This morning we embark on a study of 1 Corinthians 15, which is a detailed treatise on the resurrection. It's a teaching occasioned by the denial of a physical bodily resurrection by some of the people in the church at Corinth. It was a false philosophy that undermined the truth and fabric of real faith. As 1 Corinthians 15, 16 through 17 states, it says, for if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. If there is no bodily resurrection, if Christ hasn't risen from the grave, then Christians are the most ridiculous people in the world. And Paul will say that in verse 19. He says, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable or ridiculous or wasting our life. And I read that because that centralizes, that's the core tenet of this whole chapter is this idea that if the resurrection is not true, we are all wasting our life right now. If he didn't rise from the grave, if we are not bodily resurrected, then this is all a sham. It's a waste. There is no good at all. Paul's saying it's not even good in this life. It's a waste completely. It would be useless. We would be miserable. We would be ridiculous. But as Paul will make abundantly clear, Christ did rise and so will we as believers. The reality of the resurrection is eternity altering. And so it needs to be articulated. It needs to be defended because it will be consistently attacked. You can go through even, sadly, a list of our presidents. Some of them we would, when I say revere their writings, some of the things they did for our country are some of the great documents we have. But those same presidents, like a Thomas Jefferson, would have denied a bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Denies every miracle in Scripture, actually. And I want you to realize that that hasn't changed. People will deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And as believers, we need to understand something. This is foundational. This is at the core of what we believe. And due to the Corinthians' rebellion, God has blessed us with its most clear defense. 1 Corinthians 15 is the document you would use to defend the resurrection, to articulate it. And I use that word not only in defense because Paul's actually, in these first verses, not proving the resurrection. He's actually showing the reality of the resurrection. He's saying, you believe this. This is the facts. These are undeniable evidences. And here's the reality, as one author notes, prior notes, he says, such voices, the people who deny the resurrection, will always be insistent, mainly because the resurrection of Jesus, if it is genuinely investigated, if you really look into it, strips away the arguments and the theories behind which people have always tried to hide from God. There are two apologetic people I know of. No, I don't know them personally, but know of them. Famous people, written books, and they came to Christ. They understood the reality of the Christian faith by deep diving into the resurrection. One wrote a book, and I can't remember his name, said, Who Moved the Stone? And the other one is Lee Strobel, who has The Life of Christ, The Proof. He has all these proofs. But they came into this idea of there being a real Jesus Christ, that He died and that He rose again from the grave. And I pray that as we walk through this answer to the question of resurrection, that one as a believer, your defense of the faith will be strengthened. I hope that as you're sitting here, and I think the majority of believers are locked in that Jesus rose from the grave, that we are going to have a bodily resurrection. And I hope that that's going to be strengthened and your ability to step forward and witness will be strengthened. And then I want to be honest. I hope that if you don't know Christ as your Savior, that your resistance against the faith will be shaken by this study. that as we walk through the resurrection and you're saying, no, I don't believe in this, that I want it to shake what you believe. Because the resurrection is a unbeliever's nightmare, so to speak, and should be. Now, the context of a book is extremely helpful in fully grasping what is being said and what is being taught. And I want to say this, that's emphasized, drastically, heightened degree of emphasis when dealing with these inspired letters to the church. in Corinth. Paul is writing to a specific church. And I want you to understand we have this mindset of church. We see church and we see possibly city light. Like Paul wrote a letter to this one gathering of people. And I want us to realize that the idea of a large gathering and a building and even stained glass windows is not something that shows up until about the third or fourth century A.D. that when he's writing to the church in Corinth, you can almost say house churches in Corinth. This is multiple gatherings of believers. And that's going to help you understand some of you and the not some of you say, how is there just a couple people in church? Why is that a big deal? Well, understand there's probably whole pockets of house churches that would be resistant to Paul that are going to go against him. Why is context so important? This is an involved city, and we're going to get into that. A lot of this first message, I call it the framework, ties into understanding the situation in Corinth. As one writer, Gordon Fee, writes, he says, As for any other document in the New Testament, and more so than for most, the various sociological, economic, and religious factors that made up the environment of the city of Corinth have a profound influence on one's understanding of Paul's letter to the church there. And I'm not saying you can't read Scripture and understand it. I'm saying context is important. I would say that about any book of the Bible. Now, when you think of the Corinth of Paul's day, I want you to realize that when you're reading about that city, it's a city with a history of two beginnings. Its first round of existence would have been as a Greek city-state. It was known for rampant immorality and wickedness. The name to Corinthianize was coined at that time, this is before Rome ruled the world, because that behavior just took place so much there. And so it became the new word for engaging in that type of behavior. It was located in a powerful trade position with good water. That means good drinking water. And it was very defensible. It was strategically positioned on a land bridge between the Peloponnese and the mainland. So if you have Greece, there's a land bridge, and then there's a southern portion of Greece sticking out into two different seas. And what happened is it was right there on that crossover point, and it controlled Two harbors, basically. Ships would dock on both sides of that, and we'll talk about that some more. On top of that, during its height, it controlled the Isthmian Games, which were second only to the Olympic Games. They also, because of that location, we often don't think of Corinth in the Greek city-states. It doesn't pop in our mind because we think of Athens and Troy and all the movies that are made, but the city of Corinth and the Greek system, there were city-states that ruled, and they kind of came together to defend against an outside attack. Well, they were the leaders of the Achaean League in the second century BC. And as such, they came into conflict with Rome. And so this city that is dominant, has a dominant position, of course, Rome is overtaking the world. And so they lead the charge against Rome. And so in 146 BC, because they led that resistance, Rome destroys the city. So Corinth with its Immorality with its being a Corinthianize, with being a city, with existing at all, 146 BC is level to the ground. And then it sits dormant for a hundred plus years until Julius Caesar, recognizing all of the advantages that that location and city have decided to refound it in 46 to 44 BC, depending on which historian you read. They don't have the exact perfect date. So about a hundred or a hundred plus years, and now it becomes a Roman colony. This is the Corinth, this new Corinth, is the Corinth that Paul is going to walk in. We are now AD, so if you want to do your math, you're looking that Paul is going to be in the city 70 some years after that. This new Corinth, the second beginning, was populated now by freedmen from Rome. So in Rome, slavery was rampant in Rome. And so we oftentimes have the idea of slavery linked to what we experienced in the United States. You have to erase that picture. Slavery was the half of the population. And then there was freedmen, people that were freed from that, and they were basically overpopulating the capital city of Rome. And so Julius Caesar recognizing multiple things. He has a problem of overpopulation. He has a very strategically located city, and he wants it to be very Roman when it, when it becomes a city. And so what he does is he, he moves the freedmen to Corinth. And then on top of that, he would take ex-military people. They're out of the army. How do you reward them? Well, you want to give them land. And so he would give them land, but where does he give them land? Well, in Corinth. What does that do? It puts very Roman loyal people who are now being rewarded by the empire with property and opportunity in a place. And so what happens is you have now a city being rebuilt by people with an opportunity, solving one problem and creating a new atmosphere over there, solves a population problem. And you filled it with ex-military people getting land. And what it did was it created a massive opportunity specifically for the freedmen. Corinth quickly returns to glory and wealth, given its location and power. But now it's Roman in character. Actually, when Paul is there and long after Paul is there, Latin is the main language. That is the language of Corinth. But it's still, even though it's been a hundred years, it still had this historically Greek tie to it. And part of it's because of its location. And so this Greek Hellenized culture, which was permeating all of Rome. So when you see that, Rome takes over, but they adopted the culture of the Greeks. And so they're balancing it perfectly. This is, if you want to look at a social experiment, Julius Caesar knocked this one out of the park. He's rebuilding a city that maintains its roots, but has the link to the empire. And so this city has all these cultures coming to it. It's a great area of opportunity. And with those cultures come religion, philosophy, and the arts. Now, it lacked a truly landed aristocracy, and that's something we don't understand. But you go back in ancient times, and you had people who owned the land, whose grandparents owned the land, whose grandparents owned the land. In other words, we've owned this land for as long as we can remember. In Corinth, it's not that long. They've come into this land in the last couple hundred years. And so what they say is you don't have a landed aristocracy. The land was recently acquired. But what happened is they developed an aristocracy of money with a fiercely independent spirit. And I say that because I'm going to turn our conversation to something. Is Corinth feels more modern, more like us than any other city would? It's going to feel, because it's functioning on the economics, the gold, the silver, just like our economy oftentimes will function off of money. Now, this growing opportunity, and with all the trade coming in, well, with trade comes vice, and it drew the crowds. And by the time Paul is in the city in the first century AD, its population is a half a million people. And that doesn't sound like a lot because we see, it sounds like a lot compared to Culpeper, but when you think of New York City and Las Vegas and all these places with millions of people, but in the context of the day, this city was massive. As one writer notes, all of this evidence together suggests that Paul's Corinth was at once New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas of the ancient world. It was a city with an ancient Greek reputation for wickedness, for vice. And the same reasons that it had all those reputations before, it's building a second reputation with its second beginning. Now, if you read about Corinth, some of the things people will say, especially in commentaries, will link all the way back to the first beginnings. You have to be careful weeding through it. because they're going to give it a reputation that when Paul was there didn't necessarily have re-earned that yet. But I want you to know the new Corinth was really trying to keep up. It was going after it. I'm going to share a little bit about this city when Paul is there. Immorality, along with the age-old trades associated with it, flourished in a double-sided seaport city that would be brimming with travelers. Why is that? It's four and a half miles across. It's very dangerous to sail on the southern portion, to go around that bottom portion. And so they would dock on the east or the west. Boats that were small enough, they would load up and they would roll the boat across land and put it on the other side. That's work. That's logistics. That's making money. For boats that were too large, you would dock at one port and all of the travelers and all of the goods would be carried over to another ship. And I want you to see that it's a channel. Not only is it coming down from the north, to them, and not only is all these cultures coming in, but all this logistical movement of goods are passing through Corinth. What does that give you? Well, one, it gives you, as I mentioned, plenty of work and opportunity. It gives you access to all the goods of the world. When it goes to the city, trust you me, something's getting sold, and something's getting bartered, and something's getting woven in. It's a city that's going to have everything. You want to get something? Go to Corinth. You're going to have it. and then it's going to bring in all these other Influences. Imagine if you are moving goods from one end to the other, if you're getting rest, if you're a boat moving across and the sailors that are coming through. And so what you get is there's consistent work and plenty of sinful opportunity. You couple that with Roman stability, a Hellenized culture, and then the influence from the East, like mystery cults of Egypt and Asia, along with Jews. And you can imagine this was quite the cultural experience. Now I want us to see something. I've been talking about all its diversity, but Corinth had its own worship. It had its very traditional Greek and now Roman gods, and the Romans loved to borrow from the Greeks in the sense of their gods. There was basically three distinct gods worshipped there. First, I'm going to list Melusertes. And if I'm pronouncing it wrong, which I probably am, well, you pronounce it however you want. I don't know. No one's worshiping anymore. So this is the god of the sea. Makes sense, right? The sea is so important to them. And so they're going to worship a fake god of the sea. But the main worship would have been for Aphrodite. This is the God of sex. This is the God of immorality and all the human wickedness that would go and be tied to it. This is the main God. This is what they're known for. Worshipped on the mountain near Corinth, but with people I would say promoting that worship in the city during the night and at every time. This is a wicked, wicked God. Now tied with her worship was the worship of Apollo, which centered on being the God of society. The emphasis of Apollo and his, so Aphrodite's statue would have been up on the mountain with influences coming down. You would have had the worship of Apollo right in the city, and he was the God of society, music, song, and poetry, sounds, Very sophisticated, but his worship is linked, and imagine the statues carved there all through the city. His worship was linked to male beauty, which digressed quickly into acts of homosexuality. And that's all I'm gonna say about those, so plugging ears or whatever else, but I want you to see the picture we have painted here. This is a wicked, wicked city. influenced from all around by anything and everything. It's a stabilized city, has a great economy, but they are making money and doing whatever they want. I put here just to remind you what the author said, it is truly a city of sin. Here's your Las Vegas. But it's still a powerful city of trade and commerce, New York and Los Angeles, people coming from all over to capitalize on the potential of Corinth. You want to make it big in business? Go to Corinth. And as you know, though, with a New York and Los Angeles mindset. A lot of people go to Los Angeles and go to New York to make it big, but they don't make it big. As you imagine, people are getting very wealthy. They're being very successful. They're moving the chains in their dynamic. But you have equal and probably way more people showing up at Corinth and not making it. and striving to make it, and so you have this tension that's there. Corinth is located 40 miles from Athens. Athens is known as this intellectual learning center. Corinth never becomes this intellectual learning center. However, if you were a philosopher, if you were a thinker, We now, what does an academic person want? They want to get tenured at a university, right? You can't get fired. They keep paying you a lot of money. You do whatever you want, which is part of our academic problem today in higher learning, tenured professors. But how do you get tenured in the ancient world? Do you find some rich person that's going to pay for your way of thinking and be your patron? and then you just do what you want. So if you're an artist, you carve statues, and this person pays you for it. If you're a philosopher, you think and talk, and this person puts you up, and you would make a very, very large income. And that society thrived there, right? Wherever there's money, there's going to be people trying to get in on it. And so these thinkers come there. It's never a center of learning, but there's plenty of these philosophers and thinkers. And actually, this idea of patronage becomes a point of tension, because Paul does not take patronage. He doesn't link into one of these rich people's homes and then teach from there. He actually does his own trade and stays independent of that. And so you're going to see a city with, I'd say, lacking universities, but plenty of professors. if that makes sense, trying to make a buck here. But this is a place focused on earning and work. And so it leads us to the letter now. Paul wrote a letter and now specifically this specific portion in the letter, because Paul is writing to a church. When you read 1st and 2nd Corinthians, it's a church that is in conflict. And oftentimes people say, who are they fighting with? Are they fighting amongst themselves? They're really not. It's a church in conflict with Paul. and the teaching of Scripture. Because with the context of this society, I need you to see the context of who these people are as a church. Paul had been the one who planted the church there. He had witnessed in Corinth and Acts, God promises him that he will not face bodily harm there. He actually has a judge rule in the favor of Christianity and say this has nothing to do with the courts of law. But the Jews will beat multiple people for coming to Christ, but never Paul. after time, these people in this, I say, prosperous society, a society where they're not feeling pressure. So this is a church that's not persecuted. They're not feeling hurt. They're not being attacked by society. And so they start feeling pretty elite. And their mindset has shifted. And you'll see it in some of the sarcasm Paul will weave into 2 Corinthians. But this church thinks that they have arrived spiritually, they were in essence living above the merely material existence of the present age. And this led to erroneous views of morality, erroneous perspectives on sin and the use of one's body while here on earth, and not least of all, an erroneous view of the physical resurrection of that body. They looked at the body and they said that there was nothing eschatologically, and that means in the future, in eternity, important about it. It was insignificant. And they went so far as to say the body and the use of your body right now had no present significance. And this error is not born from Jewish influence at all. There's no Jewish influence there in the least bit. It's all the former paganism that they had, the cult worship, the, the fake God worship of the Greek and Roman life and their affinity for their culture and their lifestyle. This is where understanding the wickedness of the city and the acceptance of the church of that wickedness, and not just acceptance, but rampant desire to be part of that, that you start seeing this de-emphasization along with, I say, the arrogance. So they de-emphasize the physical and elevate their spirituality. It plays into their own arrogance and elite view of themselves. They would give themselves the right to participate in their wicked culture. Why? Because they're above the physical. I can do whatever I want with my body. It's not significant. I'm arrived spiritually, so why not do what everyone else does?" On top of that, they wanted to take the gospel message, the pure gospel message that they had believed, and they wanted to Hellenize it, which means make it Greek. And what that does is it turns into what looks like today as a prosperity gospel. Truly spiritual people live their best life now. That's what they thought. If you're truly spiritual, you've got money. You have a house. You have everything you want. And then they look at Paul. Who was Paul? He gets beaten all the time. He gets thrown to the beasts. He's shipwrecked. He has problems. When he preached in Corinth, he preached from a position of weakness. He was not doing well. He had been battered and bruised and broken down. God promises you will face no physical problem while you're here. You will have an open door of opportunity. He preaches there. And so they're thinking to themselves, hey, we're living our best life now. We're realizing the ultimate life in Christ. They're not looking forward to heaven. They're not looking forward to eternity. They're living their best life now. And the poor saps that suffer like Paul, well, they're not spiritual enough. These are people with not enough faith. And you can see what happens. Even though Paul has come in, he started these churches. He's the one that planted. He's the one that trained. He's the one that outreached. He's the one that faces the brunt of people's questions and attacks. And now they've outgrown him. They are beyond him. And so if you're going to negate the physical use of your body, if you have arrived spiritually, well, you have to negate a physical resurrection. You have to remove a bodily resurrection to make this make sense. And so that becomes a convenient and repeated lie because it helps insulate someone, them particularly, and everyone today from the absolute conviction that the truth of the resurrection brings. The resurrection erodes and destroys a prosperity gospel because that's a lie. You watch and look at Paul's life, and you actually look at most of the apostles, and you see a suffering and a wrestling. And actually, 2 Corinthians is going to start dealing with the suffering and talk about it. And so Paul is going to confront this arrogance. He's going to confront the idea that they have fully arrived. Because as Gordon B. so aptly states, for Paul, believers are thoroughly eschatological people. We're future. We're thinking of eternity. That's determined and conditioned by the reality of the future that has already begun, we're not denying that, but still awaiting the final glory. We are therefore both already and not yet. And the Corinthian believer says, I am. I'm there. I've arrived. I'm at this pinnacle of spiritual eliteness and growth. And so this key chapter of Scripture begins by laying the framework, and that's what we're looking at, the framework of the resurrection. Paul in the midst of this conflict between him and the church there in Corinth. And again, they're saying to Paul, you have no authority, and they're going against the teaching of Scripture. They're saying, we're not going to listen to you because we've arrived and you haven't. You're suffering poor Paul with all your problems and we are not suffering at all. So we must have more faith. We must be beyond you. We have grown past and you see, and I hope you can see it. We have a new spirituality that permeates our world. You can turn on any talk show host. You can turn on Oprah. You're going to see what's called new spirituality. This idea of arrival and this elite status and this I call mysterious kind of vibe. They were buying in to the lie that we, I'm saying Americans just eat up over and over again right now. The Corinthian church has bought into this idea. And so Paul is in conflict with them and he's going to remind them. How does he build the framework? He's going to remind them of the common ground they share about the resurrection. He's going to remind them of the facts that have long since been believed and agreed upon. He's going to lay out evidences of Christ's real and bodily resurrection. And I put, and I mentioned it earlier, he's not proving it to them. Paul never stoops to proving what is truth to them. Instead, he's showing through the clear testimony the facts that they themselves have or should have acknowledged. What he's basically saying is, the only reason you're a church is because you believe this. If you don't believe this, you're not Christian. There is no Christian. It's all disappearing. And this will be the framework upon which he builds the argument to expose their devilish and heretical view of the believer's resurrection. And I say that because if you don't believe in a bodily resurrection, then you are engaged in heresy. And that's from the first preaching of the church all the way till now. It's heretical if you don't believe in the bodily resurrection, because there's implications that come at the street level, and I've articulated most of those. Because if you think that you can do whatever you want with your body, that you own it, that it's yours, that it has no significance, well, you engage in whatever sin you want to do. which is not what we've been taught through Jesus Christ. And this framework then is built from the testimony or evidence starting with, and there's a long list of them, the testimony of the believed message. Verses 1 and 2 it says, which also you have received, and wherein you stand, by which also you are saved, if you keep in memory that I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain." And that last phrase often throws people off, but we'll dialogue through that. What Paul is declaring, and that word means he's making known emphatically. It's actually a word that is used at the end of 14. He's always making known. And he says here, I'm declaring to you, or I'm making known in a very emphasized way the consistent message that has been believed by the true church. The real believers in Corinth are thus part of the first evidence given by Paul to the resurrection. This is what the church has consistently believed and lived. And so Paul confronts the heresy of a denied future resurrection by some in the Corinthian church by reminding them of the gospel. He reminds them of the facts of what they believed to even become the church in Corinth. He says, I preached the gospel. And what does he mean? Glad tidings, the good news, and the resurrection of Jesus is an essential part of that gospel message. And then he says, you've believed that. You believe those glad tidings, that good news, and you're secure. You're standing in a foundationally secure place and you will be glorified through that belief. Yet he ends with a warning, doesn't he? If, if, You actually have believed is what he's saying. He puts a warning here about those who do not stay true to the gospel preached. These people, he says, have let go because their faith was not real. They believe with no effect. They are not held fast by the Savior. I want to be very clear. They have not lost their salvation. This is not a losing. You can't lose your salvation. It means they were never saved. What he's saying is, this is what we preached. This is what you believed and by which you are saved. Unless you never were truly saved. Unless all of the things you have affirmed are in vain. And you got to go right back to James. which was the first letter going to a lot of the churches. And he could tie to James, the half brother of Jesus who wrote the book or the letter entitled James. And he wrote in that early letter of the church that even the devils believe in tremble with no value eternally. And so what Paul is saying is, if you're a true believer, then this is what you have affirmed. And then he puts that caveat. He tells the Corinthian church, that's where we get examine yourself from. He tells them examine themselves before they partake of the Lord's Supper to make sure you're truly a believer. He reminds them to look at, did you really believe? And so with the precedent of the believed gospel, Paul moves to the source of the gospel. Where does the gospel come from? He moves to the testimony of the known scripture. Verses three and four, and it just all flows together. For I have delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins. And if you ever underline in your Bible, this is another good one to do. He died for our sins according to the scriptures. and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. And I'll highlight this as we go through because they denied a bodily resurrection. The Greek culture felt the body was like dirty or useless. It was the soul that mattered. It was the soul, the body. So they would give themselves permission to do whatever they want with the body. But a body or a corpse was kind of disgusting to them, that death was kind of pushed away. Paul actually, whenever he mentions the word buried or dead. He links every time he can to the word corpse. He doesn't say just that you were buried or that someone was dead. We translate it neater than it is in Greek. In Greek, he keeps beating the idea that this is a dead rotting corpse is his idea. And that would be odious to them. And he's telling them that this is according to the scripture. Because Paul expands on the message believed to make sure they know that what he shared when he first preached with them was something that was given to him directly by the Lord. And that this message aligned perfectly with scripture and is intricately linked to his resurrection. Because he makes clear Jesus died for us. Why? To pay our debt. Jesus was buried. His actual dead corpse was placed in a tomb. That's what he's saying. He died for your sins. They're happy with that. Then they said that dead body was set in a tomb. And then he says that that dead body, Jesus, rose from that grave. He rose physically from that grave conquering sin and death. And he's reminding them the gospel was preached And it's a gospel that includes the death, burial, and resurrection of the Messiah. And that message, which he preached, was given to him by God and is affirmed by God's Word. I want you to realize what he's doing with these testimonies. He starts with this idea, and some people call it the testimony of the church. I think it's better worded, the testimony of the believed message. This is what you have all believed. This is why you're a church to begin with, the testimony of a believed message. And then the testimony of a known scripture, he's saying, where did that message come from? Directly from God, affirmed by God's word, layer upon layer, the evidence is being added here. He's building an uncontestable framework of our Savior's resurrection, and by implication, the believer's resurrection. And I want to pause a minute here and just ask a question. As we're walking through this, as we start seeing, and I know as the church we often, of course we believe in the resurrection, but how firmly do you believe? Because It is supposed to affect our preaching and our witness. We are supposed to launch into sharing our faith from the perspective of a very sure foundation. That's what Paul is trying to tell the church in Corinth. You have a sure foundation in Christ, that he died, that he was buried, and that he rose again. And I put, are we witnessing from that framework? And then are you living daily in light of his very real resurrection? And here I'm trying to tie to the lie of the Corinthians. Because we tend to live our life for ourselves. I'll do what I want. We excuse things we do with our body at times. We say, well, it's okay. That's my life. Well, you know, God will brush that under the rug. And see, Paul is confronting that. And so I want you to be confronted as well. That's the thing. When I think about it from a Christian standpoint, one of the things that is supposed to hit us now as a church, as individuals, are we brushing under the rug the fact that we will experience a bodily resurrection, that our Lord owns this body that we work and live through, that He expects it to be used for His glory and for His purpose? The gospel was believed. It was given by God and clearly articulated in God's word. And now Paul points to the testimony of living witnesses. So he says, this is the message and you believed it. This message came clearly from God and was affirmed and backed and laid out by his word. And now he has the living eyewitnesses. And just look, this is the longest and most detailed list. we're going to get in one condensed format. We just went through John. We saw, and Paul's not going to mention the women. We talked about that the last time because he's going to give evidence that would hold up in a court of law, in a Roman Greek court of law and a Jewish court of law. But he says that he was seen of Cephas, speaking of Peter, then of the 12. After that, he was seen of above 500 brethren at once. And the at once is important. 500 people saw him in the same instance. Of whom, he says, the greater part remain unto this present. They're still alive, but some are falling asleep. After that, he was seen of James, then of all the apostles. What he said is, Jesus was raised, obvious, and he was seen. As Fee notes, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead was not a form of spiritual existence. He's trying to make sure that's clear. It was not a mirage. It was not a hallucination. It wasn't a spirit that wove in and out, but instead it was someone in their resurrected body. Just as he was truly dead and buried, so he was truly raised from the dead bodily and seen by a large number of witnesses on a variety of occasions. Here's the rundown, and this would carry in a court of law. Jesus was seen by the leader of the twelve, Peter, by the twelve, and the twelve is the word used for the apostles. Obviously, Judas is dead. He's not seeing this. It's the eleven in that sense. Then seen by a multitude of brethren at one time, And then Paul tells him, the majority of these people are still alive. You can go ask them. If you want to get on a boat, which you can get one on either end, you can go ask these people if they've seen this. Then it says, seen by James, this is most likely Jesus's half brother. By the way, they would have known this. He's the leader of the church in Jerusalem. James, that leads the church that Paul goes to and talks to when he comes to James and Peter. James is that leader. They would know this. This would have weight in their mind. They can go to Jerusalem and talk to the leader of the church there about seeing Jesus Christ raised from the dead. And then it says, seen by all the apostles. He's not repeating what he said before, but now this word apostle is broadened out because the word apostle means sent out one. And so what he's saying in a broader context of followers, people who are sent out to bear the gospel truth. The reality, the fact of Jesus' resurrection could be verified by a host of people spread over the known world and in various ministries around the world. In a few short decades, the message of Jesus Christ has spread all over. And if you want to look at this, if you go back and place yourself in the context, Paul has just thrown out to them, you don't want to believe me? There are hundreds of people you can ask about this. hundreds to deny the resurrection is to deny the court worthy testimony of a multitude of eyewitnesses. And I'm not going to ever pretend that I'm a lawyer. I've talked to a couple of them, but I can imagine that not because I'm in legal trouble. I just want to make sure that's stated there. I'm not a lawyer. I can imagine that 500 plus corroborating eyewitnesses makes for a pretty compelling case. And that's one of the things that led a lot of people to understand and believe in Christ as Savior, because as they're in this law format, police officers, lawyers, as they examine this, that many eyewitnesses, and I know we can't leave right now and go talk to them, but Paul's writing a letter and saying, you can go talk to these people right now. He's willing to put that out there and say, that's what happened. And then in the context of the eyewitnesses, Paul now turns to his own eyewitness account. And why is this separated? I want you to realize they have diminished Paul. Paul suffers. Paul has weaknesses. Paul's not as articulate as Apollo. He's not a statesman. When Paul preaches, he's not with the best voice and with the best articulation and the best Greek mind. I mean to say mind would be there, but the oratory skills. They love the external. They were enamored by it, which we are as well. So that's why I say we're very Corinthian in our existence. So now he comes to his account and we see the testimony of an authoritative Paul, and that's what he makes that point. But he does so in a very interesting way, because he's self-deprecating, and then it seems like he self-elevates, but all of it is tied together to bring glory to God, but also to let them know that he got his commission from the Lord. So he goes on, last of all, he was seen of me also. As of one born out of due time, which is a derogatory term that he's using there. For I am the least of the apostles that am not meet or not worthy to be called an apostle. Now he tells him why. Not because he's weak, not because he suffered, not because he whatever affirmity or mental problem he may have or whatever struggle he's going through. I oftentimes, you know, a lot of people look at what is Paul's wrestling with. He always has a thorn in the flesh and everyone goes to vision. And I think it's purposefully not listed. I actually don't think it's vision. I think he was afflicted in his mind. I think he struggled with some of the things that we struggle with in that sense. And he wanted it gone and God didn't take away. It's left undeclared, unpurposed by God. And that's because then we don't just lock in on one thing. And so I say that. But that weakness was known to the Corinthians. And he says, I'm not worthy to be called an apostle, not because of all that. This is because I persecuted the church of God. by the grace of God, I am what I am. And His grace, which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with me." So now Paul turns to his own credentials in a bit of a self-deprecating way, and he uses a description that would have made the psalm in the Corinthian church very happy, because they would agree with him on this. They looked at Paul as weak and therefore lacking spirituality. They saw him as lacking and undeserving of authority. And so he owns that by saying that, I'm last of all. Which I think is pretty clever because he says, I'm the last of them all. But by saying that, he's diminished himself, but he's also put a period behind the sentence of apostles. Because if he's the last, there are no more. And so he is locked down that he's the last of all. There's no more apostles to follow. And that he was one born out of due time. That's a nice way of saying he was an abortion, a miscarriage, or premature. And that's the same word they would use in Greek for that is saying this is almost like an unwanted, it was just not what you'd say. It's not as smooth as we have it in English. And they would have said, yes, you are that way. You are untimely born. You are just a miscarriage. You are some anomaly. You are a freak. But he says, I'm the least because I persecuted the church. And then he says, yet by God's grace, I'm an apostle. Not by my doing, not by my strength, not by my wisdom. And by the way, this guy was beyond smart. I think I've shared before, but they have likened his education to two doctorates. His ability to articulate argument, to be in Athens and actually hold his own is pretty dynamic and pretty real. And so this is a guy whose intellect is beyond belief. He doesn't say, God used me because I'm super smart. He says, I'm used by God in this way because of God's grace. And he says, though I'm nothing. And the church in Corinth says, yeah, we agree. You're meaningless. He says, the call and authority given to him by God was powerful and real. And I want you to see what he did. And that's why I said the testimony of the authoritative Paul. Sure, I'll agree with you that I'm a nothing, that I'm weak, that I lack. Actually, he says, my biggest lacking was my persecution of the church. He says, but God's grace and his calling were on my life. His authority, he's making very clear, came by the Savior's call, plan, and purpose. What does that mean? It means they have no jurisdiction or ruling or prerogative there. As one writer notes, since the Corinthians themselves have not given him his authority, they can neither take it from him nor deny it for him. They were saying, you're nothing. And he's saying, I'm not going to argue on my merit, but I'm a called apostle with a clear testimony that this is what God is doing in my life. And so his ministry is an outflow of that authority and grace. He makes that very clear. I now minister in that authority. And so he says his grace, which was disposed upon me was not in vain. It wasn't useless. but I labored more abundantly than they all." And again he says, yet not I, but the grace of God that's in me. He reminds them again that it's not to me that credit should be due, but in reality God's grace working through him allowed him to accomplish what God had sent him to do, even though he would be considered the least of the apostles because of his persecution of the church. And so he's given them everything they want. You hate me because I'm weak, off, weird, last. Whatever. But then he says, but by God's grace, this is what's been accomplished. Paul labors not only as a response to grace, but even more, he says, my labor is an effect of grace. God's grace working through me allowed me to do this and went way beyond. And we're sitting here on this side of history, and no one is going to argue that Paul was used to write the majority of the New Testament, that Paul was the one I call the tip of the spear that was out there planting churches. No one's going to argue that. And he makes that known to a church that he planted, who is trying to say, we're better than you. And in essence, better than everyone that's ever been around as a Christian. We're the elite Christians. And so I put here, without any apology for what his calling is, without denying the arduous work that God enabled him to accomplish, Paul points completely to the work of God's grace in and upon his life. His calling and position are from God, not man. This is in direct contrast to their self-imposed elite status, their perceived advanced spiritual state. And that's what he's knocking underneath. He's not trying to undermine who they are in Christ. That's why he starts with, this is what you believe and this is how you're being saved. He doesn't say you're saved by my approval. You're not saved because I'm okay with you. I'm not saved because I'm happy with you. He says, you're saved because you believe the gospel. If you really believe the gospel. But then when it came to their idea of spirituality where they felt so elite, they felt beyond Paul, they were super spiritual, their faith must be stronger because they have more money. Well, God's blessed me because I'm a good Christian and so therefore I'm raking in the dough. That's not a Christian principle at all. If you ever look around yourself and say, well, I have more than that person, I must be more spiritual, you're a Corinthian. And I would dare say you're the ones that's not saved, Corinthian, if you come to that conclusion. Because that's nothing to do with the faith. And so he has now shown them this and says, my spiritual status is based upon what God has called me to do in the working He did in my life. And I put as a question here, on whom do you base your spiritual status? Would your words in life reflect Paul's statement? By the grace of the God, I am what I am today. By His grace and His working, I am, and I've accomplished this because of what God's grace allowed and did in me, or would align with the Corinthians. And to just reiterate, to the point of redundancy, the Corinthians thought of themselves very highly. They were arrived Christians. You might say, well, Kenny, I don't see this in the church today. Oh, it's there. There are a host of people who think they have arrived. They have reached spiritual state. There's no more growth for them, just on to heaven. One little step forward and I'll be in heaven because that's all that's left for me. I don't even know if I need heaven as good as I'm living here on earth. That's the mindset, the arrive component. And I ask, what do you base your spiritual status on in your work? Would it be like Paul's or would it be like the Corinthians? And then Paul then closes this all up by tying the framework up with another look at the gospel message. So he started with the believed message and then he points out now the testimony of the preached message. So he's gone through his litany of proof, and then he comes to this last verse. And remember, Apollos has been there preaching. Apollos won't go back to Corinth. Apollos says, why don't you go back to Corinth? There's an ax. And he's like, no thanks. Those are horrible people. Timothy goes back. Paul keeps writing, and the correspondence is from Ephesus, and so it's quick. He has visitors from that church there. This is a dynamic problem, but he says here, whether it's me or them, other apostle, true believer, true preacher, so we preach, and so ye believed. If you're truly the church, this is what you believed in. After defending his authority and the right based on God's grace and calling, he reminds them again that all the apostles, Peter, all the true believing preachers, Apollos, James, and teachers have consistently preached this gospel message. It's the same message they believed in which defines their faith and it should frame their spirituality. Are you truly spiritual? How are you living out the gospel message? not some arrived status here on earth, not some cultural elitism, not some we'd have not, they're looking at the church around the world and thinking, well, that church is persecuted. What's wrong with those Christians? Well, that church is not thriving. What's wrong with those Christians? Because they're in, I call, easy town. They're in a place where there's no persecution. They've gotten lucky, so to speak, or that's the column they have. And what happens? They stumble over their own lack of persecution. Some of the church at Corinth have, in their minds, moved past the basics of the faith. They're on to bigger and better things. They see heightened realities and a sophisticated, I put, Hellenized, culturally fitting, and socially approved gospel. That's sadly what people have started preaching more and more today. When you have a gospel that is socially correct, when you promote social justice in your preaching, you are Corinth. You are Americanizing the gospel. You're making it fit. You're making sure it doesn't make it ever awkward with any of your friends. Well, we've got to smooth the rough edges of God's message so that it fits in with our very elevated society. Because the Bible, yeah, it's fine, but let's make it a little better. Let's improve on this. That's Corinth. They want a gospel that gets rid of bodily resurrection. Why? Because in the Greek mind, this lets them be more advanced and lets them do whatever they want with this life. Paul's knocking down that house of cards in one fell swoop and is now building the framework upon which the argument for truth will be set. Next week, we're gonna walk through, well, if Christ didn't rise from the dead, he's gonna give a whole list of things that that means. And then in 20, he's gonna switch it, but actually Christ did rise from the grave and all these things are gonna be true. He's gonna lay out two logical positions and put it right up against the church there. He's exposing in them the lie believed and taught for the heresy that it is. This is a lie of Satan. The resurrection of Jesus is foundational to real faith. It is the knowledge of that fact that made it possible for a host of regular people to revolutionize the world. How in the world does somebody who grew up, watched Jesus minister, watched him die on the cross, and then just lay in a grave and rot away, suddenly go face martyrdom? Based on that? No, they saw a resurrected Savior. They knew that He was God in the flesh. They knew that sin and death had been conquered. And so they revolutionized the whole world because of that. It is that message of eternal hope that draws in the listeners. It is only in Him and His redemptive work on the cross and His conquering work of resurrection that we can know God's forgiveness and have hope for eternity. So upon whose framework have you built your life? These are the closing questions. Does it look like Paul's? Have you built your framework of your life on the grace of God? Or does it look Corinthian, built on the perception of your own arrival? And if we go through this chapter of Scripture and our arrogance is not confronted, then you've missed the message of Scripture. And as poorly as I may preach, the scripture is read clearly to you, and you know it. And it's got to confront how we look at this world, how we look at our life, how we look at what we can do and what we should do with it. Because we are consumed, I would say, as a society, with our rights and with what we've achieved and where we have arrived at. That is not what Paul has built. That's not the framework that he's presenting. Because he says, my life is built on the grace of God. I am what I am by the grace of God. And I will work and serve him because of and through that grace. And the Corinthians say, nah, we're good. We're elites. Elites don't do that. So we have to ask ourselves, on what framework have we built our lives? And then, has the reality of his resurrection changed your everyday life? And then you're going to say, how? And I'm going to say, read Corinthians 15 over and over again until you can answer that question for yourself. Because the resurrection is supposed to change how you decide your everyday life. Because He rose from the grave bodily, and you will rise bodily, and so what you do with your life has immense significance to your Savior. As one writer notes, our calling is to proclaim the resurrection as those who, with Paul, are absolutely convinced of its reality and significance. Such conviction leads also to the proclamation of the gospel itself. The good news that God loves fallen, broken human beings and has made provision through Christ's death and resurrection to overcome their alienation so that they too may know divine forgiveness and have a sure hope for the future. One of the things I'm praying for our church during this month that we're walking up to Easter, and I mentioned inviting, and I make an inordinate amount of jokes, I'm sure, about invites and making you take some, but I want us to realize that the reality of the resurrection should drive an evangelistic fervor in our life. That as we look at this window of opportunity, we are instead saying, oh, Kenny, I'm gonna throw five of those out, otherwise he'll bug me about it. And yes, I will bug you about it, and I'll keep joking you about it, all in good fun and taste, somewhat. But the fact is, do you care about who you're inviting? Do you have someone in mind that you say, well, I know the truth of the resurrection, and so what are you gonna do about it? How will that alter your social life? What currency will you expend? to have an audience with someone where you can share this truth, because that's the point. As Paul says, the resurrection is real, and we look at it, then what does it change in the street-level component of our life? How does it alter the direction of our conversations and our passion for the lost in this world?