back to index2017-04-16 The Resurrection of Jesus Changes
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Okay, and I think other than that, if you can turn your Bibles with me to 1 Corinthians 00:00:10.240 |
chapter 15, and we're going to read this text, and I'm not going to be expositing this text, 00:00:19.360 |
but we're going to be talking about the significance of the resurrection, but I want to start off 00:00:25.880 |
1 Corinthians 15, 17-19, and then we're going to jump to verse 32. 00:00:32.040 |
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. 00:00:37.360 |
Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 00:00:42.040 |
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. 00:00:48.080 |
Verse 32, what do I gain if humanly speaking I fought with beasts at Ephesus, if the dead 00:00:54.800 |
are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. 00:01:01.080 |
Heavenly Father, we want to first thank you for giving us life. 00:01:11.680 |
We want to thank you for the life, the suffering, the death, and resurrection of our Lord and 00:01:20.560 |
Because of that, we're able to live and move and have our being. 00:01:26.080 |
We thank you, Father God, for strengthening us, for persevering with us. 00:01:30.440 |
We thank you for the Holy Spirit that you've deposited in us, interceding on our behalf, 00:01:36.920 |
that we may enter the throne of grace with confidence. 00:01:39.680 |
So we come before you this morning to worship you, to honor you, especially on this day. 00:01:46.380 |
We ask, Lord, that your grace would be sufficient in our approach, in our worship, in our honor. 00:01:53.640 |
As some of you guys know, my family took a short trip to Korea and then we stopped by 00:02:05.760 |
Most people here, even if you're Korean American, you've probably been either born or raised 00:02:13.320 |
But even though I was born in Korea, there are certain things about the Korean culture 00:02:20.280 |
I noticed from a young age, and I'm not talking about those who are in their 50s and 60s, 00:02:24.160 |
I'm talking about my parents' generation, like 80s and 90s and up. 00:02:27.520 |
And I noticed that that generation, especially when I started working in the Korean church, 00:02:32.320 |
that they're not really good at planning ahead. 00:02:35.640 |
They don't believe in insurance, life insurance or anything that, you know, retirement. 00:02:41.840 |
They're really good at just surviving, you know, whatever it takes. 00:02:46.760 |
And they're hard workers and I respect them for that. 00:02:49.640 |
But for whatever the reason, they would never plan for the future. 00:02:54.400 |
Another thing that I realized was that there's a lot of people who are in their 80s, 70s 00:02:58.640 |
or 80s that don't know their age or maybe older than that. 00:03:02.400 |
So you ask them how old they are and say, "Oh, I think I'm 82 or 83 or say 90 or whatever." 00:03:09.960 |
And for years I was like, "Why would they not know their age?" 00:03:13.960 |
And I realized later on that a lot of that was because they went through, that generation 00:03:22.960 |
And so those of you guys who know the history of the Korean War, basically the war started 00:03:26.800 |
between the North and the South and North came down and pushed the Korean population 00:03:34.240 |
And then MacArthur and his army came and pushed him all the way back to the border of China 00:03:39.380 |
And then the Chinese army came in and they pushed them all the way back and go back and 00:03:43.680 |
So during that process, there wasn't an inch of the Korean peninsula that wasn't affected 00:03:49.920 |
And so during that period, some people were forced to, or not some people, most people 00:03:57.120 |
They grabbed their bags and whatever that they had, whether they were rich or poor, 00:04:01.000 |
educated or uneducated, every single person had to live on the road going back and forth. 00:04:06.960 |
And so part of the reason why a lot of people didn't know their age was because they were 00:04:11.140 |
And in Korea, they don't register their children at the hospital. 00:04:15.940 |
So if you happen to be born right during that period and your parents didn't register you, 00:04:20.780 |
later on when they went back to school, they just kind of put them back. 00:04:24.380 |
So some people went back after two years, some people went back after four years. 00:04:27.540 |
So they have fellow classmates who are two years younger or four years older. 00:04:31.820 |
And so it just kind of, imagine a country that was just kind of shaken up. 00:04:36.500 |
And then some people were living in the South, had to flee, or North had to flee to the South 00:04:42.520 |
And then one day in the middle of this fight, they didn't want to cause another world war. 00:04:50.220 |
So they said, you know, we're not to prevent World War III. 00:04:57.880 |
They just decided we're going to stop this war. 00:04:59.920 |
And then they drew a line at the 38th parallel, which I call now like a DMZ area. 00:05:06.000 |
And if you happen to get stuck in the North, you couldn't see whoever it was. 00:05:10.200 |
It could have been your children, your grandparents. 00:05:13.040 |
If you happen to go up there for business and you got stuck up there, you got stuck 00:05:18.200 |
And so there's a lot of, if you talk to people who are from Korea, you ask them, are you 00:05:24.240 |
Obviously, they're going to say South Korean. 00:05:26.280 |
But a lot of them have ancestors back in North Korea, because that's where they were born. 00:05:32.400 |
So imagine if you went through something like that in your life, whether you were in your 00:05:37.440 |
early, you know, like 10 or pure teens or teens, and, or maybe you were a young married 00:05:43.880 |
couple and you got separated from your wife or your husband, or maybe you were a young 00:05:47.760 |
family and while in the middle of fleeing, you lost your child and you don't know if 00:05:54.760 |
Not just the small population, the whole population, all of Korea experienced something that dramatic. 00:06:01.960 |
In fact, some of you guys may know what budae jjigae is. 00:06:08.800 |
Basically literally it means army base soup, basically. 00:06:12.760 |
And that soup, which is popular dish now, basically was the Koreans who were starving 00:06:18.840 |
during this period because they didn't have food. 00:06:21.400 |
They started hanging around the US army base and whatever trash came out, they picked out 00:06:25.160 |
whatever was edible, put it into a soup and they start cooking it to make it sanitary. 00:06:30.320 |
And I was talking to my mom about that and she said, "There isn't a single Korean during 00:06:37.680 |
They have whole stores opened up and that's the signature dish that they sell. 00:06:42.200 |
But imagine the whole country went through all of that and how that would have affected 00:06:47.600 |
So it helped me to understand that generation. 00:06:49.560 |
The reason why they do certain things and why they're able to, they're very scrappy 00:06:54.020 |
and they're hard workers, but they don't think long term, right? 00:06:59.480 |
You could imagine how that affected their psyche and how that affected the way that 00:07:04.840 |
So it helped me a lot to understand or to even get along with that generation because 00:07:10.760 |
Now, I say all of this because at the core of Christianity, if you want to understand 00:07:16.880 |
what the church is about, what Christianity is about, and for what's been happening for 00:07:22.240 |
the last 2,000 years, we have to go to the core. 00:07:26.120 |
We have to go to the core history of Christianity, which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 00:07:31.160 |
The resurrection of Jesus Christ isn't one of many things that the Christians believe. 00:07:36.400 |
All that we believe, all that we do, not just in our church, but all around the world, rises 00:07:42.280 |
and falls upon the credibility of the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. 00:07:48.080 |
Paul, again, in 1 Corinthians 15, 17, said, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith 00:07:59.000 |
If Christianity, all it is, is a worship or a veneration of a good moral teacher, if he 00:08:06.160 |
hasn't truly been raised from the dead, basically everything that we do falls apart. 00:08:11.160 |
You don't have to argue about the validity of the scripture and about how the disciples 00:08:15.480 |
came and did this and did that and how something contrary. 00:08:19.480 |
All you have to do is disprove, without a shadow of a doubt, that the resurrection did 00:08:23.920 |
not take place, then it crumbles all of Christianity. 00:08:28.360 |
In fact, Jesus himself says in Matthew 16, 4, because they kept on coming to him and 00:08:33.760 |
asking for proof, "How can we possibly believe the things that you are saying?" 00:08:39.880 |
And Jesus said to them, "A evil and wicked generation, I will give no sign except for 00:08:45.760 |
And he was referring to his death and resurrection. 00:08:49.360 |
So Jesus himself said that all that I am saying and all that I have said to you hinges upon 00:08:55.960 |
and the proof that I'm going to give you is the resurrection. 00:09:00.520 |
So we can't overstate the significance of this day. 00:09:06.360 |
We're talking about every human being who has confessed Jesus Christ. 00:09:11.240 |
Many people who gave their lives to share this message. 00:09:14.960 |
Hundreds and thousands of churches who are trying to survive in the Middle East, risking 00:09:19.840 |
their lives to get together to worship this Jesus. 00:09:22.880 |
All of it hinges upon this physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. 00:09:29.280 |
Now, you and I are all rational people, so we don't just believe anything. 00:09:36.440 |
And some people think that the church keeps saying that you need to believe Jesus Christ 00:09:40.580 |
and just close your eyes and just take a leap of faith and say, "I'm going to believe. 00:09:50.800 |
If you're a scientific person and you went to a university and you're logical, reasonable 00:09:56.640 |
intelligence, how can you possibly believe that a human being came back from the dead? 00:10:02.280 |
Well, just like anything else, we have to ask ourselves, is it reasonable or is it unreasonable? 00:10:09.560 |
There are people in our generation today, in certain parts of the world, that come out 00:10:19.720 |
They have footages, they have films, they have eyewitnesses, they have people who survived. 00:10:24.860 |
And yet they'll come out and say, "I don't believe it. 00:10:29.080 |
9/11, some of you guys remember when that happened. 00:10:33.160 |
Some of you guys are probably a little bit too young to remember, or maybe you didn't 00:10:43.200 |
But there are people who will come out and say that that didn't happen. 00:10:45.880 |
Or they have conspiracy theories and say, "Well, the Bush administration, they concocted 00:10:52.240 |
this and they're the ones responsible for this." 00:10:55.080 |
All because they wanted an excuse to get to the Middle East and get oil, forcefully take 00:11:00.280 |
Now, when we hear things like this, any reasonable person will hear that and say, "Well, that's 00:11:05.640 |
unreasonable, that's irrational because we have footages, we have eyewitnesses." 00:11:13.160 |
We weren't there, we didn't touch it, but we just know that it's credible. 00:11:17.760 |
So when it comes to the resurrection, is it credible? 00:11:22.000 |
Now we're not saying it's scientific, we don't have video footages, we don't have Jesus here 00:11:30.960 |
Scriptures tell us that when Jesus was resurrected, he didn't just disappear and give this 00:11:35.520 |
message and showed himself to Peter, and then Peter had the responsibility to go around 00:11:42.760 |
In fact, if any other religion that you'll see, you have an individual who has an encounter 00:11:48.040 |
with a being and basically all of what they're saying hinges upon the credibility of that 00:11:57.200 |
When Jesus was resurrected, he showed himself to over 500 people, stuck around for over 00:12:01.440 |
40 days to make sure that there was enough eyewitnesses who would say that Jesus was 00:12:09.480 |
Now if you're trying to create a religion and trying to get veneration and honor, that 00:12:14.280 |
would be the worst way to go about doing that because they can easily test. 00:12:18.560 |
If you're going around saying, "Well, there were over 500 people," well, where are they? 00:12:22.520 |
You could easily be able to identify or discredit them by saying that. 00:12:28.560 |
Not only that, immediately, as soon as Jesus was resurrected, the Jews and the Gentiles 00:12:35.040 |
all of a sudden are in a room together and they started calling each other brothers. 00:12:39.200 |
They started selling possessions and donating it to the church so that the Jews could share 00:12:44.040 |
with the Gentiles and the Gentiles could share with the Jews. 00:12:47.760 |
In our generation, that may not seem like much, but today if you look at how much the 00:12:53.580 |
Republicans and the Democrats, I mean, they just despise each other. 00:12:59.400 |
Every little mistake they make, they'll harp on that and they'll jump on it and try to 00:13:04.600 |
So can you imagine if you fell asleep for a few days and all of a sudden you woke up 00:13:09.080 |
and found that the Democrats and Republicans decided to create one party and then now they 00:13:16.040 |
The hatred that the Jews had toward the Gentiles could not be exaggerated. 00:13:21.600 |
In fact, when they would travel between Jerusalem and Galilee, where Jesus' hometown, where 00:13:26.640 |
he did most of the ministry, they would deliberately travel around Samaria, which was a Gentile 00:13:32.160 |
area, about an hour or about a half a day journey more, just so that they don't have 00:13:39.800 |
They would pray daily that they thank God that God didn't make them a Gentile. 00:13:45.720 |
If they were walking on the road and Gentile would be coming on the other side, they would 00:13:48.640 |
deliberately cross and go to the other side because they thought they would make them 00:13:53.960 |
They wouldn't be in the same house with them, let alone live in the same city. 00:13:59.000 |
So you imagine if the Gentiles were recipients of this kind of hatred from the Jews, you 00:14:04.320 |
can imagine the kind of hatred the Gentiles had toward the Jews. 00:14:08.880 |
Not in 30 years, not in 60 years, not in 100 years, but immediately, immediately in the 00:14:15.080 |
first century, the Jews and the Gentiles got together and began to call each other brothers 00:14:21.680 |
Runaway slaves would voluntarily go back to their masters. 00:14:26.440 |
You have to understand a runaway slave going back to their master would mean capital punishment. 00:14:32.840 |
And if the master chooses not to accept them, they would have died instantly. 00:14:41.240 |
Pharisees, who were the religious leaders of that time, would sit under the teaching 00:14:47.120 |
Again, if you know anything about the tax collectors and Pharisees of that time, there's 00:14:51.040 |
another two groups who absolutely hated each other. 00:14:54.920 |
Tax collectors were considered the worst of sinners and Pharisees were considered the 00:15:01.500 |
They started to say that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the tax collectors became 00:15:06.480 |
the teachers who were discipled by Jesus and the Pharisees would sit under their tutelage. 00:15:15.960 |
The very central message of the gospel that was being preached by the disciples centered 00:15:26.040 |
It would only make sense if you were an eyewitness of the resurrection of your Lord and Savior. 00:15:32.560 |
I mean, the only reasonable thing that you would think is to proclaim his resurrection, 00:15:38.400 |
kind of like what Pastor Mark talked about this morning. 00:15:42.120 |
We can dig into the theology and the significance and the adoption and regeneration, propitiation. 00:15:47.120 |
We can talk about all of that stuff, but the simple reaction to the resurrection is, "Wow, 00:15:59.420 |
Whether it was in front of hostile crowd, whether they were at home, whether they were 00:16:05.920 |
When they were in front, all they could talk about was, "Jesus was resurrected from the 00:16:10.880 |
Now, does any of that prove that he was resurrected? 00:16:19.520 |
Are these things that cause us to at least dig deeper? 00:16:24.720 |
Are there enough things that's there for us to at least ask honest questions and say, 00:16:31.880 |
Well, secular scholars who aren't Christians look upon all the evidence of what happened 00:16:37.440 |
in the first century, universally agree that at least the first generation Christians, 00:16:45.120 |
Because their actions doesn't give credibility to something false. 00:16:50.080 |
So whether that actually happened or not, at least they all agree, at least they agreed. 00:16:57.440 |
Every single one of the disciples gave their life testifying that they were eyewitnesses 00:17:06.360 |
So some of the theories that have come up is because they can't discredit the eyewitnesses, 00:17:13.920 |
so they'll say that Jesus was a mass hypnotist. 00:17:17.240 |
So he hypnotized everybody and then, and so it caused them to believe. 00:17:20.640 |
So mass number of people caused them to believe, even to the point of death. 00:17:24.400 |
Another theory that came up was the swoon theory, that Jesus didn't actually die, that 00:17:34.000 |
And the third day, he kind of came back up and he's like, "Oh my gosh, he's resurrected." 00:17:40.520 |
And then the third theory that came out was that Jesus had a twin brother. 00:17:46.040 |
And so one brother died and the other twin brother was hiding out behind the temple, 00:17:50.360 |
all of a sudden came out and said, "Here I am, you know, I'm Jesus." 00:17:56.040 |
As strange as those theories may be, these three theories, and these are coming from 00:18:00.620 |
scholars of the New Testament, they're coming up because they refuse to believe that this 00:18:09.120 |
See, understandably, that it is not just our generation, but even the early generation, 00:18:15.760 |
even the disciples themselves had a hard time believing this. 00:18:19.960 |
Jesus made it very clear to his disciples what was going to happen. 00:18:23.120 |
But after he was crucified, the disciples didn't go looking for him. 00:18:29.760 |
And they didn't go to see if he was resurrected, even though Jesus clearly prophesied that 00:18:34.600 |
They went to anoint his body, which was a common ritual in the Jewish community. 00:18:40.280 |
And the story that we read this morning in John chapter 20 basically chronicles these 00:18:44.160 |
women who went to anoint Jesus' body, and then they encountered Jesus. 00:18:50.000 |
This morning, quickly, I want to go over three things that Jesus claimed, and why the resurrection 00:19:03.440 |
And this resurrection of Jesus Christ proved what he said. 00:19:07.880 |
Second, Jesus claimed to be able to forgive sins. 00:19:12.160 |
And thirdly, Jesus claimed to have power to give new life. 00:19:20.160 |
They didn't want to crucify him because Jesus came and said, "I'm the Messiah, and I'm 00:19:24.440 |
going to help you to be delivered from the Romans." 00:19:27.880 |
Remember in John chapter 6, after Jesus feeds the 5,000, they were so enamored with Jesus, 00:19:34.600 |
they were forcefully trying to make him king. 00:19:38.260 |
And Jesus, knowing what they were planning to do, he deliberately walks away from them. 00:19:43.780 |
They didn't try to kill him because Jesus said he was the king of Israel, or he was 00:19:51.440 |
In John chapter 5, 18, it says, "This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to 00:19:57.680 |
kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his 00:20:12.600 |
If the resurrection of Jesus Christ clearly declares that Jesus is God, what does that 00:20:22.700 |
If God himself came and walked on this earth, and he died and was resurrected to prove his 00:20:31.200 |
Romans chapter 1, 3-4 says, "Concerning his son, who was descended from David according 00:20:36.160 |
to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God, in power according to the Spirit of 00:20:41.200 |
holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord." 00:20:44.860 |
First and foremost, it says the resurrection proves what Jesus said about himself. 00:20:50.320 |
That he wasn't just a moral teacher, he wasn't just a good man, he wasn't just a good example 00:20:54.920 |
to follow, he wasn't just the last of the prophets, but he was God himself. 00:20:59.000 |
I'm going to read you a quote from C.S. Lewis. 00:21:04.760 |
It's a little bit long quote, so I'm just going to read it and just follow along as 00:21:13.040 |
He's the author of Chronicles of Narnia, so you may be familiar with him, and he also 00:21:16.880 |
wrote Mere Christianity, where this is the quote coming out from that book. 00:21:21.720 |
He says, "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people 00:21:29.040 |
I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be 00:21:37.000 |
A man who is merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great 00:21:43.840 |
He would either be a lunatic on the level with the man who says he's a poached egg, 00:21:52.880 |
Either this man was and is the son of God, or else a madman or something worse. 00:21:58.760 |
You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can 00:22:05.960 |
But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. 00:22:15.700 |
Now it seems to me obvious that he was neither a lunatic nor a fiend, and consequently, however 00:22:21.000 |
strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and 00:22:32.200 |
Either Jesus was a lunatic and he's deceived millions and hundreds of millions of people 00:22:37.840 |
in the last 2,000 years, or he is who he claimed to be, the son of God. 00:22:44.760 |
Now we know that even the disciples, when they encountered the resurrected Christ, in 00:22:51.200 |
Matthew 28 verse 9, the women fell at his feet and it says they worshipped him. 00:22:57.760 |
The word that is used here for worship is the word proskuneo, which is the most common 00:23:01.840 |
word used for worship, and it literally means to prostrate oneself. 00:23:06.200 |
You know, there's a kind of worship that we give because you're supposed to, right? 00:23:11.600 |
A lot of times on Sunday we come, "Oh, we're supposed to do this. 00:23:18.440 |
But the word proskuneo is a word that describes something that happens when you encounter 00:23:27.520 |
It is a natural response, and that's the word that is used when the women who went 00:23:31.800 |
to see, to anoint his body, when they saw the resurrected body of Christ, their immediate 00:23:37.320 |
knee-jerk reaction was to get on the floor, prostrate themselves in worship. 00:23:43.320 |
That's exactly what happens in Matthew 28 verse 16. 00:23:46.840 |
When the 11 disciples who are remaining, they catch up with Jesus, it says this in verse 00:23:51.880 |
16, "Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed 00:23:55.840 |
them, and when they saw him, they proskuneo," prostrated themselves, "and worshiped him." 00:24:03.360 |
You have to understand, a Jew who worships any other being, any other thing other than 00:24:08.880 |
God would have been guilty of capital punishment. 00:24:13.040 |
The first and the most important commandment of the Ten Commandments is, "Thou shalt have 00:24:20.180 |
It would be the blasphemy among blasphemy if they weren't absolutely convinced that 00:24:25.280 |
Jesus Christ was God, for them to kneel down and worship him. 00:24:29.080 |
Now you have to understand, these are people who ate with him, who walked with him. 00:24:33.120 |
In fact, when Jesus was going to the cross, they were so confused. 00:24:39.640 |
And yet, when they saw the resurrected Christ, it hit them all at once. 00:24:49.520 |
It wasn't just any human being that resurrected. 00:24:52.120 |
Because they saw Lazarus come back from the dead by Jesus' power. 00:24:57.040 |
They realized that it wasn't just their master who died and then got resuscitated and came 00:25:12.200 |
That we didn't come to worship or to venerate or honor a good man? 00:25:20.000 |
Our relationship with him ultimately, that we worship him and we obey him. 00:25:25.920 |
But beyond that, the reason why he declared himself to be God and the reason why they 00:25:30.960 |
needed to know that he was God, because the second thing that he said was he had the authority 00:25:40.020 |
In fact, in the scriptures, there's a scene where Jesus is preaching and he's talking 00:25:45.720 |
about the kingdom and a group of friends had this man, a paralytic man who was lame all 00:25:52.840 |
They heard about Jesus' miraculous power to heal people. 00:25:55.920 |
They break into his house and lower him and instead of healing him, Jesus says, "Your 00:26:06.760 |
Because they understood what it meant for Jesus to say, "Your sins are forgiven." 00:26:12.840 |
As long as Jesus was healing people and feeding people, walking on water, all of that stuff 00:26:19.680 |
But for Jesus to say, "Your sins are forgiven." 00:26:25.600 |
How can you, a mere man, say your sins are forgiven? 00:26:29.840 |
Only God, the creator of the universe who created our souls and our flesh, has the authority 00:26:42.800 |
To say your sins are forgiven or to get up and walk?" 00:26:45.640 |
Now you have to understand, Jesus was the creator of the universe. 00:26:48.800 |
For him to say, "Get up and walk," was nothing. 00:26:56.520 |
To say to this young man, "Get up and walk," is nothing to him. 00:27:00.700 |
But in order to say, "Your sins are forgiven," the Son of God had to empty himself, take 00:27:06.720 |
on human form, walk and live a sinless life, give himself as a ransom for our sins, absorb 00:27:16.520 |
our sins upon himself, that you and I may become the righteousness of God. 00:27:30.720 |
That the ultimate reason why he came was for our sins. 00:27:35.200 |
He didn't come because he saw them starving and decided, "You know what? 00:27:39.560 |
I want to go and feed some of these hungry people." 00:27:43.120 |
He didn't see mankind because they were limping around and some of them were living difficult 00:27:49.240 |
He didn't have compassion on them because the Romans were suppressing them and he felt 00:27:55.960 |
He saw the world and in their sin, he had compassion. 00:27:59.880 |
See, the scripture says in Romans 5.12, "Just as sin came into the world through one man 00:28:06.040 |
and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." 00:28:11.160 |
In fact, in verse 14, it goes even deeper than that. 00:28:14.400 |
It's that all human experience reigns under sin and death. 00:28:20.960 |
You know, the word reign basically means that every aspect of human experience, human history, 00:28:27.000 |
is clouded under the umbrella of sin and death. 00:28:32.520 |
That may sound kind of dark and morbid, but let's take a step back and examine human 00:28:44.960 |
We don't need to dig through history of mankind. 00:28:50.040 |
How difficult it is for you and I just to even maintain relationships. 00:28:55.000 |
You know, one of the first things that we talk about in marriage counseling is biblical 00:28:58.960 |
communication because communication is so difficult, right? 00:29:04.480 |
Even between husband and wife, we live together, we eat together, we sleep together, and you 00:29:09.560 |
make every effort to understand each other, and even then, you have fights. 00:29:14.280 |
You have fights because you have a hard time understanding because everything that we say, 00:29:20.040 |
every communication that we have comes through a sinful filter. 00:29:23.920 |
There's a part of us that are insecure, and so we don't just say what we mean. 00:29:30.080 |
We say it with the thought of, "If I say this, how is she going to interpret this? 00:29:35.700 |
If I say this, are people going to think that I'm proud? 00:29:38.200 |
Oh, they said this to me, so let me say this to them." 00:29:41.280 |
So much of our communication comes through a sinful filter, so by the time we hear what 00:29:45.440 |
they're saying, we're not hearing exactly what needs to be said. 00:29:51.000 |
Now, I'm saying all of this just to give you an example. 00:29:54.960 |
When the scripture says, "Sin and death reigns over mankind," everything that you and I experience 00:30:04.280 |
Husband and wife relationship, raising children, our coworkers, our friends, lifelong friends, 00:30:15.080 |
politics, your boss, grandparents, everything that you and I experience is in some way tainted 00:30:26.760 |
The scripture says, "All have sin and fall short of the glory of God." 00:30:30.900 |
Every single human being is born with that inclination. 00:30:37.680 |
The whole government of the United States is based upon power crops and absolute power 00:30:43.600 |
Meaning, if you give a sinful man power, he's going to be corrupted, but if you give a sinful 00:30:49.480 |
man absolute power, he's going to be absolutely corrupted. 00:30:52.280 |
So the base of the United States government is an understanding that we're all sinful. 00:31:00.280 |
I remember in 1993, the first time I went to China where communism was, well, you can 00:31:09.520 |
You go to Beijing or Shanghai, they're more capitalistic than they are here. 00:31:14.080 |
But at that time, almost everybody wore the same thing and they are all paid from the 00:31:20.520 |
And so the ideology about communism is, if you give the common man an opportunity to 00:31:26.800 |
be good to his brothers, he will work harder. 00:31:32.120 |
So I remember visiting China for the first time and every time we would walk into a restaurant, 00:31:41.040 |
And the reason why they would be angry is because we showed up, they have to work. 00:31:45.640 |
Usually they would have the lights turned off and then as soon as we walked in, they're 00:31:52.320 |
It's like, and then they would walk into the kitchen. 00:31:57.840 |
So you imagine what kind of food was going to come out with that attitude. 00:32:03.160 |
Remember everywhere we went, whether it was shops or markets, they had these things for 00:32:09.520 |
Everywhere they went, our presence meant that they had to work. 00:32:14.000 |
Capitalism on the other hand, is founded upon people work harder when they're selfishly 00:32:19.400 |
motivated, if it's personally beneficial to you. 00:32:29.700 |
People work harder when there's personal benefit, not out of benevolence toward mankind. 00:32:35.320 |
I'm not saying that some of that is not there, but basically speaking, capitalism is founded 00:32:39.960 |
upon the ideology that all have sin and fall short of the glory of God. 00:32:46.800 |
Everything that you and I experience is tainted under this curse of sin. 00:32:52.640 |
And that is why when Jesus came in Matthew 121, the angel announced to him by saying, 00:32:56.880 |
"He will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from 00:33:03.960 |
We can change the government, we can change the finances, we can change our outward circumstance, 00:33:10.640 |
but God saw us and saw that our primary problem was not finance. 00:33:20.280 |
That what was causing all this heartache was internal, and it was our sins. 00:33:25.360 |
And that's why Jesus Christ came and he said he came to deliver us from our sins. 00:33:30.560 |
In Isaiah 53, 5, it says, "But he was wounded for our transgression, he was crushed for 00:33:36.760 |
Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. 00:33:40.420 |
And with his strife we are healed, and all we like sheep have gone astray. 00:33:44.800 |
We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us 00:33:51.920 |
The invitation that Christ made 2,000 years ago is the same invitation he makes today. 00:33:57.760 |
Jesus does not promise a better life, that your business is going to get better if you 00:34:01.480 |
follow Jesus, that somehow if you're sick you're going to find health, that if you're 00:34:06.720 |
lonely that somehow you're going to have friends all of a sudden around you. 00:34:10.920 |
Jesus came to deal with the primary problem of mankind, which is sin. 00:34:17.560 |
He says he has the authority to forgive sins. 00:34:21.120 |
Every single one of us, we sin because we've been sinned against. 00:34:25.560 |
The typical human experience, a husband goes to work, I mean it doesn't have to be a 00:34:31.200 |
husband but just for illustration, my husband goes to work, he feels the pressure from his 00:34:35.160 |
boss and they're being unfair, he should have gotten a promotion but the next guy got 00:34:39.200 |
it and the guy who's maneuvering and lying and slandering, somehow he gets the promotion 00:34:45.480 |
He comes home and his wife says, "Hey, how come you don't share?" 00:34:48.520 |
He's like, "You don't know what I'm going through at work, get off of me. 00:34:52.440 |
It's hard enough as it is and you come home and you make it difficult for me at home." 00:34:55.600 |
And the wife is bitter and angry because she's been waiting to serve him all day and all 00:34:59.520 |
of a sudden all he gets is the leftovers from work and she's bitter and angry. 00:35:05.520 |
And then the son comes home from school and he was supposed to do the dishes and he doesn't 00:35:11.240 |
And then all of a sudden she snaps in, "Why don't you do the dishes? 00:35:17.480 |
And he's angry and then his sister comes home and says, "Hey, get out of my room. 00:35:23.960 |
Every time I'm in the room he's yelling at me." 00:35:39.880 |
As silly as that might be, and it may not happen exactly like that, but I think every 00:35:45.920 |
single one of us who've lived for a while can understand the experience of living in 00:35:50.840 |
a sinful world that we've been sinned against in various ways. 00:35:54.680 |
And as a result, our natural tendency is to snap when something goes wrong. 00:36:00.920 |
Why do we get so angry when somebody cuts us off on the freeway? 00:36:07.160 |
Christ came and he's the only human being who lived a sinless life that when he was 00:36:18.400 |
He who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteousness of God. 00:36:23.200 |
Not only did he react to the sins against him, for the very people that he came to love, 00:36:31.880 |
he absorbs it on the cross and in his resurrection he pushes back. 00:36:43.240 |
And that's what the resurrection ultimately really is. 00:36:46.440 |
It's the sin curse of mankind being reversed in resurrection so that we don't sin because 00:36:53.560 |
The scripture says we love because he first loved us. 00:36:57.760 |
And he's the only being in the universe who was able to absorb our sins. 00:37:03.080 |
And not only did he absorb it, he pushed back in his resurrection and gave us new life so 00:37:08.480 |
that those who are under the condemnation of sin and this cycle of sin, now that curse 00:37:19.740 |
And he says now I've come to give life and to give this life abundantly. 00:37:23.880 |
And that's ultimately what the resurrection is about, is rescuing mankind from the reign 00:37:32.840 |
John 5 24 says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him 00:37:40.480 |
He does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life." 00:37:46.760 |
Ultimately the resurrection isn't about, well, let's see who Jesus is. 00:37:52.560 |
All of these things are true, but the reason why it's important is because the only hope 00:37:59.440 |
for sin is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 00:38:04.960 |
I want to end with a song that came to my mind as I was preparing this sermon. 00:38:10.160 |
And I know probably 90% of you probably don't know this song. 00:38:13.880 |
It's because it's written in the 70s and it is a country song. 00:38:29.600 |
The song says this, looking for love in all the wrong places. 00:38:33.880 |
I spent a lifetime looking for you, single bars and good time lovers, never true. 00:38:40.000 |
Playing a fool's game, hoping to win, telling those sweet lies and losing again. 00:38:45.320 |
I was looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces. 00:38:50.240 |
Searching your eyes, looking for traces of what I'm dreaming of. 00:38:56.520 |
God bless the day that I discover another heart looking for love. 00:39:00.240 |
When I was alone then, no love in sight, and I did everything I could to get me through 00:39:05.880 |
Don't know where it started or where it might end. 00:39:11.240 |
I was looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces. 00:39:16.440 |
Searching your eyes, looking for traces of what I'm dreaming of. 00:39:22.020 |
If you look at some of the most popular songs in human history and even modern history, 00:39:28.520 |
some of the most popular songs are songs of suffering. 00:39:51.520 |
No matter how much we try to disguise this, sin has tainted everything that we do. 00:39:58.880 |
Some of us come from very difficult backgrounds at home, and you go to counseling and the 00:40:03.080 |
first thing that they tell you is, "What did your mom do? 00:40:09.300 |
We have children and we determined that we're never going to do this to our kids, but we 00:40:24.020 |
And so the older you get, the more bitter we become because we experience more and more 00:40:32.360 |
No matter how much you're determined that you're not going to do this to your kids, 00:40:39.380 |
Your grandparents, great-grandparents, your parents, and you. 00:40:43.680 |
Now if you've raised your kid to a certain age, I'll bet you every single parent who 00:40:49.160 |
has children of a certain age wish they could do it over. 00:40:59.200 |
The only hope that we have is in the blood of Jesus Christ. 00:41:04.600 |
That because He absorbed our sins and He was resurrected and He became the first fruit 00:41:09.920 |
among many who will be raised again, Jesus says, "Come to me all who are weary and 00:41:20.880 |
This turmoil that you feel in your heart, I understand now. 00:41:25.640 |
Now that I'm hitting 50, the crisis of middle age, I get it now. 00:41:32.840 |
I don't think I'm going through it, but I get it. 00:41:37.040 |
I have friends who were living a perfectly peaceful life and all of a sudden they come 00:41:51.960 |
When you're in your 20s, you live to think that I'm going to invest and then 30s come 00:41:55.920 |
around and your 30s, you work hard to get ahead, to become a CEO, to get a better job, 00:42:04.360 |
You make it to your 40s, you become middle management, then you work hard. 00:42:08.320 |
But by the time you get to your 50s, you're not looking forward to your 60s because 60s 00:42:13.280 |
And so if by the time you reach 50, you examine your life and you're not where you want to 00:42:24.160 |
Everything that I've invested in, everything that I've sacrificed, everything that I was 00:42:31.720 |
And so you have a life crisis because every single human being born into this earth has 00:42:42.560 |
That's every single human being that is born has an expiration date and we all know it. 00:42:52.360 |
As soon as you're born, our baby comes out sucking, looking for food. 00:43:00.960 |
They're born with this innate desire to live. 00:43:03.360 |
And ever since we're an infant until the day we die, there's this survival mode. 00:43:14.560 |
Because we've been disconnected with the author of life. 00:43:18.640 |
And as a result of this disconnection, we're trying to make the most of this life. 00:43:24.400 |
So some people will say it's about traveling. 00:43:36.040 |
You're just trying to make the most of what you have. 00:43:39.720 |
But deep inside you know there's an emptiness. 00:43:46.840 |
See, Jesus when he was coming into Jerusalem, they were all so elated. 00:43:56.080 |
Because they said, "Finally the Messiah is going to come. 00:44:03.440 |
So they were so elated and excited because it meant that possibly he's going to overthrow 00:44:13.140 |
Even if you die, Lazarus is raised from the dead. 00:44:19.020 |
And yet, Jesus as he's walking in, we see him weeping. 00:44:26.800 |
And the reason why he was weeping, he says, "Only if you knew this day what would truly 00:44:39.880 |
The Son of God came, stepped off of his throne, lived a humble life, a perfect life, and he 00:44:51.160 |
He absorbed sins of man, past, present, and future. 00:45:00.600 |
And then he resurrects as the first fruit among many to be born again. 00:45:05.800 |
That's what Christianity at the core is about. 00:45:09.760 |
It's not ultimately about being a good person, although God commands us to do so. 00:45:14.440 |
It's not about being faithful to church, although God commands us to do so. 00:45:18.480 |
But at the core of Christianity, the core of his death and resurrection is this life 00:45:28.360 |
That this life that we so eagerly desire and are looking for in all the wrong places, in 00:45:39.080 |
Jesus said in John chapter 4 that the water that this world gives you, you may drink of 00:45:45.960 |
it and you may quench your thirst for a period, but Jesus says, "I am the living water. 00:45:53.000 |
The water I give you will well up into eternal life, and whoever drinks of it will never 00:45:59.200 |
I pray that this morning, as some of you have come and may have heard the gospel for the 00:46:04.200 |
first time, maybe you heard it many times, but you haven't thought too seriously about 00:46:12.760 |
I pray that at least, at the minimum, that you wouldn't simply dismiss the resurrection 00:46:23.000 |
There was a period of time when they thought that grain of sand was the smallest particle, 00:46:27.840 |
and then they found the atom, and then they split the atom, and they found the neutrons 00:46:31.080 |
and electrons, and then I found out that they actually found out there's actually three 00:46:38.640 |
And then you start studying the universe, and they thought that the earth and the solar 00:46:42.880 |
system, that was it, and the more and more they studied, they found out just how gigantic 00:46:49.680 |
But there was a period of time when people rejected all of that because they couldn't 00:46:55.840 |
I pray with all my heart that at the minimum, that you would examine carefully, if Jesus 00:47:02.640 |
Christ was raised from the dead, could he really be the answer to man's problems, to 00:47:09.880 |
your longing, to your emptiness, to the question of what is the meaning of life? 00:47:17.360 |
If you can take a minute to pray with me as I invite the praise team to come up.