This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom, and I want to welcome you to the second day of our look
at 1 Corinthians chapter 15. We're going to focus on verses 9 to 19 today.
Yesterday, we talked about the fact that the resurrection makes the Good News
good.

There's a second major truth in this chapter. The whole center section of this
chapter is about this truth, and that is, not only does the resurrection make
the Good News good, but also the resurrection makes faith real. It makes faith
real.

We have faith in something, not just a philosophy about something. We have faith
in a resurrected Lord. It makes faith real.

And Paul, in talking about real faith, he begins by talking about his own life
as he talks about his assurance and the assurance that all of us can have of the
resurrection of Christ. Listen to what he says in verses 9 to 12. For I am the
least of the apostles, and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because
I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without
effect. No, I worked harder than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God
that was with me. Whether then it was I or they, this is what we preach, and
this is what you believed.

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of
you say there is no resurrection from the dead? Paul begins by talking about
himself, and then he talks about them. He talks about how he'd experienced the
resurrection of Christ, seen the resurrected Lord, and the grace of God that had
come into his life, and how that grace caused him to work for God in new ways.

That's always the way it is. You don't work to get grace, but when you get
grace, God's genuine grace, there are works, there are things that grow out of
that. And by the grace of God, he said, it had an effect, I began to share the
good news.

And I shared it with you, he said. And so he said, how can some of you say
there's no resurrection? The people, some of the people in Corinth were teaching
that there was no resurrection of the dead.

Now, the problem came from probably one of two sources, or maybe both at the
same time. It could have come from a Jewish background or from a Greek
background. It could have come from the Jewish background.

You remember the two main Greek religious parties, the Sadducees and the
Pharisees, argued often about whether there was a resurrection of the dead at
all. And there was a strong belief in a strong section of the Jewish community
that there was no resurrection, that this life is all that there is. It's a very
secular way of looking at our relationship with God.

Or it could have come from a Greek background who believed in some kind of a
resurrection of the soul, but this body, this physical body, it was just to be
done away with. And Paul was writing to say there is a resurrection, and there
is a resurrection of the body. Instead of the Jewish background or the Greek
background, Paul in these verses talks about our Christian truth, the Christian
background.

And as he walks through the truth that Jesus has raised from the dead, he
presents four basic arguments to declare that without a shadow of a doubt, the
resurrection is at the center of everything we believe. If you take out the
resurrection, you may as well take out all that has to do with Christianity.
Four basic arguments, beginning with the first one, which I would call the what
if argument, the what if there's no resurrection.

Verses 13 to 19 he talks about that. If there is no resurrection of the dead,
then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our
preaching is useless, and so is your faith.

More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses for God, for we have
testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. For he did not raise
him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then
Christ has not been raised either.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. You're still in your
sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all
men. Paul walks through in these verses the argument, "If there's no
resurrection, what would that mean? " He says, "Well, first of all, if you're
saying we're not raised, that means that Jesus wasn't raised because our
resurrection is based on his resurrection, and his resurrection guarantees our
resurrection.

" So Paul is saying you're not only struggling with whether you can be raised or
not, resurrected or not, if you begin to argue against a resurrection, you're
arguing against the resurrection of Christ. Not even Jesus has been raised. And
out of that he presents this long list of what that would rob us of.

If Christ has not been raised, what does that mean, he says. And he just goes
through this list. First he says that means our preaching is in vain.

Why he says should we even have preached at all? It means nothing if there's no
resurrection. How can you offer somebody forgiveness if Jesus doesn't have power
over death?

And that's what the resurrection declares. Paul goes on and says if Christ
hasn't been raised, we're false witnesses. He's just trying to get them to
understand what they're really saying when they say there's no such thing as a
resurrection.

And so he's saying you're declaring that anyone who says there's a resurrection
is a false witness of God. In that day, a false witness about things of God was
often deserving of death. We're false witnesses.

And he goes on to say if there's no resurrection, you're still in your sins.
There's no power over sin, and so because of that you're still in your sins.
This isn't just about what's going to happen after you die.

The resurrection is also about what's happened in your life the moment you
became a believer in Christ, the power of God in your life. And so he says
without the resurrection, he's just going down this list, it means your faith is
worthless. You see the resurrection is what makes faith, genuine faith, real.

There are many people who think that faith has to do with a feeling. If I can
feel confident about something or feel warmly towards something or feel
something from someone that meets a need in my life, if I've got good feelings
about it, we call that faith. That's not faith.

That's just feelings. And with those kinds of feelings, I could have great
feelings about things that are totally destructive to me. In fact, all you have
to do is look at some of the great false teachers through history, Jim Jones
type of people.

Those who followed them had great feelings about them and followed them all the
way to their death, all the way to their destruction. So faith is not just about
feeling kindly or warmly or confidently towards someone. Faith is about a fact.

It begins there. I put faith in something and I'm putting my faith in the fact,
the truth that Jesus came to this earth, he died and he was resurrected. And
after I have that faith, once I put my faith in him, then that's what I hang on
to.

There are some people who after they put their faith in the resurrection feel
that somehow they've outgrown their need for such things as a resurrection. Now
I'm always going to need that. In fact, if I let go of that, then my faith is
worthless.

All I've got left is the feeling. I'm not standing on anything. Your faith is
worthless.

And so then Paul says the shocking thing, if there is no resurrection, we are of
all men most to be pity. Sometimes you hear things said in Christian circles,
sentimental kind of things, such as even if there is no resurrection from the
dead after this life, it's been worth knowing Jesus in my life. It's been worth
having a relationship with him.

And Paul says that is absolutely false. Paul says we're to be pitied if we've
trusted in a lie all of our lives. He says if you do not trust in the
resurrection, why would you live this Christian life?

You see, for Paul, the Christian life wasn't just a nicer life in this world. It
meant persecution. It meant being ridiculed.

It meant almost being killed many times. And so for that reason and many more,
Paul says we're to be pitied, we're to be pitied not only because of the facts
of what might happen, but also because of the foolishness of our belief. If we
have a philosophy that's based on the hope of eternity, that after this life,
God has a future in us, an eternity for us, and we live towards that all of our
lives, and then there is nothing on the other side of it, Paul says why would
you live that way?

That's an empty way to live. Don't buy into any of the thinking that apart from
a resurrection, we can live a valuable Christian life. That's just good social
thinking.

That is not deeply loving the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who died for us.
He's the one who came alive out of that grave.

And so the rest of my life, the rest of your life, we stand on the truth of the
resurrection. If he's not been raised, our preaching, everything we teach, it's
in vain. We're lying to people.

We're still in our sins. My faith is with us. In fact, I'm to be pitied, but
with the resurrection, our preaching changes lives.

With the resurrection, we're telling a truth that brings light to the world.
With the resurrection, I've been freed from my sins. With the resurrection, my
faith, my faith is everything.

And with the resurrection of all in this world, we are most, we are most to be
grateful because we have had the love of Jesus Christ poured out on our lives.
That's what the resurrection does for us. And so as we pray today, Lord, we
thank you.

Thank you, Jesus, that you gave your life on a cross. Thank you that you went
into that tomb. And thank you that three days later, you came out of that tomb
alive, keeping your promise and showing your promise in our lives.

Lord, help us to live out the truth. Help me to live out the truth of your life
in my life today. In your name, I pray.

Amen. Tomorrow, we're going to see some more of what Paul has to say about the
certainty of the resurrection.