The significance of Christs resurrection for every believer

He is risen. Good. Good work. Actually, you know, when I was preparing for this message, I had thought about that phraseology, that kind of rhetorical kind of thing. I did a little search on the Internet and actually it's been around for a long time. I don't know the exact history. There's actually a verse in Luke, which is taken from, but that was pretty cool. He is risen. Yeah, great, great picture here. So we're going to talk about the resurrection of our Savior. And of course, I put my got my notes upside down to start with, which isn't a good. So let's try right side up. Hopefully, they'll be better this way. All right.

So here's another passage that talks about Christ being risen in Mark 6 1616 six. And he said to them, Do not be amazed. You are looking for Jesus and Nazarene who has been crucified He has been risen. He has risen. He is not here. Behold, here is the place where he laid."

So when I was thinking about this, I kind of thought about maybe three divisions of what I want to talk about this morning. First of all, I want to kind of introduce the concept of resurrection, not exhaustively. We could spend a lot of time on that. Just a quick introduction, a couple of quotes.

Then I want my proofs this morning will be mostly eyewitness proofs now obviously none of us here in this room Were eyewitnesses, but we have recorded in Scripture. We have eyewitness accounts And I want to show you some thought process about what what would be a convincing proof to an eyewitness and then thirdly I want to talk about what's the significance to us as believers today and Right now 24-7.

What's the what's the benefit of Christ's resurrection to us right now? So let's So here's a couple of a couple quotes J. Ver McGee says the cornerstone of Christian Christian faith is the resurrection of Jesus Christ Without without it would there be no reason to believe that Jesus could save it Save us save us from anything and I think that actually comes from this verse so that you know scripture Paul makes a rhetorical kind of discussion here and in first Corinthians 15 12 and so on he says now if Christ is preached and which was being done his time. Now, if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how do some say that there's no resurrection? So apparently in Paul's time, as in today's time, people are saying there's no resurrection.

That's all a myth. It's all just a story. So he says, well, if you go down that line, if you go on that logic, if you buy into that logic, But if there's no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised. If you rule out the possibility, it's impossible to be raised from the dead, which many people would say that. They would say, that's an impossibility. You can't do that. Well, God says differently, but if you go on that logical path, then Christ is not raised. If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. So our entire Christian faith hangs on the fact that Christ was raised physically and he was seen by men and ascended to the Father.

And then lastly here, I had a definition of Brother Howe here about resurrection. Resurrection, arising of the physical body, from the dead with a body that will never die physically again. So it's a physical body that will never die again. That's good news. We get a new body.

This resurrection has come to pass only in the case of Jesus Christ alone. If you think about that, there were temporary resurrections, or actually a person would be like with Lazarus. He was raised, but then he had to die again. So he got to die twice, which doesn't sound like too much fun. I don't want to sign up for that. I'd like to die once and then the Lord takes me home and it's done with.

And then at the end, basically, I continue with the definition here, only in the case of Jesus Christ will come to pass all men according to God's plan will be raised, both the just and the unjust, at the end of the age. Okay, so now let's just kind of think through this. What would be the most convincing proof Christ's resurrection if you were there at his time if say for example you were there as we celebrated on Friday and you saw You saw him crucified and I noticed that in preparing for that I noticed that Mary Magdalene and And one of the other women were actually there when Joseph of Arimathea was preparing Christ's body to put in the tomb They actually were watching him apparently so they saw that he actually went into the tomb and And the passage that was read, I think that's why Mary was so amazed. She was so convinced that somebody had taken the body. The gardener's taken the body. Somebody else has taken this body and it's gone. In her wildest dreams, she didn't think that he actually might be alive.

So, pretty cool. So, what would convince you? To see him face to face. That would be good, right? To talk with him and hear his voice so you have conversation. And we're going to see that. In these eyewitness accounts, we're going to see People are going to see him face to face. They're going to talk to him. He's going to talk back to him in some cases.

And then in some cases, they're not necessarily going to shake his hand. In Mary's case, she wants to grab hold of him. And there's a lot of discussion about, and I'm not sure I can explain all that, but he actually touched people, and people touched him, right? Remember with Thomas? He says, touch my hand, feel here, put your finger on my hand, put your finger on my side. They saw him face to face, they heard his voice, they had conversation with him, and they touched him. If you had any doubts after that, you'd be, you know, that's pretty strong evidence. So that's my line of logic here. So let's go on here. So if you're a major Bible student reader, or actually we have the course occasionally at Holly Hills for Sunday school.

There's a chapter on the resurrections, or actually on Christ's resurrection. And in that, Dr. Chafer, he presents 17 appearances. You'll be happy to know I'm not going to go through every single of the 17. I'm going to go through at least four or five, and they're somewhat connected. We're going to talk about one. I'm going to read them all, but we're just going to talk about four or five.

OK, the first one. The first one we just read, Mary Magdalene outside the tomb. The second one, the women running from the tomb. The third one, Peter, was somewhere in Jerusalem. The fourth, the disciples on the road to Emmaus. And we're going to focus on that guy. That's a really cool one. The 10 disciples minus Thomas. Then the 11 disciples with Thomas. We're going to look at those two. Seven disciples in the Sea of Galilee. the 500 member and we read the gospel account in 1st Corinthians 15 it talks about 500 saw him at one time and we don't have a lot more information other than that and then we his James the Lord's brother so I got this these nine and then we have the other eight we'll see in another chart so let's look at the first one Mary Magdalene so I was read Mary was she's standing outside the tomb here's something that's interesting It says, she stooped down and looked into the tomb. Who's visited Israel? Who's visited different tombs in Israel, gone to Jerusalem? Somebody raise your hand. Were the entrance to the tombs, could I walk into those?

Or do you have to kind of, are they kind of short? I think they're short. So I think, you know, this account actually kind of And I actually have a picture. It's not a photograph, but it's a caricature. But anyway, it says that she stooped down and looked in. So she had to look in. Now, maybe when you got into the tomb, it was taller, but the entrance was actually kind of short. So it says she stooped down. She was weeping. And as she wept, she looked into the tomb. She saw two angels, one at the head and one at his feet. Then and and they said to her woman. Why are you weeping and she says?

You know, this is Mary Magdalene who saw them bury Jesus. She says well They've taken my Lord away, you know basically she said I saw him go in but now he's not here anymore What's happened, you know? Where did you take him? Where'd you lay him? so at this point I should have had this on the other chart, but when she had said that she turned and saw Jesus standing and apparently behind her, but she didn't recognize who it was.

So here's my little picture of the upper right-hand corner. There's a picture of somebody as a character or whatever. So I kind of think it's that way, that it's low, she's peeking in, and then she looks around and there's someone standing behind her. So Jesus asks kind of similar questions. He says, Woman, why are you weeping? And he says, Whom are you seeking?

I thought that was kind of cool. So she's still in this mindset. There's a body here someplace. Somebody took it. It's gone. Supposing him to be the gardener. Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, I will take him away. I thought that was kind of ambitious. If I understood what the burial process was, I mean it's pounds and pounds and pounds of this stuff they put on the body.

I don't think she could have lifted the body up without some help. So she was going to do it. Okay, but then at this point, this is really cool. Jesus said to her, he calls her by name Mary. She turned, apparently she turned away. It's almost like she was weeping. You can kind of feel the emotion. She's weeping and she looks at somebody. Okay, you took him away. And he says her name, she turns back.

Turned around and said to him in Hebrew, Rabboni, which means teacher. And Jesus said to her, and this is kind of a tough verse here. I don't think Jesus is being harsh with her. He says, Jesus said to her, stop clinging to me or literally it's don't hold on to me.

But I go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my father and your father and my God and your God. So I was thinking. I've had occasion where I've gone to a friend's house, and I haven't seen them in a long time, and they're so happy to see you.

Oh, I'm so glad you came. And they kind of grab onto your arm. Have you ever had that? They grab onto your arm. Let me show you what we've done since the last time you were here. And they take you around the house. Let's go upstairs, downstairs. And they literally hang on to you, because they're so excited. Oh, Roger, I haven't seen you in years. How's your family? What's happening?

Well, this is what I think, Mary. Well, if the Lord's here, wait a minute, I'm going to hang on to him. And he says, I think he just says to her, well, there's a different plan. I'm ascending. And actually the word is, he's in the process of ascending. He's in the process of ascending. I'm on my way, and we're going to have a different relationship. It's going to change to a spiritual relationship, not a physical relationship. So that's my interpretation. So let's go on. So that's a Mary Magdalene account. So you would say she met all three qualifications, right? She saw him. She talked with him. And she touched him and wouldn't let him go. OK, so now on the road to Emmaus. So in this case, there are two of them. They were going to the village of Emmaus. And they apparently were disciples. They weren't the disciples, I don't believe.

We're not actually told. I don't think they were any of the 12. the 11 and they were they were discussing discussing something in Jesus Jesus comes along and approaches them and but their eyes were prevented from recognizing that they didn't know who he was and then what's interesting I left it out but he he kind of I don't say baits him he kind of says well what's what are you guys talking about not that he had to be didn't know that what are you guys talking about hey they say are you the only one Where have you been? What planet are you on? Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem unaware of the things that have happened in these days? The things about Jesus?

And they actually, they lay the blame totally, they don't lay it on Rome. Notice that? Down toward the bottom they say how the chief priests and the rulers delivered him to be sentenced to death and crucified him. They didn't say Rome crucified him, they say our leaders and chief priests crucified him.

That was interesting. So and it continues on and and they account was really neat they go through this account and they Totally back up the women. They said some women amazed us. They went to the tomb. They saw some angels. The body wasn't there We went to the tomb We didn't see Jesus. There was no body was there so they keep talking with him and They urged him to stay with us then eventually over time toward the end and get down to verse 30 their eyes were opened and then he disappeared and And then if you read on later in the account, they just are marveled by this, and they go off and they tell, you know, the rest of the disciples and other people.

So in this case, let's see, in their case, let's see, they saw him. They talked with him, obviously, a lot, back and forth. He talked with him. They probably touched each other. They probably shook hands. I'm not sure what the typical greeting at that time was, but they probably shook hands or did something. So they wouldn't, and then eventually they recognized who it was, so they met all the qualifications of a good eyewitness.

So now let's go to Thomas, Disciples Without Thomas. So in this account, we have, this is kind of the cool one, where there, it was evening, the first day of the week, the doors were shut for fear of the Jews, and Jesus just basically, he's there. It's like, you know, he appears. You know, it transported him down, right? That's how it works, anyway. He stood in their midst, and he said, peace be with you. And the first one of the first things he does here according to this text.

He he shows him both his hands and his side He doesn't actually ask him to touch him touch him, but he just says look here. He's validating that Yes, he was the one that was crucified So Jesus said to them peace be with you as the Father has sent me I also send you and I kind of skipped down the last part so Thomas was not with him In this account he was not with him. So now we go to to the case where eight days later, so in this case, Thomas is with them. Jesus comes as before. He appears in the room. Peace be with you. And so now, right off the bat, he addresses Thomas.

He says, reach here with your finger and see my hand. And reach here with your hand and put it into my side. Put your hand into my side. You know, pictures I found on the internet where, you know, they have him putting his finger where he says, put your hand into my side.

So I was talking with Mike about this. In the rest of the rest of the body, I don't think we have any blood, right? So could he have just open gapes in there? You could just stick your hand in there. I don't know. This is not, just conjecture. All right.

So, and Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God. And Jesus said to him, because you have seen me, and have believed, blessed are they who did not see and yet believe." And that's us. So here, Thomas met all the qualifications right. He saw him. He talked with him. He touched him probably more than, you know, he invited him to, you know, go for it, see these wounds.

Okay. All right. So now, so now we got, let's see, that was nine. We got eight more. Okay, number 10. Disciples in the Mount of... a mountain in Galilee. 11 is the Mount of Olives. We'll look at that one. And that's in the Christ Ascension. Stephen, prior to being martyred.

Paul on the road to Damascus. Paul in Arabia. Paul in the temple. Notice Paul has quite a few visits with the Lord. Paul in prison, Caesarea. and the Apostle John, the alum Patmos. What we're going to notice is there's going to be a change in here. After Christ ascends in the early part of Acts, he goes off in the clouds. He appears to men for special purposes, like to Stephen when he's martyred and to Paul on the road to Damascus.

And they actually have, I was noticing in my criteria, they actually have, they hear his voice and they talk back to him. There is dialogue. They don't touch him, but they at least see him and they have some kind of dialogue. Okay, so let's look at the first one. Actually, the first one I have is actually Stephen. Okay, so and this one's kind of interesting.

Being full of the Holy Spirit, he, Stephen, gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. So this part, this is when the crowd They rush him, and they cover their ears, and they begin to stone him. And then Saul, or Paul, is involved in this. Interesting. And at the last, at 59, it says, they went on stoning Stephen, and he called on the Lord and said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. So he saw him. There's some dialogue here. So that's Stephen.

So let's look at Paul on the road to Damascus. As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus. Suddenly, a light from heaven flashed around him. So he falls to the ground. And I always like this. So Christ answers. He hears a voice.

Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? So this is Christ ascended in the heavenlies. And he's telling Paul, why are you persecuting me? Paul, remember we're one in Christ, we're Christ's body. It really points strong to the fact that something that affects his body affects him. And he reiterates that next. And he said, so here's his dialogue back to the Lord. Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. So he said, you're persecuting my church, you're persecuting me. But get up and enter the city, and it will be told to you what you must do.

So here's another case. So here we have the five or six cases I presented. So these are the cases that I think are really important to realize high witness accounts of a risen Savior. So now I want to kind of switch gears. So we've talked about the introduction. We talked about the proofs of the resurrection. So now I want to get kind of personal in a good way.

So I want to talk about what's the significance to the believer of resurrection. So I have another list, and this is a list from Brother Hal. So the resurrection is a basis for the believer's faith and hope. The resurrection is a basis for the imputed righteousness and the believer's justification. The resurrection is a basis for the believer's life. The resurrection is a means of our intercession with God. And the resurrection is a power that can be appropriated to a believer's life.

And there's four more after this. So once again, I'm just going to pick a subset of this. So first of all, our faith and hope can be in God because of the Father raising the Son in great glory. That's in 1 Peter 1.20. Then also in 1 Peter, we have, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So we don't have a stagnant hope, we have a living hope because we have a living Savior. And then the rest of that verse kind of lists some of the benefits or some of the outcomes of this living hope to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. So that's the first one. The resurrection is a basis for the believer's faith and hope. Number three is the basis for the believer's life.

And this is very much like we talked about last week in Galatians 2.20. The believer's life is Christ's life. But that's all tied into the fact that Christ was raised and we were co-raised with him. So that's what a couple of bullets are going to be here about that fact. We can now walk in newness of life, this new and quality life that's Christ's life, since Christ was raised from the dead to the glory of the Father.

Because I was crucified with Christ and raised with Christ, I now live. It's not the old Adamic I, but Christ living in me. I not only know, and from Philippians it says, I'm not only to know by experience him, but also the power of his resurrection.

I was, I kind of, you know, I looked at this in the past and I was wondering, you know, power of his resurrection. I just was, kind of scratched my head and I thought, well, what's the, what's the day in and day out power of his resurrection? How would, what would that look like? And I thought, well, wait a minute, Roger.

Last week, we talked about Christ's life living in you. And what does that produce? What kind of things do we see in Christ's life? Remember last week we talked about Christ's life is patient, Christ's life is kind, Christ's life is not jealous, does not brag, is not arrogant. The whole list from 1 Corinthians 13. So in my mind, his power of his resurrection is this life that he lives through us.

And the fact that we can be patient, that's a biggie for me. I can be kind. That's the biggie too. They're all biggies. Because a lot of times I don't want to be patient and that person really irritated me. So that's the old me. I say, well, wait a minute. Who's supposed to be living here? And I think that's a powerless resurrection. I'm open to more discussion about that. Talk to me later. Okay. All right.

So here's the rest of the list. Provides hope. Remember, hope in Scripture is absolute assurance. It's not the hope-sell hope. Absolute assurance for tomorrow. The basis for the believer is identification, union, and life in Christ. It guarantees the believer's resurrection. It's our guarantee that we will have eternal life. I think I lost the word there. Okay, so let's look at this. Provides hope. Absolute assurance.

So, you know, in the passage I read early at the very beginning, it talked about the, you know, Paul had this argument about, you know, if there's no resurrection, my faith is in vain, I have no hope. So listen, this is kind of flipping this around and put it in the positive because that's not true. Christ is risen. So first of all, Christ is risen. He's risen. Good. All right.

You guys wouldn't do too well. Some churches have responsive reading. I don't think we wouldn't score too high in that area. I'm glad we don't. I'm glad we don't. Excuse me. So taking this kind of flipped approach here where we put what's actually true, Christ is risen. Our proclaiming is not in vain. Our faith is profitable. We are true witnesses of God. We're no longer in our sins. The dead in Christ will live. We have hope for eternity. We live with the joy in the Lord. So, that's taking that verse and saying, this is what's really true. Paul was kind of playing the opposite approach, for argument's sake. Okay. It's a guarantee of the believer's resurrection.

He, God the Father, who raised Jesus Christ from the dead, will also give life to your mortal bodies, or better, maybe, make your mortal bodies alive. through his Holy Spirit who dwells in you and then 1st Corinthians 6 14 it says now God not only raised the Lord but will also raise you through his power so all these verses you know are speaking to us and then in in 1st Thess 414 for if we believe and it's actually it's assumed we are believing assume we are believing that Jesus died and rose again even so God will bring With him those who have fallen asleep in jesus. I was thinking about that wonderful We have our loved ones go to be with the lord scripture. I just thinking about this They're in his mind. They're asleep. I mean, that's pretty cool You think of the ones you really care about? Well, they're asleep. They're just waiting For him to well, they're face to face for one thing.

We know that and then they're we know what the res of the final resurrection He'll the dead in christ will rise for they'll get to go first So hey, that's pretty cool Okay, so last one. It's our guarantee that we have eternal life and that's a that's really cool Okay, Jesus said to her I am the resurrection in the life and this is he's talking with Martha You know at Lazarus before he before he raises Lazarus. He's talking with Martha and he said to her I am the resurrection in the life he who believes in me will live even if he dies and And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Actually, I left off the last part. Do you believe this? That's a critical question. Do you believe this?

Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Then in John 17, it says, Even as you have given him authority over all flesh, that to all whom you have given him, he may give eternal life. And this is eternal life. that they may know you, the only true God. So I like to always kind of think about the fact that that last verse in John 17, 3 says, this is eternal life. I'm going to tell you what eternal life is. That they may know you, know the Lord Jesus. So knowing him is the start of our eternal life. I like that. So eternal life starts with the moment you believe. So that's always cool. So the question comes down, do you know him? Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?

So I want to kind of share a little story about a gentleman that I knew from my work out at Buckley. I knew him on and off for about 40 years. About seven or eight years ago, he got terminally ill. And he had about a month to live, and a friend at work, another believer, said, well, we should go talk with this guy. You know, years go by, and I should talk with this guy, I should tell him, you know, he was a really brilliant guy, very smart, and he intimidated you all the time. I mean, if you said, if you had one equation wrong, or one part of anything wrong, he would just destroy you. So, I mean, so, but he was a nice guy. He played the piano for some Christmas parties, and a nice guy.

So we went over, so I got together a list of verses. I got seven verses I put together. I said, well, I'm going to take this list of verses, And I'm just going to see if he'll let me read those verses to him. So my friend came with us. So I'd like to share those verses. And actually, I've talked about some of those verses before. And you all know these verses. If there's anybody here, I'd be surprised.

So first of all, I told him, I said, you know Romans 3.23, for all of sin that comes short of the glory of God.

His name was Joel. Joel, you've got to see that you don't start in a level playing field. I'm sorry. You're in trouble to start with. All is sin, and come short of the glory of God. And I said, oh, how about Romans 3, 9? It talks about Jew and Greek. We're all under sin. We're all under the penalty of sin. So you have a problem. That's the first two verses. Then, what has God done about that? Well, a couple of wonderful verses. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

And I said, here's another wonderful verse, Joel. And there's salvation. So now, Joel, we're going to talk about what's God's plan for saving you. And there's salvation in no one else, for there's no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

And then lastly, in that area, I said, Here's an eyewitness to Jesus on his time, John the Baptist. The next day, he saw Jesus coming and said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I said, Joel, there's some critical information you need to know about Jesus. And it's in 1 Corinthians 15. It talks about the fact that he died for our sins, he was buried, and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and he appeared to men. That's the core gospel you need to know.

And I said, and lastly, you know, scripture talks about some people that heard about him and here's what they did. And they said, sirs, what must we do to be saved? And they said to him, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household.

At the end of that discussion, he said, Roger, I've never heard that before. I was just astonished. Unfortunately, we didn't have, this is one of these weird deals. My friend got all excited about that. He said, well, we'll get you a Bible. We'll do this and that. And he got all excited. We never got any more deeper discussions than that. And then three weeks later, he died. Hopefully, he went to be with the Lord. But I just was amazed. I never heard that before. And I thought, you know, the people that actually haven't heard that, they may have heard it, but they didn't hear it. And, you know, so anyway, so that was something I wanted to share. So let's close. We thank you, Father. We thank you for your word, Father. We thank you for the marvelous truths of your grace, Lord. Thank you for this time. We remember your resurrection. In Christ's name, amen.