Every week I publish my sermon notes so that you may read them for yourselves. For my parishioners, this could be a good review from the weekend before. And it gives you a chance to see what I intended to say! For other pastors and ministers, feel free to borrow and use any of this material. I'd love for God to be glorified by you incorporating these notes into your own worship.
Listen to "I Will Be Resurrected."
I KNOW: “I Will Be Resurrected” 12.11.11
Scripture: Romans 8:9-11 NIV
Video: “His Resurrection Today” by Beamer Films
Intro: This week I finished the Steven Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. I have a fascination for Apple Inc and their products, and therefore, the man behind the company. When I got to the very end of the book I read this Coda when Jobs reflected on his own death.
“I’m about 50-50 on believing in God. For most of my life I felt there must be more to our existence than meets the eye.” He admitted that as he was facing death he might be overestimating the odds out of a desire to believe in an afterlife. “I’d like to think that something survives after you die. It’s strange to think that you accumulate all this experience and maybe a little wisdom and it just goes away. So I really want to believe that something survives... that maybe your consciousness endures.” He fell silent for a very long time. “... but on the other hand perhaps it’s like an on-off switch. Click. And you’re gone.” He paused again and smiled slightly. “Maybe that’s why I never liked to put on-off switches on Apple devices.”
This made me incredibly sad. Here was the man who created the company that just weeks before had become the most valuable company in America. Yet with all this financial and leadership wealth, he was impoverished when it came to a real spiritual hope in his own resurrected life. Sadly, I believe many Christ-followers, who should be the most hopeful about their own resurrection, are also spiritually impoverished - not knowing with any certainty of their life after death. Where are you?
1. I ___SHOULD BELIEVE___ I will be resurrected.
Many Christians believe in their own future resurrection - not from an internal certainty of their own eternal security - but because it’s on the list of “things to believe in.” I’m a Christian. To be a Christian I must believe in certain things. So I do. I believe in the Trinity - 3 distinct persons of the Godhead. The virgin birth. The belief in Jesus as fully man and fully God. The belief that Jesus died and was resurrected. There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging these aspects of our Christian beliefs, but a simple head knowledge doesn’t really change us our our situation. It doesn’t make us any different than the Steve Jobses of the world who give it a 50-50 chance. “Guess I’ll find out for sure after I die.” Paul argues against such a “not really sure” mentality.
“But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 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.” 1 Corinthians 15:12-14 NIV
Believing in Jesus’ resurrection is closely tied in with believing in our own resurrection. We believe in our own future resurrection because of the reality of Jesus’ past resurrection. Paul argues that if we aren’t really sure about our future resurrection then we can’t be really sure of Jesus past resurrection because they are tied together. And if that’s true then, he says, our faith is useless! Our faith should be good for something. It should change the way we live now, the way we think about things now, the way we approach life now. There’s more than three score and ten... so much more! How I think about resurrection impacts my worries, doubts, successes, failures, pains, & relationships.
2. I ___WISH___ I will be resurrected.
Some of us do more than believe because we are supposed to believe. However, we still struggle with big doubts about it. We believe in it because we WANT to believe in it. Sounds good. Why not? Count me in! But in our heart of hearts, when push comes to shove, when we are really faced with our own mortality, we find ourselves like Steve Jobs: 50-50 probability. We wish it was true. We hope it’s true. But our hope isn’t built on anything that we can count on. We’re not hoping like Peter when he wrote:
“In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. 1 Peter 1:3b-4 NIV
Peter was just like Paul... and all the early disciples. Their hope was not just a wish that it be true. It was based on THE FACT of Jesus’ own resurrection. Jesus was just the first of many. His was the resurrection that proved it was possible. And because Peter saw Jesus after his death, ate with him, talked with him, touched him, he KNEW that he too would be resurrected. Jesus told him so. That message of the resurrection was not just for Peter, Paul and the other early disciples. It was for you and me too! We can KNOW that we already possess “an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”
3. I ___KNOW___ I will be resurrected. How can we know? 2 reasons:
A. I know this because: ___THE SPIRIT OF GOD LIVES IN ME___
This brings us to our Scripture today... and WHY it is so important to know and be connected to Christ’s Spirit. Because the Spirit of Christ is our evidence, our deposit, our assurance of our own coming resurrection. There is no such thing as a Christian without the Spirit!
“You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.” Romans 8:9 NIV
Knowing Christ through His Spirit living in and through us is the primary way we know we are Christ followers! This is the evidence to ourselves of our true faith. Paul describes two realms, two “in’s”: either we are IN THE REALM of the flesh OR IN THE REALM of Christ’s Spirit. That’s why Paul writes, “if indeed...” because that is really the real gold standard of Christianity - not what we say, not a prayer we prayed, not a membership card to a church. Paul is blunt: If you don’t have the Spirit, you don’t belong to Christ! It was also the cornerstone of Peter’s first great sermon:
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38 NIV
Do you see it? Repent. Be baptized. Be forgiven. Receive the Spirit. It’s all part of the same thing. If you are a Christ-follower, the Spirit of Christ lives in and leads in you! You live your Christian life because of Him! Then Paul takes an incredible leap of logic. Not only do you know you will be resurrected because of Christ’s Spirit living in you, BUT ALSO - I know this because...
B. I know this because: ___THE SPIRIT GIVES LIFE___
This is one of those places in the Bible where you really have to pay attention. Paul starts by saying, Let’s face it... The odds of death are historically pretty much the same for everyone. 100%. Think of everyone who has ever lived. All dead. Everybody here is destined to die. (Unless Christ returns first.) It is what we spend a lifetime doing... dying! Our bodies are moral. The body is subject to death. BUT HERE IS THE KEY: The Spirit in you gives life! Do you see it?
“But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.” Romans 8:10 NIV
Remember what we learned last week? The Spirit IS life. Look back at Romans 8:6: “The mind governed by the Spirit IS life.” The only human we know who ever conquered death is Jesus. We believe he was raised from the dead by the Spirit of God Who LIVED in him... this same Spirit, this 3rd person of the Trinity, if he lives inside of you (and me) cannot die. Even though this body we live in is destined to die, the Spirit of God cannot die AND (from v. 6) the mind governed by the Spirit will not die either! Paul describes our mortal bodies separately from us (our minds) in 2 Corinthians 5:
“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, and eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 NIV
Two things we can really identify with here:
(1) our groaning! 2x. Why? Because immortality (our mind + Spirit) is housed inside of mortality. This mortal body is not the ultimate container of our immortal minds. We are destined for bodies that will last, our heavenly dwelling! It’s like taking the most expensive car in the world - the Bugatti Veyon Super Sports car valued at $2.4 million - taking that engine and putting it inside an old rusted out 1971 Ford Pinto! Can you imagine the groaning!?! That’s what it’s like for us.
(2) We are also told that God gave us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come... your resurrection. Your life from death. In fact, we’re told that the SAME Spirit Who raise Jesus from the dead will raise us from the dead too!
“And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” Romans 8:11 NIV
That’s all the “proof” that we need. Christ’s Spirit living and breathing life inside of you and me continuously testifies to His Presence in our life and reminds us of our guarantee. And (thank goodness) not because of us, or how we lived, or because we deserved it, or because of our righteousness, right? But because of HIS righteousness. Take a look back at the end of v. 10. It’s not our righteousness he’s talking about, but Jesus’!
Conclusion: So we come to the end of another talk in our “I KNOW” series. What difference does this KNOW make to you and to me? Let’s go back to the video we saw at the beginning of this talk.
In your worries...
In your doubts...
In your successes and failures...
In your pain...
In your relationships...
His resurrection means that God’s unfailing love for you and me is never-ending. We come into His Presence without fear. We are not the same old person we once was, but we are a NEW CREATION! Hope - real hope - is never far away because of the Guarantee / Deposit living inside us that reminds us that this moment, this pain, this experience is like a wisp of mist - here today, but gone soon forever. We can connect to God now. Anytime. Anywhere. And this now, anytime, everywhere connection will NEVER change - even though our bodies will die - we will not lose this life giving connection. This changes everything! Because we KNOW we will be resurrected. Let’s pray!
