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00:02 Once again, it's my great joy and privilege to be uh standing here uh sharing with you from the word of God at
00:08 the second service. And we are nearing uh the end of our series on uh one
00:13 Corinthians. And today we are at the second last uh chapter, chapter 15. 1
00:20 Corinthians 15 is the great resurrection chapter. It first talks about the
00:26 resurrection of Jesus and also our own uh future resurrection.
00:32 This is a very important chapter because it is about our future. It's about what
00:37 will happen to you and I one day sooner or later. It describes uh uh it looks
00:45 ahead and describes uh what will happen what will become of us when we depart from this world.
00:51 The Bible teaches that those who are in Christ will be resurrected and will be
00:56 given uh new glorified bodies. And hence it will do you a lot of good to pay
01:04 close attention to these chapters because if you truly understand the
01:10 wondrous resurrection that awaits us in the future, it will have a life-changing impact on
01:16 you in the present. Our text today is taken from the first
01:22 11 verses of the chapter with the title the proof of resurrection.
01:28 This is really a long uh uh chapter stretching 58 verses and to cover so
01:35 much ground. These 58 verses will will be preached over three sermons. Next
01:40 Sunday, David Adams will touch on the centrality of the resurrection uh from
01:45 verses 12 to 34. And I think two Sundays after that, uh pastor Leon will be
01:50 tasked with uh verses 35 to 58 and discuss the topic of uh bodily
01:57 resurrection and understandably uh there will likely be some overlaps between
02:02 these three sermons. Our 11 verse text today is uh in itself
02:09 not so difficult to digest. Half of it is a list of eyewitnesses who saw the
02:14 resurrected Christ with their own eyes and hence this title the proof of resurrection. We will go through the
02:21 text and of course also the uh the context uh behind the text in the usual
02:27 manner. But what I like to do is to really venture beyond these verses and
02:33 to look at resurrection from the stand from the standpoint of our present human condition. And later at the end of the
02:40 sermon, I would like to offer you uh some practical points to make the text
02:45 more relevant. Shall we begin with a word of prayer?
02:51 our father in heaven. When you created heaven and earth, you merely had to
02:56 speak and things came into being. You then looked at all that were made
03:03 and you said it was good. Speak also into our lives through the
03:09 through your word as recorded in scripture. Let your word so transform us
03:14 so that in time you may look at us and also say it is good for we ask this in
03:21 Jesus' name. Amen. I'm going to uh give a longer than usual
03:29 introduction to the sermon uh because I would like to prepare your mind not just for this sermon but uh for the uh all
03:36 the three sermons on this chapter. Two months ago in June uh when I stood
03:42 here to preach from one Corinthians 10, I spoke about a fatherdaughter trip uh
03:48 that Melody and I uh went on uh to Europe. Uh I I showed you I remember I
03:55 showed you this this photo taken in Austria in the year 2005 when she was
04:01 only 10 years old. Somehow someone told her that I showed
04:06 this photo and she texted me are you why you show this picture? You know
04:11 I also mentioned uh that at the end of July uh we would be going on a second
04:18 fatherdaughter trip and this time to Japan and well in a in a blink of an eye
04:24 Melody came back from England uh in mid July. Uh we then spent eight wonderful
04:29 days in um in Tokyo and Kanazawa and 10 days ago she returned to England uh to
04:35 continue her studies. On the right you can see a photo we took together three
04:41 weeks ago at this uh Maji Shrine, a very popular tourist destination in Tokyo.
04:48 And the reason I I I put these two photos side by side is to really to
04:54 illustrate the passage of time because 14 years 14 years imagine have
05:02 flown by just like that between these two moments in time. Often
05:09 I have difficulties coming to terms with how fast time the years pass us by.
05:16 Indeed, time flows like a river and it flows very swiftly.
05:21 My daughter was was just a little girl then. Now she's a grownup, a young
05:26 woman. I was 46 back then. Now I'm 60. Okay.
05:35 And this is a full photo uh we took uh together in Tokyo. I've blown up this
05:41 photo. Uh I'm not going to I'm not here to to promote tourism to Japan. Even though you it's good for you to go
05:49 after this shot was taken someone took for us. Uh I don't quite like selfie because too close you know the the
05:55 wrinkles all can be seen. So after we we got someone to to take this photo, we we
06:01 walked somehow we just walked to the to the right of the shrine, this Maji shrine. And uh we came across this rows
06:08 of u these rows of fans uh on which were hung hundreds if not thousands of these
06:15 uh little wooden plugs. Uh it's known as Emma in Japanese. And
06:22 what you do is that uh you write a little prayer or a personal wish on one
06:27 of these wooden boards and and you hang it on one of the hooks on the fence. Now call us uh busy
06:34 bodies, but Melody and I couldn't resist reading some of them.
06:40 Actually, we ended up reading a lot of them. In Chinese, we say capo.
06:47 At first, I was a little reluctant to pry into the private prayers of other people. But since they were openly
06:53 displayed, I conveniently decided that uh these private prayers are now uh
06:58 public information. Anyway, they were written in all kinds of languages. Uh not just in Japanese,
07:06 English, but uh I I saw Spanish, you know, Korean, you know, Chinese, all kinds of languages in all sorts of
07:13 handwriting by all types of people. And I found it very instructive to pour over
07:19 the desires of people from all over the world. Desires from the deepest recesses
07:24 of their hearts. What do people wish for in general?
07:32 Well, some ask for the impossible. Uh this girl wanted a bridge boyfriend with
07:38 a good heart and soul who would love her for what she was. And that's not all. She also wanted this
07:45 person to take care of her and her family. Not just her but her and her family. If I were to meet this girl in person, I
07:52 would tell her in your dreams.
07:58 Other requests uh were more down to earth. This kid just wanted a PlayStation 5. That's all. A simple
08:06 request in comparison. But many prayers were about boy girl
08:12 relationships and marriage. This person uh hoped to find a Japanese
08:18 girlfriend, a Japanese Xiao, you know, in Chinese uh Japanese SYT. And so he
08:24 wrote, but the stupid guy forgot to leave behind his handphone number.
08:32 Sometimes you are able to tell the nationality of the writer from what he or she wishes for. This one I could tell
08:40 from this from a Singaporean. for sure he wished to get into N US national I
08:45 think it's national university of Singapore he then then get a good job and become rich become rich he wrote to
08:52 make the parents feel at ease become rich not to pamper the parents but just to just so that they will feel
08:59 at ease imagine the parents oh I feel so at ease my son is so rich
09:06 typically Singaporean now jokes aside Right? As I scan all
09:12 these private prayers, generally speaking, if they were not about relationships and marriage, they will be
09:19 related to studies and careers. These were the two main categories of prayers.
09:24 Uh uh putting aside trivial requests such as PlayStations and the like.
09:29 But there was there was a third category of prayers, a rather big category. You
09:35 see, I found many of these wooden plaques written with wishes for the
09:40 well-being or the recovery of a loved one who is seriously ill.
09:46 This one uh asks for for God's healing for an uncle Frank, although the nature
09:52 of its illness was not disclosed. This one is a prayer for Papa's speedy
10:00 recovery from injury. And you can read that he was also uh suffering from Parkinson's.
10:08 This one is also about a father describing his battle with cancer and a
10:13 hope for a cure. This last one is an appeal for the
10:19 mother to be free from pain, seeking strength and courage and peace
10:25 to overcome an unspecified illness. It was rather shall I say sobering and
10:33 an emotional experience for me as I read these type of prayers and there were so
10:39 many of them in a way they were close to my heart meaning that if I were to write
10:44 a prayer one of these wooden plaques I'll write something similar for my mom
10:50 let me explain over the past two to three months uh I've been kind of clearing out uh the store room in the
10:57 house getting rid of things uh that we no longer need. There just too many stuff in the house. As one gets older, I
11:04 think it's good to start downsizing. Now, uh as Pastor Chris uh mentioned
11:10 during the recent uh church camp, you know, we bye-bye hot and then we throw throw throw. Those
11:17 of you at the camp, you remember what he said. And so as I as I was shifting through all those stuff, I chanced upon
11:24 my eyes caught an old photo album and I found a photo of my mom when she was
11:31 young. I'm so glad I found this. This was taken in 1951.
11:37 Imagine 1951 when she was only 17 years old.
11:43 Now fast forward 68 years. This is a recent photo of her uh on the right and
11:49 she's now 85. Again, the reason I put these two photos
11:54 side by side is to illustrate the passage of time or in this case, shall I say, the ravaging passage of time.
12:03 In the blink of an eye, almost seven decades have flown by between these two
12:09 moments in time. She's now suffering from medium-stage Alzheimer's and I have to place her uh
12:18 in a well-run home uh nearby here where she uh can receive proper care. This is
12:23 somewhere in SS194. And whenever I visit her sometimes she
12:30 has trouble remembering my name. She confuses me my brother and um our
12:36 conversation is very simple or should I say rather shallow. She can't remember much. Uh she would uh ask me three
12:44 questions over and over and over again. Number one, are your kids working?
12:49 Number two, are they married? Number three, how many kids do they have? That's was that's all she is concerned
12:56 about, you know. And sometimes I feel like answering her even before she asks
13:01 the question because I knew what she was going to ask. It's painful for me to watch her mental
13:06 conditions uh deteriorating over the years. So, if I were to write a prayer on one
13:13 of those wooden plugs, I'll ask God to take away her Alzheimer's. I'll ask God
13:19 to to restore her mental faculties. As a matter of fact, I would like to ask
13:24 for two more plugs to write on because you see as I speak now, my elder sister
13:31 uh in Pinang who is 5 years older than me uh she has just recently been diagnosed with liver cancer and an
13:38 operation is scheduled for early next month. And just two weeks ago, my
13:43 mother-in-law uh suffered a stroke and now she cannot walk or stand. Lean's mother is now 83 years old.
13:51 The point I'm making is this. I'm seeing firsthand I'm seeing firsthand how
13:57 rapidly we age and as a result how frail and weak and and and and uh vulnerable
14:04 we become. I'm confronted by all these stark realities of life. Now I want to
14:11 expand on this point further uh before we go into our text. Now, of course, I want us to read the text not
14:18 only it in its textual context, but also to see resurrection in the human
14:23 context. Many many years ago, I cannot remember exactly when, I was teaching the book of
14:29 John at the SS19 live group and six years ago, I taught it again at the
14:34 Sunday life group. So, if you have so if you attended those classes, you might recall what I'm about to elaborate. You
14:41 see the gospel according to John is a bit different from the other three gospels because John outlined seven only
14:48 seven miracles of of Jesus out of about 35 or so uh miracles performed by Jesus
14:55 as recorded in in the gospels. John chose to document only seven of them.
15:01 These are the the seven miracles of Jesus that you will find in John. From Jesus changing water into wine in John
15:07 chapter 2 to the raising of Lazarus in John chapter 11. Now we don't have time to go through them but if you were to
15:15 scrutinize this list you will notice that the three of them relate to individuals who were suffering from
15:21 severe medical conditions. The last miracle, perhaps the most dramatic of
15:26 the seven, deals with the the death of a person who succumb uh to to illness,
15:32 Lazarus. In other words, four out of of the out of the seven miracles have
15:37 something to do with the vulnerable human condition. Now, as we as we studied this these
15:44 passages from John, I I described to the group what I call the three Ds of life.
15:50 D as in ABCD. If you were there when I taught those classes, perhaps you still remember
15:56 them. The three inescapable deeds of life are one disease, two decay, and
16:04 three death. Remember this, disease, decay, and death.
16:12 You may be very health consscious to try to avoid the first D, but in time to come, the second D will get you.
16:19 You may try to delay the second D maybe by applying all sorts of cream but eventually the third D will get you.
16:27 There is no escape. Young professionals today they like to
16:32 talk about the not the D's but the C's of life ABC
16:37 to give you a hint is not coffee or Coca-Cola. Okay. What are the C's of
16:43 life that people in the younger generation go after? Amazingly, I found in the in Wikipedia a
16:50 article called the five C's of Singapore. Ah, you wonder, right? What do the
16:58 Singaporeans go after? Five C's. Number one, cash. Very good. Number two,
17:04 car, credit card, condominium. Very good. And the last one, last Cash
17:12 can be career. Somebody said uh certificate. But the fifth C is the country club membership. Uh the one you
17:18 didn't realize. So typically Singaporean we are making
17:25 fun at the expense for Singaporeans. Recently someone came up with the six Fs
17:31 of life. ABCD FC is not enough now. Six Fs of life.
17:37 Family. Oh no. Family comes in. No. Finance. Don't forget money.
17:43 Fashion, friendship, Facebook very popular now.
17:50 Fun must have fun. And what's the 6F
17:56 food? Thank you very much. This is FBC. Surely you know F is for food.
18:05 But seriously, whether you live by the five Cs or the six Fs,
18:12 sooner or later, okay, you'll be confronted by one or more of the 3Ds of life, disease, decay,
18:19 and death. Cuz like it or not, ready or not, as you age, they will creep into
18:26 your life and into the lives of those you love and cherish.
18:32 And these are not the kind of things that we like to think about. Especially when we are young, when our muscles were stronger, our minds were sharper. Even
18:39 when we are older, we don't like to talk about these things. I'm sorry. I have to raise them up. I have to bring them up
18:45 today because these are the harsh realities of life. It's a reality that we are vulnerable to diseases. We are
18:52 not immune to decay and sooner or later death is inevitable.
18:59 Do not live under the illusion that life is always a bed of roses. I myself wish
19:05 that life were a bed of roses from beginning to end. But the cold fact is that it's not. And just so that you are
19:13 occasionally reminded of this, I urge you to try to do more hospital visits and to try to attend funerals as much as
19:20 you can because these are occasions for reality checks.
19:25 Okay? They can have a very sobering effect on you. They bring you down to
19:30 the ground. Let us be reminded that life does come with challenges, especially of the
19:37 medical kind. And as the years roll by, one or more of these 3Ds will loom
19:45 larger and larger in your lives. None of us is spared. And when they hit
19:52 us or members of our family, we react with with distress, despair, and even
19:59 desperation. Our hearts become discouraged, dismayed, and distraught.
20:06 And you notice that words associated with negative emotions often tend to start with the letter D.
20:13 And one question that you may be itching to ask is, why doesn't God simply take away all these dreadful deeds of life?
20:20 Why why can't our lives be smooth sailing on the sea minus the storms?
20:26 Why must my mom suffer from Alzheimer, my elder sister from cancer, and my mother-in-law from stroke?
20:34 These are pertinent questions and let me assure you that they are very good answers to these questions. But it will
20:40 take a separate sermon to address them adequately and perhaps we can do this in another season. In the meantime, it is
20:47 an unwelcome and unavoidable fact of life that we have to navigate the
20:53 increasingly torturous path of life with growing frailty and weakness as our
20:59 bodies degenerate physically. It is precisely because of this reason
21:05 that we as believers ought to read one Corinthians 15 with much eagerness,
21:12 seriousness, and anticipation. This is a chapter that offers us the
21:18 comforting thought and the blessed assurance that one day when our days are done, when we give up this wretched
21:24 body, God will grant us in the future a new body that will not be susceptible to
21:30 these three days of life. There will be no tears nor pain and death will be
21:35 vanquished. This has been a rather lengthy buildup to the sermon proper because I wanted to
21:42 contrast the harsh realities of life, the treaties of life, our vulnerable human condition, and to contrast them
21:49 with a wondrous resurrection that awaits us, with the blessed hope that belongs to us. One Corinthians 15 points us to
21:57 the glorious future that God has promised us, his people.
22:03 Now we are ready to dive into the 11 verses in our text. But before that it
22:08 will be worthwhile for for us to appreciate the context in which our text sits. We have already seen the general
22:15 human context. And so let me start with with this question. Why did Paul suddenly discuss
22:22 this topic of resurrection? Hardly a mention of resurrection from
22:27 chapters 1 to 14. I believe there's a brief mention in the in 1 Corinthians 6
22:33 but uh not much mention of uh resurrection all these chapters and suddenly he addressed this issue why
22:42 now all throughout this series of uh one Corinthians
22:47 we see Paul tackling issue after issue that the church was struggling with.
22:53 See, if you if you survey the whole book of 1 Corinthians until chapter 6, he had been dealing with problems faced by the
22:60 church, problems that he became aware of because people came to visit him and they reported to him, you know, all
23:06 these problems such as divisions within the church and other uh also disorders
23:12 within the church such as incest and uh and lawsuits and we have covered them over the past many weeks. But from
23:19 chapter 7 onwards, Paul began to deal with questions that the Corinthian church uh members brought to him through
23:27 a letter that they they sent to to Paul. And we know that they had sent Paul a a
23:32 letter because chapter 7 begins with uh Paul wrote now for the matters that you wrote about. So they wrote him a letter.
23:39 Unfortunately, this letter had not been preserved for us to peruse. But anyway
23:44 from chapter 7 uh Paul started to to answer them all these questions that they wrote in their letter for matters
23:50 such as food offered to idols to to spiritual gifts uh as we have seen in all these previous sermons and one of
23:58 the issues they raised uh was the issue of uh of resurrection.
24:03 They raised the issue of resurrection but not many of you can catch the pun
24:08 there. And that's where where chapter 15 comes in. Paul was responding to this query on
24:16 resurrection uh on this matter that they seemed confused about. Now to be sure uh they
24:23 were not denying the resurrection of Christ. The trouble is that they didn't believe in their own future
24:29 resurrection. And we know this from from verse 12 which is just outside our text.
24:35 Uh verse 12 says, "How can some of you say uh there is no resurrection of the
24:40 dead?" And further down in verse 35, but someone will ask how are the dead raised
24:46 with what kind of uh body would they come? So so they they they were
24:51 struggling with the idea of you know their own resurrection. To them when you're dead, you are dead. There can be
24:57 no resurrection beyond this earthly life. Now here when I say resurrection, I'm
25:02 referring to the to the spirit of the dead believer being joined to a physically resurrected body, an
25:08 incorruptible and perfect body. The full term in the Bible is bodily resurrection
25:14 which Pastor Leon will cover next month and I shall leave it to him to elaborate this.
25:21 The fact that some if not most of the Corinthian church didn't believe in bodily resurrection.
25:27 uh this comes uh this may come as a surprise to you because the Lord Jesus uh taught this matter about taugh about
25:35 our resurrection on more than one occasion during his earthly ministry.
25:41 So if Jesus taught it, why didn't they believed it? For example, uh we have a
25:46 we have a we have a verse uh in uh in John 11 John 14 uh where Jesus said that
25:52 he was going to go and prepare a room for you in heaven. Now, if he were if he if he were if he
25:58 were just your disembodied spirit, you know, floating about in heaven, why would you need a room to stay? So, when
26:04 Jesus said he was going to prepare a room for you, he meant that you would be physically resurrected.
26:12 But there is a good reason why some, if not most, in the Corinthian church, they didn't believe in their own future
26:18 resurrection. And here we kind of go deeper into some kind of a cultural context behind the text. Now earlier
26:25 when I preached on the one Corinthian stand I mentioned that the Corinthian church was a mixed congregation uh of
26:31 Jews and Gentiles. Okay. Now since Corinth uh was in was located in Greece
26:37 uh I remember I showed you a map uh Corinth is somewhere in southern Greece. So you can expect that the gentile uh
26:44 members uh of the of the church to be Greek and generally uh this is a bit
26:49 deeper but in Greek philosophy they believe they subs ascribe to immortality
26:54 but not physical immortality. They believe that when you die, you kind of
26:60 transition into a a shadowy phys spiritual existence. You know also they
27:06 had the Greek had great uh great uh disdain for the physical body which they considered to be corruptible and prone
27:13 to all sorts of illnesses and because they had a proverb in those days the
27:18 body is a tomb and hence the thought of being being united with the physical body after
27:24 death to them it wasn't such a good idea and to them resurrection was a no no
27:30 as for the members of the church who were who were Jewish of because they are thinking uh on on the afterlife is a lot
27:38 of them based on the Old Testament. However, in the Old Testament, the idea
27:43 of uh uh resurrection isn't as clearly uh defined as in the New Testament. Old
27:50 Testament teaching on on the resurrection is kind of fuzzy uh so to speak. Although there are a few Old
27:58 Testament verses that point to the idea of our resurrection. For example, uh in
28:03 Psalm 16, uh this was our responsive reading just now. Therefore, my heart is
28:09 glad and my tongue rejoices. My body also rests secure. Notice, my body also
28:15 rests secure because you will not abandon me uh to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see
28:22 decay. You have made known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence with eternal pleasures
28:28 at your right hand. Wonderful verse. You read this you you kind of understand you
28:34 know these teaching about our resurrection. There are about two more such verse but
28:40 there are many more old testament verses that paint a rather grim uh picture of the afterlife. And generally speaking in
28:47 the prevalent Jewish thinking in ancient times after you die your spirit goes to
28:53 the realm of the dead which is mentioned in this verse. this realm of the dead which is known by the Hebrew word shol s
29:01 h e o l. Now shol is not shiel is not heaven. I must clarify in shol you live
29:07 a kind of a shadowy uh uh spiritual existence much like what the ancient Greek thought and so the Jews in the
29:15 congregation like the Greek brethren they also didn't believe in their own resurrection. And this is why the
29:22 members of the Corinthian church have trouble understanding resurrection
29:27 theology that Paul was trying to teach them because they were too entrenched in the beliefs that that they held before
29:34 they became Christians. It also explains why Paul had to expand 58 verses to deal with this issue. And this is the
29:41 background to our text. And let us now examine our 11 verses. As I mentioned at
29:49 the beginning, our text is rather straightforward and so this will not take long. I've divided it into three
29:54 segments to make it easier for you to further study this these verses later. One, the essentiality of Christ's
30:03 resurrection uh verses 1 to 4. Two, the eyewitnesses to Christ's resurrection
30:10 verses 5 to8. And lastly, the effects of Christ's resurrection on Paul verses 9
30:15 and 10. Now the last verse 11 is just a concluding uh remark on for the passage.
30:21 So let's jump into uh the first segment and Paul wrote in verse 5 for what I
30:27 received I pass on to you. What I receive I pass on to you. Now what uh
30:33 who or where did Paul receive it from visav his resurrection theology? Now
30:39 there's a similar verse in the 1 Corinthians 11 uh the passage on the Lord's supper. Paul wrote uh in one
30:46 Corinthians 11, for I received from the Lord
30:51 what I also pass on to you. And hence with regard to what Paul was about to explain in this chapter, he received it
30:58 from the Lord. It was based on direct revelation from
31:03 God, which means that this chapter is not only divinely inspired, it also
31:08 carries divine authority. He then proceeded to give a a summary of
31:14 the gospel that Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was he was buried. He was raised on the third
31:20 day according to the scriptures. In other words, if you if you dissect this these verses,
31:26 crucifixion and resurrection, these are the two main pillars of the gospel which
31:32 we believe. So no surprise that Paul described them as of first importance. first
31:40 importance. The res the resurrection of Jesus as part of the gospel is
31:45 foundational and essential to our faith. The Corinthian church Christians were
31:52 supposed to to take their stand on this gospel and to hold firmly to this
31:58 gospel. This is the introduction to the text.
32:04 And here a question quickly arises. If the problem in the church is their
32:11 lack of belief in their own future resurrection, why did Paul start this
32:16 chapter by focusing on the resurrection of Jesus? Which takes up the bulk of our
32:22 text? It's not that they didn't believe in the resurrection of Jesus. They had no problem believing the resurrection of
32:28 Jesus. The problem was that they rejected the idea that they too would one day be resurrected.
32:36 The answer is in is further down in uh from our text. I don't want to go too
32:41 much into that because uh David Adams will will preach on that passage next week. But very briefly uh in verse 16,
32:48 Paul wrote, "For if the dead w uh are not raised, then Christ has not been
32:54 raised either." Now to paraphrase this uh to reward this
32:59 uh Paul was like saying now if you don't believe in your own future resurrection
33:04 then you might as well say that Jesus was not resurrected it's a kind of a
33:11 how do you say a reverse argument you know using double negative so it's kind of complicated you know to try to sort
33:18 out this this this this verse it's a reverse a reverse way of sometime we talk in reverse if we say you know we
33:25 without reverse. So this is a reverse way of saying because Jesus was resurrected.
33:30 Okay, the found the foundational truth is that because Jesus was resurrected, you can be 100% sure that you will
33:37 likewise be resurrected. The resurrection of Jesus paved the way
33:42 for our own resurrection. It guarantees our own resurrection. It gives us hope
33:48 for our own resurrection. See the argument here.
33:53 quoting Jesus uh from um John 14:19.
33:58 Because I live, Jesus is talking here. Because I live, you will live also.
34:07 Powerful verse. Because I live, you will live also.
34:14 And that's why Paul started uh this resurrection chapter by focusing solely on the on the resurrection of Jesus.
34:23 before he gets on to explain about their resurrection. And that's why I t I
34:28 titled this first segment as the essentiality of Christ's resurrection.
34:34 Essential not only in the gospel message but also in our understanding of our own
34:40 resurrection. Now moving on to the second segment, the eyewitnesses to Christ's resurrection.
34:47 Paul then provided a list of eyewitnesses of people who saw the risen
34:53 Lord with their very eyes. These are people who could testify that he rose from the dead.
35:01 And here another question begs to be asked from the resurrection account. Paul uh
35:08 John wrote a very detailed account in John chapter 20 of the resurrection of Jesus. We know that the first person who
35:15 came in contact with the risen Lord was actually Mary Magdalene.
35:21 Why did Paul omit her name from his list of w of eyewitnesses?
35:27 Why wasn't she mentioned in this in Paul's list of eyewitnesses? Is I hope it's not because Paul had
35:33 something against women. Sorry. Actually, I also don't know why
35:40 but it's not. I was so glad after the first service someone came to me and gave me a a very good uh explanation.
35:46 It's because the Corinthian Christians didn't know Mary Medaline but they knew Peter and James the other witnesses. A
35:53 very good explanation. Perhaps it's because uh it was this is
35:59 related to somehow the male dominated culture they had at the time and so the the ladies names are not so important.
36:07 They live in a different culture. But the more crucial question is why in the first place do we have this list of
36:14 eyewitnesses? Why did Paul stress that that the fact that numerous people saw Jesus in person after his resurrection?
36:24 But partly it is to push back claims that Jesus was never raised from the dead that his body was somehow stolen
36:31 and hidden by by some zealous followers who tried to sell the idea of his resurrection.
36:38 And they were also those who said sure he was resurrected but resurrected as a
36:43 spir spiritual being not physical being. And so Paul had to counter these
36:48 contrarian views by offering proofs.
36:54 But the bigger reason for this list of eyewitnesses has more to do with our faith than anything. And let me explain
37:01 this is going to get a little bit deep. Now although
37:07 now although uh uh Hebrews 11 uh define defines faith as confidence in what we
37:13 hope for and assurance about what we do not see. A famous definition of faith in
37:18 Hebrews 11. And yet our faith is not blind faith is not a faith without
37:26 basis. Our is a faith based on solid facts and sound reasoning. Sure,
37:34 anyone can claim that he's the son of God. Jesus made that claim that he was a son of God. And he backed it up by
37:41 performing amazing miracles to show that he's God. Seven of which I showed you
37:47 earlier. It's like if you say you're a son of God, prove it.
37:52 And so when Paul wrote in verse four, he was raised on the third day, Paul is
37:57 offering proofs and hence the sermon title, the proof of resurrection.
38:02 is akin to a court of law. If you want to prove the innocence or guilt of the accused, you must produce
38:10 witnesses and to submit proofs. In providing all the evidence in these few
38:15 verses, in this second segment, Paul was saying that the resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact,
38:23 an in irrefutable uh reality. You can bet your last ring that he actually
38:29 happened. And hence our belief in the resurrection of Jesus is based on solid
38:34 facts. That Christ was indeed raised from the dead is fact and not fiction.
38:41 And because of this, it gives rise to our to our confidence and hope and assurance that our own future
38:47 resurrection is a sure thing. This is the faith described in uh Hebrews 11. I
38:54 trust you can see the connection between fact and faith. How one leads to another. Anyway, in short, ours is a
39:02 reasonable faith, not blind faith. And back to Paul's list of eyewitnesses in
39:08 this second segment. The first to be mentioned is Cphus in the in verse 5.
39:14 Cphus is none other than Peter who denied Jesus three times. His full name is Simon Peter. Now Peter is actually
39:21 his Greek name. In those days people uh have Greek names you know because Greek
39:26 was the like English today you know the the predominant language in the area. So
39:33 Peter is Greek while Cphus is the Aramaic equivalent of
39:39 Peter. Remember Jesus and his disciples spoke Aramaic
39:44 and so Peter and Cphus uh refer to the same person. And here we find that after
39:50 after his resurrection Jesus had a onetoone uh encounter with Peter and this is supported by uh Luke 24 34 the
39:59 Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon Simon Peter but there is unfortunately
40:04 no further detail in the gospels uh regarding this meeting. The other individual uh name in this list is James
40:11 in verse 7. Uh he was the brother of Jesus uh or strictly speaking his halfb
40:19 brotherther and he is the James who later became a prominent member uh leader of the of the of the Jerusalem
40:26 church. Now it's interesting to note here I must tell you something is not obvious from
40:32 the text. It's interesting to note that in the earlier years of Jesus' ministry,
40:38 James and his other brothers were skeptical of Jesus claim to be a Messiah. Based on John 7, even his own
40:48 brothers did not believe in him. In fact, they thought that Jesus was crazy
40:54 uh according to Mark 3:21. So it's rather remarkable that to note
41:00 that the two individuals whom Jesus appeared to after his resurrection were Peter and James because the first one
41:07 denied him the second one doubted him. In this we see an act of amazing grace
41:14 on the part of Jesus. You can imagine how Peter and James were both feeling troubled and and and and regretful
41:21 because they had wronged Jesus earlier. At that point in time, Jesus reached out to them one by one to soothe their
41:29 agonizing spirit. Amazing grace. As for the others in the list, uh Jesus also
41:37 appeared to his disciples uh so-called the 12 in verse 5. And this most likely
41:43 took place uh in the what they call the upper room in Jerusalem. Some of you may have visited this place uh in the
41:49 evening of Easter Sunday uh where the disciples had gathered behind locked doors
41:55 and curiously we know that that evening Judas of course were no long was no longer with them. He had already hung
42:01 himself. We also know that Thomas wasn't there and so there were only 10 uh disciples present and so why did Paul
42:08 say the 12? Paul failed his mathematics.
42:14 The answer is very simple. The term the 12 is actually a what they call a collective noun, you know, to to
42:20 describe this group of disciples. The biggest group that Jesus appeared uh
42:26 to was this multitude of it says here more than 500 of his followers in verse 6. Uh this most likely to happen up
42:33 north in Galilee based on the Matthew 27 uh when where the angel told the women
42:40 at the empty tomb, tell his disciples, he has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you
42:46 will see him. Now coming to the end of the second segment, the last to meet the risen Lord
42:55 uh was Paul himself from verse eight. He was the last to see the risen savior.
43:03 And this happened on the famous road to Damascus which you can read about in uh Acts chapter 9. And here I need to
43:11 explain this curious phrase to one abnormally born. And some translations say uh to one untimely born. And why did
43:20 Paul describe himself as abnormally born or untimely born? Was he born
43:25 prematurely? And this is not so easy to explain because it can only be understood metaphorically. It means that
43:32 his calling into apostilhip is his so-cal birth into apostilhip. It
43:38 was unlike that of the other apostles. It was kind of abnormal or out of time compared to the other apostles. The
43:44 other apostles they they walked and talked with Jesus for three years. They saw Jesus, you know, after his resurrection on more than one occasion.
43:50 They also witnessed his ascension. But Paul never had a privilege of experiencing any of that. He first met
43:57 Jesus only after Jesus ascension a few years after. So he cons he he considers himself you
44:05 know the the lowliest uh uh of of of uh of the apostles and only that when Jesus
44:12 met him he was at the height of his campaign of persecuting and terrorizing the church.
44:19 So he in in in describing himself as as abnormally born he was actually saying that he was the lowliest and the most
44:25 unqualified among the apostles and so abnormally born here is therefore a statement of humility. We'll come to
44:32 that uh in a short while. And coming to the last segment of the of the text, the
44:38 effects of Christ's resurrection verses 9 and 10, we are talking about uh the effects on Paul after he met the
44:45 resurrection Jesus. And Paul saw himself as totally unfit or
44:51 unworthy of his office of apostilhip. Why would God be even inclined to choose
44:58 him? Why should God even consider calling him? It was beyond Paul's comprehension
45:06 because he was an unyielding anti-Christian zealot. Okay, bent on
45:12 destroying the church and many believers in fact suffered because of him. He was
45:17 an enemy of God whom God should have destroyed. And yet God called him and
45:23 such is the nature of our God. His grace is amazing as we saw earlier in the case
45:29 of uh Peter and James. As a result, Paul's response to his calling was a
45:35 deep sense of humility. It's like when God spares you from certain death from a
45:40 deadly disease, you are totally humble. After he met the resurrection Christ on
45:45 their road to Damascus, it completely changed him. And hence verse nine, I am
45:51 the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.
45:58 And besides humility, uh the other effect Christ's resurrection had on Paul
46:03 is diligence. Uh from verse 10, uh Paul wrote, "I worked harder than all of
46:10 them." Meaning I worked harder than all of than all the other apostles. And so what propelled him to do more than his
46:17 peers? What drove him to be more committed to the cause? It was the amazing grace of God that he had tasted.
46:24 In verse 10, he mentioned the the grace of God not once but three times. See, by the grace of God, I'm what and I am. His
46:30 grace to me was without effect was not without effect. And I not I but the grace of God that was in me.
46:38 So the two effects of Christ's resurrection on Paul are therefore humility and diligence.
46:46 A servant of God who has truly tasted God's grace becomes humble and
46:52 hardworking. And perhaps here lies a lesson for all leaders of FBC, for all who are involved
46:60 in ministry. And this concludes our examination of the text uh uh for today
47:06 in three segments. Coming to the final part of the sermon,
47:12 I'm going to leave you with some application points to take home. Just as they were two effects the
47:18 resurrection had on Paul, let me now share with you two ways uh Christ
47:24 resurrection can impact our lives. Now I must clarify that this is not part of the text. These are some practical
47:30 thoughts that I felt led to share with you inspired by the text. Two ways the resurrection of Jesus can
47:38 impact our lives. Firstly, if you truly embrace the resurrection of
47:43 Jesus, you will attach yourself less to this material world.
47:50 If you truly if you truly embrace the resurrection of Jesus, you will attach yourself less to this material world.
47:58 How is that so? You see, if you truly embrace the resurrection of Jesus,
48:04 it follows that you must necessarily believe that God can God can also raise
48:09 you from the dead one day to an eternal glorious future. And if you believe that your own
48:15 resurrection is possible, you would want it earnestly for your not only for yourselves but for yourself but also for
48:22 your loved ones. If that is the case, it will cause you to adopt a radically
48:28 different attitude towards your life on earth. As I mentioned at the beginning,
48:34 it will even have a life-changing impact on you. On the other hand, those who are not
48:40 inclined uh to think about such matters about where they are going, those who
48:46 are disinterested in their eternal destiny, they tend to be very preoccupied with
48:52 their earthly physical exist existence. They often live by the mantra, eat,
48:58 drink and be merry. They are often very rooted to this
49:04 material world. But as Christians, we have a much longer
49:09 view of what is to come. We set our sights on the glorious future awaiting
49:15 us. And Paul exhorts us in Colossians 3:2 to set your minds on things above,
49:22 not on earthly things. Not on earthly things. And as a result, the five C's
49:29 will cease to excite us because we already have the one big C, Christ. And
49:35 similarly, the six Fs will no longer attract us because we live by the one
49:41 important F, which is faith. Now, please don't get me wrong. I'm not
49:46 suggesting that none of the five Fs or six five Cs or six Fs is important. I'm not saying that all of them are not
49:52 important. Certainly, for example, your career is important. You need to put food on the table. You know, you have to fulfill
49:58 your your responsibility towards your family. What I'm saying is that if you truly embrace the resurrection of Jesus,
50:05 your priorities will start to change. If you recall the words of this song and
50:12 the things of earth will grow strangely dim
50:17 in the light of his glory and grace. The things of this earth will grow
50:23 strangely dim means not important. In other words, we will attach oursel less
50:28 and less to this temporary material world.
50:33 Things that were important to me have become less important.
50:40 And things that were not important to me have become more important.
50:46 And to put this across in another way, if you're on a journey to an exciting destination, you would busy yourself
50:53 with preparing for the trip. Recall recall the words of another song. This world is not my home. I'm just a
50:60 passing through. If you're heaven bound, you will do well to invest your time and
51:07 energy preparing for where you're going.
51:13 Similarly, before Melody and I left for Japan recently, I spent months,
51:19 literally months to prepare for the trip so that when we get there, everything will be smooth and enjoyable.
51:26 Everything was planned meticulously from hotel to food to to transport.
51:32 I knew exactly what to do. In the same way, before you get to your eternal home, you had better be prepared.
51:41 For example, if you're going to live in the kingdom of of God, do you know the king well?
51:47 Have you gotten to know the king well? Or are you too fixated on your earthly
51:53 existence? The second impact
51:58 of Christ's resurrection on our lives is that if you truly internalize the
52:04 resurrection of Jesus, you will see your pain and sufferings differently.
52:11 If you truly internalize the resurrection of Jesus, you will see your pain and sufferings differently.
52:18 Sure, we will be confronted by one or more of the treaties sooner or later in life as I mentioned. And when it
52:24 happens, we we we experience pain and and sufferings. It's not easy on anyone.
52:31 But if we have a clear vision of our of of our future resurrection with a glorified body that is perfect in any
52:38 way if in every way if we hold fast to this vision of the future it will change
52:43 our attitude towards pain and sufferings. 1 Corinthians 4,
52:50 Paul encourages us, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us
52:56 an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix
53:02 our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. Since what is seen is
53:07 temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. Our light and momentary troubles are
53:13 achieving for us an eternal glory. And you may you may rebut here, hey, how
53:20 can you say my troubles are light when I'm um when I'm in struggling with with
53:25 with deep pain? Now, I'm not trying to downplay your pain if at all you are
53:31 suffering uh or you have a serious medical condition, but when our sufferings are compared to the sheer
53:38 magnitude of the glory that God has in store for us, Paul considered them as
53:43 light. To him, our eternal glory far outweighs whatever tough experience that we may be
53:50 going through. You see, without hope, pain is somewhat
53:56 amplified because there's nothing to look forward to. But if we breathe the hope of
54:01 resurrection and the anticipation of new glorified bodies, we see our pain and
54:08 suffering in a different light. Of course, it pains me to see my mom
54:14 wasting away, wasting away through the ravaging passage of time.
54:20 Whenever she cannot remember my name, I I feel sad. But my soul can rest in the
54:26 comforting thought that one day her body and mind will be renewed and regenerated
54:32 and I can look forward to a really good and meaningful conversation with her.
54:38 Put it this way. If we have the resurrection, the hope of resurrection,
54:44 if we only if we have the hope of resurrection, everything will be okay in the end.
54:51 If it is not okay, it's not the end. Because the God who keeps his promises
54:58 has promised us a glorious future at the end of the age. Think about this. Shall
55:06 we close in prayer? Our father in heaven,
55:11 may the truth and reality of the resurrection of your son resonate powerfully in our hearts and minds
55:19 so that we can have a clearer, bigger glimpse of our own future resurrection.
55:25 May this living hope permeate every fiber of our being so that we can always
55:32 say it is well with my soul. For we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
