Sermon Tone Analysis

“If Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

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

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

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“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead!”

The heart of the Christian message is that Christ has been raised from the dead.

The tomb is empty and the tomb is emptied of all terror.

We Christians need no longer live in fear of death, for Christ has conquered death.

And yet, it seems that we are traumatised at the thought of death.

Is it because we are not so very different from the ancient Corinthians?

If we think of what lies ahead, it seems as if we give only a cursory acknowledgement that the Bible speaks of life, real life, that is somewhere beyond this present existence.

Each year, for a brief moment, what should be central to our worship is forced to the fore, and mankind is compelled to think of our Living Saviour.

Thinking of Him, we consider for a brief moment the implications for our own lives because He has conquered death.

The challenge of the Faith is for believers to live as Resurrection People each day.

The challenge is for us to live as though the Master did indeed conquer death.

The challenge is for us to live as those who are now free of the fear of death.

*THE MESSAGE* — The message of the early disciples was pointed and specific—Christ Jesus rose from the dead.

On the Day of Pentecost, Peter stood to preach before the wondering crowd—the very crowd that like maddened animals had bayed for the Master’s crucifixion.

In the same manner as religious zealots whom we have witnessed in this day, in their rage they had cried out for Him to die.

Now, empowered by the promised Spirit which the ascended Saviour had sent, Peter and all those who had gathered in prayer for ten days, testified to the resurrection of Jesus the Crucified.

“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

For David says concerning him,

‘I saw the Lord always before me,

for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;

therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;

my flesh also will dwell in hope.

For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,

or let your Holy One see corruption.

You have made known to me the paths of life;

you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’

“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.

Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,

‘The Lord said to my Lord,

“Sit at my right hand,

until I make your enemies your footstool.”’

“Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” [ACTS 2:22-36].

This resurrection was central to all apostolic preaching.

When people rushed to see a crippled man who had been healed, Peter testified, “You denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead.

To this we are witnesses” [ACTS 3:14, 15].

Drawing that message to a conclusion, the Apostle boldly stated, “God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness” [ACTS 3:26].

Haled before the Sanhedrin, the Apostles testified, “Let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.

This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” [ACTS 4:10-12].

When arrested a second time and called to answer for disobeying the Sanhedrin’s demand that they cease speaking of the Risen Lord of Glory, the Apostles responded, “We must obey God rather than men.

The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.

God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him” [ACTS 5:29-32].

Witnessing to the household of Cornelius, le Peter testified, “We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.

They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead” [ACTS 10:39-43].

The resurrection of Jesus was central to Paul’s preaching on this first missionary journey.

“When [those living in Jerusalem] had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.

But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.

And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus” [ACTS 13:29-33a].

This message of Jesus being raised from the dead would become the hallmark of apostolic preaching; and the resurrection of Christ the Lord continues as central to the message of life to this day.

This was Paul’s testimony in the verses preceding the text chosen for this day.

“I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy 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 toward me was not in vain.

On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed” [1 CORINTHIANS 15:3-11].

*CHRIST CONQUERED DEATH!

TRUE?

OR FALSE?* Since the apostolic message was built around the resurrection of Christ the Lord, and since the hope of the resurrection is offered for all who believe in Him, then it should be surprising that some were questioning the resurrection.

However, as I’ve already intimated, belief in the resurrection of the dead is frequently doubted, or at least ignored by many professed Christians.

Contemporary churches appear to have adopted a sort of squishy faith—it requires little, changes naught and promise much.

A central tenet of this flaccid faith is a willingness to jettison the resurrection as though it is an antiquated relic that is no longer necessary.

It is as though many of the theologians of this bold, new day have concluded that niceness has superseded conviction.

But the Apostles would have argued that the resurrection of the Master and our promised resurrection are essential.

Transformation of life into one that is pleasing to God demands confidence in God’s power to raise the dead.

Paul tackled the issue of soft faith head on.

“If Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

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

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised” [1 CORINTHIANS 15:12-15].

The Good News does not call people to believe easy things; the Gospel of Christ calls us to believe difficult truths!

Nevertheless, the things we are called to believe are true!

And that means these truths are worthy of strenuous effort to seize them as matters of the Faith.

We grapple with the knowledge that we are sinners.

We may minimise our brokenness, imagining that we are able to satisfy God’s righteous demands without major changes in what we believe.

However, we keep running up against a most difficult truth that has touched all people.

Paul makes two dark statements concerning our common condition as he writes the Roman Christians.

He warns that neither culture nor race will suffice to make us acceptable before God, noting, “There is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” [ROMANS 3:22a, 23].

Then, Paul speaks a truth that however much we may struggle with that truth, we must succumb at last to its reality.

The Apostle warns, “The wages of sin is death” [ROMANS 6:23a].

Struggle as much as we might, inveigh against the inevitable ever so much, yet each single individual is under sentence of death.

The question is not “if” we shall die; the question is “when” we shall die.

We are born dying.