She was filled with hope, but not for the reasons that you would tend to expect. She wasn't filled with hope because she had a great marriage, because she had lost her marriage. She wasn't filled with hope because of her children; she had lost her children too. She wasn't filled with hope because she had a great house; well, you've already guessed it - she had lost her house as well. She wasn't filled with hope because she was surrounded by a great circle of friends, because many of those friends had forsaken her as well.
Two Words on the Phone
At the end of a three-year plot of deceit and vengeance, her husband had taken all those things away from her. Her hope was characterized by two words that she said to me one afternoon when she called me on the phone. I said, "Hello," and immediately after I said "Hello," she said these two words, "I'm standing." Powerful words! She said, "No, all of these terrible things that I have faced have not knocked me over. Paul, I'm standing." And then she said something that I couldn't possibly ever forget; there's a way in which, in the smallness of our rationality, it makes no sense.
She said, "Paul, I think that I have more hope now than I've ever had. I think I have more hope than I've ever had." I would propose to you, this evening, that that kind of hope, so sturdy, so deep, so vibrant, that it could face such loss and still live, that hope is only ever found at the empty tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look again in your bulletins or in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 15, beginning with verse 12. 1 Corinthians 15 is probably the New Testament's longest and most detailed treatise on the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul is arguing against those in Corinth who said there was no such thing as a resurrection, and because there was no such thing as resurrection, then Christ could not have been raised. And so, in this passage, Paul does two things; he asks two questions. First, what if Christ is not raised? Paul would follow that out logically. What would that mean for our faith? And then he would turn the argument around of the other side, and say, what if Christ is raised? Notice what he says in verses 12 through about 19 there; that if Christ is not raised, then there's a cascading set of implications that flow out of that.
Paul says, "If Christ is not raised, then our preaching is in vain; your faith is in vain; you are stuck in your sins; those who have already gone have perished; we have misrepresented God." And then he says, "If only we have hope in this life, we're of all people most miserable." Now let me unpack what Paul is saying. Paul is saying that all of the past and present and future hopes of Christianity, all of the plan of God, all of the principles, all of the commands, all of the teachings, balance on this one point: the physical, bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If Christ is not raised, if that actual historical event did not happen, it all comes crashing down like a house of cards; because if Christ isn't raised, what an empty message we have, because there is no defeat of sin; there is no victory over death; there is no hope that all the evil things we face, all the struggles, all the difficulties, all the disease and suffering and death will end. If Christ is not raised, there is no hope; we might as well pack it up and go home - this is worthless. And then Paul says something very powerful there in verse 19 - "If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied."
Hear this: your faith makes no sense without an eternity. Your faith cries for an eternity. You can't live in this world where terrible things happen; you can't be serious about your own struggles; you can't live with the moments where you're sinned against, and you face injustice, and a lack of mercy, and pain, and suffering, and disease, and not deep in your heart to cry out, "Why does this have to happen? Can't this stop?" You can't be honest as the Bible is honest and not cry out for an end to all that sin has brought into the world.
We Cry for Eternity
Listen - it's not enough to have a few principles. It's not enough to have a good theology. We long, we cry for eternity. And that person that weeps at the loss of a loved one, that person may not know it, but they weep for eternity. That person who has sinned again and is so discouraged because they've given away, again, to their own personal addiction is guilty, but that guilt is a cry for eternity. That person who has been sinned against again and is so hurt inside, that hurt is a cry for eternity.
That broken marriage, and that person that's facing that divorce, and that pain in their heart, that pain is a cry for eternity. Racism is a cry for eternity. Corruption of government is a cry for eternity. Disease is a cry for eternity. And what Paul does is he makes a direct connectivity between the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the hope of eternity. In verse 20 he says that, he says, "Christ is the firstfruit." It's a harvest term. I can remember one of our first gardens in Scranton, Pennsylvania; yes, you can grow things there.
We had a big garden out behind our house, and I planted a row of string beans. The morning after, our children ran out to see the beans. There were none. They did that for about forty-five days. I remember when the first little shoot of bean showed. I was so excited that morning; I ran my children out, and I said, "This is the first of all kinds of beans. We're going to be eating beans!" See, that's Jesus; Jesus is the firstfruit. And if Jesus was raised, then sin has been defeated; death has been conquered; there is hope that we will be raised out of this broken world to a world where there is no suffering; there is no sin; there is no disease; there is no sorrow; there is no death.
That makes it worth it! And I would say, "Run out to the garden, and see that firstfruit. Its name is Jesus; there's more to come." There's a direct connectivity between the resurrection and your future hope. Listen, if you're satisfied with the world the way it is, there's just something wrong with you. You can't be satisfied; you should be dissatisfied. And you should hope for eternity. But then he turns the argument around the other way. Look at verses 20 through 28. After talking about Christ being the firstfruit, he gives this sort of redemptive historical equation: "Death came by one man, Adam.
Life comes by the second Adam, Jesus Christ." And then notice what he does in verse 24, let me read with you: Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father (now watch) after destroying every rule and every authority and every power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet. Now, notice what Paul is saying. Not only is there connectivity between the resurrection and eternity, connectivity between the resurrection and your future hope, but there's connectivity between the resurrection and your present rest and security.
Jesus Is Reigning Right Now
Because here's what he says - at the point of His resurrection, Jesus began to reign, now, as the risen, victorious Christ. Jesus, the risen Christ Jesus, is reigning right now, and He will continue His reign until the last enemy is under His feet. He's in the process of conquering those enemies, collecting the spoils of the victory of the cross and the grave. And when the final enemy is defeated, death, He will offer up the kingdom to His Father. Now, here's what that means: You do not live in a world of chaotic luck, and fate, and chance.
You live in a world that's under rule. Your world is ruled by the risen King Christ. You will never enter a situation; you will never enter a location; you will never enter a relationship; you will never be anywhere that isn't ruled by the risen King Christ. Now I know what some of you are thinking: "It doesn't look like my life is ruled by anybody!" I want to give you a bit of a principal here - recognizing the rule of the risen King Christ will not make, all of a sudden, your circumstances understandable to you.
You need to recognize the rule of the risen King Christ precisely because your circumstances will not make sense to you. And in your inability to grasp why a loving, redemptive God would bring a certain thing into your life, it's very tempting to think that my life must not be under the rule of anything, and give way to doubt and despair, to be paralyzed by your inability to control your own life, to write your own story, to wonder as many have wondered, "Why me?" But your life is under the reign and rule of the One who has conquered it all, and He is the definition of everything that is loving, and good, and true, and wise, and faithful.
And, no, I will never have control over my situations and relationships, but my Savior does; my King does; the risen Christ who is my hope does. Listen, the physical, bodily, historical resurrection of Jesus is directly connected to your future hope. But it is also directly connected to your present security and rest. You can have rest now, and you can have hope for then because, in a moment in time, the stone in front of the tomb could not hold Him! Direct connectivity between the resurrection of Jesus and our future hope, direct connectivity between the resurrection of Jesus and our present rest and security.
Listen - hope that can stand in the middle of the deepest difficulties of life; hope that won't fade in the face of disappointment and discouragement; hope that doesn't die in the face of pain and loss - is only ever found at the empty tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ. There we find our future hope; there we find our present rest; He is our future; He is our King; He is risen, and His name is Jesus. Let's pray: Thank you, Lord, for the clarity of the truths of 1 Corinthians 15. Thank you that, in Your resurrection, we receive a future.
Thank you that, in Your resurrection, we receive protection, and rest, and security. We celebrate You, oh, risen Christ. In Jesus's name, amen.
