Kaleo San Diego Church

 

1 Corinthians 15:1-10: "Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand,  2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain.  3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,  4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,  5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.  7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.  8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.  9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.  10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain..."

 

Happy Easter! 

 

STUDY

 

Verse 1: "Now I would remind you, brothers..."

 

On the biggest day of the year for Christians, we are not gathering to talk about something new.  Instead, we come together and are reminded of a timeless and ancient truth that is as timely for us today as it was for those who witnessed this incredible event.

 

Paul is speaking to his brothers and sisters in the faith to remind them of what they may have forgotten.  We come to remember the person and work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

 

"...of the gospel I preached to you"

 

We come this morning to hear the gospel, the good news.  In the face of cancer, disease and decay, wars and famine, poverty and injustice, death and the presence of evil and sin, there is good news for those who have ears and are willing to hear.

 

"...which you received, in which you stand"

 

My greatest desire and prayer is that every person gathered together today hearing this good news would receive it.  That you would come to trust again in this glorious news which alone will allow you to stand and continue in faith in and love for the Jesus this good news is all about. 

 

Verse 2: "and by which you are being saved"

 

We are not simply saved in the past; we are being saved in the present and are promised salvation in the future. 

 

To be saved means that we are saved from something or someone.  The Bible teaches us that we are saved from sin, death, and Satan.

 

We are saved from sin.  Sin is our willful turning from God in our thoughts, words, and deeds.  Sin is an attempt to put ourselves where only God belongs and salvation is God putting Himself were we belonged, under His disfavor and wrath.

 

We are saved by God and from God.  In other words, it isn't just that we are saved from death and Satan.  First and foremost, we are saved from the perfect and righteous justice of God.  The only response from God, apart from His good news, is to cut us off and cast us from His holy presence and then to exercise His infinite justice through holy wrath.  This is what we truly deserve.  We are by nature and birth, children of wrath.

 

Every one of us without exception deserves only God's justice since we are rebels and have committed the highest treason against a Holy King. 

 

God saves us from His wrath.

 

We are being saved from death and hell.  Death is the penalty for sin.  It is also the only wage paid out to those who have sinned in their life.  This is why everyone ultimately dies.  The various secondary causes are many-old age, heart attack, cancer, or any number of ways we die-but the primary cause is sin.  Sin produces death.  It kills us. 

 

This good news means that because Jesus died, death is no longer our enemy.  It no longer has the same hold on us.  It no longer stands as something to fear. 

 

Instead of death looming as a great enemy to avoid, it becomes a servant to usher us into the presence of our glorious God who crushed the fear of death by tasting it for us.  Instead of being eternally rejected by a holy and just God, we are eternally received and saved from the horror and reality of eternity without God in hell.

 

Also, we are saved from Satan.  Behind all evil in this world is a very real enemy who is alive and lives His entire existence in opposition to God.  He is so deceived that He believes he will win and establish his throne forever.  He oppresses, hates, lies, destroys, attacks, and tempts us. 

 

Those who do not trust in this good news are mastered by him.  In their best of behavior they are still under the sway and power of Satan.  The Scriptures teach that without the good news of who Jesus is and what He's done and our trusting it by faith, we are held captive to do his will and desire what he desires. 

 

Instead, Jesus comes and defeats this great enemy of God and our souls by taking death, sin, and all the wretched hatred of Satan upon Himself, and standing in our place to receive God's judgment as our substitute.  All so that we would be free from sin, Satan, death, and hell.  This is the good news that we celebrate this morning, and it is the good news that Paul is telling us we need to be reminded of again and again.  Jesus has fully accomplished salvation for us. 

 

"if you hold fast to the word I preached to you-"

 

This news is not something that you agreed to in years past and have now gone on with your life doing what you want, how you want.  This is news that is preached and proclaimed, declared and discussed again and again and again so that we would hold fast to it and never move from it.

 

Our decision to love and follow Jesus is one we make every moment of every day as we hold fast to this truth, the word that Paul preached, the word that John preached, the word that Mark preached, the word that Matthew preached, the word that Timothy preached, the word that Peter preached, the word that Augustine preached, the word that Anselm preached, the word that Luther preached, the word that Spurgeon preached, the word that the martyrs of the faith have always preached, and I am preaching this day.  This is the good news to which we hold fast and from which we never move. 

 

This Gospel is an ongoing truth we believe again every moment.  It is never to be seen as only something that you "did back then" but something you continue to "trust right now."  This is the power of the Gospel that saves us and preserves us as we persevere by believing it and celebrating it today!

 

"unless you believed in vain."

 

And unless this is a truth we continue believing every moment, we will have believed in vain by merely nodding our heads to affirm it but not holding this truth near and dear to us.  Not only this, our entire life will have been meaningless and in vain.

 

Paul's great concern for the Christians in Corinth is that they would not have believed in vain.  In other words, that their belief in this Gospel wasn't meaningless because they moved on to something else. 

 

I share that same concern for all of us here this morning-that our belief in the Gospel is not meaningless because we are holding fast to the power and truth of who Jesus is and what He's done.

 

Verse 3: "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received"

 

There is so much information in this world, so many things we're told are important for us to learn.  But there is only one thing of first importance.  And though other things can be known, there is only one thing that must be known, and that is what we're hearing this Easter morning: that Jesus died, that Jesus was buried, and that Jesus was raised. 

 

No front page news in all of history will ever compare with the importance and preeminence of this news. 

 

Paul gave to the Corinthian church what he had also received.  He didn't change this news.  He didn't tweak it to try and make it relevant.  It was and is relevant and our job isn't to make it relevant but to demonstrate that it is! 

 

We are receiving this morning a section of a letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church and we've received it just like Paul did, just like the Christians in Corinth.

 

This truth has not changed.  It is not new.  Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, and the truth about Him will never be lost.  When we believed this truth we entered into a stream of life that has been running and drawing people to it for 2,000 years.  We are trusting and believing the same Gospel that Paul believed and the same glorious news that he proclaimed and wrote.

 

It makes no difference where you're from, what your past is, who your parents are, and what you used to believe.  This is news that we receive and pass on and it is a truth and power that is for everyone who would come to believe it.  There are never to be any revisions or changes to this timeless truth or it will not save us. 

 

All of us here this morning have this in common: we were made for God's glory and we exchanged that glory for our own and have sinned.  We are all equal in that we are equally sinners and equally in need of a Savior.  If someone doesn't step in and substitute themselves, we will all face the same hopeless despair of God's judgment. 

 

But instead, Paul says that what He has to say about Jesus is of first importance and is our only hope out of this universal problem.  Anyone who has ever come to be a true Christian believes this essential truth and lives out of the power of this truth.

Paul says the good news is...

 

"...that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures" 

 

There are some who argue that Jesus did not die on the cross.  Yet anyone who seriously studies the Gospel accounts would have to conclude that He was definitely killed.

 

When you consider the flogging alone, many men who experienced such a horrific torture died from shock and blood loss before ever making it to the cross.  This was a brutal way to be punished. 

 

Jesus was then crucified by being nailed to a Roman cross and lifted up for all to see.  He was then inspected by a professional Roman executioner whose sole job was to see to it that those condemned to death by the cross did in fact die according to their sentence. 

 

To ensure that Jesus had died, a spear was thrust through His side under His rib cage puncturing His pericardial sac and His heart.  This is why Scripture says that water and blood flowed from His side.  This water would have been the result of massive trauma where the heart sac would swell with water around the heart.  Some estimate that Jesus died from this often fatal condition due to the intense suffering already endured. 

 

Jesus did die; had He not, the executioner would have been next on the cross.  To fail to carry out this kind of public execution would mean you were failing to uphold Roman law which was akin to defying Caesar. 

 

Jesus died.  Our God who came in the flesh died.  The reeds that were cut to use as whipping rods were made by Jesus.  The trees which were cut down and shaped into a cross were created by Jesus.  The ore in the mountains that was extracted, melted and shaped into nine-inch spikes were made by Jesus.  The bush that was cut, dried, and shaped into a crown of thorns was made by Jesus.  And humanity, created by God though the Son, mocked Him, jeered Him, beat Him, spit upon Him, and murdered Him. 

 

Jesus died, and we're given a very important word in this verse.  Jesus died for...

 

He didn't die in vain, He came to accomplish the plan of the Father to rescue and redeem His people.  To do so, Jesus died for our sins. 

 

For our sins, according to the Scriptures.  Jesus came to substitute Himself and place Himself were everyone of us deserved to be.  He came to give Himself as a ransom for many.  He came to die for us because of our sins.  Our sins placed Jesus upon the cross.  It is because of our willful turning away from our Creator and trusting in ourselves instead of the One who loved us and made us for Himself. 

 

He died for our sins.  There was a purpose and meaning behind His death.  It was for something.  It was for our sins. 

 

Were you there when Jesus was crucified?  Yes, you were there.  Yes, I was there.  Not as spectators, but as active and guilty participants that plotted, schemed, bargained, and betrayed Jesus by handing Him over to be crucified. 

 

Some of you may try to wash your hands of your responsibility, like Pilate, but any attempt to do so will be futile.

 

You see, before we can dare to claim that the cross was done for us, we have to admit and acknowledge that it was something done by us, leading us to repentance and faith. 

 

Only the man and woman willing to own their share in the guilt of the cross may claim their share in the grace of the cross.  

 

We have sinned against a holy, perfect, righteous and infinitely just God and we can not pay the debt we owe.  We are sinful and bankrupt.  We are imperfect and unrighteous.  We are finite and unholy.  We can not pay Him. We can not bribe Him.  We can not escape Him.  And we can not hide from Him. 

 

No morality, no good works, no philosophy, no excuses or sincere intentions can pay for our sins.  The wages of sin is death.

 

A sacrifice must be made.  A life must be taken.  It will either be our own life for eternity, or it will be the spotless Lamb of God who comes to offer Himself in our place to die for our sins!

 

All of my sins are seen by the living God.  All of the things I should have done but failed to do and all the things I should not have done but did anyway are laid bare.

There is nothing that escapes Him.  There is no secret place for any of us.  We need a Savior!  We need someone to rescue us and redeem us from our sins past, present and future.

 

This was the promise of God to His people.  Though they had sinned, God promised He would send them a rescuer. 

 

This is why Paul says that He died for our sins, according to the Scriptures.

 

God's prophets kept proclaiming that a Messiah, an anointed One, a savior, a rescuer, a redeemer was going to come and save His people.  See Isaiah 53.

 

This is why God instituted the sacrificial system in the Old Testament.  God was preaching to them that they needed their sin to be atoned for, to be blotted out and chased away from their presence.  God wanted them to understand that blood needed to be spilled for sins to be forgiven. 

 

Passover was a demonstration of God lovingly passing over our sins if we trusted Him in faith and blood covered our doorposts.

 

The Day of Atonement was a day that once a year God's people would come and in faith trust that God would forgive their sins as the High Priest offered a sacrifice before God on behalf of the people for their sins and transgressions.

 

All of this was a foreshadow and pointed to Jesus who would come as the Passover Lamb and sacrifice to atone for our sin.

 

Verse 4: "that he was buried"

 

Paul says that Jesus was buried.

 

After dying, He was taken down and wrapped in 75 pounds of burial spices and another 25 pounds of linen.  Had Jesus survived the beating, flogging, crucifixion and spear through His side, Jesus would have either died from suffocation under 100 pounds of linen and spices or from exposure as He was placed without medical attention or water in a cold, rock tomb to die from hypothermia.  

 

A follower of Jesus named Joseph of Arimathea donated a large stone grave which was cut out of rock.  Guards were posted outside this tomb so that no one could come and steal the body of Jesus.

 

And the greatest of news and the reason we've come this morning to worship and praise our God was because He was raised on the third day according the Scriptures!

 

"that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures" 

 

Jesus was raised to do for you and me what we could never do for ourselves.  He not only died for our sins, He rose from the dead and in doing so conquered death itself.  Death is our last great enemy and Jesus took away its venom, its sting.  All that death is for us now is a butler to take us into the presence of our glorious King.  It's a servant and no longer something to fear.

 

All of us are trying to deal with death by extending our days.  We work out, eat right and take care of ourselves so that we can ward off death for as long as possible.  But at the end of the day, 10 out of 10 of us will die.  It is coming for each one of us and there is only one answer for this problem and that is our champion who came to conquer this enemy, Jesus the Christ.

 

Rome used to parade its conquered enemies through the city, with their leader stripped naked as all the citizens would come out to mock this conquered foe.

 

Satan assumed that He had done the same.  On Friday Jesus was paraded through the city of Jerusalem as the citizens came out to mock what appeared to be a conquered foe. 

 

What Satan did not know was that the One who appeared defeated was actually leading Satan, sin and death to their defeat as a conquered foe.

 

In fact, Colossians says:

 

Colossians 2:13-15:  "And you, who were dead in your trespasses...God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,  14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.  15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him."

 

Jesus lead the victory procession to the cross and displayed to all of creation, rulers, and authorities that they had lost and were put to open shame.  He triumphed over them.  He stripped them naked and led them through the city to show that all our trespasses, all our record of debt, all our guilt, all our shame had been nailed to the cross!

 

He proved His victory by rising from the dead to show that death could not hold Him, that His enemies who cheered His death were utterly defeated.

 

The resurrection was the Father throwing his arms around His Son and saying with gleaming pride and satisfaction: that's my boy!

 

No one has been able to defeat death.  There have been some amazing teachers, some amazing philosophers, some amazing prophets, but none were able to triumph over death itself.

 

Plato is dead, Socrates is dead
Aristotle and Immanuel Kant are dead
Neitzsche and Darwin are dead

 

Buddha is dead, Mohammed is dead
Elijah Mohammed is dead

 

Nero is dead, Constantine is dead
Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun are dead
Alexander the Great is dead

 

Pharaoh is dead, Cyrus is dead
Darius and Sennacharib are dead
Nebuchadnezzar is dead

Caesar is dead, Herod is dead
Annas, Caiaphas and Judas are dead
Pontius Pilate is dead

 

However...
Jesus is Alive!   -Shai Linne

No one has ever done this.  No one will ever do this.  The Gospel that Paul is proclaiming as good news is that Jesus died, Jesus was buried, and Jesus rose according the Scriptures. 

 

Jesus stands alone and is utterly unique not because His crucifixion was unique, but because of who it was that was crucified-the perfect, spotless, sinless, Son of God-and what He did after his death by rising from the dead. 

 

And for those who would dare claim He did not rise, Paul recites for us various eyewitnesses who testify to Jesus' resurrection.  Paul wants us to understand this was not a religious metaphor or some spiritual feeling.  Paul presses us to show us that the only way it can be good news is that it in fact actually happened in history. 

 

Verse 5: "and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve."

 

Cephas is Peter.  Do you remember him in the crucifixion narrative?  He denied Jesus three times and abandoned Him in His greatest hour of need. 

 

Peter was a coward prior to Jesus' crucifixion, but after Jesus rose from the dead, something happened to Peter.  He became the lead spokesman for the early church and courageously proclaimed that Jesus lived, died, was buried and rose again and all men everywhere should turn from their sin and trust in Jesus. 

 

The disciples were the same.  They were timid and afraid that they too would be killed for following Jesus.  They all changed once Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them.  They became incredibly bold, even unto death!

 

When they came to arrest Peter to kill him, tradition tells us that Peter refused to be crucified like His Lord and Savior and requested to be crucified upside down. 

 

What happened to them?  Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them.  Their life was not in vain and God's grace towards them was not in vain.  They lived fully until God took them home.

 

Then Paul says...

 

Verse 6: "Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep." 

 

Jesus appeared to various groups of people over 40 days.  At one point He appeared to over five hundred brothers at one time.  This may mean with wives and children that He appeared to over 2,000 people at once. 

 

There are many skeptics who say they must have hallucinated because they wanted to believe He was alive.  This is a misunderstanding of the beliefs of Jesus' day. 

 

You see, to the Jew, Roman, and Greek, no one was going to rise from the dead in the middle of history.

 

For the Jew, unless all disease and death had vanished, it made no sense to say someone rose from the dead.  They believed in a future resurrection, but that was at the end of days when everything was renewed.  To tell them that one man rose from the dead while there was still sickness, death and sin in the world would only make them mock you.  They would have never believed it, unless it happened.

 

For the Roman, they did not believe that we would inhabit this earth.  They believed in a shadowy underworld which we went to after death, but not here.  To say Jesus rose from the dead on Earth would only make them laugh, unless it happened.

 

For the Greek, they believed that the body was a kind of prison from which the soul was looking to escape.  Why would the soul ever want to come back into a body?  That would be going backwards!  They would have brushed it off as nonsense, unless it happened.

 

It was perhaps more difficult for them to believe that Jesus rose form the dead than it is for us!  They had religious convictions that told them otherwise.  Unless Jesus did in fact rise, this claim would have no traction.

 

And, 500 people don't have the same simultaneous hallucination.  You can't get five people to agree about what happened when watching a traffic accident.  You get 500 people together and they'll have 1500 different opinions. 

 

Paul wrote this letter to the church in Corinth.  This was a public letter.  He was essentially telling them, "Look, go ask those who were there!  Go find those who are still alive and talk with them."  This letter was written only 15-20 years after the event, so many of the eyewitnesses were still alive.

 

This is entirely too early for legend and myth to creep in.  If in 15 years from now I stood up and said, "In 2009, our entire church was standing outside by the bay and we watched a massive spaceship the size of Coronado hover over Qualcomm as they abducted LaDanian Tomlinson and the flew away.  If you don't believe me, ask them."   I had better be sure you had the same mushroom-induced high that I had.  15 years is simply not long enough for myth to creep in. 

 

You wouldn't make such a claim and invite scrutiny unless you could back it up.  Paul wants them to go and ask Thomas who doubted and then when Jesus showed His hands and side, fell down on the ground and cried out, "My Lord, my God," as he worshipped Jesus.  Go ask those who saw Him crucified and buried and then ate with Him.  Line them up one by one and ask them.  Go ahead. 

 

The evidence is overwhelming.

 

Verse 7: "Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles."

 

Who is James?  Jesus' brother!  We're told in John 7 that even his own brothers didn't believe that He was the Messiah.  They doubted who He had claimed to be. 

Then, after the resurrection, James becomes a follower and worshipper of Jesus.  He writes one of the books of the New Testament, James.  Another of Jesus' brothers who doubted also became a worshipper of Jesus and wrote the book of Jude.

 

In fact, James calls himself a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Jude also calls himself a servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James.

 

What would it take for you to move from skepticism about your brother being the promised Messiah to now worshipping Him and calling Him Lord?  Nothing less that the resurrection! 

 

Historically we're told that James refused to recant Jesus as Lord and Messiah and was taken to the top of the Temple and thrown off.  The fall didn't kill him so they stoned him and then someone took a club and beat him to death.

 

Listen to how the Apostles who were once petrified to lose their lives eventually died:

 

·         James (Son of Zebedee) was beheaded in 44 A.D.

·         Philip was crucified in 54 A.D.

·         Matthew was beaten to death by an axe head in 60 A.D.

·         Matthias was stoned and beheaded.

·         Andrew, Peter's brother, was crucified.

·         Mark was beaten to death.

·         Peter was crucified upside-down.

·         Paul was beheaded in Rome.

·         Bartholomew was crucified.

·         Thomas was killed by a spear.

·         Luke was hanged.

·         Simon was crucified in 74 A.D.

·         John the Evangelist was cooked in boiling hot oil but survived and died of old age in 110 A.D.

 

They went to their death with the confidence that death was no longer something to be feared.  Would they all be willing to die for something they knew was a lie?  Unless it happened and they saw Him, they would have scattered and turned away from Him.

 

Verses 8-9: "Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.  9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God." 

 

We see Saul (Paul) in Acts 8.  Another disciple of Jesus named Stephen was being stoned to death and it was Saul who stood there giving approval and holding the coats of those who were stoning him.

 

Saul hated Jesus and His followers so much that he was able to get letters from the Council of the Jews to go and capture and kill Christians to stamp out their growing faith.  But every time Christians were killed, more and more became worshippers of Jesus.  It was like their blood was seed for more Christians.

 

Saul put all of his intelligence and energy into opposing Jesus' followers, yet here he is writing this letter to the church at Corinth telling them that Jesus really did rise from the dead.  Do you know why?  Paul met the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus and fell to the ground and worshipped Him as Lord.

 

Paul came to experience God's grace and forgiveness, and if anyone needed forgiveness it was this man who had our brothers and sisters killed for their loving devotion to our Lord. 

 

And at the end of his days, Paul could say...

 

2 Timothy 4:7: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

 

What would make this enemy and persecutor turn into a worshipper of Jesus?  The resurrection! 

 

He was the least likely person to love, worship, serve and adore Jesus.  For Paul this isn't some distant academic discussion.  It meant his whole life.  If it didn't happen, Paul's life was in vain.  And this is what Paul says...

 

Verse 10a: "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain."

 

Do you see what consumed Paul?  Grace!  Paul realized this is good news of grace.  Grace is what saved Paul.  Grace is what saved Peter.  Grace is what saved James.  Graces is what saved Jude.  Grace is what saved John.  Grace is what has saved every Christian who has come to love and worship Jesus the Christ.

 

It is by the grace of God that Paul was what he was and we are what we are.  It isn't our moral efforts.  It isn't our profound intellect.  It isn't our good reputation.  It isn't our religious parents.  It isn't even our feelings.  It is grace!  Unmerited and scandalous favor where we cherish the Savior. 

 

And if it is of grace, then it means our lives are no longer in vain.  They are no longer meaningless!

 

Your suffering is not in vain.

 

Your heartbreak is not in vain.

 

Your loss is not in vain.

 

Your struggle is not in vain.

 

Your past is not in vain.

 

This day is not in vain.

 

Your future is not in vain.

 

God's grace towards you is not in vain! 

 

Jesus swallowed our failure, shame, guilt, death, sin, and hell.  Jesus became a man and lived our life and died our death to pay our penalty so that God could give us grace and welcome us in to His loving arms and say, "This is my boy, this is my girl, whom I love!"  Happy Resurrection Sunday Kaleo.  Let's worship our King!

 

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