Sermon Tone Analysis

Since we just celebrated Easter, I thought it would be appropriate to spend some time considering the significance of Jesus’ resurrection and it’s implications for us today.

To do that, we’ll look though certain passages in 1 Corinthians 15, so if you have your Bible or an app let’s turn their together.

We’ll start by reading the first 8 verses.

1.

The Significance of Jesus’ Resurrection

So there are a few important things in this passage to highlight:

Resurrection is in “accordance with scripture”

Resurrection is essential to the Gospel

But before we talk about those important points, I think we should get on the same page about the concept of resurrection.

i. Defining Resurrection

So, what do you think of when you hear resurrection?

What does resurrection mean to you?

Do you only think of Jesus, or do you also think about your final destiny?

“(Resurrection) meant, very specifically, that people already dead would be given new bodies, (they) would return to an embodied life not completely unlike the one they had had before.”

Wright, Tom.

Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians.

London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004.

Print.

How does this conception or resurrection differ from how you thought about it?

How, if at all, does it effect your view of death and life after death?

“Life after life after death”

ii.

Resurrection & the Gospel

Paul says that the Gospel is comprised of 3 crucial elements: the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

The Gospel certainly comprises of more than this, but it is no less.

I want to think of the Gospel in two categories and apply the resurrection to it.

First, how does the resurrection effect the way we preach the Gospel to ourselves?

Second, how does the resurrection effect the way we share the Gospel with others?

Is the resurrection a part of our “Gospel presentation?”

Do we make it to the resurrection, or are we fixated with his death?

iii.

Resurrection & Scripture

What do you think it means that Jesus’ resurrection was in accordance with the Scriptures?

What Scriptures do you think Paul is referring to?

What was written at this time?

Do you think this is a clear thread running through scripture, or do you think it’s challenging to identify?

“Nor does it mean that Paul could quote half a dozen ‘proof-texts’ of passages from the Old Testament which predicted that the Messiah would die and rise again, though he could certainly have done that.

No.

The Bible which Paul had known and loved as a young man was like a story in search of an ending; and when Jesus rose from the dead the ending was now revealed.

This was where it was all going.”

Wright, Tom.

Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians.

London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004.

Print.

Okay, let’s transition to talk more about the implications for Jesus’ resurrection upon us today.

Let’s look down to verse 12.

2. Living in Light of the Resurrection

i. Resurrection & World-view

There is some really important background to the reason that Paul is spending so much time explaining the resurrection with such depth.

The Corinthians were in a Greek society that was permeated by philosophy that made an unchristian distinction between body and spirit.

The core of the philosophy and world-view of their culture viewed material as wicked, and spirit as holy.

They viewed bodies as prisons or shells that kept people from achieving true spiritual greatness.

So to the Corinthians, their culture sought to transcend the material body for a “greater” spiritual body.

NT Wright says “The resurrection is the foundation of the Christian counterculture.”

I think that applies to the ancient Greek world and philosophies but also applies to today.

So how is the doctrine of resurrection (Jesus and ours) countercultural today?

Paul insists that the fundamental logic of Christian proclamation demands belief in the resurrection of the dead; therefore, Christian hope necessarily affirms rather than rejects the body.

To proclaim the resurrection of Christ is to declare God’s triumph over death and therefore the meaningfulness of embodied life.

That is why, according to Paul, our future hope must be for a transformed body in the resurrection, not an escape from the embodied state.

Hays, Richard B. First Corinthians.

Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1997.

Print.

Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching.

ii.

Jesus’ Resurrection & Our Resurrection

What do you think it means that Jesus’ resurrection is the “firstfruits?”

“But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.

He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.”

(NLT)

In verses 45-49 Paul paints a comparison and contrast between our likeness with Adam, and the second Adam, Jesus.

iii.

Resurrection & Vocation

Paul describes the culmination of history and coming of the Kingdom of God in full at the Second Coming of Christ.

He shows that not everyone will have died before this event, and those that remain will be transformed, with an imperishable, resurrected body.

What I find most interesting is the way that Paul ends this section.

Paul ends this climatic, passionate, discourse on resurrection by connecting and grounding it with vocation and everyday life.

“Work of the Lord” doesn’t mean “ministry”, missionary work, non-profit work, etc.

The original word is a broad term that is inclusive of all kinds of work and labor.

Any work that a Christian does, should by seen as “the work of the Lord.”

The resurrection affirms and dignifies work as something that is good and that has eternal value.

How does the resurrection and it’s implications create dignity and eternal value in the work that we’re doing?

How can we encourage one another in our work and to see the dignity and eternal value therein?

“...if there is continuity between who and what we are in the present and who and what we will be in the future, we cannot discount the present life, the present body and the present world as irrelevant.

On the contrary.

It is a matter of the greatest encouragement to Christian workers, most of whom are away from the public eye, unsung heroes and heroines, getting on faithfully and quietly with their God-given tasks, that what they do ‘in the Lord’ during the present time will last, will matter, will stand for all time.

How God will take our prayer, our art, our love, our writing, our political action, our music, our honesty, our daily work, our pastoral care, our teaching, our whole selves—how God will take this and weave its varied strands into the glorious tapestry of his new creation, we can at present have no idea.

That he will do so is part of the truth of the resurrection, and perhaps one of the most comforting parts of all.”

Wright, Tom.

Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians.

London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004.

Print.