The Big Story of
Easter
1 Corinthians
15:20-28
Welcome.
So do you believe dead people rise
again? Not just as in the Sixth
Sense, ¡°I see dead people.¡± Do you
believe dead people will come back from the dead and physically live
again? If I told you that I saw
Martin Luther King Jr. alive, what would you think?
If you¡¯re a little skeptical, you¡¯re not
alone. Many years ago, there were
people in the ancient city of
We¡¯re looking at 1 Corinthians 15. Last week we noticed how important the
gospel message: it received and passed on as of first importance.
And that gospel message is simply this:
Jesus Christ died for our sins and He rose from the dead. The crux of the gospel is the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
As mentioned, the Corinthians did believe
that Jesus died and rose again. They
had received and believed this gospel.
But they just didn¡¯t believe that they also would be physically
resurrected. Paul wants to address
this belief.
In vv. 12-19, Paul plays out the thought, If there is no resurrection of the dead (as
you say) . . .
Then Christ has not been raised from the dead, and everything is
lost.
In vv. 20-28,
Paul then says, But Christ has been raised from the dead . . .
Then we surely will also be resurrected. Paul wants to make a direct connection
between Christ¡¯s resurrection and our own.
One necessitates the other.
Paul argues for our resurrection.
We¡¯ll come back
to vv. 12-19, but today, I¡¯d like to look at vv. 20-28.
Have you seen Law & Order [picture]
where one crime uncovers a much bigger operation? One murder leads to a suspect, which
leads some off-shore bank accounts, which eventually leads to a whole drug
network or corporate scandal or some insidious family secret. That murder was just one piece of a much
bigger story. And in Law &
Order, it¡¯s usually a very complicated story.
Well, today¡¯s passage points us to the
fact that Jesus¡¯ resurrection was far more than just an isolated incident. It also is connected to a bigger story.
20 Firstfruits.
The 1st century was an agricultural society, and so it is a relevant
and meaningful metaphor. Your firstfruits were the beginning of your harvest; it pointed
to the full crop, the full harvest that¡¯s just beginning. The point is Christ is the first of what
is to come.
Christ¡¯s resurrection was not an isolated
incident. It is connected to a
bigger story. There will be a great
harvest of life, the first of many empty tombs.
21-22 In Adam, we all die. In Christ, we all live.
This touches on some big theological
concepts, but we¡¯ll try to keep things simple.
When we read Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve
took the forbidden fruit, sin and death entered the world. We believe that in Adam, all of humanity
became sinful. And so, we are
already sinful, from conception.
We¡¯re not just sinful because we do bad things,
we do bad things because we¡¯re sinful.
Parents can tell you, you don¡¯t have to teach a child to be selfish or
defiant or mean to others.
That we are somehow connected to someone
else, that we actually suffer in their mistakes and rejoice in their success,
might seem like an odd concept. Why
should it be that ¡°in Adam, we all became sinful¡±? It strikes us as odd partly because of
our individualistic mindset.
Actually, though, we experience connection, we understand what it is to
share solidarity.
When the Eagles went to the Super Bowl in
2005 [picture], this whole city was electrified. We were all cheering them on, wearing
our Eagles¡¯ jerseys, singing the ¡°Fight¡± song. Why were we so excited? None of us ever stepped on to the
Lincoln Financial Field, none of us were going to
In a much deeper way, when Adam lost, we lost. In Adam, we also sinned and experienced
shame, guilt, failure. We became sinful.
In Christ, we were forgiven, our sins were
put on the cross and we were raised from the dead.
If
we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be
united with him in his resurrection. (Ro 6:5)
If we believe we in our sinfulness were
united with Christ in his death, then we in His glory were united with him in
his resurrection.
Why must we also rise from the dead?
(1) Believer must be raised because of our
union with Christ: If Christ rose from the dead, then
we who belong to Christ will also rise from the dead.
23
There is an order
First, Christ rises from the dead. He is the firstfruits.
Then at Christ¡¯s return, all believers will also rise.
Then the end will come
Christ brings an end to all other dominion and powers
Christ hands over the kingdom to God the Father
Our resurrection is part of a bigger story (not about us).
25 The picture of the end isn¡¯t just
about us, and how Jesus will take us up to heaven.
The picture is about how Christ will conquer all enemies, how he
will re-claim full kingship over creation.
One way to tell the story:
Creation [pictures].
God created the earth. He
made goldfish and sparrows, evergreens and tulips, He
made music, marriage, art, architecture, emotions, and sex. He said, ¡°It is good, very good.¡±
Fall [pictures]. But with Adam came sin, and it wasn¡¯t
just that people were separated from God and became sinful. It was that all of creation became
warped, twisted, broken. The ground
produces thorns, there is pain in childbirth; now emotions have become
destructive, sex has become perverted, marriage has lost its purity and glory;
injustice, oppression, war, racism, disease and death have polluted our
society.
Redemption [cross] Christ has come to reclaim what
sin and Satan have polluted and destroyed.
We have verses that speak about how creation will be liberated from its
bondage to decay and brought into glorious freedom (Ro
Christ¡¯s work is to conquer all the
enemies: sin, sickness, corruption, injustice, hatred, guilt, fear, even
Satan. The last enemy is death
itself. Christ must conquer them
all. He must re-claim God¡¯s
creation from all enemies and restore her to God¡¯s original goodness.
The
thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have
life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)
Satan is a deceiver and a murderer. Christ comes to conquer Satan, the
destroyer, and to give full and abundant life: no more tears, no more pain, no more
Satan, and no more death.
Christ¡¯s resurrection showed the beginning
of the end. The last enemy has been
dealt the death blow, and it¡¯s just a matter of time before he finally
falls. It is inevitable, it is
certain; death is over, not just for Christ Himself, but for all of us in
Christ. Or as we see later in 1
Corinthians
For us to not also be raised from the dead
implies that Christ has not completely defeated death, that Christ is not
supremely victorious.
But he has, and so he is the victorious
Warrior, the conquering King over all his enemies, the supreme Ruler over all
things.
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
(v. 25)
And
[Christ] is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the
firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the
supremacy. (Colossians 1:18)
(2) Believers must be raised from the dead
because Christ has defeated Death itself and shows Himself to be the supreme
and victorious King.
But I want to
point out there still a little more to the story.
(v. 27) The Apostle Paul explains that
when we say ¡°everything¡± is under his feet, this does not include God the
Father. Christ will rule all things
(not the Father), and then he will subject himself to the Father, and then the
Father is ¡°all in all.¡±
That¡¯s what we saw back in v. 24, that Christ will hand the Kingdom over to the Father.
We see a picture of the Son, conquering
all, to surrender it to the Father, so that the Father may be ¡°all in all.¡±
But then we¡¯ll also notice, v. 28, it is
the Father who puts everything under Christ. The Father is giving everything to
Christ, who then gives everything to the Father.
This may seem rather confusing, but if you
think about it, this is remarkable.
We see a little of the interaction between the Father and the Son. We see a glimpse into the activity of
the Godhead. The Father and the Son
are passionately serving, honoring, and loving one another.
We see that throughout the Bible. Jesus is always saying how he is
honoring the Father, showing the Father, pointing to the Father, obeying the
Father. We also see the Father
saying, ¡°This is my Son in whom I am well pleased,¡± the Father lifting up the
Son.
And the Holy Spirit is sent to testify
about the Son, who points to the Father.
[video??
pictures?] Here we are,
What was God doing before He created the
world?
Long before you and I were
ever on the scene, before the creation of the world, the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit were serving, loving, honoring one another.
The big story is the story of God. People and nations come and go,
mountains rise and fall, stars flare up and burn out, but the Persons of the
Godhead, from eternity past to eternity future, are perfectly and passionately
serving, loving, and honoring one another.
[keep universe picture]
(3) Believers must be raised from the dead
because our resurrection is part of what the Persons of the Godhead are doing
to serve, love, and honor one another.
We are part of a much bigger story!
Conclusion
1.
You are invited to have a relationship with this Risen Jesus, this
Conquering King. You are invited to
share in the benefits of His victory over sin and death.
The story is that this God has chosen to
taken an interest in us. He invites
us to become united with Him,
to have profoundly intimate relationship, solidarity with Him.
And by being united with Him, we are
united with Him in his death and resurrection.
It¡¯s like we get married to Jesus and are
united. He says, let¡¯s share one
bank account: He takes on the debt of our sin, and we share in His ga-billion dollar portfolio.
That means, on the cross of Jesus, our
sins, guilt, shame, mistakes were nailed.
He takes our crimes and punishment so that we don¡¯t have to bear
them.
That means, in his resurrection we also
have new life, we also have conquered death, we also are raised to glory.
The Gospel is a fairy
tale come true! We have a
Rescuer! a
real Hero! a
Savior!
If you¡¯re interested in knowing more about
this Gospel, this Jesus, we want to encourage you to keep on your spiritually
journey. If you¡¯d like, you can let
us know (yellow card??).
2.
We rejoice in the assurance of our own resurrection.
Despite what the Corinthians denied, Paul
argues that it must be so, it cannot be otherwise. Brothers and sisters, we also will rise
again.
For humanity, death is the final
enemy. Most of us are young, so we
don¡¯t think about death too much.
Have you ever spent time with someone who is dying? But my guess is that not too many of us
can look face death confidence and boldness. We spend enormous time, money, and
energy to maintain good health, to insure our safety. We¡¯re afraid of death.
But for the Christian, this final enemy is
defeated! Death has no hold on
us. We too will rise from the
dead. We celebrate that victory!
(1) If
Christ rose from the dead, then we who belong to Christ will also rise from the
dead.
(2) Christ
has defeated Death itself and shows Himself to be the supreme and victorious
King.
(3) Our
resurrection is part of what the Persons of the Godhead are doing to serve,
love, and honor one another.
Paul ends this chapter with great
rejoicing.
¡°Where, O death,
is your victory?
Where, O death,
is your sting?¡±
The sting of death is sin, and the power
of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He
gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
3.
We exalt this supreme and conquering King.
We bow to give him honor. We confess that all of
this world isn¡¯t about us, it¡¯s all about Him.
The Persons of the Godhead are serving,
honoring, and loving one another, and we join in that divine activity. We also serve, honor, and love our
God. This is His story, and our part in His story is to worship Him.
Please worship with me through this video as
we celebrate our God and Savior.