Sermon Tone Analysis

Acts Series #42

Back to the Beginning: When Church was Church

*Our Hope – The Resurrection*

*Acts 24:15,16*

 

Hope …

 

We talk a lot about hope …

 

Def.

– /1. to cherish a desire with anticipation; to desire with expectation of obtainment; 2 to expect with confidence/

 

The Jewish faith was all about HOPE …

They hoped for the coming of the Messiah and deliverance from the oppression of Man, of Rome … yet Jesus never preached of HOPE of a coming Messiah.

He never preached of the coming of one who would fulfill the law

 

He preached in Mt 11:28 “come to me … and I will give you rest”

 

Peter spoke of Hope but he called it a LIVING HOPE … that is something present, current, active, though we might not be living or operating fully in it yet.

1 Pe 1:3 – “/… he gives us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”  21 “through him you believe  in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God”/

 

We have hope through Christ Jesus.

But what are we hoping for?

Let’s Pick up our story of Paul on trial.

He has been moved to the Governor Felix’s headquarters in Caesarea

Read Chapter 24

 

Is this world all there is?  Are we just hoping for the Blessing of God in this life?

Is the hope we have for some sort of disembodied spiritual exists in some place called Heaven that will be foreign to everything we’ve ever known?

As Paul stood before the Pharisees and Sadducees he proclaimed that he hoped in The Resurrection.

Now YES, Paul believed in the EVENT of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ on the 3rd day, following his crucifixion.

But look back at verse 15 and 16 Paul says he has the SAME hope as the Pharisees.

They did not believe in or cling to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but they DID believe that the scriptures taught that all who died would see a resurrection.

Paul said “I have that hope TOO.”

The hope that Paul speaks of is that this world, this life, this way of existing as we have known it, is NOT the end.

I am NOT talking about reincarnation

I am NOT talking about karma.

I AM talking about the Biblical Doctrine of the Resurrection

It is our HOPE … it is a promise we can hold on to, because of Christ Jesus, who is the FIRSTBORN of the resurrection

 

If we know Christ and he lives IN us … Col 1:27 says /“Christ IN you is the Hope of Glory” /

But if we do NOT know Christ, choose a different WAY … then Eph 2:12 says / “… you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.”/

HOPE causes us to be able to live differently, die differently, and grieve differently 1 Thes.

4:13 says that we do NOT /“… grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope”/

 

The word here /el-pis/ – HOPE – is a desire for future good, accompanied by faith in its realization.

/Elpis (noun) /and /Elpiz­o­ (verb) /are always used for a favorable expectation

 

The belief in the resurrection is central to the news of Christ being GOOD NEWS or GOSPEL

 

Reincarnation isn’t good news.

Randomly being regenerated into a new body, a new form, over and again until hopefully you reach some unknown state, in an unknown place, of consciousness.

That’s not HOPE that’s uncertainty.

That is Not /elpis/.

Annihilation, a belief that this life is all there is, that once we die, we are destroyed and nothing, in no way continues, is NOT good news.

It is just NEWS, not good news.

But The Resurrection of the dead, to life promised by God, available in Christ Jesus IS good news, it IS central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So, Paul said, I Have HOPE.

He said, My hope IS the Resurrection.

People opposed to Christ will malign and ridicule the Doctrine of the Resurrection

 

Remember Paul in Athens.

He was speaking of Jesus and the Resurrection in Acts 17.  Now if you read it in the Greek JESUS and RESURRECTION would make an interesting pair for the Greek Philosopher.

/Iesous /and /anastasis/, Jesus and Resurrection.

Of course Jesus is masculine and Resurrection, /anastasis/ would be feminine so it would sound like a pair of gods.

Like Jupiter and Juno, Venus and Adonis, Isis and Osiris.

So they wanted to hear more from Paul.

But as he explained the Resurrection of the dead, Those philosophers laughed and mocked him.

So here Paul speaks of it again.

In chapter 26:8, before Agrippa, and Festus, Paul /says “why do you think it is strange that I preach a resurrection of the dead./”

And Festus tells Paul he is CRAZY in 26:24

 

 

*1.

Does the Bible Teach a Resurrection?*

Well … if the question is “can I go to one place in Scripture and get a full understanding and explanation of the resurrection?”

NO there isn’t ONE place that lays it all but plenty of scripture that reveals piece by piece

 

*  A.

O.T.*

David believed 2 Sam 12:23 /he cannot come to me but I will go to him/

Job 14:14 /if a man dies, will he live again?

All the days of my hard service, I will wait for my renewal to come/

Job 19:25,26 /I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth 26 and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God/

Dan 12:2 – /Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life others to everlasting contempt/

Isa 26:19 /But your dead will live; their bodies will rise.

You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy.

Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead/

 

 

*  B.

NT*

John 11:25 /I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live/

1 Cor 15:12 /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?

13 if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised/

1 cor 15:21 /for as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead/

 

Yes the Bible Teaches us of a Resurrection Hope

 

 

*2.

Who or What will be resurrected?*

In a sentence … Man will be resurrected and God’s creation will be resurrected.

*  A.

Man*

    1.

Let’s take the resurrection of man first.

2.

As to men being resurrected there is a FIRST or Primary Resurrection and a Second or Secondary Resurrection, but ALL are resurrected

Dan.

12:2 /multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt/

 

    3.

I would not try today to teach all we know about the resurrection because we couldn’t get through it.

But we can still trust and hope in the certainty of the resurrection.

4.

In revelation 20:4 – John sees the end of this age we live in now.

The Beast and False prophet have been cast into Hell, the dragon, Satan, has been cast into the Abyss, and verse 4 says /“I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge.

And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the Word of God.

They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands.

They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years 5 (the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended) This is the first resurrection.

The second death has no power over them, but they will be priest of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years/

 

    5.

Then after the 1000 years verse 11 says /“then I saw a great white throne and him who has seated on it … 12 I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened … the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.

13 the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and the death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done … 15 If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire/

 

That is the SECOND Resurrection or the SECONDARY Resurrection.

And being cast into the Lake of fire, IN their bodies, able to withstand eternity, is the Second Death.

Not death as we think of it, but death of relationship, death of hope, death of REAL life, but entrance into existence that is eternal judgment.