Grace International Baptist Church (20 April 2025)
1.1. Is The Resurrection Relevant? Why is the Resurrection so important to us today? Most people are indifferent but many accept that Jesus died and on the 3rd day rose from the dead but they accept it as they do the earth rotates around the Sun. It’s just another fact. They don’t ask about the personal implications?
1.2. Let’s Confront death: In order for there to be resurrection there first must be death; and unless there is death there is no resurrection. Death can be a meaningless prospect if there’s no resurrection. In my time, I had to deal with death and its consequences: I have been to hospices, bedsides, counseled relatives, faced death among family, friends, and officiated at numerous funerals and memorials. Inevitably, death happens to all, no one escapes death. Usually, it happens to those who’ve had a fairly normal life span but sometimes, it is untimely and even shocking. Those are the ones that makes us ask questions. One experience still fresh in my mind is the passing of a young lady whose mother we were friends with. A Memorial is a sobering affair but nothing grips your emotions as one for someone in her 20s. You come together to grieve with the realization that there is so much promise and now, it won’t happen. What we say on such an occasion has to be very carefully thought through. What would I have said if there is no resurrection from the dead?
1.3. Let’s get personal: have we thought about the fact that one day, our heart will stop beating and we will each be dead? There’s the story in 1 Kings 2:2. David summons Solomon to his bedside and father talks to son:
“I am about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong, and show yourself a man. And keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes.”
David might have been a good king but he was a lousy husband and a dead-beat dad. There was so much that went wrong in the family. They didn’t trust each other, there was intrigue, murder and rebellion, but David had no fear of death.
My point: Do we have cause for hope and optimism or doubt, after death?
1.4. Others Who Rose from Death: Jesus wasn’t the 1st to rise from death. Elijah raised the widow’s son; Elisha raised the Shunamite woman’s son, and then Jesus raised Tabitha and Lazarus. What makes Jesus’s resurrection so special? The rest all died again but Jesus did not die again. 2nd, his resurrection is referred to as the 1st fruits. ****
Today’s Preach:
What does the OT have to say about life after death
Christ the first fruits (15:20)
Risen to be with Christ (15:22)
2. The Old Testament
2.1. The OT and life after death? It was not always clear. There is a reference to “dwelling in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23);
The best one comes from Daniel:
“Multitudes …will awake, some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2).
But based on that, how do we know if we will awake to shame or everlasting life? I raise this issue because in many with no faith, there’s no assurance at all. Many begin to realize this especially in the later stages of life. They find themselves with no certainty about what comes after, and this creates insecurity because there is no certainty and there is a reluctance to let go.
3. Christ the first fruits (15: 20)