Changed by the Resurrection

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

I think it was Brother Rodney who mentioned earlier in the service how the disciples began coming together on the first day of the week. For 2,000 years, believers have been meeting on the first day of the week to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We do that every Sunday, every Sunday when we gather. It’s to remember the fact that Jesus Christ not only died for our sins, but rose again.

Today is a day, though, that we put special emphasis on that. That’s our message every Sunday. But today is a day when in particular we remember that fact.

And folks, the resurrection is not just one of the Bible stories. Easter is not just a day on the calendar. The resurrection is what separates Christianity from everything else.

Because to my knowledge, there is not another religious belief system, not another philosophy in this world that has a built-in truth test to it, where we can look at evidence and discern whether it’s true or not. As far as I can tell, most belief systems are built off of the premise that somebody had some kind of special encounter with something divine that was very real to them, but you and I have no way of knowing years later what took place with somebody in the dark of their room or in a cave or in a tree where they sit meditating. We have no way of knowing that.

We have no way of evaluating it. Christianity is built on a historical event, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 2,000 years ago, either Jesus Christ walked out of the tomb or He didn’t. And if He didn’t, there’s no point to any of this.

We can pack it up and go home. You can sleep in next Sunday. if the resurrection didn’t happen.

And that’s not just me being overzealous in saying that. The Apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said that in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 17 through 19. If you want to turn there with me real quick, I’m having to do everything a little quicker this morning because we had extra things that we built into the service in celebration of Easter.

But I want to look at about three verses this morning and then tell you a story that reflects what Paul’s talking about. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 17 says and if Christ has not been raised your faith is worthless and once you find it if you’d stand with me if you don’t have your I forgot to tell you that didn’t I if you don’t have your Bible or can’t find 1 Corinthians 15 it will be on the screen for you verse 17 says and if Christ has not been raised your faith is worthless that’s in your Bible can you see it right in front of you that’s not just me saying it if Christ has not been raised your faith is worthless, you are still in your sins, then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.

And you may be seated. He’s telling the church at Corinth, and by the way, if you came for our series on 1 Corinthians, we’ll get back to that. We just skipped ahead a little bit this morning to talk about that.

This is one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture because it speaks to the skeptic in me. It says, well, how do I know? Sometimes we have those lingering questions and doubts.

How do I know? The test is built right in. Jesus either rose from the dead or He didn’t.

If He didn’t rise from the dead, Paul says, our entire faith is worthless. He says, your sins have still not been dealt with. You are still separated from God.

Those who’ve died, they died without hope. And our hope here in Christ is just limited to maybe He’ll make us people here on earth before we die and still have to deal with our sins. So this is a hopeless existence without the reality of the resurrection, but Paul’s point is that Jesus Christ really did die and rise again from the dead.

Now in previous years, in previous years I’ve spent either Easter Sunday or in some cases the four or six weeks leading up to Easter Sunday, going over some of the evidence that points us to the resurrection. And so if you’re saying, I’ve never been here, I’ve never heard that there was evidence. There is evidence.

And if you’d like to inquire about that after the service, I can point you in the direction of some evidence. I don’t have time to deal with all of it this morning. This morning, I want us to look at the meaning of the resurrection.

That as the evidence points to Jesus living and dying, and the tomb being empty, and people seeing after the fact, and many of them dying. When asked, did He really rise from the dead, they died rather than recant. There’s a ton of evidence by ancient standards that Jesus rose from the dead.

But what does it mean? We argue about things all the time and then decide they don’t matter. We hear this in political debates all the time.

Some kind of scandal breaks in the news and one side says to the other. Your guy did that. No, he didn’t.

Yeah, he did. No, he didn’t. Yeah, he did.

Okay, well, you got us, but it doesn’t matter anyway. Well, then what were we arguing about? You’ve seen this.

It’s gone on for years. Does the resurrection matter? Does it matter like Paul says it does?

I want to give you one example this morning in the time that we have together that illustrates how much the resurrection matters, the historical fact of the resurrection matters. And it’s a man whose story I’ve told a few times, but for many years I didn’t even pick up on it in Scripture, and when I saw it, it’s just, when I finally saw it, it’s incredible. And that’s the story of a man named James, who was the half-brother of Jesus.

Now why do we say half-brother? Because they didn’t share a human father. James was the son of Mary and Joseph.

He was half-brother of Jesus. He’s one of the ones mentioned in the New Testament as being one of Jesus’ brothers. And James started out as a skeptic.

The story of James, the point of the story of James is that Jesus’ skeptical brother became convinced by the resurrection that his brother was the Son of God. I have asked people over and over this question, and it never fails to get a laugh when you ask somebody and they really have time to think about it. What would it take you to convince you that your sibling was the child was the son of God or the daughter of God.

If you have a sibling, think about that sibling growing up. Now imagine they came with the message, I’m the chosen one, I’m the son of God, I’m the Messiah. How would you react to that?

Would you have some questions? I would have some questions. My sister would have some questions.

We’d all have some questions. It resurrection. Jesus’ brother changed his mind.

And we need to start out by understanding how James viewed Jesus at the start of things. We don’t know about how he viewed him when they were kids. We know the Bible teaches that Jesus was sinless.

Any of you have siblings that your parents or everybody else thought was perfect? Is it fun growing up in the shadow of that person? We can kind of speculate about how James felt, but by the time they were adults, we know that when Jesus began to make these claims that I’m the Son of Man, I’m the Son of God, I’m the promised Messiah of Israel.

When Jesus began to make these claims, Mark, I’m sorry, John chapter 7 verse 5 tells us that not even his brothers believed in him. His brothers doubted him. That’s pretty inconvenient for the gospel writers to include.

The only reason they would put it in there is because it was true. They Included in the group of family members who went to Jesus, Mark records that in chapter three, that Jesus entered a house and the crowd gathered again so that they were not even able to eat. There’s a crowd of people packed around Jesus, ready to hear him teach, ready to see if he would do some kind of miracle.

They are coming from far and wide to see Jesus. And the family hears about this and they’re bothered. It says when his family heard this, they set out to restrain him because they said he’s out of his mind.

We miss that part a lot in the Gospels. Mary and the brothers go to where Jesus is holding a meeting, and they think, this is not good. We need to take Him home.

He’s not thinking clearly. He’s not. .

. Maybe Mary thought He was overworked, something. They were worried about Him, but we know they didn’t believe Him, and His brothers thought He was nuts.

So back to the question we always ask at Christmas, Mary, did you know she knew some things, but clearly didn’t know everything? They thought He was crazy. And that tells us they even tried to take him home.

Imagine telling Jesus, get in the truck, we’re going to the house. You’ve got to stop this. Of course, he didn’t listen.

James doesn’t play a big role in Jesus’ ministry. It seems like he was maybe in and around Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion. You know, your brother’s talking about, I need to go to Jerusalem and be crucified.

I think maybe you’d at least follow from a distance to see what’s going on. But the Gospels are pretty clear. James did not believe Jesus.

As none of us would if our siblings, no matter how good they were, none of us would believe our siblings if they came and said, I’m the Son of God. I’m God in human flesh. But then we get past the Gospels, and it’s an entirely different story.

James changed his mind. James became one of the most prominent leaders in the church in Jerusalem. We know this from one of the earliest comprehensive historical records of the church, that James eventually became the bishop of the church in Jerusalem.

Now wait a minute, you’ve gone from thinking your brother is a crazy person to now there’s a cult of people who follow him, and you’re their leader. And you’re not the cult leader driving around in the Mercedes and people throwing flowers at you. You’re the cult leader that the authorities want to put to death.

You’re the cult leader that can’t go to the market without the crowds wanting to stone you. Something’s different. As a matter of fact, we see that James was part of the group that gathered in Jerusalem waiting for the Holy Spirit after Jesus was lifted up to heaven in Acts chapter 1.

There’s this story in Acts chapter 12 where Peter is in prison, and the church is praying for his release, and eventually Peter gets released, and he says, make sure you go send word to the church, especially James. Let James know. That tells us that James was pretty high up in this deal. A few chapters later, there’s what they called a church council that was called to settle a dispute because there were people at Antioch teaching that you had to be circumcised and follow all the Jewish laws in addition to trusting Christ in order to be saved.

And there came up this big controversy about what does somebody have to do to be saved? What did Jesus actually teach? What does it mean for the Gentiles to come and be followers of Jesus Christ?

And in that discussion where they said, no, no, you don’t have to follow these laws in order to be a follower of Jesus Christ. You don’t have to follow these laws in order to be saved. It’s James who speaks more than anybody, except possibly Peter. It’s James who speaks more than anybody.

And it’s James that influences the direction of those discussions. And eventually, history tells us that James continued to preach about his brother. James continued to tell people about his brother.

until the authorities got hold of him and took him to a high point in the temple complex and threw him off a tower and then clubbed him to death when he hit the ground just to make sure. It’s an awfully big price to pay for somebody you didn’t believe in. Clearly something had changed.

So what is it that changed for James? The history tells us. Luke tells us.

Paul tells us. Others tell us. James saw Jesus alive.

James saw Jesus crucified, James knew where the tomb was, and then James saw his brother alive again. And there are people today who say, well, the resurrection doesn’t prove anything. Okay, in fantasy land where you get to be the judge and jury and set all the rules of evidence, I guess you can make it be that way.

But until somebody else can recreate the resurrection and show that it’s just a parlor trick. That’s a pretty big deal for somebody to predict and accomplish his own resurrection. To say it was going to happen and then do it.

And not only say, oh yeah, hey guys, I’m back from the dead, but people saw him dead. People saw the spear thrust up through his side, which in and of itself was enough to kill him, but the medical evidence suggests that he was dead at least 30 to 40 minutes before he was speared, because the blood had separated into plasma and erythrocytes. I think that’s what it’s talking about when it says the blood and water came out.

He was long dead, and then he was buried. Three days later, just like he said, the tomb was empty again. People saw him up walking around for 40 days after that, and many of them went on to die grisly deaths rather than recant what they had seen.

The story of James is one of those things that even skeptical scholars look at and say, okay, there’s something going on here. They don’t quite believe the resurrection, but it’s hard to argue with the change that took place in James’ life. They concede that something big happened in James’ life.

And I think the evidence is pretty clear that James saw Jesus alive again, and he was just one of many. As a matter of fact, the 1 Corinthians chapter 15 that we just looked at, earlier on in the chapter, it tells us that 500 or more saw him alive. I mentioned Wednesday night that we know the names of at least 27 of them.

Pretty good eyewitness testimony. But this is not just about the evidence for the resurrection, it’s about the meaning of the resurrection. And while James’ story presents us with pretty good evidence that Christ has been raised, that our faith is not worthless, we are not still in our sins, it also speaks to the meaning of the resurrection because it wasn’t just a change of mind, it was a change of James’ entire life.

And that’s because the resurrection is not just a story, it’s a historical event that changed everything. We’ve seen those changes that took place in James’s life. I just shared them with you.

But you can look at Peter also, the man who denied Jesus and ran and hid, and eventually was one of the boldest defenders of the message of the resurrection, constantly getting thrown in prison, constantly being beaten, eventually giving his life because of the message of the resurrection. You can look at the other disciples who also ran and hid and also gave their lives in defense of the message of the resurrection just like Peter did. You can look at the fact that devout Jews changed their entire understanding of God’s law, what they thought was going to get them to heaven.

They changed their understanding of their relationship to the law and put their trust in this man that was dead and they believed was now alive. They changed their day of worship. They began worshiping on Sunday to reflect the fact that they believed Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday.

You can look at the Lord’s Supper that we’re about to partake of in just a moment. If we believe Jesus died on the cross, then to do something that He said represented the body and the blood would be the most incredibly morbid thing we could do if that was the end of the story. But the church has practiced this for 2,000 years as a memorial because we believe it’s not the end of the story.

We believe there’s hope on the other side of this. And so the crucifixion becomes not a morbid remembrance. It becomes the last step on the road to the resurrection.

There are some things that we hear that don’t really make much of an impact. And there are other events that change our lives. You know, I hear about things, we all do.

We’re surrounded, we hear news, we hear social media, we hear gossip, even though we’re not supposed to. We all hear stories, and a lot of it goes in one ear and out the other. But there are some events that change our lives.

Trying to explain to my kids what it was like before 9-11, after 9-11. It was an event that changed everything. On a happier note, each time one of my kids was born and I heard that cry for the first time, my life was never the same after that event.

There are events in all of our lives that change everything. And for those who experienced it, the resurrection was one of those moments. But because we are able to look at their evidence and we’re able to look at their testimony, because we’re able to look at this as a historical event and not just a story.

When we really understand it, it’s one of those events that changes everything for us. The resurrection continues to make a difference in our lives. Paul said the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 is the test. If it’s not true, then all of this is worthless.

If it’s not true, there’s no hope. But because it’s true, we have hope. Because Jesus rose from the dead, we can know that He is who He says He is.

All the claims about Himself, they’ve got to be true. I heard last week Frank Turek say, I have a policy, I may get this quote wrong, I have a personal policy that if somebody predicts and accomplishes his own bodily resurrection from the dead, I just believe whatever He says. Now, I’m a skeptical guy.

I don’t automatically believe everything everybody says. But that seems like a sensible policy. If He knew that was going to happen and made it happen, he knows some things.

And if that guy tells me I’m the son of God, I’m the son of man, I’m the promised Messiah, okay. You’ve shown yourself to be that. If the resurrection is true, then he can do everything he said he could do.

And most important of that for us is he can forgive sins. The Pharisees asked him, what authority do you have to say you can forgive sins? He was asked about his authority many times.

Well, he has the authority of someone who conquered death. That’s said he had. And by the way, this supersedes every other claim, every objection we have.

Well, I can’t reconcile, I can’t believe because I can’t reconcile old earth, young earth, the creation with all the evidence and the big, I can’t reconcile all that. Set that aside for a minute. 2,000 years ago, Jesus either walked out of the tomb or he didn’t.

Start there. That’s what you need to know. Christians have hurt me.

Yes, Christians can be some of the most wonderful people and some of the most awful people, and it’s because we’re people. But even if somebody has hurt you, it’s not between you and them. Jesus, 2,000 years ago, either walked out of that tomb or He didn’t.

And just because somebody acts like a jerk today doesn’t change that historical fact. Well, I don’t like the church’s stance on this or that. 2,000 years ago, Jesus either walked out of the tomb or he didn’t.

The rest of this is all secondary. Because if Jesus walked out of the tomb, you and I have a choice to make. Because Jesus said he went to the cross to pay for our sins in full, those sins that separated us from God.

He said that’s what he was doing. And then by his resurrection, he proved it. He came back saying that he brought forgiveness and salvation to those who would believe.

And so we can put away all those other things. I’m not saying they’re not important. I’m just saying they’re less important.

The essential truth here is Jesus either walked out of the tomb or He didn’t. And if He walked out of the tomb, then He is who He says He is. He can do what He says He could do.

He has the authority that He claimed. And we have to deal with the fact that He died to pay for our sins. And we can either accept that forgiveness, we can either turn to Him as our one and only Savior.

See, it’s not about how good we can be. It’s not about trying to earn heaven. Oh, church people think they’re better than anybody else.

I know I’m not better than anybody else. I needed just as much saving as anybody in this room and anybody outside this room. Instead, we recognize that Jesus paid for our sins and we can either put our trust in Him and accept that forgiveness that He paid for, or we can continue to reject it and continue to be separated from God.

And those are our only two options. That’s so harsh. That’s so narrow-minded.

He’s the one that said it. You can take it up with Him. But because Jesus rose again from the dead, there is hope.

There’s hope for us here and now. There’s hope for a relationship with God. There’s hope for eternal life with Him.