Title: The Purpose of Resurrection
Bible: 1 Corinthians 15:17-20
Title: The Purpose of Resurrection-(1) The Purpose of Christianity
1 Corinthians 15:17-20 ‘17. If Christ is not raised, your faith is in vain, and you are still in your sins. 18 And those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
19. If our hope in Christ is only in this life, then we are of the most pitiful of all men, 20. But now Christ has risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of them that slept' - Amen.
After the ascension of Jesus, the disciples gathered and prayed to receive the power of the Holy Spirit according to the will of the Lord. When Peter sold Jesus and died, an apostle was selected to replace Judas Iscariot.
Acts 1:22 “We must appoint one of those who have always been with us, so that he may also be a witness with us of the resurrection of Jesus.”
In this way, we can know that Christianity is the foundation of the resurrection of Jesus. If there is no resurrection, Christian religious activities are doomed to follow the expression in verse 18 of the main text. So, I am going to ponder on the very important <purpose of resurrection>.
1. Resurrection is the purpose of the Christian faith
There are good lessons in common religions, such as Buddhism, empty your mind, and in the Confucian ethics, do your duty as a human being. The problem is that there should not be a lesson in solving the world of human death and the afterlife. That is why the text of 1 Corinthians 15:17 says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain…”
The mere fact that Jesus died on the cross for our sins was not worthy of perfect religion. There are laws of atonement in other religions as well. However, because the Lord has risen again, the true value of true religion has come to be exhibited. The important thing is that even though Jesus was resurrected, he promised that if we believe, we will also be resurrected.
1 John 3:2 “…what the future will be has not yet been revealed, but when he appears we know that we will be like him, because we will see him as he is.”
1 Corinthians 15:51-52 ‘51. Behold, I tell you a secret, we will not all sleep, but at the last trumpet we will all be changed in an instant, 52. When the trumpet is sounded, the dead will live incorruptibility, and we will also be changed.”
John 6:40 “For my Father’s will is that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Don't come to church and try to heal yourself first and get rich. It is the beginning of Christian faith, but it is easy to become discouraged and become conditional.
First, you must believe in the Atonement and Resurrection. That is why the text 1 Corinthians 15:19 says, “If in this life our hope is only in Christ, then we are of all men the most pitiful place.”
2. The Resurrection is the sure proof of the Atonement
No matter where a person goes to pray, sin does not leave. If you are cultivating and bowing down to idols, your sins will not go away. It's only a brief self-hypnosis to try to forget it, but it doesn't change your conscience. There are many ways to atone for atonement, so even if Jesus died as a sin offering, if He had not been resurrected, the believers would not have insisted that Christianity was the only salvation. What makes Christianity a true religion and indeed a religion of atonement is the fact that because the Lord was resurrected, His death was also believed to be an atoning death.
Because of this, the text, 1 Corinthians 15:17, ‘If Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain, and you are still in your sins.
Therefore, if you believe in the Atonement and do not believe in the Resurrection, you are still in your sins. That is, to be saved, you must believe in the resurrection.
Romans 6:4-5 ‘4. … so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, so we too may walk in newness of life. 5. If we have become united in his death, we will also be united in his resurrection.'
In all other religions, the theory of life that speaks of the atonement, or the philosophy of life, is unfounded and unwilling to prove it objectively in history, so it naturally goes out of business with the passage of time. But Christianity goes to the end of the world. Because Jesus was resurrected, it is also believed that the only one who overcame death died as a sin offering. So, Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in faith, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
3. Life can be triumphant like resurrection
Just as Jesus was resurrected and became a body of glory, a Christian believer must be like the resurrected Lord and bring a victorious life into their lives.
Christian faith is not at the level of cultivating the way, nor is it the Buddhist-style mercy of sharing food and sharing love with neighbors. As disciples of Jesus who overcame the devil, we must overcome the teachings and lifestyles of demons through prayer and obedience to the truth.
If you say you believe in Jesus and there is no change in your lifestyle and you just live as you are without courage, you cannot enjoy the grace that the Lord will give.
Living according to the Lord's will should not be considered a burden, but you should know that it is a new law of blessing and obey it and experience it.
Romans 8:32 “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him also gift us all things?”
This resurrection power is normal only when it appears in life. It is not a normal believer for a church member to go to and from the church only once a week, saying that he is sad and dying every day. If you truly believe in the Atonement of the Lord and believe in the Resurrection, you must emulate the Lord Jesus in your life and have the hope of resurrection, fight the sins that arise in your body, endure and change your life with faith.
If you avoid tribulation and make excuses like that, always say no, you can't, when will you experience the blessings? To truly believe in God, you must have a regular prayer life and rearrange your life based on the Word of truth. If this happens, persecution and practical problems will arise immediately.
He said that changing the old way of human life into the way of God's truth must be accompanied by difficulties. No one else can take this pain for you. It is only a fight with yourself, but the Holy Spirit will surely help you when you exercise patience through prayer.
1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to you; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
Today we have seen that the purpose of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the will of God to expect not only the Atonement and eternal life, but also the victory of life. Any general in the world knelt before the Lord, and any scholar bowed his head before the words of the Lord Jesus. And the 2,000-year history of Christianity proves that when we restarted the world with the lifestyle of faith, we enjoyed the grace of descendants spiritually, materially, culturally, honorably, family, and descendants.
I pray in the name of the Lord that the power of the Lord's resurrection will become the basis of hope that restores our real life and leads us to a person of blessing.