent a short creed or early statement of faith from the church. And perhaps so, but regardless, I'd like to follow this outline of Paul's with you and explore it with you this morning. Here's the main idea of our text. In 1 Corinthians 15, 3 to 5, Paul presents four essential points of the true gospel that you must believe and hold fast to be saved. Four essential points of the true gospel that you must believe and hold fast to be saved. Paul's introductory statement to these four points appears at the beginning of verse 3, and that's where I want to look first with you. Introduction. The gospel is of first importance. Introduction, the gospel is of first importance. Look at the beginning of verse three again. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. Notice the word for, starting at the beginning of the verse. This word indicates that Paul is supplying a reason for what he just said in the previous verses. If you look back at verses 1 to 2, you see that Paul is talking about why it is important for the Corinthians to remember, believe, remain committed to the good news that Paul had previously preached to them. Notice now the next phrase. I delivered to you, Paul says. for I delivered to you. And we could translate the verb here delivered as handed down or passed on. As Paul says later in this section, there was a message given to Paul that he received and then handed down or passed on to the Corinthians. This is to say that the gospel that Paul preached was not Paul's own idea. It wasn't his opinion. It wasn't his innovation. No, Paul was given this message and it became Paul's responsibility to give it to others. Now who gave Paul this message? It wasn't other leaders in the church. Rather, Paul tells us in verse 8, if you just peek there, and he also says in the letter to the Galatians that the risen Lord Jesus himself was the one who appeared to Paul and taught Paul the message that Paul was to teach to others. And this made Paul an eyewitness of Jesus' resurrection and a directly commissioned messenger of Jesus' good news. And in this way, Paul becomes like the other specially chosen messengers of Jesus, who are called apostles. And Peter says of that group in 2 Peter 1 16, the apostle Peter, he says, for we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we were eyewitnesses to his majesty. Or of his majesty. Of course, the gospel has been frequently dismissed across the centuries as merely the words of men. This is merely the ideas of men. Why listen to it? But Paul and the other apostles, the original declarers, they flatly contradicted that claim. They said, these are not our ideas. These are not merely men's words. These were words of God given to us to give to you. So they are of first importance. And consider how remarkable it is that God should speak this way through a plurality of specially chosen messengers at different places and different times, but all declaring the same message, the same united message. Biblical Christianity is unique in this way among the world's religions. Notice now another phrase here in verse 3, I delivered to you, for I delivered to you as of first importance, Paul says, as of first importance. And this is a good translation in the New American Standard. The phrase is literally in first, and it could refer to firstness in time or firstness in importance, and really both are true here. No doubt Paul did declare these things among the first things he said to the church, but the content of these things, and even here the context in which he reminds them of it, shows that they are of first importance. Paul's message then is central to what it means to be a Christian. If you do not know, understand, agree with, or believe what Paul is about to say, then you may call what you believe Christianity, but it is not actually the Christianity of the apostles, and therefore it is not actually the Christianity of Christ, and therefore it will not actually save you. If you hold to your own personal form that is different from what is the common gospel, once and for all delivered to the saints, Well, then your case will be like those poor persons that Jesus talks about in Matthew 7, 22. We'll say to him in the last day, Lord, Lord, didn't we follow you? And he says, depart from me. I never knew you. We cannot afford a personally crafted or adapted version of Christianity, nor one that simply integrates the passing ideas of our culture. The apostles charge us as Paul charges us here to hold fast to and then pass on the one true gospel. It is of first importance. So what is this core message of the good news that we are to believe and stand in? Paul now tells us specifically starting with the next phrase in verse 3. He says that Christ died for our sins. And this is essential point number one of the true gospel. Number one, Christ died for our sins. Just taking that straight from the text here, Christ died for our sins. And this is a phrase we may hear or say a lot in Christianity, but what does it really mean? What does it mean that Christ died for our sins? Notice that Paul adds at the end of this verse, according to the scriptures, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. And the inclusion of this phrase is important. It indicates that not only was Christ dying for sins foretold from ancient times in the Bible, what previous scriptures declared about him, but also that the meaning and significance of his dying for sins can only be understood when paying attention to the rest of what scripture says. So that means that to really appreciate Paul's statement here today, we need to go back to the beginning. And I mean the beginning beginning. Genesis Genesis 1 1 which says you probably know it in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth Now here's perhaps where someone might say pastor Dave you've already lost me I'm an atheist. I don't believe in an all-powerful creator God or all right Maybe there is a God but I don't believe that if there is a God we can never really know him I'm agnostic Well, to that I say, and the Bible also says, actually you really do believe in God. You really do know him. Deep down you do. But the reason you do not acknowledge this is because of what the Bible itself says in Romans 1 and other places. You suppress the truth and unrighteousness because you want to live your own way. You do not want to be accountable to God. the real explanation for the beauty, the complexity, the goodness, the purposefulness of the world that we live in, as well as the promptings and pangs of the conscience that you have within you saying, this is right, that's wrong, why did you do that? You should feel guilty. The real explanation for those things is the God of the Bible is real and you are accountable to him. But back to Genesis 1.1. God created everything in the universe by his spoken word, including mankind. And since we are the creation of God and we live in God's world, it is only fitting that we live according to our God's requirements, to our creator's mandate. And what has God required of mankind? We could articulate the answer in different ways, that we would love and worship God with all our hearts. That we would trust in and depend on God for our life and everything that we need. And that we would imitate and obey God, display His goodness before all creation. And how closely are we to pay attention to these requirements from God? Well, let's let God answer Himself directly from the Bible. God says in Leviticus 11.44, Leviticus 11.44, For I am the Lord your God. Be holy, for I am holy. Or words of Jesus in Matthew 5.48, Matthew 5.48, therefore you are to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Or what the brother of the Lord James says in James 2.10, for whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. God's required standard for his creatures is total perfection in imitation of himself. Any deviation from perfection by sin represents a complete failure before God and even rebellion against him. After all, consider what the word sin actually means. We often think of sin as doing something totally evil or wrong. And that is sin. But more basically, to sin means to miss the mark. To deviate even slightly from what is perfect. The standard of rightness and perfection. And to see this, think of an archer shooting at a target. He's aiming at the bullseye. If he misses the target, or even if he's just slightly off-center and not hitting the bullseye, Technically, that is sin. That is missing the mark. That is not achieving the perfect standard. You need a perfect shot. Otherwise, it is sin. And so it is with our lives. Sin is any deviation, any departure from who God is and what God has required for us. And this is both internally and externally. You must not murder, yes, but you also must not get sinfully angry in your heart. You must not commit adultery, yes, but you also must not lust after another person with your heart. You must not steal, yes, but you also must not covet what is not yours. And those are just a few negative commands. Positively, you are to love God and to love others perfectly 100% of the time. This is what God does. He expects it of his creatures. Anything less is imperfection and an affront to the good character and rules of God. In fact, God warns that any Failure to meet his perfect standard will yield the utmost punishment. And what is that punishment? It is death. Death in all its forms. There will be spiritual death, separation of fellowship between God and man, and enslavement to sin. There will be physical death, the decay and departure of life and spirit from our bodies. And also eternal death. the unending torment of our souls, and the dark fires and incomprehensible agony in a place of punishment called hell. God told the first man and woman that in the day that they sinned, they would die, Genesis 2.17. Romans 6.23 further says, for the wages of sin is death. This is just what you earn. You sin, you will die. And Jesus says in Mark 9.48 that any suffering in this life is preferable to being thrown into hell for sin, where their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched. As the Holy Creator God, God has the right to require perfection from us. And He has the right to set the appropriate punishment for imperfection. And if we're thinking rightly, we will confess that God's ways and rules are good. It is right to be honest, to be faithful, to be pure, to be compassionate, etc. And I think we would all admit that we would like to be these things. But we should ask, Are we these things? Are you perfect as your heavenly father is perfect? If we are at all sane or honest with ourselves, we know that the answer is no. We are not perfect. Not only have you sinned at least once, but your life is characterized by sin. Maybe not in obvious and heinous ways before men, but God looks at your heart. He sees how often, how consistently you are deviating from what he's called you to do. You have not loved the Lord your God with all your heart. You have not loved your neighbor as yourself. In fact, you have loved yourself above all. You have loved the things of this world more than God, and you have loved sin. You have loved what God says is evil. And as for your efforts to make up for your sin by different good works, well, how will these be acceptable to a perfect God when they've already been tainted by imperfection? Your pride, your self-righteousness, your effort to exalt yourself pervades all your efforts at good works. They are not acceptable to God. They are actually further offenses to God. Listen to how Isaiah describes our state when it comes to good works in Isaiah 64 6 Isaiah 64 6 the prophet says For all of us have become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment All of us wither like a leaf in our iniquities like the wind take us away We all want to think We would love to think that we are good people, and the world certainly encourages us in this. Have some self-respect. Accept yourself. Nurture your self-esteem. Actually, self-esteem is our problem. We think way too highly of ourselves and way too lowly of God. We actually want to be God. We want to put ourselves in God's place. We want to be king. We want to be Lord. We want to do our will and not pay attention to God's will. Thus Paul rightly says in Romans 3.10, Romans 3.10, there is none righteous. No, not one. And Romans 3.23, Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, you included. and me. Consider what this means for us then. Without some radical rescue, the anger of God hangs over us for our sin and will suddenly break out at us, destroy us, and send us to hell forever. None of us know when that's going to happen. It is only the undeserved patience of God that prevents that from happening at any moment. This is a terrible state, and yet it is the state of all people. But there is hope, because what did we just read not too long ago from 1 Corinthians 15 3? Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. You see, in the Old Testament, even after our first parents, Adam and Eve, sinned in the garden, God already began showing man that there will be, there was a way, through God, in which imperfect, hell-bound sinners could be saved. God revealed this by the picture of animal sacrifice, of a slain animal, an innocent animal, covering and being offered up to God instead of the sinner. God actually established a whole system of animal sacrifice for the Israelites. And part of this picture was a symbolic transfer of sins to the blameless animal. A lamb, for example. This animal would be killed, burned, and offered up to God as a sacrifice. Now truly, there is no saving power in the death or the blood of an animal. But God ordained and accepted this picture because of what it foretold. that someone was coming who would accomplish in a real and lasting way what the animals only pictured, salvation by the substitutionary death of a truly righteous one. And some other passages in the scriptures gave more specific foretellings about this one. Psalm 22, for example, written by David around 1000 BC, King David, it gives specific details about what this coming one would suffer. I'll just paraphrase. This coming one would be utterly forsaken by God, even though he did nothing wrong. He would be mocked by men. Men would pierce his hands and feet. And they would also divide up his garments by lot. Furthermore, the prophet Isaiah, who writes around 700 BC, he says that this coming one would suffer because he's taking on his people's sins. Isaiah 53.5, I could quote the whole passage, but I'll just give you the one verse. Isaiah 53.5, But he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening of our well-being fell upon him. And by his scourging, We are healed. How could these things be? How could a human come to suffer and save his fellow humans from their sin? Are not all humans sinful? Well, the answer to these questions is that this coming human, this coming man, was not just a man, but he was also God. Behold, as the gospel writers revealed to us, the Son of God came into the world around 4 BC as a human baby, Jesus, born from the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem. Colossians 2.9 says of Jesus, for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. He was God and man. No one ever expected this. No one ever expected that God could become a man, grow up as a man, live as a man, that he would do this. But this is exactly what Jesus did. He perfectly fulfilled God's standard of perfection, God's standard of righteousness, the way you and I ought to. He did love the Lord with all his heart and his neighbor as himself. He always He never refrained from doing what is right or from saying what is right or thinking what is right. And though he was tempted, he never sinned. Neither internally nor externally. And Jesus not only lived a perfectly righteous life, but he also allowed himself to be betrayed and to suffer an excruciating and humiliating death on a cross, which is a special device of Roman torture and execution. We, of course, were just talking about what Jesus did on the cross this past Good Friday. And remember, the true agony of the cross was not the nails, not the bleeding, not the exhaustion, not the holding yourself up so that you can breathe. Not for Jesus. The true agony of the cross was that he was, in a mysterious way, we cannot fully understand, but what the Bible declares to us, that he was taking on the sins of all those who believe in him. He was taking their record upon himself, and he was suffering the angry judgment of God for it. Our sin deserves hell forever. We will never pay it off. But for those who believe in Jesus, he says, I'm taking that on myself and I'm going to pay it off once and for all. I'm God. I can pay the infinite penalty once and for all, which is what he did. He experienced the agony of hell on the cross to save his people from their sins. Which means that for those who believe in Jesus, they will never experience hell. Their condemnation has been dealt with once and for all. The debt has been paid. As John says in John 1 29, the Apostle John, Jesus became the lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. And he not only pays the full price of sin, but he also gives his people his own righteousness. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 5 21 2nd Corinthians 5 21 God made him who knew no sin and that's Jesus be sin on our behalf He was made sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in him Our sin is taken away and paid for and Jesus's righteousness is accounted to us Theologians call this phenomenon justification His death His righteous life and his death allows us to be counted acceptable righteous justified before God So that we can be reconciled forever to God And why why did Jesus do this why would Jesus do this for undeserving rebels? We hated God Why would he die for us? Well, Paul tells us in Romans 5.8, Romans 5.8, but God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It was the love of God, not because you were lovable, not because I was lovable, but because God is loving. It's his lovely heart. Christ, God, the Messiah, he, who is the true king of the universe, because he is so good and so loving, he died for our sins. The just for the unjust. So all of this really is packed behind this short little phrase we see in 1 Corinthians 15 3. And if you really are a Christian, if you really hold to the true gospel, then this is what you must believe. that Christ died for your sins, according to the scriptures. You deserve to die, but he took your place and gave you his life and righteousness instead. This is the first essential point. The next essential point of the gospel is, of the true gospel, is closely tied to the one I just explained to you. And that's number two, Christ was buried. Christ was buried. Look at the first part of 1 Corinthians 15, 4. And that he was buried, it says. Now why is this phrase included separately in Paul's summary? Doesn't being buried go with dying? Well, in some ways the answer is yes. But I believe Paul includes this word separately for two reasons. One, because it actually happened, and we should affirm what actually historically happened to our Lord Jesus Christ. He died and was buried in the tomb for three portions of a day. This tomb was near the cross. But there's another reason, I think, and that is, number two, to emphasize that Jesus really died. Jesus was buried because he actually died. You may say, why would you want to emphasize that? Well, Since Jesus' death and resurrection, there have been those asserting wild theories to explain why Jesus' body was not found later in the tomb. Without, of course, Jesus rising from the dead. And one stack of those theories asserts it's because Jesus never really died. He just swooned, fainted on the cross, or pretended to be dead. They took him down, they put him in the tomb, and later, when he woke up, Or when he felt like it was time to escape, he got out. And that's why there is no body in the tomb. Well, this idea is, of course, extremely silly because it fails to explain how a terribly weakened Jesus would be able to open the tomb from the inside, and especially without alerting the guards who are standing right outside guarding the tomb. Oh, and then there's the fact that all the gospel writers plainly state that Jesus died on the cross. He died and he was buried. He gave up his spirit, he breathed his last, he died. John even adds that one of the soldiers attending the execution, he pierced Jesus' side just to make sure that Jesus was dead. And understand what that means. This isn't like a little prick with a spear into Jesus' waist. No, the soldier inserted the spear underneath Jesus's ribcage and right into his heart. If he wasn't dead before, he was dead after that. Even non-Christian historians in the first and second centuries record that Jesus really died. The Jewish Talmud, hostile to Jesus, says he died. Josephus says Jesus died. Tacitus, Roman historian, says that Jesus died. Jesus' death was foretold by scripture and it was necessary for Christians and it really did happen. Jesus died bodily and he was buried in the tomb provided by the rich man Joseph of Arimathea, fulfilling Isaiah 53.9. Isaiah 53.9, his grave was assigned with wicked man, yet he was with a rich man in his death. He was given a rich man's tomb. The third essential point of the true gospel, as Paul explains it, appears at the end of verse four. And this is number three. Christ has been raised. Christ has been raised. You say, hey, that tense doesn't work with the other two you gave us. Well, you'll see why in just a second. Look at the end of verse four. And that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. There's that phrase according to the scriptures again. This means that there's something about this three days later resurrection of Jesus that was both foretold and also made extra poignant by the rest of scripture, by preceding scripture. Actually, the first of the most directly informative scriptures foretelling Jesus's resurrection goes back to Genesis. It goes back to when God was pronouncing a curse on the deceptive serpent, on Satan, for leading mankind into sin. This is Genesis 3.15. God is declaring a curse on the serpent, and he says, Genesis 3.15, 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. Theologians sometimes call this verse the Proto-Evangelium, the first gospel. Because it declares that Satan, the serpent, did not win at the fall or totally doomed the whole human race. God promises that a holy line of descent of those who repent and believe in God would persist and it would continue to fight spiritual war with Satan and his brood. But also, one from this holy line, one holy seed, would eventually come to vanquish the serpent himself. He would bruise or crush the serpent's head, which is a mortal wound, a death blow. Or he would, at the same time, only suffer a bruised heel, a wounded heel. That's painful, but that's not life-threatening. Now who is this ultimate seed who crushes Satan, if not Jesus? He vanquishes death, sin, and all the designs of the evil one. Satan did his worst by tempting Jesus, moving Judas to betray Jesus, getting Jesus crucified. But all this represented a mere bruising of the heel. And why is that? Because Jesus would return to life. Without the resurrection, the serpent would have indeed seemed to have struck a mortal blow to the ultimate seed of Genesis 3.15. It is therefore a matter of the honor and victory of God that the holy seed of the woman be resurrected and prove that Satan had been defeated. Resurrection had to come. And consider that this word was declared near the foundation of the world. This is probably around 4000 BC, recorded by Moses 1450 BC. And yet it implicitly declares Christ's resurrection around 30 A.D. And this is not the only passage. Another very directly informative passage is Psalm 16. This is again from King David, writing around 1000 B.C. He's declaring in this psalm his love for God and his confidence in God, delivering him from all calamity and even the calamity of death. And listen to what David says in Psalm 16, verses 10 and 11. Psalm 16, 10 and 11. First part of verse 11. Now David is clearly articulating his hope, his confident hope in life with God after death. But he specifically anticipates that God will not even allow God's Holy One to undergo decay or be abandoned to Sheol. And Sheol is just an Old Testament Hebrew word for the grave, the realm of the dead. Now, as the apostles themselves point out in the New Testament, David definitely did go into the grave and underwent decay. That was admitted by all the Jews. So for these words of David to be true and not a lie, one from David's seed would have to be rescued by God from the grave so that this seed did not even undergo decay. Now the Hebrews thought of bodily decay as beginning to take place about the third day after death. So by the third day, according to this psalm, God would need to raise a greater David from the dead. Which, of course, is what God did. Christ's resurrection, then, is a matter of God's faithfulness, of fulfilled prophecy, and of vindicating hope that all those who put their faith and entrust their souls to God will have true life after death. Can we really commit our souls to God who will not leave our souls in shield? The resurrection must provide vindicating proof. And then one more passage just to bring to your attention today. This is back in Isaiah 53. Prophet Isaiah again, 700 BC, still many centuries before Jesus. Isaiah not only prophesied about Jesus's sacrificial death, but also his vindication into restored life. Listen to Isaiah 53 10 and 12. I'm just going to be quoting part of those verses. Isaiah 53 10 and 12. If he would render himself as a guilt offering, speaking of the suffering servant, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand. Verse 12, therefore I speaking for God will allot him a portion with the great and he will divide the booty with the strong because he poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Did you hear what Isaiah declared? Through Isaiah, God promises to the suffering Messiah to come to Christ, that if Christ will indeed give himself in death as an offering for his people's sins, then God will prolong his days. God will let him see his saved spiritual offspring. God will give to this Messiah a glorious portion of treasure, treasure and blessing. How can these things be without restoration to life? Don't prolong your days when you're dead. And how could anyone see the acceptance and vindication of the Messiah's sacrifice without the Messiah coming back into the world alive? So again, in the resurrection, God's faithfulness and honor are at stake. And according to these verses, also believers' confidence that Christ's offering was accepted is also at stake. If Jesus is not raised, how can anyone know for certain whether God really was pleased with Jesus' sacrifice and whether God really has justified believers in Jesus before God? Christ's resurrection was foretold to happen, and it had to happen for God's glory and His people's good. Now Paul testifies to us from our passage, along with all the other writers of the New Testament, that Christ was indeed raised. Three days later, on the first day of the week, on the original Resurrection Sunday, Christ rose from the dead! according to the scriptures. And actually the way that Paul expresses this with the verb is very particular. You see in our New American Standard translation it says, he was buried, or I'm sorry, and he, that he was raised on the third day. A more literal translation though of that verb is, he has been raised. It's in the perfect tense, not the past tense. You say, what's the difference between those two expressions? We'll both refer to an action taking place in the past, but the perfect tense emphasizes that that past action continues into the present or has some lasting effects that go into the present. And does Jesus being raised bodily have some effect or continuation into the present? Absolutely! He rose and is alive and his resurrection brings with it effects for his people that continue now and forever. Christ's resurrection means lasting victory for believers over sin, death, and Satan. It means full confidence for believers in facing their own deaths because there is life afterwards. And it means that believers will be and are forever saved and justified by Jesus before God. As Paul says directly in Romans 4.25, Romans 4.25, He, Jesus, was delivered over because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification. He's showing that we have been justified before God. Christ being raised by the Father and not merely raising himself. It proves that those who trust in Jesus for salvation are forever justified. They are counted righteous before God. And if you believe in Jesus, that is you today. Christ has been raised. Is this not good news? we who were sinners doomed to perish justly under the holy anger of God forever in hell because of Jesus' death and resurrection, our sins have been totally paid and we've been totally justified by Jesus. This is the true and saving gospel. This is the good news once and for all delivered to the saints that we are to hold on to Hold fast to and pass on. Is it what you believe? And does that belief affect the way you live your life? There's one more essential point of the true gospel, and it also is closely associated to the one we just looked at. We've seen Christ died for our sins, Christ was buried, and Christ has been raised. And now finally, number four, Christ appeared to his disciples. Christ appeared to his disciples. This we see in verse five. And that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Here you might be asking, who's Cephas? The name Cephas is just the Aramaic version of the Greek name Petros, or Peter. All these names just mean rock. And the 12 here is a reference to the specially chosen group of disciples that Jesus lived with, taught, traveled with during his three-and-a-half-year ministry. It's that group. So Paul is saying here in verse 5 that soon after his resurrection, almost immediately, Christ appeared bodily to his closest disciples. They then became the chief messengers of Jesus' gospel to the world. After all, what good would Christ's vindicating resurrection provide if Jesus' followers never knew about it? Or Jesus provided nothing to verify? But Jesus did not merely rise from the dead and disappear. He presented himself alive to his disciples so that they might serve as eyewitnesses and declare his accepted sacrifice and resurrection to others. Even down to us today. And the 12 weren't the only eyewitnesses. If you go on in the list that comes after verse 5 and verses 6 to 9, Paul mentions many others that Christ also appeared to, even 500 disciples at one time. And he says, you know what? Many of them are still alive today. You Corinthians can go talk to them. Jesus appeared bodily to them and to others. You know, as with Jesus' death, many people have tried to come up with non-supernatural explanations for Jesus' resurrection. For the empty tomb. Maybe it was a mass hallucination. Maybe it was just a symbolic resurrection. Or there was no resurrection, it was just a tradition added later by some overzealous followers. But these explanations are also ridiculous. actually based on what we've seen today and based on what paul is going to say further in this chapter if jesus didn't really rise then christian faith is empty there's no hope christian suffering is wasted and christians are to be the most pitied of all people But such is not the case. The resurrection did happen and it was a truth that was held so confidently by the apostles, Paul included, that they were willing to suffer and die for their Lord and his gospel, which is what all of them did. How could that be? It's because Jesus really did rise from the dead. that Christ died for sinners and rose again for their justification is the best news ever. It really is the gospel. So do you believe it? Do you believe it to the point that you are willing to repent of your sin, to repent of all your self-righteous efforts to earn your salvation, and to repent of being your own king and not letting Jesus be your king? Do you believe this gospel to the point of going all in on it? Not just saying, well, maybe it's right and maybe it's wrong. You either believe or you don't believe at all. If you believe, are you willing to let it, that truth transform your life? Jesus is God, your savior, your Lord, and you will follow after him. As Paul discusses later in this chapter, for all those who believe in Jesus in this way, their end will be like his. He suffered. He suffered in his life, but in the end, he was raised and he was exalted. Jesus says, for all who come after me, they will experience the same. You, even today, will have that good ending. Don't you want that? The alternative If you wait, if you ignore it, if you reject it, maybe some enjoyment now, but the ending for you will be very bad. Don't wait until death, disaster, God's judgment overtake you. It'll be too late by that point. And you only have eternity to nurse your regret. Embrace this good news Take hold of jesus by faith and what he's done for sinners So that you can have the confidence that you have and will experience eternal life with jesus forever Not just by yourself, but as greg was saying earlier in the service with all the saints Let's close in prayer Lord god I feel that we've only scratched the surface on how wonderful your resurrection is. Jesus, you are alive. You are Lord. You are with us. And you are going to bring us to yourself. Jesus, we look forward. We look forward to your return. We look forward to our resurrection. Lord, that does make all the suffering, all the difficulties of life worth it. We have not yet reached that good end, but we will. And that gives us hope and joy now. Lord God, help us to walk as those whose lives display that you are worthy, that your love poured out to us in the son's death and resurrection. It's so wonderful that we do not want to follow after sin anymore, but we are going to follow after Christ. We can't do this on our own, but you've given us your spirit to enable us to walk in holiness, Have that new direction in our lives And if there's anybody lord this morning who has not yet experienced that or was temporarily turned away from you god I pray that they would repent this morning. They would have new or renewed belief and they would say Nothing else matters except the lord This is a matter of first importance his gospel himself Be pleased god for your own glory And for the joy of your people do this we pray. Amen