1 Corinthians 15:1-11 | The Risen Christ

If you have a Bible, go grab it and turn to the book of 1 Corinthians, chapter 15. We'll be looking at verses 1 through 11. If you don't have a Bible, you can use a pew Bible in front of you. If you don't own a Bible, we would love for you to just take that Bible with you. Feel free to take it; it's not stealing. We would love for you to have a copy of God's Word that you can have for yourself and read in your own time to see what the main message of Christianity is.

If you don't own a Bible or you've never read a Bible before, feel free to start in the book of Mark. There's a table of contents in the first page. You can go ahead and find the book of Mark and read it and read about the life of Jesus and see what it may mean for you. We would love for you to have a copy of God's Word. But for this morning, we'll be looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 through 11.

Let's pray. Would you help us, even this morning, to receive this message of the gospel, this good news about Christ, and help us to treasure it? We need your help in order to do that. We ask that your grace would extend toward us now in Jesus' name, amen.

Back was a missionary in Central Asia who was sent out from a church that I was a member at. In one of our members' meetings, he returned and stood up to share a story about one of the people that he was ministering to, a woman named Kay, who converted to Christianity and was baptized out from an Islamic background. She rose from her baptism, knowing that she could be killed. As she rose up from the water, she looked at a man who was baptizing her, and she said, “I know I will probably die for this, but Jesus is worth it.”

Her husband was a Muslim and was actually really encouraged by her thoughtfulness about Christianity and encouraged her to get baptized and record a video of her baptism. Unfortunately, her family got a hold of her baptism video and pursued her to kill her, and she and her husband had to flee for their lives.

What would make someone do something this radical, this sacrificial? What would make Kay look at baptism, which essentially signed her own death sentence, and rise from the water and look at the face of death itself and say, "Following Jesus is worth it"? Only if she had a hope that overpowers death itself, and the remarkable truth is that that hope is real. It was real for Kay, and it could be real for you too.

So for this morning, I want to focus on the main message of Christianity: this idea that Jesus died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead. Jesus died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead. There are three reasons why this message instills this hope in us to be able to live day after day after day.

The Gospel's Importance

First, we're going to look at the gospel's importance. Read again with me from verse 1. It says:

Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me. For I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it is I or they, so we proclaim and so you have believed. — 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (CSB)

Paul, an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, is writing this letter to the Christians in the church in Corinth, and he's reminding them of this gospel that he preached to them. When he came and first arrived and preached this message, people heard the gospel and were saved as a result of it. Paul comes into a town, he stands up, and he preaches a message that the good news of Jesus Christ is itself news. It's a message, it's a truth that you need to understand. And it was preached by Paul and was received by these people. They heard the message and they believed it.

This message isn't just a speech; it isn't just me standing up and talking and waxing eloquent for 20 or 30 minutes. It's actually the foundation of Christianity itself. Now, the heart of Christianity isn't what you do, isn't it about you being a better person, or putting your thoughts into action? It isn't even about your own personal experience that you have with the Lord. The heart of Christianity isn't a practice, a methodology, or a strategy; it's a message. There is news for you to know, for you to understand. And that message itself, those words, are the security and the savior of the Christian.

Paul says that we have taken our stand on the gospel message. You see that in verse 1: he says, "You received this message, you have taken your stand on this message and by which you are being saved." You are getting saved by this message. You are taking your stand on the words of the gospel. There is a flag in the ground. This is standing up, this is protecting the core language that Christians have banked, have cashed in all of their chips on this message, this news, these words that we believe. The gospel message is so crucial, so important, so necessary, that it's worth putting in our hope, our effort, even our security in the words of the gospel.

Paul is saying that there is no other hope that exists for the Christian. The Christian cannot stand before God and say that because of the life that we attempted to live, that that would somehow be good enough for us. We can't say that the intentions of our heart were good enough for us. It is only on the message of the gospel, which means you cannot go anywhere else. This gospel is it. The purpose of the Christian when it comes to the gospel message isn't to keep evolving past it, but to stay in it, to take your stand on this news of the gospel.

In fact, the gospel isn't just where you take your stand. Paul says that the gospel, this news, is the means by which Christians are being saved. You are being saved by the words of the gospel, even right now. Paul is saying that you are being saved by the words of this message, that the gospel that saves you is not based on what you do, but on what you know. Not just what you feel; this is beyond subjective opinion. Paul goes as far as to say that you need to hold on to the message of the gospel that he preached, or else you are believing in vain.

All of it is worthless if you don't have this message, that all that you may do, even with good intentions, to try to love your community or love a God that may or may not be up there, even a work that you may do for your understanding of who Jesus may be—if it's not right, if the message that you hold on to is not accurate, if it's not true, Paul is saying that it is all worthless, that you are wasting your time. It is crucial that we get this message right, that we get the gospel right.

What do you think Christianity is about? Is it a chance to start over? Is Christianity primarily about helping you overcome whatever obstacles you face in this life? Is Christianity primarily about finding comfort in the midst of darkness? Just to be clear, the message of the gospel is certainly not less than these things. It absolutely includes those things, but it's also absolutely more than those things.

Many people follow a message that's contrary to the message that Paul actually teaches. They claim to follow a Christ that Paul and Christ himself would not recognize. In his book *Soul Searching*, sociologist Christian Smith outlined the general faith of those who were claiming to be Christians as they grew up. He sat down and actually did interviews, face-to-face, polled thousands of people who were claiming to be Christians and asked some basic questions of their faith. In his book *Soul Searching*, he concluded that their faith wasn't faith at all. They may be claiming to follow Christ, but the Christianity that they followed didn't resemble anything that you found in the Bible.

Rather, it was what he coined as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD for short). MTD claims five things in its message: (1) God created, ordered, and watches over life on the earth (so far, so good); (2) God wants people to be good and nice, just like the Bible and all other religions; (3) the point of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself; (4) God does not need to be involved in my life unless there's a crisis; and (5) good people go to heaven when they die (see Gandhi, Mother Teresa, etc.).

I want to tell you this morning that is wrong. That is not the message of Christianity. And yet you see many Christians live their lives exactly like this: sermons about improving your life and trusting your fellow man, trying to leave the world in a better place than you found it. A message about Christianity that detaches itself from anything that's supernatural and tells you that what's important is what's going on in your life now. You can come to church on Easter or on Christmas and kind of pay homage to this deity, but then you leave this building and you get on with your life.

And I want to tell you from the bottom of my heart that all of this belief is in vain. If that's what you think, Paul is saying that that message that you're holding onto is completely worthless. It will crumble before the face of a holy God. It's ineffective because that message isn't correct. It isn't the message that saves. It could be a message that distracts. It could be a message that makes you feel good for a second or two, but it isn't a message that can save your soul. The heart of the gospel isn't a message about what you can do to make a distant God happy, or improve your own life, or just meet the quota of being "good enough" before you enter into eternity. The heart of the gospel is that the blessed, happy God took on flesh and dwelt among us. It is crucial that you get that right, which means we have point number two.

The Gospel's Message

The gospel's message. Look at verse 3 with me. "For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." The very core of the gospel, the good news of Christianity, doesn't start with us. It starts with Jesus Christ: what Jesus did for you and I, that Jesus died, was buried, and was raised.

It says here that Jesus died for our sins. This idea of sin is more than just the bad stuff that you and I may commit. It's the source of all suffering in this world. When Adam and Eve first sinned, the world became fractured and broken; death entered the world, suffering entered the world, because our sins are before a holy and just good God. We have made a wreck of it, and because of the crimes that we've committed against a holy God and what He expects of us, this eternal God expects an eternal punishment on you and I.

You see, for God to be a just God, sin must be punished, right? We don't want to live in a society where wrongs get overlooked. A good and just God would address every wrong, every source of suffering in this world, and we want evil and suffering to be taken care of. But any punishment that you may desire on the worst of human beings—whoever that may be, whoever may have wronged you, whoever you may consider to be despicable in society or in history—is the punishment that you and I also deserve. Because we didn't just break the law of the United States, but we broke the law of God, the almighty, eternal God.

And the level of authority that we violate dictates the level of punishment that you and I deserve, and all of us will stand before God on Judgment Day to give an account for every sin that we ever committed. And the just sentence is eternal death and suffering in hell, unless someone pays that penalty for you. And the good news, this message, tells us that Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, lived the perfect life that you and I never could, and that he died on our behalf.

Do you see the purpose of his death here in 1 Corinthians 15? He didn't just die to show you how much he loved you, though certainly that. He didn't just die to show you an example of holy living. Jesus died for your sins. Jesus Christ, fully God, fully man, lived the perfect life that we never could, and he dies on our behalf. Jesus does what you and I can never do: he lives a perfectly righteous life, which means he can pay that penalty that we owe. He came to do his Father's will, and his Father's will for his Son was to die for sinners.

In fact, everything that Jesus did from the beginning of his life to the end was "according to his Father's will." This death of Christ for our sins is no accident. Paul says that he died for our sins according to the Scriptures. You see, it's all throughout the Bible. There have been hints, little little landmines. And he's been saying powder kegs stored up pointing to Jesus that all explode at the same moment. Since the beginning of creation, the entire Scriptures have been pointing towards a Son of Man who would die on behalf of sinners.

Even in the very beginning, in Genesis 3:15, God says that the "seed of the woman would crush the head of a serpent," that someone would undo the consequences of sin on the earth. Abraham in Genesis 12 is promised that through him, "through his seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed." Even the bronze serpent that's lifted up in Numbers to save a dying Israel that's suffering from God's punishment; they can look upon this bronze serpent, lifted up, and find salvation, healing from their disease. The Son of David, in 2 Samuel 7, is promised he would reign forever, that his dominion would never end. Isaiah 53 says the suffering servant would suffer and bleed and die for the sake of the sins of humanity. Ezekiel 34, God says that he himself would come and take care of his own sheep. I could go on and on and on, all throughout the Bible. God has been putting prophecy after prophecy, promise after promise, all pointing to this man in this moment, taking the sins of the world on his shoulders to give you and I everlasting life.

So Jesus died and was buried. That is a historical reality. I'm not just talking about some voodoo, mystical, spiritual stuff. He actually died and was buried. Even secular historians like Josephus record this death of Jesus of Nazareth by the Roman empire. But if Jesus stayed dead, that would not be good news. Because if Jesus is still dead, then that means that the Son of God is still conquered by sin. Paul later says in this chapter, as far as to say that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then your faith is worthless, and you would still be in your sins. But the good news of this message of the gospel is that Jesus didn't stay dead. He rose from the dead, and rising from the dead, he shows that that payment is completely finished, that he has conquered sin. And the biggest sign of that is by conquering the fruit of sin itself: death. Jesus is able to put death under his feet. Then that means that Jesus reigns over everything. There's no obstacle that he cannot overcome.

The Christ-saving work isn't just proven in the Scriptures. It's also proven in history. You can see Paul labor, go out of his way to explain these eyewitness accounts in verse 5. Read with me. It says, "And that Jesus appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me."

Can you see this list that he's given here about the resurrection? This is different than other scriptural texts that you'll see from other religions. If you read like the meditations of Buddha or the Quran or other religious texts, they don't read like this. You'll see a lot of parables, scriptural or spiritual imagery, mystical language. What you don't see is a flat-footed historical list. Notice who he says saw Jesus after he rose from the dead: you have Cephas (or Peter), you have the Twelve, you have a crowd of 500 people at the same time. You have James, the apostles, and Paul. And Paul isn't just saying this in some kind of "Jesus rose from the dead in my heart, and I like, totally saw him." He is saying this actually happened.

500 people saw the resurrected Jesus at the same time. This is not an individual magician doing some kind of hypnotism, magic in front of you. This is Jesus appearing in front of an entire crowd of people, ten times the size of wherever you see in this room. And Paul is appealing to historical reality. He's saying there are people even today, at the time of him writing this letter, that are alive. Some in the church in Corinth, you can go meet them. And they will tell you themselves that they saw Jesus. Christianity isn't just some kind of fable that develops over the centuries. This is not myth that develops with retellings that get more and more grandiose over time. Christians believe in a historical event with historical witnesses, with a historical account of what occurred. Christians believe in a reality-based religion. We are saying Jesus actually did the thing. He actually rose from the dead.

If you're not a Christian, I wonder if you've done your own research or if you've done your own investigation. If you have questions, I would encourage you to read books like *Can We Trust the Gospels* by Peter Williams or *Who Is Jesus* by Greg Gilbert. I'd love to talk to you more about the historicity of the resurrection. Paul cares about the truthfulness of this message, not just the effect of the message. He doesn't just care about what the resurrection does to you. He cares that the resurrection happened. But this message, despite its importance, despite its truthfulness, does not matter if it doesn't affect you. So Paul lifts up the gravity of this message, he highlights the truthfulness of this message, and then he works to apply this message in the third point of our sermon today.

The Gospel's Power

The gospel's power. Look at verse 9. "For I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it is I or they, so we proclaim and so you have believed."

Paul was once a persecutor, and he is now an apostle by grace. Paul is saying this message isn't just some kind of thing that you understand conceptually in the air. It's not a kind of historical study that you do. This message affected himself, and by extension, it can also affect you. I mean, if you want to know someone who would be considered least, someone who would be considered the scum of the earth, it would be Paul. He persecuted the Church of God. You could read this yourself in Acts 7 and 8. You see the first stoning of the first martyr, Stephen gets pelted to death with stones. Imagine that. It's not just pebbles; it's rocks crushing the head of someone who claimed to trust in Christ because of his faith. And Acts chapter 8 says that Paul approved of that murder. He approved of the stoning. He gave sanctions for people to go and kill Christians. He persecuted the Church.

This would be the guy considered furthest away from Christianity. And Paul is saying for himself, despite his low background, despite the fact that he would not be considered worthy, the grace of God extended to even himself. The good news of Christianity is not that you need to come to church every Sunday and feel bad about yourself. The good news of Christianity is not about you standing up and fixing up your own life. God doesn't ask you to do that. Paul's focus is not about his moral climb and getting better. His focus is on what Christ has done for him. He transforms you by his grace.

See what Paul said in verse 10: he says, "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain." This grace that comes from this resurrected Christ towards you actually transforms you. It actually forgives you, and that grace is not powerless. It actually works inside you. Christ's grace towards you, the forgiveness that he offers you, the love that he offers you, is as effective as the blood of Christ himself. It transforms Paul. It completely changes his life.

I don't know what kind of walk of life you come from, but I can tell you with full confidence that the message of Christianity, this good news, this grace of Christ, is 100% for you. And the reason why I can say that isn't because I know that you're a good person. Believe me, I'm a pastor. No one here in this church is a good person. The reason why I can say that the grace of Christ can apply towards you isn't because you're good, but because Jesus is. And his grace towards you is not in vain. That blood can wash away every stain, every sin, every ounce of guilt, that thought or memory that clings to the back of your head that may keep you up at night. Jesus knows. And he can forgive you. More than that, he can transform you.

You see what Paul says: he says that "the grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me." This grace fuels hard work. It transforms him not to earn grace, but because grace is at work in his life. The grace of God had so impacted Paul that he's able to say, "My life is different. My life has completely changed. I'm going to follow Jesus." Friend, if you don't know Jesus, if you don't know this good news, you can go to Him. And you might not know where to start, but the promise from this Scripture is that Christ can change you. Not only can he save you, he can transform you by his grace and motivate you towards gospel-fueled obedience. You can follow Christ. I'd love to talk to you more about what it looks like to follow Jesus after service. I'll be standing at the door if you have any questions.

This grace fuels hard work. And this same gospel, this good news, is proclaimed by all the apostles. This is an unchanging news. This is transformative news. There is no software update to this message. This message stays the same generation after generation after generation because you wouldn't want a message this good to ever change. You don't want Jesus to "control Z" grace on you. The good news is that God is an unchanging God who sent an almighty Savior to give you unchanging, infinite, unfathomable grace. That is the good news of Christianity.

We need to be a church that holds onto this message, not just on Easter, but every Sunday. For decades, leading till today, and for decades to come, we need to be a church that is grounded, that is rooted on this foundation, that this is the message on which we take our stand. If we change our focus and look towards anything else, then the grace towards us is in vain. We will gut the very heart of Christianity in the name of secondary things. The gospel is of first importance. This news is of first importance. That's what we want to talk about every Sunday, not just Easter. That's what we want to celebrate every single week. That's what we want to remind each other about week after week, after week: that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose from the dead. We get to celebrate that good news.

You know, in baptism is the perfect picture of exactly that. You're realizing someone buried with Christ and raised to new life. If you want to be able to say to the world that Jesus gives me a hope that surpasses death, that's the way to do it. I was watching a clip where Tim Keller was talking about hopefulness in the resurrection. He said, "You know, if you actually believe this, if you actually believe that Jesus rose from the dead, that he conquered death itself, all the problems that you could think of in this world, all the things that stress you out during the week, all the concerns that you may have, the diagnosis the doctor may have given you this year, all of it doesn't matter. This does not matter compared to the hope that we have in Christ, that we have a treasure, a hope, of surpassing value." It goes beyond whatever problems that the world may throw at you.

Kay understood this deeply, and she trusted in Jesus even if it meant that she would give up her own life, because she knew that if she lost her life for Christ, she would gain it in him. Later on, I found Mac a couple of years later, because I never got an update from him, so I grabbed him by the collarbone. I was like, "What happened?" Kay found asylum in Europe, and her husband is now a believer, but even if they didn't, I love the example that Jesus is worth it, not just for this life, but for all eternity. Because if Jesus lives, then that means that any assurance or joy or hope that you have in Christ is going to outlive the grave. There is no expiration date on this hope that we have. If Jesus lives, then that means that the worst of your sins cannot have a hold on your heart. If Jesus lives, then that means that death itself, as your heart stops beating, as your lungs stop breathing, will not be the end of you. And if Jesus lives, then that means that for all eternity, we will be able to gaze into the face of the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ, and say that He is absolutely worth it. And the good news, the message of Christianity, is that He does live.

Let's pray. I pray for anyone here who doesn't trust in this message, that they would turn from their sin and trust in you, that they would find their everlasting hope in Christ. And we thank you for sending your Son, this undeserved grace that we have in Christ. Pray, Lord, that you would help us to hold on to this message by which we are being saved. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.