A Living Hope

Transcript

JR 33
03/31/2024
A Living Hope
1 Peter 1:3-5
Jesse Randolph

Well, good morning again. Glad to have everybody here as we celebrate with songs, with the Word, and later with baptism, the fact that Jesus is Lord. And Jesus has risen from the grave.
On March 23rd of 1775, Patrick Henry, a revered American statesman, stood up before the Virginia Convention in Richmond, Virginia, in a church, in fact, and gave his famous “Give me liberty or give me death” speech. The British army was barreling down on Virginia. The Revolutionary War was just weeks from beginning. And in this famed speech Henry roused the delegates who were there to raise up a militia so that Virginia could defend herself against the coming Redcoats. Now, a lesser-known quote from Henry in that 1775 speech is this: he said, “It is natural to man to indulge in the illusion of hope.” I’ll say it again. “It is natural to man to indulge in the illusion of hope.” That was 250 years ago that he said that and those words still resonate so loudly and so clearly in our day.

When you think about it, we live in a period in which so much is being passed around and promoted as offering hope. When in reality, what’s being passed around and promoted presents a mirage. Or borrowing from Henry’s language there, an illusion. For decades and decades now, the illusion of hope has been a constant plank in the political platforms of both parties. The illusion of hope has undergirded every quest for true love, or Prince Charming, or the fountain of youth, or for that perfect family photo. The illusion of hope has fueled every scientific exploration, as people dig rock layers, and scope out the seas, now engage in space travel, to figure out some sort of satisfying answer about where this all came from, and why we were put here,and where this is all headed.

But all of it, using Patrick Henry’s language again, is an illusion. Because, ultimately, none of that is real, sure, lasting. If you think I’m wrong about that, if you think I’m overstating my case, Check in with me in about 10,000 years, to see how all the political bickering worked out, to see how that perfect family photo worked out, to see how that endless quest for smoother, wrinkle-free skin worked out. If you hear one thing this morning, on Easter morning, hear this. That true hope is found in a place, it’s found in a person, and it’s found in an event. True hope is found in the fact that there is a tomb in which Jesus Christ was buried that is now empty because He is risen.

If you have a bible with you this morning, I’d invite you to open it to 1 Peter 1. We’re going to be in 1 Peter 1:3-5 today. That’s what we do around here at Indian Hills. We get to the Word, we seek to understand it, to mine its truth, and as Aaron said earlier, to live it out. Here’s 1 Peter 1:3-5, God’s Word reads: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Because of what we’re celebrating today on Easter, on Resurrection Sunday, because the tomb is empty, because Jesus Christ, in fact, rose from the grave, we who have believed upon His name have true hope. We have, as it says here in our text, “a living hope.” As believers, as followers of Christ, we don’t merely ‘hope that.’ We ‘hope in.’ Do you understand the difference? Our ultimate hope is not that someone might do something for us. Our ultimate hope is not that someone will be nice to us. Or that that will be remedied from some situation. Rather, our hope is in something that has already happened, namely, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Now, the normal thing we do around here at Indian Hills, I just mentioned it, is that we teach through books of the bible, systematically, verse-by-verse. In fact, like you heard earlier, we’ll start in the Gospel of Luke. So, if you’re looking for a church home, we’re going to start a multi-year journey in the Gospel of Luke next week. And I’d invite you to join us.

But we’re going to be in 1 Peter 1 again, verses 3-5. Getting back to that text by noting first of all we’ll have three ideas here. First of all, a person’s living hope can only come from God Himself.
We see that in verse 3 where it says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again.” I’ll stop there. When we start throwing around the name “God,” here it’s “Blessed be the God and Father,” we always need to exercise great caution. See, we, as humans, we’re fallible. We, as humans, are flawed. And because of the curse of sin and the blinding impact of our own sin, we have in our natural condition this temptation, this tendency, to have this skewed and warped view of who God really is. We can even inject the name “God” into our conversations quite cavalierly. We can speak about God casually. We can speak of God irreverently. And worse yet, without the corrective lenses of scripture, which is the primary way, in our day, God has revealed Himself to mankind, we can tend to, if we’re not careful, cast God in our own image.

But as those who bear His image, not the other way around, we need to understand who God is, who God actually is. Not who we want Him to be, not who we think Him to be, not the way we think He ought to be. We need to understand, first and foremost, that God is a triune being, one God, one divine essence, three persons. We need to understand that God is self-existent and eternal and infinite. He’s transcendent, meaning, He is over us. But at the same time He’s imminent, meaning, He is right there near us. We draw near to Him as He draws near to us. We need to understand that God is holy, meaning, He is separate and distinct from all that is not God. And also, He is morally perfect, that’s an aspect of holiness, He is the standard of moral perfection. Isaiah 57:15 says, God is the “high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy.”

We need to understand that God is immutable, that’s a big word for saying unchanging. God is not a God who adapts with the times or gets with the program or suddenly is okay with wickedness just because society says that it is. We need to know that God is all-wise, all-knowing, the fully-sovereign God over all the universe who sees all, who knows all, and who has planned all. There is nothing that catches God by surprise on this spinning ball of dirt, known as planet earth. We need to understand that God causes every breath you take. He directs every beat of your heart. He brings about every brain wave you experience. He has complete claim and dominion over your life. He is the God, Psalm 115:3, who “is in the heavens… do[ing] whatever He pleases.” He is the God, Psalm 104:1, who is “clothed with splendor and majesty.”
He is the God, Psalm 103:19, who “has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all.” Do you think thoughts like that about God? Do you meditate on the glorious splendor of His majesty, on His wonderful works, on His awesome acts? I hope you do. Because this is the God who is. God is not some genie in the sky, He’s not some divine vending machine, He’s not some generic deity, He’s not a mere force or a presence. He is this God revealed in scripture. Back to 1 Peter 1:3, living hope, to have true living hope, comes from God the Father. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Next, we’re going to see that a living hope aims at a glorious future. Look at verse 4, where it says, “to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

There are some wild stories out there about inheritances that people have left, in human terms, to other humans. For instance, Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camara, (I’ll only say that one time), he’s a Portuguese aristocrat. He died a childless bachelor, and he divided up his wealth by leaving his wealth to various people he found randomly in a Lisbon phone book. Leona Helmsley, the hotel-industry billionaire, she left her dog, named Trouble, $12 million dollars.
Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, left his pet chimpanzee, Bubbles, $2 million dollars.
Now, as wild and as outlandish as those inheritance figures sound, the reality is they pale infinitely in comparison to the eternal inheritance that followers of Jesus Christ have. And that’s because the Christian’s inheritance is not only of infinitely greater value, it can never be taken away.

Look again at verse 4, it says our inheritance is “imperishable,” meaning, it’s immune from corruption or decay, it’s permanent and it’s lasting. It’s also described as being “undefiled.” We have an “undefiled” inheritance, meaning, it’s pure, unstained, unblemished. And then he says, it “will not fade away,” unlike flowers that fade, and grass that withers, and wood that rots, and walls that crumble. The believer’s inheritance will never lose its luster or beauty. And then look at this last part of verse 4, it says the believer’s imperishable, unfading, undefiled inheritance is “reserved in heaven for you.” Reserved by whom? By God Himself, meaning, because it’s secured, because it’s kept by God Himself, the Christian’s inheritance, unlike an earthly inheritance, will never slip from their fingers. It can’t be gambled away or frittered away or otherwise lost.

So, that’s a little bit about our hope being in God the Father, or coming from God the Father. There’s a little bit about our hope being a glorious future. And now, this Easter morning we get to the heart of this passage. Look at the second part of verse 3, for we who have believed in Christ, it says, we have been “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Our living hope, as believers, is centered on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That’s going to be the focus of the remainder of this message, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This is the cornerstone of Christian belief; this is what Spurgeon called “the keystone of the arch of Christianity.”

And how we’re going to frame this up. First, we’re going to establish that the resurrection of Christ did, in fact, happen. Second, we’re going to explore why the resurrection is of central importance to the Christian faith. And then, third and last, we’re going to look at why it’s so important that you believe in the resurrection.

Let’s start with the fact that the resurrection did, in fact, happen. Now, to establish a resurrection, of the resurrection unto life specifically, you have to first establish that Jesus died. And when I say ‘establish,’ by the way, when I say ‘establish that Jesus died,’ I mean from scripture, from God’s authoritative word. In the scriptures, we have everything that we need pertaining to life and godliness. We don’t need to build a case for the resurrection from “NatGeo,” or from Lee Strobel and “The Case for Christ,” or from any theologian or apologist. We build our case from scripture, what God Himself has said, to establish the fact, both that Jesus died and that Jesus rose.

And die, He did. John 19:34 records that while He was still on the cross, “one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.” And you can go down all kinds of rabbit holes, as to which organ was pierced and what was the makeup of the blood and the water. But the real idea here is this is a vivid description of life leaving our Lord.
Not only that, there were the soldiers who were at the foot of the cross, soldiers who would have been very aware of what makes a dead person dead. They’d seen much death before and they recognized that Jesus was dead. Here’s John 19:32: “So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who was crucified with Him; but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.” So the soldiers knew that Jesus was dead.

So did Jesus’ disciples. Indeed, they were so aware of the fact that He had actually died, that when they encountered Him later in His resurrection, Matthew 28:17 says, “they worshiped Him.” And they worshiped Him because of the miracle of His coming back to life, from what? Death.

Last and importantly, Jesus Himself in His glorified state, in Revelation 1:18 says, “I was dead,”
then He goes on to say, “behold, I am alive forevermore.” All of these point to the fact that Jesus did, in fact, die. He didn’t faint, He didn’t pass out, He didn’t go into shock, He didn’t swoon. He died.

Jesus not only died, though, we’re here this morning because He rose. And how do we know that, how do we know that Jesus rose? How do we know that the resurrection actually occurred? Once again the biblical evidence abounds. Let’s start with some of the basic strands of that evidence and then we will work our way up to some of the more sophisticated ones.
Let’s begin with the fact that, on that blessed Sunday morning, the tomb was empty. In fact, you could turn with me, if you have a bible, to Luke 24, where we’re going to see one of the accounts of the empty tomb. I read from Mark 16 earlier, that’s another one. Luke 24, we’ll pick it up in verse 1. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then John. Luke 24:1-6, “But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing; and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen.’ ” That account is recorded in all four of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The tomb was empty.

Not only was the tomb empty, though, but the One who left the tomb, the physically resurrected Christ, appeared to several different people in several different places. And in doing so, demonstrated that He had, in fact, been raised bodily. In fact, if you look just down the page in Luke 24, in verse 36, we have an example of one of these appearances.
Look at Luke 24:36, it says: “While they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them,” this is post-resurrection now, “ ‘Peace be to you.’ But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit. And He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that is it I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; and He took it and ate it before them.” So, He showed them His hands and His feet. He ate broiled fish with them. What’s all that telling us? It’s telling us that Jesus was raised bodily. This wasn’t an appearance by a mere phantom or a spirit. This was Jesus, the physically-resurrected Lord!

So, there’s evidence of the empty tomb. There’s evidence of Jesus’ physical appearances after He left the tomb. Next, we need to consider the eyewitness testimonies to what they had seen. There were countless individuals who encountered the risen Lord with their own two eyes. And these individuals weren’t basing their reports on what others saw, on second-hand information. These were first-hand eyewitnesses. There’s all sort of data in the gospel accounts. I’ll run through this real quickly. But we know that the resurrected Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene. Then He appeared to “the other Mary” [Matthew 27:61] she’s called, “the mother of James,” [Mark 16:1]. And then it gets to His circle of apostles and disciples and He appeared to them in various configurations and groups and settings at different times. In Acts 1:3 it says: “He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.” And in examples of the ways in which He appeared to these various groups of apostles and disciples, we know that He appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, a village of the time, in Luke 24 [verses 13-27]. He appeared to ten of the apostles in John 20 [verse 20]. He appeared to another group of disciples at the Sea of Tiberias in John 21. He appeared to eleven of His disciples at the mount in Galilee in Matthew 28:16-20. He appeared to those who were at His ascension in Acts 1:9.

And then we get to this account from the Apostle Paul over in 1 Corinthians 15, I’d invite you to turn there, to 1 Corinthians 15, of His appearing to various individuals and various groups. 1 Corinthians 15, look at verse 3, it says, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas [that would be Peter], then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.”

If this were a court of law, this is what they would call an open-and-shut case, because the amount and the variety of eyewitness testimony here is overwhelming. But when we drill down even further, it becomes even clearer, that Jesus really did rise from the grave. I read through it really quickly there, back in verse 6 of 1 Corinthians 15, but look at these words, right in the middle of 1 Corinthians 15:6, as he’s listing these individuals to whom Jesus appeared. He says, “most of whom remain until now.” What he’s saying there is these witnesses are still alive in Paul’s time, so go talk to them, hear about this, let them tell you what they saw. Hear it, here’s our expression today, from-the-horse’s-mouth. What Christ did, in other words, by rising from the grave, He didn’t do it in the dark, He did it out in the open for all to see. And many did see Him, in fact, in His risen state.

And note, it wasn’t just that these eyewitnesses saw the resurrected Christ. They were absolutely transformed by what they saw. Think of James, for instance. He’s one of those mentioned here in 1 Corinthians 15:7, “then He appeared to James.” Who was James? Well, James was Jesus’ younger half-brother. Even in Jesus’ earthly ministry, early in that ministry, James was this hardened skeptic. He was among those who thought that Jesus was a crazy person. Mark 3:21 records that Jesus’ family thought “He had lost His senses,” that would have included James here. But then we get to the book of Acts, which is written after the resurrection, recording all the events that happened in the early church. And this same James is described as being this prominent, vocal leader now, in the early church; a man who’s now boldly telling other people about the risen Savior. So what changed him, what changed James? The fact that he encountered the risen Christ.

Or consider Thomas: Thomas learned under Jesus as one of His apostles, He served alongside Jesus, He even heard Jesus speak of the death and resurrection. But Thomas still doubted, even after the reports of the tomb being empty, even after the reports of the resurrection were flooding in, Thomas still doubted. Here’s from John 20:24, it says, “But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were saying to him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.’ ” So somehow, in his grieving over Christ’s death, Thomas had forgotten that Jesus Himself had predicted, when they were side by side, that He would die and that He would rise. And not wanting, apparently, to be more sad and disappointed then he already was over the Lord’s death, He doubted.

But then, as we read on in that same account, John 20:26, it says: “After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, ‘Peace be with you,’ ” this is the resurrected Jesus now, “Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.’ ” And then Thomas’s reply, as recorded in John 20:28, where it says, “Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ ” So, what transformed Thomas, what changed? Encountering the physical realities of Christ’s physical resurrection.

And then, we have Paul, who was not only not a follower of Christ at the time of Christ’s death, but in that earlier phase of life when he was Saul, the Pharisee, he was a committed persecutor of all who had believed upon Christ and His resurrection. But then, years later, as Paul (actually Saul then) is charging toward Damascus on this mission to hunt down and persecute Christians, the risen Lord knocks him off his horse and conscripts him into His service. So that he’s no longer Saul now -- he’s Paul. He’s no longer this determined hater of followers of Christ, he’s now a committed follower of Christ himself. And what was at the heart of Paul’s conversion? That he had encountered the risen Jesus. Again, here are Paul’s own words, in 1 Corinthians 15:8, he says, “and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.”
He had encountered the physically resurrected Jesus.

Now note, not only did men like James and Thomas and Paul testify to having encountered this resurrected Jesus, we know from history, church history, that they were willing to die for that belief. According to certain records of church history James was later beaten and stoned to death. Thomas, we believe, was speared to death. Paul was beheaded. And then you go down the list of various other eyewitnesses to the resurrected Christ, whether apostles of otherwise, we quickly learn that they each experienced a similar fate. Philip was flogged, thrown in prison, and crucified. Matthias, who replaced Judas, was stoned and beheaded. Andrew was crucified. Mark was dragged to his death. Peter was crucified upside down. Jude was beaten and crucified. Luke was hanged. Bartholomew was skinned and beheaded. And why? For a lie? Absolutely not. For the truth, the truth that Jesus Christ had risen bodily from the grave.

So, we’ve established, from Scripture, that the resurrection of Jesus Christ did, in fact, happen. And we’re just skimming the surface here. We’re now going to look at some of the key reasons why the resurrection of Jesus Christ is of central importance to the Christian faith.

Here’s our first one, the resurrection attests to the fact that Jesus is God. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus repeatedly did and said certain things, to testify to the fact that He is not a mere mortal. That He wasn’t some, you know, back alley, itinerant prophet. He wasn’t some sideshow act who was performing signs, wonders, and miracles to draw a crowd and to wow people. No, Jesus performed miracles to attest to His divine power, as God. Whether He was turning water into wine, or stilling a storm, or raising people from the dead. Jesus commanded His disciples to pray in His name. You don’t do that unless you’re claiming that you’re somebody, namely, God. Jesus claimed that to know Him was to know God, John 8:18. Jesus said, that to get to God, you must believe in Him. He is the way, the truth, the life, and no one comes to the Father but through Him, John 14:6. He said things, Jesus did, that were outrageous, blasphemous even, if He weren’t actually God. Like when he said to the Pharisees in John 8:58, “before Abraham was, I AM” [LSB], He’s saying, I’m Yahweh, I’m God.

Now, bringing it back to the resurrection, Scripture tells us that Jesus’ resurrection was further proof that He is indeed God. Romans 1:4 says, Jesus Christ was “declared with power to be the Son of God,” that’s a term for deity, “by the resurrection from the dead.” His resurrection from death, in other words, proved what He claimed during His life, that He is God.

Second, the resurrection assures that God accepts Christ’s death on the cross, on our behalf.
Romans 3:25 speaks of Jesus not only being “delivered over because of our transgressions,” that’s what we celebrated two nights ago on Good Friday, but being “raised because of our justification,” it says. He was delivered over. He was raised because of our justification. Jesus, in other words, was resurrected to provide assurance that in the sight of God His sacrifice on our behalf has been accepted. The resurrection is proof that God has accepted the sacrifice of His Son, allowing Him [God] to be, Romans 3:26, allowing God to be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Third, the resurrection gives assurance that our sins have been forgiven. Now, some of you here this morning might be thinking, “Sin? Okay, it’s 2024. What do you mean, sin? Isn’t that some dusty, old, antiquated term that man has finally done away with?” Well, there’s no doubt that modern man, to his shame and in his guilt, has tried to do away with the reality of sin, by redefining it, or mislabeling it, or outright denying its existence. But sin in man is as real as the laws of gravity, sin in man is as real as the fact that the sky is blue, and water is wet. We’re all sinners, I’m a sinner, you’re a sinner. “All,” Romans 3:23, “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We were each conceived in sin. We each do sin, in our act and in our thought and in our deeds. And we each categorically, and without exception, are sinners. But sin is not just a status. Sin carries a sentence and that sentence if death. Romans 6:23 says, “the wages of sin is death.” We know that if we’ve been to a funeral, we all face the prospect of physical death. We all understand there’s some mortality to this life; that we will all one day go into the grave and feed the worms and the flowers below. There’s also the reality of spiritual death. That outside of Christ, we are spiritually alienated from God, we’re estranged from God, hostile to God. Isaiah 59:2 says: “. . . your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.” So, there’s physical death, there’s spiritual death, there’s also eternal death. Meaning, if we before we die, do not put our faith in Jesus Christ and thereby be reconciled to God, what we face is an eternity of punishment and the real anguish in the flames of hell. That’s eternal death. So, our sin problem was one that we couldn’t resolve on our own as mere sinful creatures. The only one who could solve our sin problem was God Himself. And He did so through the death and through the resurrection of His Son.

Here’s another reason that the resurrection is so central to the Christian life. It empowers Christians, those who have put their faith in Christ, to live faithfully today. There’s no doubt that the days in which we are living and the days to which we are heading are days that will be progressively more difficult to make a stand for truth. And a stand for the exclusivity of Christ being the only way and the gospel being the only saving message. Just yesterday, I’m not sure if you heard, there was news that the president of our nation signed an order declaring that today, March 31, which just happens to be Easter Sunday, will now be declared “Transgender Visibility Day.” Coincidence? Most definitely not. See, the pressure that we’re going to face to compromise on our convictions, to back down in our witness for Christ, to ‘get with the program’ of tolerance and inclusivity and inclusion, is only going to ratchet up. It’s not going to ratchet back. And if we’re followers of Christ, we need to be ready for it with spines of steel, with hearts of courage fanned into flame by faith.

Faith in what? Our risen Lord, the resurrection. The resurrection plays a direct part in giving us the ability to stand firm in our faith. And that’s because the power that undergirds any believer’s ability to persevere, to remain faithful, to stay strong in their walk with the Lord, is the same power that rose Jesus from the dead. Ephesians 1:18-20, this is a prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesian church, he says, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe,” so, there’s the source of power, His power. “These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead.” You see that connection there. The power that God gives believers today is the same power by which He raised Jesus from the grave. They are inextricably intertwined.

Here’s another one. The resurrection guarantees that believers, too, will one day be raised. It’s often mistakenly believed that as Christians all we care about is this hyper-spiritual realm. That we just want to get out of here, go to heaven, get our wings, so to speak. All that we want to do is play that harp on that cloud in some creepy disembodied state for trillions of years to come. But that’s not what the bible teaches. And that’s actually not what believers are waiting for. No. What we’re waiting for is this day of resurrection of our own. We remember the words of Jesus in John 6:40, where He says, “everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” We recognize with anticipation that this last day will be a day in which we will be raised bodily and physically. And on that day we will receive our own glorified, physical bodies which will be suitable for spending an eternity fit for worshiping the Lord in His glory in His presence. So, the resurrection of Christ is not only historically provable and verifiable, but it substantiates the hope of the believer, that they, too, will one day be raised with a new body.

Here’s our last one, and this one is really all-encompassing and candid. The resurrection is our only hope. The resurrection is our only hope. If you would, turn back with me to 1 Corinthians 15 or if you’re there already, just stay there. Look at 1 Corinthians 15:13. As we read these, note how blunt and clear and transparent these words are. 1 Corinthians 15:13, “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Morevoer we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and 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.”

Wow! You’ve got to appreciate the brutal honesty from Paul. You’ve got to appreciate the brutal honesty of the Christian faith. There’s no running away from the fact that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the Christian’s only hope. If Christ is not risen, the preaching that we do here is vain, my faith is vain, your faith is vain, it’s all in vain. The baptisms that we’re about to witness are in vain. If Christ is not risen, then we are in trouble, because it means the load-bearing wall of our Christina faith has collapsed and we’ve fallen for a lie. If Christ is not risen, we’re still dead in our sins, we aren’t forgiven, we have no hope. As Paul says, we are a people most to be pitied. But he continues, look at verse 20, consider the sweetness of these words, “But now Christ has been raised from the dead.” Jesus not only really died, He really rose, the tomb is empty. Praise the Lord!

Okay, we’ve established that the resurrection of Jesus Christ did, in fact, happen.
We’ve established that the resurrection is of central importance to the Christian faith.
Now, we need to look at why it’s so important that you believe in the resurrection.

All week long, leading up to today, Easter Sunday, my social media feed has been flooded with an ad for a local church here in town. And whenever I’m doing any late-night scrolling (I do some of that), the ads pop up. They know what I like. They bring in like hair growth treatment ads. They bring in Culver’s ads. I don’t know why. Anyway, this church isn’t far from where we sit right now. It’s led by a husband-wife pastor team which right away ought to raise a red flag, because one qualification for a pastor is that they be a husband of one wife, and even today a woman can’t be a husband. (I digress.)
But this video has been playing in my feed every night. And these two individuals, they come up, these so called “pastors.” And they’re begging anyone who’s watching to come visit their church today, on Easter. You want to know the carrot they’re hanging in front of people is, to come visit their church, right now, today, Easter Sunday? It’s what they’re calling their “Annual Giant Easter Egg Hunt.” Now, according to this ad, on their church campus, like right now, there are going to be a thousand Easter eggs with 2,000 pieces of candy. There will be free family photos with real, live bunnies and the Easter Bunny. There will be free games, free bounce houses, free face painting, free coffee and pastries. Anything missing there? No mention of Christ, no mention of a tomb, no mention of a tomb being empty, no mention of the resurrection, no mention of the gospel.

A church like that -- and I really do hesitate to even call it a church -- a church which tickles spiritually-deaf ears, a church which pulls the wool over spiritually-blind eyes, a church which substitutes mention of sin and death and judgment with sugar and sweets and caffeine, a church which turns a holy gathering of gratefully-forgiven sinner into a literal zoo. A church which covers up the meaning of the cross and the empty tomb because of its apparent embarrassment over the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection offers zero hope. I’ll go even further, I’m quite comfortable saying this: that a church like that is an abomination.
Jesus died, He shed His blood to purchase the church. It’s an abomination. I’ll go even one more. That church, and churches like it, is a slaughterhouse, a spiritual slaughterhouse, because all it’s doing is fattening up already lost and wayward souls for their ultimate date with God’s wrath. It’s an abomination. It’s sad. It ought to cause us to weep.

Now, I don’t know everybody in the room here this morning, but I already have a hunch what you might be thinking right now. You’re thinking that guy behind the pulpit really doesn’t like that other church. And that guy behind the pulpit really doesn’t like the Easter Bunny. He sounds harsh and he sounds unloving. That’s the buzz word anymore today, right? It’s unloving.
Here’s why I just said what I just said about that church. And here’s why I’m praising the Lord that you’re sitting here with us today. Here you’re going to hear the truth, and the most important thing a lost soul can hear is the truth. If you’re hearing my voice right now, and you have not put your faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, the most loving thing I can do is not tell you to go check out the petting zoo in the parking lot. The most loving thing I can do is to tell you that you are a vile and a wretched sinner, just like I am. The most loving thing I can do is to tell you that you, like me, like everyone else here, is in desperate need for a Savior. And the most loving thing I can do is to tell you is that Savior has come, His name is Jesus Christ. The death that He died He died so that you might live. He rose from the grave, going from death to life so that you might do the same. That’s the most loving, maybe hard-to-hear, message that you could ever hear. Romans 10:9, write it down, file it away, put it on your foggy mirror, save it to your home screen, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” He is risen, indeed.

Well, what’s about to happen now is we’re about to hear testimonies, in the waters of baptism, of four individuals, Sonja, Hunter, Chris, and Jessica. And each has put their hope and their trust in the death and in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And each is about to testify here, publicly this morning, to the work that the Lord has done in each of their lives. And as you’re about to hear, these four individuals are not being baptized today as a way to get right with God, or as somehow earned favor with God. No. They’ve already been saved by God, and their testimonies here are an expression to you, their church family, of their faith, their living hope in our resurrected Lord. I’m going to pray. Then we’re going to hear from them.

Lord, thank You so much for the privilege that we’ve had this morning to sing songs of praise about the resurrection of Your Son, Jesus, who is, who’s tomb, who’s empty tomb, is our living hope. Thank You for the reminders from the word this morning, as well, that our living hope is anchored in who You are as God. It aims at a glorious future, that eternal inheritance. And it is all centered on the fact that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. God, if there are individuals here who have not put their faith in the resurrection of Jesus, the Savior, I pray that today would be the day they would do so and be saved. We love You. We thank You. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen