Romans 10:9. If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God has raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved.

Can't do that without Spirit of God. Faith in and Confession of the resurrection of Jesus defines a saved person.

So we ought to know what happened on Resurrection Day. To ask ourselves, do we really believe this?

And remember, it's going to happen to us, too. This story is not just about our past, but our future.

That's what 1 Corinthians 15 is all about. Please turn there.

THE BIBLE

I want to begin today by giving praise and honor to God for giving us His Word. Through the centuries, piece by piece, man by man, came the infusion of the Holy Spirit into the minds of 40 different authors living at different times in different places. But one unified message we call the Bible. Today that word comes to us still intact, still proclaiming Truth. So many attacks have been mounted and are still being mounted against it, but it remains, unchanging, solid, true. You can build your life on it.

I have been present when foreign peoples have received their first Bible. I saw firsthand the weeping of Filipinos when a shipment of Bibles came in, and they were holding one for the first time. What an emotional moment. You've perhaps seen the videos of those Chinese in the same situation. What glory to know you are holding in your hand God's very words.

Now we put the Book on a screen. People don't carry them to church like they used to even in my day. And at home, the Book is all but forgotten by many. You should know what is in this Book, for out of it we will be judged on that Day. Learn it. Obey it.

1 CORINTHIANS

New Testament books were written by apostles and those with whom the apostles associated closely. One of those apostles was a man named Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. We like to call him our apostle. But he's not easy to get to know. He can be very sharp. Even harsh. But always true.

A church in Corinth found this out first hand. 29 chapters of your New testament were written to this congregation. Not because they were so wonderful, but quite the opposite. They had serious problems, and Paul addressed them one by one.

In First Corinthians alone, Paul had to deal with their lack of unity, their need for the wisdom of God, their lack of understanding of the Spirit of God and the gifts that he was giving, and why He was giving them. They, like us, valued giftedness above character. There was rampant immorality in the church. There were people filing lawsuits against one another. They needed marriage counseling. And counseling about true liberty, and church order.

And, in chapter 15 of the first of the 2 letters, a very strong statement about resurrection. Christ's. And ours.

Corinth was a trouble spot. Unfortunately, the things Corinth experienced are not a lot different than the church in America, even Chicago. That's why the Holy Spirit in His wisdom allowed an apostle to write down, under His anointing, answers to these problems.

THE RESURRECTION PROBLEM

Now, how is the resurrection of Jesus a problem in our world today, and in Paul's time? They and we are dealing with the same issues about it:

1. Did it happen? Is there even such a thing as resurrection ? 15: 1-12

2. Who gets resurrected, when? 15 20-28

3. What do we even mean by resurrection? An awakened corpse, like Lazarus, or one of the people that Jesus raised? 15: 35-49

4. What about our own resurrection? What has God shown us so far? 51 ff

VERSE BY VERSE

1-12. The fact of resurrection, His, and Ours

1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand,

Acts 18 tells the story of Paul's visit to Corinth, and the awful struggles he went through to get the Gospel there. By Gospel, Paul means a very specific set of facts, historical facts about their salvation, accomplished in Christ Jesus. They received it, now Paul says, if you let it go, you will fall. Keep it, you will stand.

2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you--unless you believed in vain.

How can one believe the Gospel in vain. Here he is referring to the fact that many in Corinth do not believe in resurrection. Therefore to believe in Christ's resurrection would have been worthless. As he says later, if Christ didn't rise from the dead, your faith was vain! You've been wasting time.

It is this set of historical facts which we are called upon to believe for our salvation. These facts alone are the power of God, according to Paul in Romans 1:16. the Gospel is the power of God to salvation. Believe these facts from your heart, you will be saved. You cannot start on your true spiritual journey until you sell out to these things that Jesus did for you. What are the facts?

3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

Paul wasn't there when these facts happened. The other apostles knew these things first hand, but Paul had to receive them by a special revelation from God. In a sense, we must receive this way too. We did not witness the facts, but the Holy Spirit stirs our hearts and minds in such a way that we can believe the Good News. And it is good news. Bad news is sin and death and hell. Jesus defeated all of that and passes His victory to us. That victory is Good news. Righteousness, life, and heaven. All in these facts.

Fact one: He died. According to the Scriptures. Isaiah 53 for example. Led as a Lamb to the slaughter, said Isaiah. Cut off from the land of the living. In dying, he paid the price that God demanded for sin, a perfect sacrifice whose blood would cover every transgression of every human being who calls upon the name of the Lord. Good news. Sin is covered. We are free.

4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,

Fact two. He was buried. He wasn't caught up into the heavens before he had to suffer. He died like men die. He was buried like men are buried and like that same Isaiah had seen in that same chapter. They made his grave like the wicked, but with the rich. Died like a common criminal on a Roman cross, carried away to the grave with no fanfare or mourning, except for a couple disciples who secretly admired Jesus. One of them, very rich, to fulfill that prophecy.

Fact three. He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. Jesus had said he would give them a sign like the ancient prophet Jonah of their Scriptures: the third day, Jonah was delivered. The third day, Jesus was raised. David said that God would never leave the soul of His holy One in the grave. He had to rise to fulfill Scripture, and to be identified as the Holy One. The very integrity of God's promises was at stake!

5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.

Fact four is really a part of fact three. His resurrection was witnessed! How many of the false prophets ask us to believe something, but only give us themselves as a witness. Joseph Smith of the Mormons, Muhammad of the Muslims, want us to believe they received a separate revelation from God. But who was there when the revelation came? No one. They claim an angel was there, but who saw these angels?

Jesus gives us a multitude of witnesses who saw him after he rose from the dead!

Peter, all 12 apostles, 500 brothers at one time! James, his half brother, all the "apostles", meaning beyond the 12 there were men wearing this title, for the church was sending them out with the Gospel. We call these people missionaries today. And lastly, Paul himself.

This thing, as Paul will later say, was "not done in a corner". It was witnessed by many, and some of these men, through the direction of the Holy Spirit, wrote their testimony down, their affidavit, as it were, their legal brief, and have passed it down to us, sitting in that same courtroom of humanity, as we are being asked to view that same evidence and decide, do we believe in Jesus' resurrection. Do we believe in resurrection at all?

6 After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. 8 Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.

(See above)