1 Cor 36 "What's A Church To Do?"
What about the real meaning of Easter?
Easter is the resurrection of Christ.
Christian worship testifies to the resurrection of Christ.
That fact that Christians worship on Sunday, instead of Saturday, the Sabbath, testifies to the resurrection as pivotal to Christianity.
What if Easter never happened? Would that make a difference in your life?
Let’s examine the implications of our text concerning the difference the resurrection of Christ makes.
A Desolate Assumption
“IF Christ be not risen…” (14)
Had Easter never happened, how would it change things?
We have no faith.
The Christian faith rises and falls on the resurrection of Christ.
Our preaching is useless.
Christian faith without the resurrection of Christ is a hoax.
If Christ has not been raise, then the Christian faith is a joke.
The apostles are found to be false witnesses about God.
If Christ is not raise then they were intentional deceivers.
Either Christ rose from the dead, or they lied about His resurrection.
We have no forgiveness.
“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” (17)
The heart of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ, the eternal God-man, died on a Cross in payment for our sins.
We have no future. (18)
Heaven is a joke, a cruel joke, a false hope, if Christ has not been raised.
A Divine Alternative (20)
“But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.”
The stone was rolled away, not to let Christ out, so we could look in.
Because Christ has been raised from the dead, all the negatives become positives.
We now have:
- True faith.
- True forgiveness.
- Hope for the future.
Our preaching is not useless.
The preaching of the apostles was not useless.
There is more evidence to support the resurrection of Jesus Christ than almost any other historical fact.
The Christian faith is true!
Because the Christian faith is true:
- Our faith is not worthless.
- We are not still in our sins.
- We have forgiveness.
We have a future!
Heaven awaits us. Eternal life is ours. We are not to be pitied, we are to be envied.
Jesus Christ is risen!!
Despair becomes hope. We know that our lives invested in the kingdom of God will one-day pay eternal dividends.
Because He lives, we live also!
The challenge: allow Him to live in you and through you.
