1 Corinthians chapter 15. Now I would remind you brothers of the gospel. I preach to you which I received in which you stand and by which you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain, for I delivered to you as of first importance. What I also received that cross died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. And he appeared to Cephas and then to the 12. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James. Then to all the apostles, last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. I'm going to pick up reading for you at verse 12. Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, then it is coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet. This ends the reading of God's holy word. Let's bow in a moment of prayer. Father, we thank you that we can come before you in prayer and know that you hear us and know that you have a desire for us to understand and grow in your truth. And so we pray that by your Holy Spirit we will be taught today and that you will open our minds and our hearts and give us understanding and allow us to grow in those things that you have for us. Be with us this day in all that we do. In Jesus' precious name, Amen. In the Apostle Paul's day, there were a lot of people who couldn't believe in the resurrection. Now, all of you know about the Sadducees. We think of the Sadducees and the Pharisees, the religious lawyers. We think about all these folks, and the Sadducees didn't believe in life after death. They denied the immortality of the soul. They rejected the idea that there was any resurrection of the body. You remember one time they thought they'd get Jesus and they gave him an illustration about the seven husbands who died and the wife that had been married to each of those seven. They said, OK, in the resurrection, whose wife will she be like? We've got you now. And Jesus says, you don't understand anything, do you? You don't understand the scriptures. You don't understand that there is a resurrection. He says in the resurrection, they neither marry or given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. In the resurrection. They didn't believe it. The Greeks couldn't believe the resurrection either. Most of the Greeks believed that the body was like a prison for the soul, and they believed it was at death that the soul was finally set free to soar in the real world. So you see, the Greeks didn't believe in it. Even the most religious of the Sadducees didn't believe in it. A lot of people today don't believe in the resurrection. A lot of people today have questions. and are concerned. They think, well, life is like this. We are born. We live. One day we die. That's the end. There's nothing left. There's no afterlife at all. It's just the end. And you see, they have a hard time believing in God because they don't believe in any afterlife in which there's justice or reward or judgment. In a way, the Sadducees and the Stoics and the other Greeks You know, our very modern people, because they speak the same language that many people today struggle with, wondering, why would you believe in life after death? Why would you believe that Christ was resurrected? Why would you believe that there's anything beyond what we call the end? Well, they didn't believe in anything beyond life. And they thought the end was just the end, the end of the life was the end of everything. But Paul didn't believe that way. In 1 Corinthians 15 that we've looked at this morning, you saw that Paul believed in the resurrection. And he had some very good reasons for believing in it. Paul had some excellent reasons for believing in the resurrection. And I want to give you a few. The first reason that Paul gives for believing in the resurrection was that it's taught in the Scriptures. In 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 and 4 he says, 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. It says here, Paul believed in the resurrection because it was taught in the scriptures. He says, I believe it because of that. There's this great verse in Job where Job says something like this, In my flesh I will see God. I know that in my flesh one day I will see God. Job had confidence that there would be a resurrection, that there would be a resurrected body. And then Isaiah 53, you remember Isaiah 53? Where in verses 10 and 11 it says, if he would render, if Christ, the suffering servant, would render himself as a guilt offering, he will see his offspring, he will prolong his days, and as a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see and be satisfied. Isaiah believed. Isaiah believed it, didn't he? So you see Job and Isaiah and the Apostle Paul, you see all these places in scripture where the resurrection is clearly taught. Isaiah spoke of the future of that suffering servant, and he said, even though he would be cut off from the land of the living, he would see his seed and be satisfied. So you see, this is. Again, evidence. Several places that certainly in the Old and the New Testaments where there's clear evidence that these writers believed in the resurrection. Paul had to believe in the resurrection because he saw it taught in the Bible, but that's not all we know that we know that Paul had to believe in the resurrection of Christ because of the testimony of eyewitnesses. He had to believe in it because there were people that told him. that they were there and they saw the resurrected Christ. Paul spent a lot of time with Peter, you remember, and Peter certainly believed in the resurrection. Peter had been there when the women came and told him that the tomb was empty. You remember how Peter ran to the tomb? You remember how John stopped outside and wouldn't go in? But Peter, you know, is the guy that's got to be there and see everything. So he rushes in. He goes inside into the tomb. He looks around and he sees the grave clothes laid right there, as if the body just came right out of them. The wrap that was around his head, just right where the head wrap would be. He comes in and he looks. Peter was there on Easter evening when the Lord appeared to them in the upper room. Peter was there the next Sunday when the Lord returned and spoke to Thomas. Peter was there when they all went fishing, you remember, and they were out fishing on the lake and they come in and there's the Lord Jesus and he fixes them breakfast. You see, Peter didn't just believe because it was taught in the scriptures. Peter believed because he saw it himself. And so he told Paul all these things. He told everybody, don't you know? Peter would have told everybody about the resurrection because he believed it. He had seen it. He'd been there. He said, I saw all these things. Peter definitely believed in it. He and Paul talked about the things that they had seen. And Paul understood it from eyewitnesses. Paul said, I believe in the resurrection because I believe the personal testimony of Peter and Peter was the one that. Paul was the one that also said, I have the word of the other apostles, it wasn't just it wasn't just Peter that he believed, he believed James and some of the others. You know, Paul even says there were 500 people at once that saw Jesus. Now, you can say, well, if one person saw it, maybe there's a question. If two people saw it, maybe there's a question. They could be lying. But you get 500 people together at one place and you say they all saw the resurrected Christ? Paul says, don't believe me? They're still alive. Most of them, go ask them. Go ask them. You can talk to them about the resurrection. They'll tell you what they saw. If you don't believe me, Paul says, you can always ask them. But Paul didn't just believe in the resurrection because somebody told him about it and said, you have to take my word for it. It's a matter of faith and you just have to believe. It's not just a matter of faith, it was a matter of history. It was a matter of personal testimony. It was a matter of seeing people. I mean, if somebody came up to us and said, oh, nobody blew up the Twin Towers. Nobody blew up the Twin Towers. That's all a myth. That didn't really happen. And we say, oh no, we saw it. We saw it on TV. Some of you may have been to New York City and you've seen the hole in the ground. where the Twin Towers fell. And you've seen the memorial that's going up, the new building in its place. You can say, no, I know that the Twin Towers fell because I've been to the place and I've seen the hole where those two buildings fell and how they've excavated all of that rubble out of there and how they've rebuilt a new building in its place. I know that that happened because I've seen it." And you see, that's what Peter said, I know it happened because I've seen it. And Paul said, I know that's happened because I've seen it. And then Paul believed in the resurrection because he had personally seen the resurrected Christ. You remember how Paul was on the road to Damascus. Take your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 9. Let's look at Acts chapter 9 verses 3 to 5. Let me read for you. And as he was traveling, it happened that as he was approaching Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. The Apostle Paul could believe it because of the testimony of others, and he could believe it because it was taught in the Scriptures, but he also believed it because he had seen the resurrected Christ himself. He had had a personal encounter with the resurrected Christ, and it changed him. Paul, who was a man who was going to exterminate the church, on the one hand, as he rides to Damascus, all of a sudden he gets blinded by the bright light. He hears the voice of God the Son speaking to him. He goes in, he spends three days in this blindness. Ananias comes to him. Ananias says, OK, you're going to get to see, but rise up and wash away your sins. And all of that happens. And he's a changed man. The guy that used to want to exterminate and stomp out the church, now he's different because he believes that the only thing possible is us to promote this resurrected Christ and to tell about him everywhere. And everywhere he went, no matter what it cost him, he did that. Because Jesus said to him, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. The glorious resurrected Savior appeared to Paul on that road to Damascus, and he was a changed man. Well, obviously, Paul can believe in the resurrection for all these reasons. In this chapter, Paul goes even a step further, though he uses a little reason on it. You remember, he's one of the best educated people of that time because he trained under the finest teacher in Jerusalem, Gamaliel, who was probably a genius in both the law and the prophets and all of the writings of Scripture. And the Apostle Paul was well He was a well-reasoned person. Paul uses a little reason with us. He says, what if all of this is just a nice story? OK, let's talk about that. Some people believe that. What does it really mean to the church of the Lord Jesus if the resurrection never took place? If we think about rationally, we would say with Paul, well, if the dead aren't raised, then Jesus is only a man. If the dead aren't raised, then he's in a grave somewhere and his body is rotted. A lot of people believe that. Some of the people in a group called the Jesus Seminar basically are historians that don't believe in stuff like that. There are a lot of people that even work for the church that don't believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. But what if it was like that? If the dead are not raised and Christ hasn't been raised, and if the Christian churches wasted 2000 years. Telling the story of Jesus, do people die for myths and legends? Back in First Corinthians, chapter 15, I want to read to you verse 14. If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith also is in vain. He says, OK, let's talk about it. If the resurrection isn't true, if Christ hadn't been raised, then all the preaching of the church is just wasted hot air. And then all that we've done for 2000 years, we would say is wasted if Christ hasn't been raised. Because, you see, Christ being raised is the deal breaker. Christ being raised is the deal breaker, because that's what the whole church believes, supposed to believe. You know, we can say Jesus was a good man. Jesus taught nice things, but you don't live and die for stuff like that. You don't live and die for a philosophy. You only live and die for something that's really true. Think about all the apostles. Did you realize that most of them were martyred? You don't die for something that's a legend. You don't die for something that's false. I'm not going to give my life for something that's false. And I know you wouldn't either. When Paul spoke about the resurrection, he meant to affirm the physical resurrection. I remember years ago, There was a campus minister that came 40 years ago to a campus not far from here, and that person did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ. So what do you do? What do you believe if you don't believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ? Because you see, everything is based on the bodily resurrection of Christ. It's not based on the rise of the spirit. It's not raised on, well, his teaching is in all of us. Christianity is based on the fact that we have a leader, a founder who is different from all the others because he came for us. He lived for us. He kept the law perfectly for us. He died on the cross for us. And then God proved that he was the real deal by raising him up from the dead. Muhammad hadn't been raised from the dead. Buddha hadn't been raised from the dead. Confucius hadn't been raised from the dead. Now they can say his spirit lives on in the followers, but they don't, any of them, claim that he was raised from the dead. But we do. So the bodily resurrection is the deal breaker. If it's not true, then we're wasting our time. You can't just say, I believe in the rise of Christ's spirit. That's false. That's fake. You don't believe it if you don't believe in the bodily resurrection. Paul talked about the resurrected body in first Corinthians 15 and verses 35 and following, but I want to look at two verses with you. I want to look at verses 42 and 43. Of First Corinthians 15, it says, so also is the resurrection of the body. It is sewn a perishable body. It is raised an imperishable one. It is sewn in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sewn in weakness. It is raised in power. The new resurrected body of Jesus was it was a perishable body, but now it's raised an imperishable one. It was sewn. into the grave and weakness, but it has been raised in power. Jesus was not just a spirit after the resurrection, because when He appeared to the guys on the Sunday night, you remember how He said, what do you have here to eat? And they said, well, here's some fish. Broiled fish, by the way, so there's a detail. Picks up the broiled fish. He eats it. If they didn't believe in Jesus being bodily, then they could look and say, well, a ghost doesn't eat fish. That fish is gone. The bodily resurrection, Jesus said, I'll prove to you I've got a body and that I'm not a ghost here. Give me something to eat. And he did. And he proved to them by this that he was real flesh and blood. And then when he came back to Thomas, he said, I'm real flesh and blood. Go ahead. If you want to touch me, you can. It's no big deal. Touch me and believe if you're having trouble. You see, the resurrection of Christ was a bodily resurrection. He triumphed over death. The body that he had that was crucified in weakness was raised up in power. And it's real. And one day we'll see it if we know and trust the Lord Jesus Christ. One day we'll see it. That resurrected Savior that we've heard about and read about and thought about. Let me ask you this, why does it really matter that Jesus is resurrected from the dead? Why does it matter that he's been raised up body and soul? What difference does it make? I believe that there's a couple of reasons. A couple of things that we ought to think about. And one is that it speaks to those people who think Jesus is just like the founder of any other religion. We talked about all those people being dead, but Jesus has been affirmed by the fact that he's been raised bodily. In other words, God has set His stamp of approval. That's what Romans says. God has set His stamp of approval on the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Savior of the world in that He's the only one that has been raised up to power and with a resurrected body. Now, you can say, Lazarus was raised up. Yeah, Lazarus was raised up, but he died again. The widow of Nain's son was raised up, but he died again. But Jesus has been raised up never to die again. Jesus has a body that He can just appear here in the middle of the room and talk to His disciples and eat fish, and then He can turn around and disappear and become invisible for them to see. He has a resurrected, powerful body. A real body, but different from ours. Nobody else has one of those. You remember the miracles in Exodus? You remember how the guys, the magicians could do a few of the miracles and then they couldn't do them anymore. They couldn't match the things God was doing. This is it. Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, they're all dead. They don't have a resurrected body. Why should we believe in them? They don't have God's stamp of approval. Why should we believe in them? The only one we should believe in is the one who's conquered death for himself and for us. And you see, that's why we believe in the resurrection, too, is because it has implications for you and me. Because the scripture says just as Jesus got a resurrected body, he's the first fruits of those who are raised up. So he's the very first of it. So we're going to get one, too. One day we will have a resurrected body. One day we will have one that is like Christ's resurrected body. One day we will have one that can eat and drink and yet be so different from the weak bodies we've got that are going to decay and loss. One day we get a body that doesn't ever decay, will never be affected by the curse of death or sin. One day we'll get a body that's full of glory, just like the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. A raised, resurrected body, so different from what we've got now. And yet, there will be recognition, we'll be able to recognize each other, we'll know each other. We'll be different, raised in power. The Apostle Paul said he was declared with power to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead. Who else has been declared with power by the resurrection from the dead? Nobody. Nobody has been declared with power like Jesus. In eternity, we'll be body and soul forever. We'll have that. The part of us that's the essence of us that we call the soul and the body that's been remade, the resurrected body that Christ gives to us. Now, if you've been struggling with believing in the resurrection, I would say to you, don't ignore the evidence. Don't ignore the evidence. If you've struggled with believing in this, go back and look at the evidence for yourself and say, Lord, show me what's true. And if you believe in the resurrection of Christ and you've trusted in this resurrected Savior already, then you and I are going to be resurrected soon. We're going to die soon. We're going to be resurrected soon. Won't be long. And we're called to be faithful servants. We're called to be faithful servants to see how we can serve a master who would love us like that. How can we serve a Master who would love us like that? Who would care enough for us to leave the glory of heaven, to come down and to live in our world with suffering and death and sickness and disease and heartbreak. He would take on all of that for us and then He would go to the ultimate place of the cross and take the judgment for us that we deserve. He would take all of that poured out on him like a cup of wrath. He would drink it all the way to the bottom for us. And then he would be raised up in victory after death and being under the power of death to be raised up in victory for us. How can you serve one like that? Think about that. Let's bow our heads and pray. Father, we know that you called us to be servants, to be servants that are awake and attentive, servants that are ready to serve day or night, servants that are ready to use the talents, the gifts and abilities that you've given to us. Father, if there's anybody in this room that is struggling with understanding and believing in the resurrection, I pray that you will help them to see and to understand and to believe and to trust. And Father, for those of us who do trust and believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ and know him as Lord and Savior, I pray that you'll make us faithful stewards of the life that you've given us, that we can use it in right ways and that we can give honor and glory to you. Thank you. And we pray in Jesus name. Amen.