On the Third Day

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Welcome to Thrive. It's good to have you here today. And it's great to be in this series. With all the things that keep changing in the world, what's great is to have something so foundational, something so basic, something so true at the center of your being and ours. And we are reading through the, or using, excuse me, the Nicene Creed and different sections of that. It's the 1700th year since it was founded in 325 at the Council of Nicaea, of all places, right? So just a couple hundred years after the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it's a summary of everything that the church has always taught. And it's just a summary of the scriptures and trying to put it into words and into a kind of consolidated form. So we're in week four of this. So N.T. Wright, I think, said it well, because the resurrection, it's this heartbeat. It's really the reason behind every other reason why you are, I am, we are, and a billion, two billion people are Christians. He said it this way. You see, the bodily resurrection of Jesus isn't a take it or leave it thing, as though some Christians are welcome to believe it and others are welcome not to believe it. Take it away. And the whole picture is totally different. Take it away. And Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring the big problems of the material world. Take it away. And Sigmund Freud was probably right to say that Christianity is a wish fulfillment religion. Take it away. And Friedrich Nietzsche was probably right to say that Christianity was a religion for wimps. But put it back and you have a faith that can take on the postmodern world that looks to Marx, Freud and Nietzsche as its prophets. And you can beat them at their own game with the Eastern news that the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Great words. The resurrection. It's key in a lot of ways. And as I read this section of First Corinthians 15, realize that the Corinthians were struggling with this whole idea. They were well, they were Greek in their thoughts, Roman in their practice. They thought the bodily life is not the life that you really want. You want to have some spiritual life that gets beyond the bodily life. And so they were struggling with the reality of the resurrection. And yet what God has in store for you, for me, is is a resurrection of your body. Not just Jesus. Fully glorified, fully restored, fully alive for the first time in my whole life. And in a in a lot of ways. Right. And a wholly renewed earth. And universe made to glorify God, everything aligned together, and that gives hope, direction and meaning. So we're reading in First Corinthians chapter 15. You can either follow along with those notes or on the screen or open your Bible to that wonderful resurrection chapter. We started verse one and it's a long reading. Now, notice in the reading how Paul is. Well, he doesn't just make things up. He can't make things up. In fact, he just says, I have to pass on to you what I already have received. It was a set just within 10, 15 years of the resurrection itself. It is a set tradition that this is what happened and who saw it and who was alive at the time. And it's filled with logic. As well as. Just argumentation so that the Corinthians would be not only convinced of the reality of the resurrection, but live in response to it. So let's read. Now, I would remind you, brothers, 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 preach to you unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received. See how he says, I'm not changing that. This is the way it is. 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 12. Then he appeared to more than 500 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 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 is I or they. So we preach. And so you believe. Now, 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 found...