Christ Is Risen: Stand Firm on the Gospel First B Jackson 2015-01-25 Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record. ---- Hey. Good morning, guys. Good morning. Good morning. Really good to see you. Can I can I share a verse with you? It's Psalm one forty seven verse one. How good to sing praises to our God, how delightful, and how fitting. It is fitting to sing to God. That's why we came here. And my hope really honestly is we're worshiping, is that you would connect with our living God. That's what it is. I hope the band just sort of disappears in your mind and your voices raise up, you and just get to sing and spend time with God. Should we do that? Is that a yes? Alright. Let's stand up. Alright. All creatures of our God and king. Let me pray. God, we do give you thanks, and we want to just tune our hearts right now to sing your praise, to know you, to love you, because we are loved by you. Amen. You can be seated. Alright. And we've just got a few announcements for you this morning. As always, the majority of the announcements for your regular week to week are on the blue and black sheet in your bulletin insert. Each week but we're just going to hit the ones that are not as regular or things that are just starting up. We've got February 20 through the twenty second, the Mint snowmobile trip at Old Faithful Christian Ranch. Those are those brand new snowmobiles that just came out that guy's got. So it's going to be a good time. It's going to be Is that going great to be in Russia? It's going be in Russia, yes. Okay. So that is happening February 20 through the twenty second. And there is a insert in your bulletin for that. If you're interested, you guys can contact John Micus or Matt Litzelman if you have any questions. But it's pretty standard info. Anything to add and ladies first Friday fellowship, the first Friday of February. First Friday fellowship. That's all I had to say about that. It's for ladies who come and do crafts or just getting together and hangouts in the fellowship hall and that announcement is also in your bulletin. And next Sunday is the is starting back up the girls study that's between services from ten to eleven. It's downstairs. Jerilyn and Melissa run that and that's kicking back off for the New Year next Sunday and finally, we have an announcement that Christian's going to give. Is that right? Yep. Come on up. We invited Christian up last Sunday. You may have met of them. Christian is been prayerfully considering heading up a Hispanic Bible study and I think what he'll do is let you know about it in Spanish first, and then he'll translate himself, I think, for it into English. Right? Or maybe maybe Florian can. Right now, they're speaking, and I don't understand. Good morning, everybody. My name is Christian. You you guys meet last last Sunday and I like I like to announce we we gotta start Friday. We will begin prayer service in Spanish. Who wants to come is welcome we are start 7PM so everybody is invited to come okay Alright. So that Friday at 7PM starting this coming Friday? This coming Friday. Alright. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. I'm excited about this. Praise God for it. Right? Alright. Go ahead and take a minute. Greet one another and we'll bring you back together in song. I wanna hear loud voices this morning. Do you believe it? Yes. Do you know that? I I'm giving it away already. That's what the sermon's about today. I I'm just so excited about it. Here's the deal. We stand on a very, very firm foundation. The death, the burial, and the resurrection of Christ. It is the main thing, and we stand on a very, very firm foundation. And I invite you to sing this song, please, with us. Indeed, let's pray. God, we do thank you for being our firm foundation. One we can hold onto and hold fast for your promises are true. Amen. I'm inviting my friend, Floreen, the man of many instruments to the piano. And I've got a new a song that we have not done to introduce here. And I chose it because these lyrics are phenomenal. You get a taste of it from Isaiah 53. Can I read part of it? It's he was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows. Speaking of Jesus, prophesying about Jesus hundreds of years earlier. Acquainted with the deepest grief, he was pierced for our rebellion. He was crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. The Lord has laid on him the sins of us all. That's what Christ has done, and I wanna sing of it with you this morning. I trust you'll catch on soon. We're gonna say my debt is paid. It is paid in full. One more verse. We're singing of his resurrection. One more time, just voices. Though that'll all get cross my salvation where your love poured out over me. And now my soul cries hallelujah praise and honor unto thee to Peak Children's Church and here they go. For those of you if you are unaware, Ray is not here today. He is in Florida for a pastoral conference and and a family visit to see his folks not in Florida but in Georgia. Is that right? He's been sending us texts all week. He's staying at a huge mega church and there's all sorts of crazy things. He's got a lot of ideas what he wants to do to this place. So, get ready for him to come back but no, he's having a good time. So, today though, instead of Ray, we have got pastor Carl and he's going to introduce with a video. I'm like, That line right there is so true that what we feel is not nearly as important as what we know. What we feel is not nearly as important as what we know. This morning, you may have been woke up feeling all sorts of things. Some of you may be feeling wonderful. I mean, so good. In fact, this right up here, this this might be your song. Who is that guy? Does anybody know like? He is happy. Look at this. There's birds chirp. There's going to be birds chirping. But to others, not so much. In fact, this next video right here could be really your life right now. That's a kitty. Woah. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Man. Sorry kitty. Where life is taking you for a ride. You might be saying, stop. I wanna get off this ride. One more time. There we go. Well, no matter what you are feeling today, I've got good news for you. And this is the kind of news that gives us strength for the day. It gives us hope for tomorrow. It's the kind of news that gives us peace that transcends all understanding. It's the kind of good news that gives us a calm assurance even when life gets really tumultuous at times. Here it is. Christ is risen. We're singing about it this morning. We're singing about it. Now, we're talking about it. You came to worship the living God this morning. You didn't come to hear me speak. That's not that's not really that great or the band play or anything. You came to worship the living God this morning. He's alive. And church, I want you to know something. He's alive in you. He's alive in you and let's not forget it. This morning, I simply wanna remind you, like Paul reminded the church in Corinth that Jesus is alive. And because Jesus is alive, we can endure whatever comes our way. And I'm saying, whatever comes our way. Listen to this. The spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. Do you know that? God sent his spirit to live in you. And the spirit that lives in you is greater than the spirit that lives in the world. Today, I'm here to share the gospel and all the promises of the gospel. Every one of them, hope and forgiveness and peace and joy and eternal life, you name it. All of them are legit because of what Jesus said he would do and that was to rise from death. In a sentence, here's what the sermon is about. Okay? If you're a note taker, here's the thesis. You can stand firm on the gospel because Christ is risen. That's what I want you to know this morning. You can stand firm on the gospel that you've been given because Christ is risen. I am so glad that today's passage is first Corinthians fifteen one through 11 because I didn't want to preach on sexual immorality or meat offered to idols or head coverings or even spiritual gifts. K? Those are for the big chief. Who by the way, honestly, isn't he doing an incredible job of preaching the Bible? I'm not kidding. I I am so thankful for our senior pastor and I and I just I I wanna share that with you because I I believe he's a great Bible teacher, an incredible Bible teacher. Today is truth conveyed through Carl. Alright? But you know what? This passage is crystal clear. It is right down the middle of the plate. Paul describes it as what is most important. It is the main thing. And as a church, we wanna keep the main thing the main thing. And the main thing is this, I passed on to you what was most important to me. What I also what Ben had passed on to me. Christ died for our sins. Just as the scripture said, he was buried and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the scriptures said. This my friends is the good news of the gospel. Like I said, this is what gives us hope. This is what gives us forgiveness and peace and joy and eternal life and way much more. It overrides our feelings. And my goal this morning honestly is just to encourage you to stand firm on it, to hold fast to it, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. It is our confident assurance. It is our salvation. You know what? It's why we're worshiping here today because we worship a living God. And what I wanna do is this, I wanna read first Corinthians fifteen one through 11. It'll be on the screen. My focus really is just gonna be on verses three and four. He's right here. Christ died for our sins. He was buried. He was raised from the dead on the third day. We'll break that down just a little bit. Just kinda scratch the surface of it. Here's what it says. You ready? Let me now remind you dear brothers and sisters of the good news I preached to you before. You welcomed it then and you still stand firm on it. It is the good news that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you. Unless of course you believe something that was never true in the first place. I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me, that Christ died for our sins just as the scripture said. He was buried and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the scripture said. He was seen by Peter and then the 12. And after that, was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. By the way, I'm not going to get into that much today, but I just wanted to say it was like Paul was saying here, ask him. When he was writing this, he was saying, ask him. These guy there were people that witnessed this, ask any of them. It wasn't like a he wasn't making this stuff up is what I'm trying to say. Okay. I'm going on. Verse seven. Then he was seen by James and later the apostles. Last of all, as though I'd been born at the wrong time, I also saw him. For I am the least of the apostles. In fact, I'm not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way that I persecuted God's church. But whatever I am now, it's all because God poured out his special favor on me and not without results. For I've worked harder than any of the apostles, yet it was not I, but God who was working through me by his grace, giving credit to Christ in his resurrection. So it makes no difference whether I preach or they preach for we all preach the same message message you have already believed. We pray together. God, I thank you. I thank you for this great news. It's not just good news. It's great news. Your resurrection really does change everything. It makes all that you've done legitimate and valid. It offers us forgiveness. It gives us salvation. It gives us hope. It gives us eternal life. It it gives us assurance. No matter what we're feeling, we can always fall back on this rock solid truth. This empty tomb is why we are meeting here today. So would you give us eyes to see? Would you give us ears to hear? We've heard the message so many times, but I pray that it would just fall afresh here on us. Amen. Let's start with this right here. Christ died for our sins. We know we're sinners. So Heb last week said, we all agree with the problem of sin in the world. We we understand that. We get that. But really, what is God's remedy for sin? Just to review. Just to review. Just to be reminded of it once more. Then under the old covenant, the old testament, God asked for an animal sacrifice so that we could be made right with God. An innocent life of the animal sacrificed in place of the guilty. Leviticus 17, look at it one more time. It is the blood given exchange for a life that makes purification possible. So that's God's remedy for sin. And I and I can understand. I think we can understand that. Given innocent life for a guilty one. Paul says it this way in Hebrews nine twenty two, that according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness. This is how God designed it. That's God's remedy for sin from the beginning. But the bottom line is there must be an atonement made for our sin in order for us to be right with God. And I know that you know this. But again, I just I want you, I want us to be reminded of how God has redeemed us, how God has bought us back. The old covenant, listen, it was just a shadow, a dim preview of what Jesus would do on the cross for us, an innocent life for the guilty. Jesus' perfect life and perfect death for you and me. Hebrews 10. God's will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus once for all time. So Jesus was the last and final sacrifice. Okay, so you don't have to bring your unblemished lamb anymore to the to the altar, which would have been hard by the way. When you think about it, someone I don't know if anybody is like the agricultural type, but I mean, it could become like your close pet, be like bringing your pet to the altar. It's a weird thought, sorry. God's remedy for sin is Jesus and at the right time, the Bible describes at the right time, Jesus came to die in our place for our sin. Just be reminded of it. Be reminded that his dying breath on the cross, this is what he said, it is finished. My friends, Jesus got the job done. He got it done And we can be sure of it and we can rest in that. And it cost him his life. You know, there have been arguments, well, Jesus didn't really die and this and that. Look at a couple verses later. One of the soldiers, however, pierced his side with a spear and immediately blood and water flowed out. This is a very interesting thing. I visited a book called case for Christ. If you don't have it, I'd invite you to get it. It's so good. It just gives all the evidence of it. But don't buy it yet. I ordered a bunch of books this week and I love to give books away and I'm gonna put them on the back counter. So if you're the skeptic or you have a skeptic in your life and go, I don't think the evidence is there. Oh, yes, it is. I want you to have one of those books next week. But he was pierced. Listen to it from a medical perspective here that Jesus really did die. Lee Strobel writes this, the combination of shock and rapid heart rate and heart failure result in a collection of clear watery fluid around the heart and lungs and incision through the lung and heart would release that fluid as well as blood. It was like a, yep, he died. Alright. Isaiah 53, he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins, and he was beaten so that we could be made whole. He took our punishment on himself. He was whipped so that we could be healed. All of us like sheep have strayed away and we have. We've left God's path to follow our own. That's at one time or another. We have. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. Next part of that statement is this, he was buried. He was buried. Interesting enough, it was a man named Joseph of Arimathea. In Matthew 27, they explained him. He become a follower of Jesus, kind of a secret disciple of Jesus. And after Jesus died, he went to Pilate and asked for his body. And Pilate issued an order to release it to him. And Joseph took that body and he wrapped in a long sheet of clean linen and cloth, and he placed it in his own tomb, which had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a great stone across the entrance and he left. I was just thinking about that for a minute though, that this guy, secret follower of Jesus, why would he do this if Jesus wasn't telling the truth? Why would he do that? All of this to fulfill. Again, Matthew or Isaiah 53. Jesus had did nothing wrong, never deceived anyone. He was buried like a criminal. He was put in a rich man's grave. Amazing that they would know that Isaiah would know of this Joseph of Arimathea back then. All to fulfill what was said. Jesus crucified, dead, buried, all like the scripture said he was. It's to say that Paul wasn't making this stuff up. It was foretold in the Old Testament, and then it was fulfilled in the New, and he had witnesses, and there's a record of it. So here we are. We can open up the word, and there it is. So that we would know and believe. But most importantly, friends, I want you to know this. Death could not hold Jesus in the grave, could not keep him. He was raised from the dead on the third day just like the scriptures said. To me, one of the most victorious verses in all of scripture comes from Mark 16, where the women they went to anoint Jesus' body and they were met by an angel of the Lord. Remember, he was hanging out on the by the tomb. And here's what they heard him say. You're looking for Jesus. He was crucified. He isn't here. Is that good news or what? He's not here. He's risen from the dead. Look, this is where they laid his body. That's why we're here. This fulfill what was said in Psalm 16, for you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your holy one to rot in the grave. That as the scripture said, there it said it. Like I said before, the resurrection, it changes everything. It changes everything. All his teaching, all his claims, all his promises, they rest on whether or not Jesus rose from death. It's like Easter early. I know that some of you are going be gone during spring break. It falls during on Easter. Here's your Easter message. Okay? Tim Keller said it this way, if Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said. If he didn't raise from the dead, then why worry about what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching, but whether or not he rose from the dead. I came across some if then statements about Jesus and I wanna share them with you. I thought they were spot on. I thought they were really encouraging, But I invite you just to listen to these, would you? If Jesus is the son of God, then his teachings are more than just good ideas from a wise teacher. They're God's own insights on which I can confidently build my life. If Jesus did rise from the dead, then he's still alive today and available for me to encounter on a personal basis. If Jesus conquered death, then he can open the door of eternal life for me too. If Jesus personally knows the pain of suffering and loss, then he can comfort and encourage me when things go wrong. If Jesus loves me like he says, then he has my best interest at heart. That means I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by committing myself to him. If Jesus is who he claims to be, then as my creator, he deserves my obedience and worship. I passed on to you what was most important and what had been passed on to me that Christ died for our sins. Believe it. Just as the scripture said, he was buried but he triumphantly raised from the dead on the third day. As I studied this passage this week, I thought, yeah, I can break it into three points. I'm a three point guy if you haven't noticed. I can give supporting verses. I can look at the old testament. I can see where it was fulfilled. I can show that to you. I can share some quotes. I've done that. But you know what? For me, some of the best evidence for the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus, that Jesus lives is living in community with you. Is being right here worshiping on a Sunday with you. Some of the the best evidence We would not be here right now. If we didn't believe in Christ's resurrection. It is awesome to be able to to hear you. For some, I get to know some of you. I don't get to know all of you well but for some of you and I get to hear how God has changed your life. How God is working in your life to this day. And to me, that is some of the greatest testimony of Christ's resurrection. The fact that Jesus lives today. I know that he's working in your lives. How he's drawn you to himself and how he's working in you and how he's brought you through trials and tribulations. How he's bringing you through trials and tribulations, and how he's giving you certainty even in uncertain times. And you know what else is encouraging? How I get to see you stand firm on the good news that you've received. The disciples didn't die for a lie. No one dies for a lie. We're not here because of a lie. We're here because of the truth. And the truth is that Christ rose from death. And I want you to be encouraged by it. Because you've encouraged me honestly, as I've been thinking about you guys this week. And I and I have that privilege of being able to talk to some of you and get to know you on a personal level and know how Jesus is working in your life and to know how, you know, even in the tough stuff, Jesus is doing amazing things. It is awesome and is such a great testimony of the risen Christ. And so like I came to encourage you, but honestly, I feel like I've been the most encouraged this week. So keep with it. Hold fast to it. Stand firm on it. It is the good news. Christ is risen. He's alive. And he's alive in you. Don't forget. Don't forget. Before we go, I wanna sing about it. I'd like to invite the band up. I revisited an older song this week and the song is Because He Lives. You know this song? It was by Bill and Gloria Gaither and there's a story with the song I didn't realize until this week. But this song came out of their personal bout with darkness And the short of it is this, that while they're expecting their third child, Bill got really sick. Their church was just going through it at the time. They were having a tough time in their church. Gloria had fear about bringing another child to the world. And so rather than just to worry about it, she goes, I'm gonna pray. And so she just started praying. And as she prayed, the power of the resurrection just kept affirming itself again and again and again that Jesus lives. And so she out of her fear, she started to experience joy little by little. And God changed the way that she felt and she rested in the resurrection. And that's where this song comes from. So if we can, let's let's stand up together and and sing it. I've sent his son. Yes. Hey, little benediction before you go from first Peter three four. Praise be to God. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again because God raised Jesus from the dead. Now, we live with great expectation and we have a priceless inheritance, an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you. God bless. Go in peace this week, my friends.