Good morning. My name's Chris, for those of you who don't know me. Happy New Year. Good, let's hope it improves from that.
I think, like most men, I have a habit of forgetting things. Wallets, keys, visas, like you name it, I have lost it. You can ask my wife afterwards, she'll give you the list.
And I think one of wives' most significant roles in a marriage is to remind their husbands of things that they have forgotten.
She'll say things to me like, how many times do I have to tell you that the washing up brush does not go in the sink?
And I normally reply at that point, probably a few hundred. And I'm not joking.
Because at the beginning of a new year, we need to be reminded of things because we forget if you're anything like me.
And we're coming back to the book of 1 Corinthians.
And we're going to remind ourselves of some of the essentials of what it means to be a church, what it means to be Christians.
And in fact, we're going to look at one chapter for the next four weeks.
It's the longest chapter that Paul wrote, even though he didn't write chapters, but it's the longest chapter we have.
And it's one of the most significant chapters in the whole of the New Testament.
And we need to really get this because the church of Corinth, if you remember back way again, kind of a few months ago, if you were here,
they were a church which had got sidetracked.
They'd been focusing on secondary issues and they'd forgotten what the main thing that they were supposed to be about.
They was.
So they had forgotten what real spirituality was.
And they were focusing on things like who the best leaders were.
They were focusing on who'd got the best gifts.
They were focusing on questions of sexuality and all kinds of things, eating food.
And they'd forgotten that there was something which was more important than all of these, which tied all of these things together.
And Paul starts off this chapter saying to the Christians, I want to remind you of the main thing.
And the main thing is the gospel.
It's right up here.
Okay?
Because as a church, we also want it to be the main thing.
And so he says in verse 1,
I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you.
And what he's saying is, it doesn't matter how long or short you've been a Christian,
there's a past, present, and future reality to the Christian life.
The Christian life isn't just a decision you made 20 years ago.
It's an ongoing journey of walking with Christ.
And he's saying, if you want to get to the checkered flag,
if you want to get through to the finishing line without your engine dying,
without your wheels falling off your spiritual car,
you've then got to hold on to this word of the gospel.
And that word, it says hold fast,
it's actually a word, it's kind of like a policeman rugby tackling a thief,
and getting him on the ground and not letting go.
That's what it is.
That's what you've got to be like with God's word, he says.
You've got to be tenaciously clinging to the gospel.
And because I used to think the Christian life is a little bit like,
do you know one of those trick candles?
Did you ever get those when you were a kid?
I used to have, I used to hate them.
Because, you know, it'd be your birthday, you'd blow them out,
and then two seconds later it'd come back to light again,
and then you'd be like, ah.
And then you'd have to blow it out again,
and then two seconds later it would come back to life again.
Right?
And you would just be so frustrated after trying this a number of times.
But that's actually what the gospel is like.
That though you may flicker, though sometimes you may fall,
that if your candle is that gospel candle,
you're never going to go out.
You're actually going to shine brighter and brighter and brighter
if the gospel is what you're clinging to.
And cancer may come, temptation may come,
relational difficulties may come,
job layoffs may come,
but if you're clinging tightly to this word,
then you and this church will be like that candle
which is never going to be put out by anything.
That's what Paul wants the Corinthians to get.
That's why he's going to come on and say,
this is what you guys in our church need to get.
But the Corinthians, the reason Paul wants to say this
is because the Corinthians had,
teachers had come into the Corinthian church
and were teaching stuff from the culture
and they were saying, you can't really believe this gospel.
You can't really believe this stuff about being raised from the dead, can you?
And they're beginning to doubt whether this is really true.
And so we're going to look a little bit more about what Paul says
we really need to be clinging to
if we're going to burn that gospel candle that doesn't go out.
And I want to focus just on kind of three themes from today's passage.
One, Jesus the Messiah is risen.
Two, your past is redeemed.
Three, the future is secure.
Christ is risen.
The past is redeemed.
Your future is secure.
Verse three.
Let's have a look at it together.
It says,
Paul gives a basic gospel presentation.
It's what I like to call CDR News.
CDR News.
If someone says to you, what's the gospel?
Tell them it's CDR News.
Okay?
It's Christ.
Do you see that word Christ?
Christ, that's not his surname.
That's a title.
Okay?
That's a title for Jesus.
It's a title which means the Messiah,
the promised king who is going to come
that the whole of the Old Testament was looking forward to.
And it's saying,
Jesus, the promised king, has come.
That's the C.
Come.
And he's died for our sins.
That's a D.
He's died for our sins.
The punishment that we deserved was on him.
He's died for our sins.
Buried deep in the ground with Jesus.
He was dead.
Our sins are dead and buried.
He died our death and he rose.
That's the R.
He rose to resurrect us.
He rose to restore the world.
That's the gospel.
I don't need to say anything more.
But that's completely nuts.
Have you thought about it?
That is a crazy message.
Go into your office and say,
last week my pastor was raised from the dead.
And go and see how people respond to you.
Or if you go down into Lang Kui Fong,
I don't know how many conversations you're going to have with people saying,
hey, my friend got raised from the dead last week.
It's not going to happen.
It's not normal conversation.
And back then, it wasn't normal conversation either.
It's not the kind of thing human beings do, rise from the dead.
And as you read the gospels,
you find that the disciples are just as surprised as anybody about this idea,
this CDR news that Jesus had risen from the dead.
You see, they didn't get Jesus at all.
Just when you think, okay, Peter says,
Jesus, you're the Messiah.
Then he says, you're not going to die.
And Jesus has to rebuke him.
When Jesus is arrested, they all run away.
Anyway, when someone says, do you follow Jesus?
Peter denies him.
And they're so scared after Jesus' death that they lock themselves in a room,
hiding, hoping that nobody finds them.
Why?
Because these disciples, at the same time,
I don't know if you know,
but there are actually quite a number of Messiah figures
who were going around Judea.
In the period of about 100, 150 years,
there's five to 10 other figures who claim to be the Messiah
coming into Judea at this time.
In Acts, one of them is mentioned, Judas of Galilee.
And do you know what happened to those Messiahs?
They all got killed by the Romans.
And do you know what happened to their followers?
Well, if the Romans didn't get after them,
then they kind of slunk away and went off to retirement
somewhere in the countryside
because they didn't want to get known
because the Romans were not really particularly pleasant people at times.
So it's not surprising that the disciples are very scared
after Jesus' death
because they knew what might happen.
So then why would a bunch of scared followers
of a failed, dead Messiah figure
suddenly be transformed to be so bold
that they would go throughout the whole of the Roman Empire
willing to risk their lives proclaiming
that the Messiah had risen from the grave?
Why would a bunch of people be willing,
who were doubting, who were clueless in so many ways,
be willing to put their lives on the line
and be martyred for Jesus' sake?
What caused them to start churches
across the whole of the Roman Empire
which was so radically sacrificial
and transformative in that culture
that even one pagan emperor, the Emperor Julian,
writes to his high priest, pagan high priest, saying,
listen guys, we've got to do something about these Christians
because do you know what?
They love people so much better than we do.
And he even writes and says,
they look after the poor.
They look after their own poor.
They look after our poor.
They do so much better than we do.
We've got to do something
because these Christians were making such an impact
in the Roman world.
Why?
And historians throughout 2,000 years
have been trying to put this together
and say something happened.
Different people have different explanations
but the early Christians,
and if you look in the book of Acts,
the thing that they keep coming back to,
the sermons that all the early church preachers,
is Jesus has risen from the dead.
Now, in our world,
we have a slightly different view of things.
In their world, you know,
they believed in monsters and myths
and magic and things,
but we're very scientific in our day.
And science has shown us
that fairies don't live at the bottom of our apartments.
You know, mental illnesses are caused by chemicals,
not demons.
Evolution proves that we don't need God.
Now, even though they lived in a more supernatural world,
people didn't rise from the dead any more than they do now.
That's why Thomas doesn't believe.
That's why the disciples keep thinking that they see a ghost.
That's why the pagan writers at the time
continually mock Christians for believing
that Jesus could possibly have bodily raised from the dead.
If it's a story that was made up,
well, why would you put women
who in the culture had no credibility as a witness,
as the main people who were witnesses
for the resurrection?
It totally undermines the story.
Why would you do that?
Unless it's true.
And for those who thought that maybe they're all hallucinating,
well, Paul in this passage tells you,
okay, maybe one or two people you can think,
you know, after death, they see a vision,
but 500 people at the same time see Jesus.
This is not a hallucination.
It's not a flashback.
It's not, I saw my great,
I kind of felt my great-granddad's presence
in the kitchen kind of thing.
This, Paul is saying, is real.
It's real.
And if it's real, then it's the defining moment
in the whole of history for Christians.
Because Buddha came and he spread his teaching
throughout the world and he died.
Muhammad came and he claimed to have a message from God
and he died.
Genghis Khan defeated enemies,
created the largest empire across the world
and he died.
Gandhi came and led to the largest peace movement
in the whole of history and he died.
Steve Jobs created technology
that went across the world and he died.
Jesus the Messiah came without an army,
without a degree, without a marketing strategy,
and he died.
But on the third day,
he did something that no one else
in the whole of human history has ever done.
He defeated death itself.
And he rose from the dead.
He's not just the king over a few enemies.
But if he really rose from the dead,
then he's the Lord over everything.
Because what's the ultimate enemy
that no one else has defeated?
It's death.
If Jesus has defeated death,
then he is Lord over everything
and nothing can stop him.
He's the risen Lord.
That means,
if it's true,
then he's Lord over Hong Kong.
He's Lord over the stock market.
He's Lord over the Chinese and U.S. governments.
He's Lord over your boss.
He's Lord over your families.
He's Lord over your lives.
Jesus is Lord.
Do you see why
a small band of Christians
in the early church
were willing to go out
and risk their entire lives
sharing this message
because they believed
in their heart of hearts
that their Lord was the one
who had defeated death.
He was the almighty King of kings
and Lord of lords.
And if he's in control of death,
then what else have you got to lose?
Now, why is that important?
In our society,
we like things
and we don't like things.
Look up Facebook.
We judge things
by how we feel about them.
We get offended.
We kind of pick and choose.
We say we like this bit
about love in the Bible.
We don't like these things
about maybe sex or money
or those other things
in the Bible.
The problem comes
when you start dealing
with facts.
Facts are annoying
because just think about it.
If I say to you,
you will die
and you say to me,
but I don't like that.
I'll say to you,
it doesn't matter
if you don't like it.
It's a fact.
You have to deal with it
if it's a fact.
I used to have a housemate
who when we would argue
over who should have
vacuumed the floor,
I would look at the roster
on the side of our wall
and I'd point out his name
and I'd say,
you were on there
and he would say,
stop confusing the issue
with facts
because he knew
if you have facts,
whether you like it or not,
you have to deal with them.
If you're a Christian
or you're not a Christian,
the issue isn't
whether you like Christianity
or you like bits
or you don't like bits.
I mean,
a lot of people say,
yeah,
I kind of like Jesus
but I don't like the,
I don't like the Old Testament bits
and I don't like the,
the kind of bits
about sexual ethics there.
I think that's wrong
so I'm not going to trust in Jesus.
Well,
if Jesus has risen from the dead,
whether you like bits or not,
that's what you've got to contend with
before anything else.
That's the issue.
It's not whether you like
some in the Old Testament.
You can deal with that afterwards.
The key issue is,
did Jesus rise from the dead or not?
Because if he did,
if he did,
that means you and I
have to reckon
the whole of our lives
and reassess
whether Jesus is truly
Lord of our lives
and whether we're surrendered to him.
If he didn't,
then Christianity is a fraud
and we might all as well
go away
and just kind of watch
daytime TV or something
because it'd be a better idea.
Because Paul didn't like Christianity.
He was offended by it.
In fact,
he was so offended by it,
he thought young children
might be influenced by it
and so he actually went out
and started persecuting
and killing Christians.
Now,
you've got to be pretty offended
by something
to start doing that.
You know,
even Richard Dawkins
and people don't do that.
Okay?
But Paul met Jesus
face to face
on the road to Damascus
and then it was irrelevant
whether he was offended
by those things or not
because he'd met
the risen king
and his only response
was to surrender his life
and trust him.
And Paul is saying
to the Corinthians
who haven't met Jesus
face to face,
he's saying,
this message is trustworthy.
Every one of us
has a Lord.
It could be your job,
it could be your status,
it could be your family.
Christians say
that their Lord
is the one
who is the all-defeating
conqueror over death.
He is risen,
he is Jesus
and he's our hope
for resurrection.
Jesus is risen.
What does that mean?
Secondly,
resurrection means
your past is redeemed.
Your past is redeemed.
Verse 17,
we'll jump a bit,
verse 17 says,
if Christ has not been raised,
your faith is futile,
you are still in your sins.
If there's no resurrection,
you've still got to live
with your past.
We all have pasts.
Some of us
are proud of our pasts.
Some of us
are ashamed of our pasts.
Some of us
are a little bit in between
about our pasts.
And Paul has a past.
He says this,
last of all,
this is verse,
verse 9,
8 and 9.
Last of all,
as to one untimely born,
he appeared 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.
Towards the end of his life,
in 1 Timothy 1,
when he's coming to the end of his life,
he's still saying the same thing.
He says this,
I was a blasphemer,
a persecutor,
an insolent opponent,
but I received mercy,
and the grace of our Lord
overflowed for me
with the faith and love
that are in Christ Jesus.
The saying is trustworthy
and deserving of full acceptance
that Christ Jesus came
into the world
to save sinners,
of whom I
am the worst.
That's what Paul says,
I am the foremost sinner.
Some of us feel like
we're too messed up,
too broken,
we've got too much wreckage
from our pasts,
from the poor choices
we've made again and again
in our lives.
Some of us wonder
whether Christ would really forgive us
for some of the things
that have happened.
But Paul says,
if you want to have
a badness competition,
well, let's go then.
He says,
okay,
I'll beat your hands down.
You've got a porn addiction,
I'm a murderer.
You've treated
your colleagues badly,
I persecuted
and tortured
God's own precious family.
You've shouted at your kids,
I've blasphemed
and opposed
the living God himself.
That's my past,
Paul says.
But,
and it's a big but,
bigger than my but,
but by the grace of God,
I am what I am.
Paul says,
I was one untimely born.
This is a really strong word.
It actually means
an aborted fetus.
That's what it means.
He says,
I was an aborted fetus.
He's saying,
I was dead spiritually.
I wasn't birthed
like the other disciples
who walked alongside Jesus.
Yet,
God,
in his incredible mercy,
came and met me.
He forgave me.
He wiped away my past
and he graced me
by bringing me alive
with his resurrection power.
And he looks around
at all the Corinthians
and he says,
and even all the other apostles
and says,
I have achieved more
than anybody else
in this room.
I've worked harder
than anyone else,
but it's only
by the grace of a God
whose resurrection power
takes a desert of a heart
and brings green shoots,
brings blossom,
brings springs of water
where there was only dust
and dirt
and death before.
And it's all to do
with God's grace.
What do you do
with your past?
Maybe your past
is your sin
from this morning.
Maybe it's from 20 years ago.
I don't know.
For some of us,
our past is a bit like
one of those mosquitoes
at night.
You know,
it just kind of
buzzes round
and buzzes round
and you try and
swat it away
with your hard work,
with your achievements,
with shopping,
with drinking,
and you try and drown out
the noise in your head.
And for a while
it goes quiet
and you think
everything's okay
and then suddenly
you hear that
buzz again
and it's back
to haunt you.
And the poor choices,
the people we've hurt,
the painful memories
we have,
some of it sticks to us.
But,
but,
Christ says,
and this is amazing,
your sin
is buried
with Christ
six foot under.
It's wiped away,
it's nailed in a coffin
and it ain't ever
coming back up.
That's what Christ done.
and Christ,
death and resurrection
for you
is like,
do you know one of those,
those bands
or one of those badges
when you get to a conference
or you go to
like a music event
or something
and they give you that
and,
and you've got to pay first
usually
and,
and you get in
and some of those
dodgy security guards
are around
looking after you,
looking for you
and then you just
kind of hold up your band
and they're like,
okay,
fine,
you're good.
That's what the resurrection
is like
and the death
and resurrection,
because what it is,
when those thoughts
come in,
when Satan comes
and accuses you
of your past,
you just hold up
that band of Christ,
death and resurrection
and say,
it is finished.
My past is dealt with.
My past does not define me.
Christ,
death and resurrection
define me.
I'm forgiven.
I'm cleansed.
Christ has done it all.
Just hold it up.
That's what those words
for when I'm tempted,
when Satan tempts me
to despair
and tells me
of the guilt within,
upward I look
and see him there
who made an end
to all,
to all my sin.
That's the gospel
and it's grace.
But some of us may say,
it's okay.
I put the past behind me
by my hard work,
my self-discipline,
my determination.
I am what I am.
I can do it.
I was actually
a bit like this,
I think,
before.
I'd never have said it
that bluntly.
But I kind of lived
like that.
I was self-reliant.
I was kind of
a little Donald Trump.
You know,
I was disciplined.
I was hardworking.
And I would look down
on those people
who I thought,
you know,
they couldn't put
their lives together.
They were lazy.
I didn't have time
for them.
But God brought me
to a place
where he showed me
that when you rely
on your own strength,
you'll lack compassion
for people
who aren't as strong
and disciplined you.
And he led me
through a journey
where he brought me
down to a pit
and I had a breakdown,
a mental breakdown
and depression
for four years.
And in that pit,
and it was because
of my own pride,
my own choices,
in that pit,
he began to show me
the devastation
that my own pride
in thinking
that I could do it
by myself
would cause.
But when I was
in that pit,
then God began
to start using me.
And suddenly,
I began to see
that it wasn't
my past performance
that meant God
would use me.
It was only because
of unfathomable grace
that he would come to me
and he would say,
I want to use you.
And that fuel injected me
to want to start
following him
and obeying him
like I'd never done before.
It was like,
you know,
the former slave ship owner,
John Newton,
who met Christ
and became one
of the most influential people
in the anti-slavery campaign.
And he wrote the words
which you all know.
Amazing grace,
how sweet the sound,
that saved a self-reliant,
sinful person like me.
A wretch like me.
And that became real.
And when that grace
becomes real,
it changes you.
God doesn't just
forgive your past.
He redeems your past.
If you surrender
to Christ's lordship,
he takes the crap
and the manure
of your lives.
He buries it
deep into the ground.
And from that,
from the sewage
of our lives,
this garden grows.
By the spirit of God
bringing life in,
you begin to blossom
fruit and flowers
which otherwise,
only God could have done that.
And I've seen
how God's done that
in my life
as he's changed my heart
to be able to minister
to some people
only by his grace
with more compassion
than I ever would have done before.
And I don't know
what your past is.
I don't know
what your sins are.
But God,
I know this for sure.
He wants to take
all of those things
and he can transform them
if you surrender to him
with resurrection power.
He takes the dead,
he brings them to life.
And there are people around
who God wants to use
through your own life
and your own pasts
who only you can minister to
if you allow him
to redeem those things.
That's what he wants to do.
And at the end of it,
you look at it
and you say,
it's only the grace of God.
It's nothing to do with me.
I cannot stand here
because I'm clever.
I stand here
because the grace of God
is amazing.
So let me ask you,
if someone was to look
at your life,
would they see
your life
is a testimony
to resurrection power?
Not that you're perfect,
none of us are.
Does your life
show the graciousness of God
who takes what's dead
and brings it alive?
Or are you still
trying to prove yourself
with your work
relying on yourself?
Are you trying to shake off
your guilt by yourself?
Christ is risen.
Your past is redeemed.
Thirdly,
your future is secure.
He says,
verse 19,
and if Christ
has not been raised,
your faith is futile
and you're still
in your sins.
Then those 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.
There are a number of theories
about what happens
when you die.
Some people believe
that you just kind of
go to nothingness,
you become food for worms.
Some people believe
you come reincarnated
in some way,
come back into the world.
Others believe you kind of
meld in and mesh
into the universe
in some very vague
kind of way.
The problem with many
of the theories
that people have out there,
it's all very impersonal
and it's all quite scary.
Chinese culture
is riddled
with the fear of death.
Just think about it.
If there's a flat
where there's been a suicide,
who wants to go
and live there?
Think about the number four.
Think how many times
people are trying to avoid
areas with the number four.
And just think about things
like anti-aging creams.
Why they sell so massively?
Because we're scared
of getting older.
We're scared of dying.
Think about midlife crises.
What is a midlife crisis?
It's suddenly the awareness
that I don't have
very much longer left
and what have I done
with my life?
Right?
You see,
we are afraid of death.
And even if you say
you're not afraid of death,
I think you're probably
just living in denial.
Or,
you're young enough
to think you're immortal.
Okay?
And time will soon
tell you that you're not.
But if you actually
really think about it,
death is actually
very scary.
It is.
It's very scary.
Because we all,
our deepest desire in life
is to be loved
and to have love.
And yet,
death is the great thief.
Because death,
I mean,
just think how
people are afraid
of someone coming in
and robbing your flat.
Right?
Now,
think about what death does.
Death robs you
of what you love the most.
It robs you
of who you love the most.
It mercilessly strips you
of the things
which are most precious to you.
And it's unquenchable.
You can't stop it.
And those of us
who have lost loved ones,
you know that pain
of that emptiness.
If there is no resurrection,
Paul says,
the only hope you have left
is in this world.
And if it's only in this world,
then when death steals it from you,
you're still left
longing for love.
It's an impersonal,
loveless future.
And you've got to try
and refill it.
But the gospel says
that if death steals
everything from you,
what awaits
is not a cold,
impersonal grave,
but the very epitome
of love.
It's a personal future
with Jesus waiting for you
at the gates
of death.
And he's the Lord
over death.
And he's the one
who loves you
more than anyone.
It's a personal future.
Not only that,
it's not just that
your future is personal.
But if your only hope
is in this world,
you can't get your life back.
And once it's gone,
it's gone.
Paul has been shipwrecked.
Paul has been beaten.
Paul has been thrown in prison.
Paul has had numerous people
mocking, insulting.
I mean, his life has been a mess
all because of the gospel.
And he says,
if there's no resurrection,
basically he's wasted
all his time.
His life is a waste of time.
There's no second chances.
Our society says,
hope is only found
in this world.
And so that means
we're crippled
by a fear
of missing out now.
You know,
it's actually a word.
It's now in the Oxford Dictionary,
FOMO.
Fear of missing out.
FOMO.
Okay?
You all need to know this.
Okay?
Why do we constantly
check our phones
for messages
all the time
like a drug addict?
FOMO.
Why do we have to be
at every single networking event,
every party,
FOMO?
Why do you have to panic
about all your kids' education?
FOMO.
Why do you have to complete
that bucket list
of all the countries
you've got to visit
before you die?
FOMO.
Can I hear that?
What is it?
Oh, good.
If we've taught you one word,
you'll remember this one.
Now,
the singles here,
I think this really affects
singles today
in our culture
because I think
many singles
are terrified.
Firstly,
we're scared
to commit
to a relationship
because you're afraid
that you'll miss out
on your career.
And then,
once you've reached
the plus 30 mark,
you're scared
that you're never
going to get married.
And you'll be lonely
for the rest of your life.
And when you're 70,
the only thing
that will be looking
after you
is a bunch of cats.
That's the fear
that cripples
so many people.
And some of you singles
are tempted
to compromise
right now
because you should
either be getting married
and you're not
and you should be
or you are choosing
to date inappropriate people
because FOMO drives you.
But the resurrection says,
listen,
if you don't get it all now,
you're not just going
to get a bit of consolation
in the afterlife,
you know,
a little bit of
spiritual bliss
like to make up
for what you lost,
which is what other religions
will tell you.
The resurrection of Jesus
who rose to resurrect us
tells you
you're going to get back
more than you ever lost.
Not consolation,
but full restoration.
Tim Keller puts it like this.
You don't just get
your body back.
You get the body
you always wanted
but never had.
Doesn't that sound good?
You don't just get
your life back.
You get the life
that you always wanted
that you never had.
And I have male
and female friends
in this church
and in previous churches
who have said,
because I know
the resurrection is real,
and if Christ does not bring me
an appropriate spiritual partner
in my life,
then I can trust
in the risen Lord
because I know
in the resurrection
I'll have a better husband
or wife
than I would ever have had
here on earth.
Many of you married people
will know what I'm talking about.
That's a joke.
But that husband
will be Christ
and he'll be waiting
to take you
and me
and us
up the aisle
when we see him.
You won't miss out
on anything.
That is what
the resurrection
of Jesus
tells us.
You are not
going to miss out.
FOMO
is not
in the Christian vocabulary.
The future
is personal
and secure.
So what would
your life look like
if you really believed?
If you really believed?
Not just up here,
but if you really believed
that Jesus
was risen
from the dead.
What would this church
look like
if you really believed
Jesus
was risen
from the dead?
I think it looked
like a church
that could be honest
about their past
like Paul was
that no longer
looked down
on people
who are struggling
but has compassion
and walks alongside
others
because we know
there but for the grace
of God
that could be me
and it's only
by grace
that I am
what I am today.
So we could be honest
and hopeful
in our struggles.
That's the kind of church
he wants to make us.
I think it also
looked like a church
that looks a little bit
like the early church
in Acts.
Maybe the church
that that pagan
emperor Julian saw.
It's a church
that doesn't cling
to its time,
its money,
its kids' tutorial classes,
above everything else
because as we see
the needs
of the people
around us,
we're not afraid
that if I don't go
on that holiday
then I'm going to FOMO
and miss out
of everything else
but we can spend it
serving people
around us
sometimes
or joining
a community group
because normally
we're afraid
that if I go
then I'll miss out
on opportunities
to network
at work
but that wouldn't
grip us so much
because the gospel
says Jesus
is risen from the dead.
We will work hard
with a new mission,
with a new energy
but not because
it's based on us
trying to prove ourselves
but it's only because
we know who our Lord is.
He's taken us
who are dead,
who are in the dirt
and he's lifted us,
infused us with
resurrection power
and now sends us out
to go out to a world
which is crippled
by FOMO,
crippled by their past
and it says
that if this church
is to be that candle
which is burning brightly,
this is the gospel
which we carry
to the world
which we need to keep
reminding each other
of time and time again
because we'll forget
but the call is
will you surrender
your life right now,
your time,
your money,
whatever's going on
in your life
to the risen Lord.
Will you trust him
with your past
that he's forgiven,
wiped it out?
Will you trust him
with your future
that he's got it
as secure
as any bank
could ever have?
In fact,
far more secure than that.
Jesus is risen,
your past is redeemed,
the future is secure.
Let's pray.
Let's spend a moment
thinking about that question.
What would my life
look like
if I really believed
that Jesus
has risen from the dead?
I have found some
with me.
I've been thinking about it
especially today.
Father, the gospel is amazing news.
Forgive me.
Forgive us when we kind of know it in our heads,
but actually in our lives.
It's another galaxy away.
I pray that you would make this truth become so real in our lives,
in my life, in the life of this church,
that we would see you are the Lord.
You are the Lord.
You're the one who we worry about so many things,
and yet if you've got death covered,
well, you've got everything else covered as well.
Whatever's going on in our lives now,
Lord, I pray for those who are struggling from their past.
There's guilt.
There's things which hold them.
I pray that right now you would minister to them
and tell them it's finished.
I've risen.
Lord, I pray for those of us who are self-reliant,
who think we can do it.
I pray that you would show us
that we are dead without you,
and yet when you come in
and you break us and you bring us that new life,
you send us out with a new compassion,
with a new mission
to love those around us.
Make us that kind of church.
I pray for those of us who are worried,
fearful about the future,
that we would see you got the future.
We're so worried about so many things which may happen,
and yet you know the future,
and you're there in the future.
Father, you're here with us now.
Help us to trust you.
In your name.
Amen.