We are in the second week of our series called Followers Fish. Last week we noted that when Jesus called the first apostles he promised that if they followed him he would do something for them. Jesus didn’t promise to make them smarter or wealthier or better looking. He didn’t even promise to make them more religious. He told them that if they followed him, they would learn to bring people into a relationship with him. He used the metaphor of fishing for that activity.
We said that when it comes to bringing people to Christ we have to put aside our own fears, discomfort and laziness. This is what we are working on through this series. One of the ways we help you to get over your fears and discomfort is by having a very simple strategy. The strategy is, invest and invite.
Invest in friends, family members and co-workers who do not have a parish and when appropriate invite them to join us on a weekend. The weekend we are targeting is March 10th, the first Sunday of Lent.
Our challenge for this series is to identify just one person we are praying, fasting and investing in relationally. Thank you to everyone who committed last week to investing in one person.
Today, we want to look at why it is essential that we bring people into a relationship with Christ for their benefit. To help us we are going to look at a passage from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. We call it First Corinthians because there is a second letter to the Corinthians.
Paul writes: “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”
Paul reminds the Corinthians of the basic fundamentals of the faith. Paul has received these basic truths. It is not something he is making up but historical fact.
Jesus died for our sins. Jesus hung on the cross, not because he had done anything wrong, but out of love for us. His death and perfect obedience to his Father paid for our disobedience.
It put us right with God. We bring people to Jesus because we want them to know how much God loves them, so much so, that he sent his Son to die for them.
He was buried and on the third day rose from the dead.
This is the central tenet of our faith and what we believe about Jesus. He conquered the grave. Death could not defeat him. Jesus didn’t go to heaven and live there spiritually. It wasn’t just that his spirit lived on in his believers either.
Jesus came back to life physically. And not just in that his body was revived but a new kind of body. He could walk through walls, and yet he wasn’t a ghost.
He could eat and drink. He could appear and then suddenly disappear. His resurrected body had all kinds of new possibilities.
Paul then goes on to describe all the people that experienced and encountered the resurrected Jesus. It wasn’t just one or two people but the apostles and then he appeared to over 500 people at once. Then last he appeared to Paul.
Paul states that the most important part of Christianity is Jesus’ resurrection.
He reminds the Corinthians of all the people who had seen Jesus raised from the dead. Then Paul goes on to challenge the Corinthians who seem to not totally get it.
Paul writes: “But if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead.”
In some way, it came to Paul’s attention that some of the Corinthians were saying there cannot be a resurrection of the dead. Let me make an important distinction here. The group of Corinthians who said there was no resurrection of the dead were not saying there was no afterlife, that there was no heaven. They were simply buying into a popular belief of the Greeks and Romans that the afterlife, or heaven, would mean we got rid of our bodies.
The body or the physical world is always falling apart, so getting to heaven meant liberation from our bodies.
The older you get the more that idea makes sense. Stuff just starts breaking down as you age.
That’s an understandable perspective but as we noted Jesus didn’t just rise spiritually. His resurrection was bodily. By saying there was no resurrection of the dead they were denying a bodily resurrection.
Paul continues to question this mindset. He says: If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching; empty, too, your faith.
Paul says that if you agree that the dead cannot be raised physically, that it is just impossible, you are saying that Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead. And if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead then Paul says his preaching is empty, hollow, and in vain, and that our faith is empty, hollow and in vain. It is all just marshmallow.
The whole of our faith rests on Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Without it Christianity has some nice platitudes and moral teaching, but you can get those platitudes and moral teachings in Buddhism, Hinduism or Star Wars or from Oprah. Christianity isn’t really relevant without the resurrection.
Paul continues to drill into the importance of Jesus’ resurrection by thinking of the inverse, that is, what if Jesus isn’t raised from the dead.
Paul Says: “For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain; you are still in your sins.”
If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then his death on the cross did not put us back into a relationship with God, with others and with ourselves. We still have our sins and failures and no possible way to get rid of them or make up for them. We are still in our sins and there is no way to wash them away.
Jesus’ resurrection to new life proved the power of his death. His resurrection proved that his work on the cross was not just the death of a good man, but the God Man. His cross and resurrection redeemed the whole world.
Paul keeps going down this road of how meaningless Christianity is if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. He writes: “Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only, we have hoped in Christ, then we are the most pitiable of all. “
He says we are pretty pathetic and sad if we only believe in Jesus for this world. It makes no sense to follow a man whose life ended in a tragic death through the most painful way possible. You might as well just go out and do whatever feels good. Why follow the challenging teachings of someone who lost?
So Paul takes us down the road of all these negative consequences if Jesus did not rise from the dead, but then he turns back to what he said at the beginning.
Paul writes: “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
Paul helps the Corinthians to see the futility of following Jesus if he did not rise from the dead, but then returns to the truth. Christ has been raised from the dead. Then he says, that he is the first fruits of all who have fallen asleep or died. In other words, Jesus is the first but he won’t be the last. Since Jesus rose from the dead, everyone connected to him will rise too.
Jesus’ resurrection shows that the God who made both heaven and earth is at work from within the world as well as from without.
Jesus took the full weight, of the sin and pain of the world, upon his shoulders on the cross and then he overcame it. He conquered it. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to us right now. It is available to your friends, family members and co-workers right now. Jesus’ resurrection introduces us to a new level of possibilities and potential.
We bring people to Jesus because his resurrection proves that he has the power to wipe away all the sins of our past. He wipes away our past mistakes and redeems them to be used for good.
The resurrection of the dead, the granting of a new life as a new creation is not just something we believe as a tenet of our faith. The resurrection changes everything. It shows us what God is doing. God makes all things new.
If Jesus has been raised, that means that God’s new world, God’s kingdom, has indeed arrived; and that means we have a job to do. The world must hear what the God of Israel, the creator God, has achieved through his Messiah.
We introduce people to Jesus because he is the only one in the history of the world who conquered the grave. If someone can predict their own suffering and death, and then rise from the grave, that is someone worth following.
This week continue to pray, fast and invest relationally in just one person. Fast by skipping lunch or a dinner or give up dessert or snacks or something else this week.
Offer up something you enjoy so that one person will come into relationship with Jesus who is the resurrection and the life.
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