Christ is Our Victory

Every Easter Sunday a variety of people attend a local church. If I haven’t had the chance to meet you yet, I’m glad you’re here. We’re officially 7 months old as a congregation, so everybody here is still fairly new. This is our first Easter as a church family. And just like a new relationship, you learn more about each other with every “first” you go through.

ILLUSTRATION: Like the first time Macie experienced Christmas with me. I wasn’t prepared for her saying she “loves Christmas” but thinking Christmas music was “just okay”. And she wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of nonstop Christmas classics, fake fireplaces, and doing all the things to pretend that we actually have winter here in South Louisiana. We learned about each other that year. She gave me a “Christmas birthday” the first year we were together (my birthday’s in April), and now I take advantage of my birthday for a day of Christmas music every single year.

Firsts are a good opportunity to understand more about the way we think, what we value, and how it shapes us. And as we celebrate our first Easter as a new church, I think it’s fair to acknowledge that we have a chance to learn more about one another and how we believe in the person and work of Jesus today. Maybe Christianity’s always been in the background of who you are. It’s meaningful to you, but it might be more nostalgic than active—more traditional than practical.

When we say Jesus rose from the dead, chances are most of us are familiar with that story. But do you believe it literally happened? Because what you believe about the resurrection of Christ fundamentally directs every other part of your life. If you love the idea of Jesus but struggle to believe he physically rose from the dead, that has certain implications on how you approach your job, your family, and even how you think about your own identity.

But if you do believe the resurrection of Jesus is something that’s historical and not just meaningful, than that’s likewise going to shape the way you think about yourself and the world around you. This is what the Apostle Paul is trying to communicate toward the end of his first letter to the church in Corinth.

Many of the Christians there didn’t grow up believing in the God of the Old Testament. They were Gentiles, not Jews. Their background was many gods, not one true God. And the Greeks didn’t believe in the concept of resurrection either. They thought that the dead were non-existent, so the idea of someone coming back to life was counter-cultural for them.

And, if you’re familiar with the book 1 Corinthians, the church in Corinth seemed to have a problem with bringing in all these outside beliefs from the world that were contrary to following Jesus and trying to synthesize them with how they believed in Jesus. Throughout Paul’s letter, he’s correcting a lot of how they believed and how they behaved, showing them what it means to have Christ at the center of your life.

We deal with similar challenges today. There are so many competing messages in our culture, and it’s easy to believe in Jesus’ death and resurrection as a Christian but then subconsciously let the rest of your life be shaped more by the world around you instead of the God who made you.

That’s why we’re starting something we’re calling Discipleship Groups this week as a church: small, gender based groups of 3-5 people helping one another see God more clearly, see themselves more clearly, and see their world more clearly through the lens of the gospel.

For this first year, these groups are using a book called The Gospel Way Catechism, teaching the core doctrine of Scripture not just as statements to be affirmed but discussing them in light of how our world subtly teaches us to think and believe one way and why Jesus presents us with a fuller and more freeing story.

The gospel applies to all of life. But it doesn’t matter much if the resurrection didn’t literally happen. That’s what Paul’s addressing here in this section of 1 Corinthians 15, and so this morning I want to look at both sides of belief: What does it mean for us if the historical person Jesus didn’t literally rise from the dead, and what does it mean for us if he did?

If he didn’t? Then we have no future, we have no faith, and we have no freedom. Let’s start with our future. Look with me at verses 12-14 in our passage.

1 Corinthians 15:12–14 ESV

¹² Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

Clearly, Paul’s ministry was based on the belief that Jesus literally rose from the dead. And it seems like many in the Corinthian church believed that as well, but some didn’t think resurrection was possible. “Maybe Jesus did actually come back to life, but no one else ever will.”

And Paul tells us why it’s a big deal if that’s the case. You see, 1 Corinthians 15 isn’t just about Jesus being resurrected. It’s about our resurrection too. That one day, because Jesus conquered death for us, his church will be physically raised to live in victory with him forever.

That’s kind of a big deal. And here in verses 12 and 13, Paul lets the Corinthians know that you can’t believe one without the other. If it’s not possible for God to raise us, then he didn’t raise his Son either. And if Christ didn’t rise, then we have no future beyond this life—there’s no victory over sin, and there’s no hope of him reigning over us.

ILLUSTRATION: Think about it. If you’ve ever gone through a breakup, you know what it feels like for something to “end”. It’s a bummer, but it’s clear. That aspect of the relationship is over. If the couple’s going to get back together, that’s going to require some kind of moment, some kind of apology or big gesture, some kind of restart… according to the movies, it usually happens in the rain.

The same is true in death. It’s an end. And the only way there’s another chapter of your story afterward is if there’s a moment, a restart, a resurrection. Jesus resurrecting from the dead in human history tells us that this moment at the end of our lives that feels so final isn’t permanent. There’s life after death, and our destination depends on whether we want to be with Jesus or apart from him. Our stories here on earth might be short and fleeting, but there is an eternity of joy available to us.

But again, only if Jesus literally defeated death by resurrecting from the dead for us. Or else look at verse 14: “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” Essentially, Paul is telling the Corinthians that without Jesus physically coming back to life, there’s no lasting significance to what we do as a church. There’s no point to why we’re here this morning.

Sure, it might feel good. Sure, we might serve other people in our community. Which again, only lasts for a moment while we’re here on earth, and then we’re gone. For many people, I wonder if that’s the reason they’re apathetic toward Christianity—why they attend a church sometimes but it doesn’t deeply form the way they think about their identity and their purpose in life.

We might think we believe the gospel is true, but I wonder if for some of us we’re more in the category of believing “It would be nice if it was true.” And wishful thinking doesn’t shape a life. We end up hedging our bets, participating a little in the church, but letting other things in our life take center stage. Like Paul says, without a belief in the resurrection, everything else for the Christian simply falls apart.

And that includes our general faith in God and the way we relate to him. We see Paul mention that at the end of verse 14, that without Christ’s resurrection our faith is in vain, but then he continues on in verse 15:

1 Corinthians 15:15 ESV

¹⁵ We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.

It’s one thing for our faith in Jesus to be in vain; it’s another thing to misrepresent God. If resurrecting Christ isn’t how God has worked in the world to draw us to himself, then we don’t really understand who God is.

ILLUSTRATION: I might have shared this story before, but the first time I met Macie I only knew two things about her: she was going to seminary for her graduate degree, and she was on staff at a church working in kids ministry.

I figure, those are great topics for a conversation! I went to seminary. I’ve been on staff at a church. This is an easy way to relate to her. What I didn’t know was that she did not like school and she did not feel called to Kids ministry. So, our first conversation was a lot of me bringing up things she didn’t enjoy and her giving very short, uninterested responses in return. Great first impression.

We relate to God based off of what we believe about him. But just like me and Macie, if you are either believing wrongly about God or are projecting what you think God should be onto God, then you’re not actually going to get to know him. Your life won’t really be changed by him. You might be making him more in your image than he is making you in his.

The God of the Bible is a God of resurrection and a God of redemption. Ever since mankind first sinned in the garden, the entirety of the Bible shows us a world spiritually dead and broken because of sin and a God pursuing his people to provide them with new life. Both things find their answer in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Who he is and what he did for us provides us with the greatest insight into the character and heart of our Creator because Jesus perfectly demonstrates to us the nature of God. The opening verses of the book of Hebrews summarizes it well:

Hebrews 1:1–3 ESV

¹ Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. ³ He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

God doesn’t transform our lives based on the level of our faith as much as the object of our faith. We don’t strive to earn our place with him; we rest in the finished work of Jesus so that we can know him and live for him. As Paul continues on, we see one more issue that comes if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead: We have no freedom. Look with me now at verses 16-19.

1 Corinthians 15:16–19 ESV

¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. ¹⁹ If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Verses 16 and 17 really parallel verses 13 and 14. Earlier, Paul said that if there’s no resurrection from the dead then our faith is in vain, and we have no future. Now he tells us it would also mean we’re still in our sins, which affects our present. In both cases, without resurrection, we aren’t free from the consequences of our sin.

I know the word “sin” can be a culturally charged term, but we also tend to agree that there are things that are wrong in this world. Ways we hurt the people around us, ways that, if a good God exists, our thoughts, feelings, and actions don’t align with his righteous character. Ways that we try to be the god of our own lives rather than following him.

If God created the world to display his goodness and created us in his image to reflect his character throughout his creation, then the ways we sin break that design and disorder the world around us. It leaves creation not functioning the way it should, bringing in things that are contrary to who God is, like death, disease, decay, and disasters—all the effects of sin.

And if Jesus didn’t defeat death, then we’re still enslaved to our sin as well. No wonder Paul ends this section in verse 19 saying, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” We need the resurrection of Jesus. And, on Easter Sunday, we celebrate not just that he really died, but that he really rose from the grave. Because Jesus literally conquered death, we now can live a life with both hope and healing. Let’s continue reading our passage with verses 20-22.

1 Corinthians 15:20–22 ESV

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹ For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. ²² For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

This is the rhetorical turn in Paul’s argument. Verses 12-19 dealt with the bad news it would be if there was no resurrection, but now Paul pivots to tell us the good news that comes from the reality that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

Of course, before we get to the benefits of the resurrection this all begs the question: How do we know it actually happened? How can we trust that Jesus really did rise from the dead. And for that, we can look back just a few verses to 1 Corinthians 15:3-8.

1 Corinthians 15:3–8 ESV

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.

Noticed how Paul frames his words here: “I delivered to you what I also received.” He’s saying that this has long been the testimony of what happened to Jesus: He died for our sins, and he rose from the grave. And he gives us two kinds of evidence that’s still helpful to us today.

First, he says all of this is in accordance with the Scriptures. That means that if you’re willing to dive into the Bible for yourself, Paul’s telling you that you’ll find an incredible amount of parallels between what was written about the Messiah hundreds and even thousands of years before Jesus was historically born, and you’ll see how they line up with what actually happened in the life of Jesus. The fact that all of the Bible points to what we know about Jesus is actually incredibly useful for strengthening the argument that he is who he said he is and did what the Bible says he did.

But secondly, in verse 6, Paul gives us this incredibly important caveat: Jesus appeared to his disciples, and then to more than 500 people at one time after he rose from the dead. But then, look what he says about those people: “most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.” Why would Paul point out that there are hundreds of people that saw Jesus risen after his death who are still alive? He’s saying, You can verify this. Look into it for yourself. It’s not just me.

That’s significant that the real person, Paul, wrote an actual letter in the first century that we can reliably confirm was to a group of Christians in a city called Corinth and told them they could go ask hundreds of living eyewitnesses about the resurrection of Jesus. You don’t do that unless you can back it up.

ILLUSTRATION: There’s an episode of the sitcom The Office where Will Ferrell’s character keeps bragging about all the skills he has, and one of them is that he can do Michael Jordan’s famous dunk from the free throw line. Everybody thinks that’s awesome, until Jim Halpert responds and says, “Let’s see it. We’ve got a goal downstairs in the warehouse.”

Backed into a corner, Will Ferrel’s character brings everybody downstairs to show them his dunk. He doesn’t take off from the free throw line, he pulls himself up by the net to get to the rim, and then the goal falls over on him and the next scene we see is his character being carted away in an ambulance.

Paul’s putting his neck out here with his claim that there are so many eyewitnesses. Was he just lying about the resurrection and ended up getting called out for it? What we do know is that Paul wrote three other letters to the Corinthians after this, one of which is also in our Bibles. They kept trusting Paul, even after he made this claim of so many eyewitnesses. That’s significant.

And there’s other evidence besides this. The author Gary Habermas has put together several resources on the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. But the case seems to be compelling that people saw Jesus after his death, and if the Son of God literally rose from the grave, then verses 20-22 begin to tell us how beneficial this miracle is for our lives.

For starters, if Jesus rose and conquered death, then his people can be confident they will also, one day rise. That’s why Paul calls Jesus the “firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” in verse 20. He uses that word again in verse 23:

1 Corinthians 15:23–24 ESV

²³ But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴ Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.

When Jesus said, “It is finished” on the cross, he had fully paid for our sin. There’s nothing else left to pay. But when he rose, that was just the beginning of a new kingdom where death would no longer reign, and we would live with him forever.

Both this present, sinful age and this new, resurrected age are currently overlapping. We still experience the effects of a world broken by sin, but Christ’s kingdom has also been inaugurated, and we will one day experience it fully when Jesus returns.

Why does this matter? When you’re feeling the weight of this present sinful age, when you’re struggling with your own sin or suffering or experiencing brokenness in your work or your family or in the world around you—you can remind yourself of our resurrected Lord as the firstfruits and guarantee that one day God will make every bad thing untrue.

If you’ve trusted him as your Savior, one day he will redeem and resurrect every part of you. When we look at the resurrection of Jesus, our confident hope for our future can help us persevere in the present. But finally, these verses also point out that we aren’t just waiting for God to do something down the road; we can experience healing in our lives now.

In verses 21 and 22, Paul draws a parallel from Jesus to the first man in the garden of Eden, Adam. Now, he does this in much more detail in Romans 5, but the connection in these two verses is still pretty clear: Adam’s action brought death; Jesus’ action brought resurrection. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

ILLUSTRATION: Because we have a 3 year old and a 10 month old, we have lots of “personality” in our home right now. And especially with Oliver, our oldest, when he says something or does something, Macie and I are often exchanging a look with each other because it’s pretty obvious when he’s picked something up from me or from her.

We pass all kinds of things on from one generation to the next—from our looks to our personality traits, to even our habits. And our sinful nature’s no different. A bad apple tree produces bad apples. Now, because all people are created in the image of God, we can see aspects of his goodness in everyone (and it’s important that we remember that; it’s the foundation of why we treat every individual with dignity and respect).

But because we’ve continued to pass down our sinful nature ever since the garden, those good things about us are distorted in a variety of ways. You don’t have to teach a toddler how to throw a tantrum or how to not share his toys or disobey his parents.

What Paul’s saying in verses 21 and 22 is that Adam has been the representative for the entire human race. He wasn’t born with a sin nature. He walked in the garden with God. No one has been more truly human than him. And the greatest representative of us rebelled against the God who made us, separating us from him. In Adam, all die.

But today is about good news. We can have a new representative. Someone who is fully human but is also fully God. Someone who was tempted in every way that we are but was without sin. Someone who faced death and conquered it. And so, if we repent of our own sin and follow Jesus who submitted to God the Father rather than Adam who tried to rule himself, we shall also be made spiritually alive.

And with a new source for our life, we’ll find new healing in our life. As you increasingly see who you are and what you do shaped by Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection rather than relying on your own ability, you’ll find God increasingly conforming the way you think, feel, and act to look more like Jesus.

That’s the good news of Easter Sunday. Not just that death is defeated, but in Christ we also have the promise of a new, fulfilling, hopeful, and purposeful life. All because our God is alive and has invited us to give our lives to him.

Let’s pray.