He is Risen Christs Victory Over Sin and Death - Easter Sunday

Rise back up on your feet for the reading of the scriptures. I'll uh go ahead and read this for us. We're gonna be reading from 1 Corinthians 15, 54 to 58. And it reads, But when this corruptible puts on the incorruptible, and this mortal puts on immortality, then will come about the word that is written. Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Let's pray together.

Father, I ask that you would guide our time, so that as we hear your word, Lord, that you would stir in our hearts a certainty that this is not opinion of man that is being dispensed. But may your word go forth. Would you break our pride? Would you cause us to long for heaven? And would you stir within us just a great conviction of our sins and the reality that the hope is only found in the person of Christ. So I pray for just your protection over this time, that there would be no distraction, and that you would cause us to leave here, having heard your truth, so that your name would be lifted up on high. So we entrust this time to you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Go ahead and take your seats.

So this morning, um Christians all over the world are gathered together in celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it's actually the tr the day each year where most visitors come and fill the pews of churches as well. Resurrection Sunday, which came to be called Easter, starting around the eighth century, is the single most important holiday for all Christians. Why? This is because the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important event in all of human history. It is the hinge on which everything for all mankind turns. So before the resurrection, death had triumphed over man. But with the resurrection, Jesus triumphed, and he triumphed publicly over death. And this meant that now the old was gone, and the new had come.

And this is why those who have put their faith in Christ gather to celebrate. So if I were to summarize, the singular reason why resurrection Sunday is the of utmost importance, it would be this.

But the Bible says a sin entered into the world through the first Adam. The second Adam, Jesus the Lamb of God, takes away the sins of the world. So all of human history revolves around these two men, the two atoms. In Romans chapter 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, calls these two men our representative heads. So the first one plunge us into the new, the second made available for us a deliverance into the new. The first one plunges into the old. So the first of those two Adams was the very first man. He had been created in the image of God, and the man's name was Adam. And that's a very fitting name, as a name Adam, literally is the Hebrew word for man. And Adam had been created by God and for God to love God and to serve God.

And he had been specifically created for and commanded to spread the glory of God all over the world by being fruitful and by multiplying. So his was a very easy job and a glorious but still easy calling. And the glorification of God was the purpose for which Adam had been created. And Adam again had been created by God and for God to love God and to serve God, but he rebelled against that purpose when he disobeyed God's one command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that was the most tragic day in all of human history. Adam disobeyed God, plunged all mankind into what we refer to as the old into ruin and destruction. And Christians refer to the events of this day as the fall.

Adam sinned humanity's first sin and fell permanently short of the command to glorify God. So from that point on, the disease of sin had entered into the world. And that is often what philosophers and theologians have called original sin. You guys have heard this word before, right? So now we have trouble, we've been having trouble with this. Can I get the next slide? One more. This is a good time to define the word sin. Sinartia literally is translatable as missing the mark. It's defined as transgressing God's perfect standard. So Adam had been created by God and for God, to love God and to serve God wholeheartedly, it says in Deuteronomy 6.5. And sin, simply defined, is just a rebellion against that purpose.

It's a falling short of that purpose. So the first and greatest commandment was to love and obey God perfectly, and in his disobedience, Adam became guilty of transgressing all of it. So Adam had sinned and committed cosmic treason. So sin is a missing of that perfect standard of God's holiness, and this has come upon all mankind. So Romans 3 23 reads, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And whether you believe that or not, this is you, right? So Romans 5 goes into more detail of our representative head Adam, who ushered in what we call the old. So the first thing that happened to man was that he became a sinner. So mankind had been created by God and for God to love God and to serve God, and from that time forth, the sin-tainted paradigm that man has in his mind is the very opposite.

God was created by man and exists for man to love man and to serve man. So as a result of man's becoming a sinner, and because of sin's delusions, God is no longer at the center, but man in his corruption and his delusion now believes himself to be at the very center. So this deluded and self exaltation is at the core of sin. Going forward, now man would even dare to say that he is disappointed with God. Think about the absurdity of that statement, right? Man would have the utterly stupid gall to even say, What has God done for me lately? And as a sinner, man has also become doubtful of God, critical of God, man is constantly fearful, insecure. That's the virus. This is sin. So the stuff that we see in and around our lives are just the symptoms.

The disease is sin. And the symptoms of sin are the horrible things that we can observe. So the Bible refers to these symptoms of sin as deeds of the flesh. And that's the first thing that came along with the old. Man is born into the world as a sinner, committing deeds of the flesh. And I want to read Galatians chapter 5, verses 19 to 21 for you. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Now, all of these things are categorizable as sins, of course, but again, these are more the symptoms than they are the problems. So a person doesn't become a sinner because he does these things. He does these things because he is a sinner, and he cannot help but be a sinner. And all sinners are disqualified from entry into the kingdom of God. Sners are qualified only for the bearing of the full brunt of God's wrath in hell. So a person is not disqualified from the kingdom because he commits deeds of the flesh. He who is disqualified from the kingdom of God cannot but do these things, because he is a sinner. Does that make sense? You sin because you're a sinner. You don't become a sinner as you sin.

So that's the first thing we have all inherited through the first man, Adam, sin. Romans chapter 5, verse 12, therefore, just as through one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin. And so death spread to all men because all sinned. So first, sin spread to all men, men through the sins of the first man. And consequently, death and mortality came upon every living creature from the moment of that disobedience. Why? Because God is holy. And God is a keeper of his word. He had warned in Genesis chapter 2, 17, that if Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that he would surely die. That the once immortal would suffer mortality, and so sin came to all men.

And that's what God had promised. There is not a single word or even a single letter that God had spoken that will not come to pass. Matthew 5.18, Matthew 24, 35. So God had warned of death, and so as a consequence of the disobedience of the first man, physical death came to all, followed by judgment. So if you're ever curious to know your fate or your destiny, what does the divine have for you? It's actually not complicated nor mysterious. Here it is. This is your fate, okay? This is your destiny. You will die. Nobody's disagreeing with me here, right? And you will be judged. So Hebrews 9 27 reads, and inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment. So first, all men will physically die.

It's not a matter of if, it's only a matter of when. And then after physical death, believe it or not, there will be a judgment. And there will be a judgment seat. There will be a judge. All mankind will be judged according to those deeds. And that's bad news. Because there will be a verdict. And what would the verdict be at the judgment seat? All mankind would receive the verdict of guilty in the presence of holy, holy, holy God. Because remember, all of us have been created by God and for God to love God and to serve God. And all of us will be asked, have you loved the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength? That's the standard at the judgment seat. Man will not be judged according to his confession, but according to his deeds.

And the standard, the bar is not going to be based on how he fared compared to other people. Oh, at least I'm better than him. I'm better than her. I'm not as bad as Hitler. I'm not as bad as so and so. But it will be according to his deeds. And all the deeds will be measured by God's standard. We will all face judgment according to our deeds. Revelation chapter 20, which is the last book of the Bible, verse 12 reads. Then I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged from the things which are written in the books according to their deeds. So then whoever is found having been fallen short, the judgment is what we will call a second death, a spiritual one.

A death spent living in an eternal consequence in the lake of fire. And you see those verses in Revelation 20, verses 14 to 15. So what happened as a result of the disobedience of the first Adam. Can I have the slide changed? One, man has become a sinner, committing vile deeds of the flesh. Two, physical death followed by judgment. And then third, curse came upon all creation. Everything would die, even every soulless thing. Creation itself would be cursed. Sin would damn and separate man from God, man from creation, man from man, and even man from self. There is so much division in this life, right? Because the curse is so holistic and thorough, it would subject everyone and everything and every deed into nothing but futility and into incessant groaning.

That's what the curse is. Romans chapter 8, verses 20 to 22, it reads, the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it. In hope that the creation itself will also be set free from its slavery to corruption into freedom of the glory of the children of God. And we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together into until now. We live in a fallen world. How fallen? Pretty badly fallen, right? So the tragic events that had come as a result of the disobedience of the first Adam were sin, death, cursedness into futility. Okay? Sin, death, and curse. And these are all things that we can summarize as the old. Okay? The old is horrible, the old is miserable, it is painful, it is self-destructive.

You know what people do? We turn every good thing into something destructive and damnable. Think of the gift God has given of sex. Think of the internet. Think of AI, even. Everything that was created good, we've painted and corrupted. We turn everything good into something destructive and damnable. And so the old is full of nothing but arrogance, idiocy, and vileness. And it's only because the common grace of God is still present that things aren't even more out of control than what we see. So the effects of sin are universal. You guys tracking? Literally, they are universal. They've been the same for all people in every place for all time.

You have been affected by sin, either by your own or by others. Nod your heads if you agree that's true. Right? You've been messed up because of someone else's sin or even by your own. Now, what sin tainted man does is he tries his best to cope. Man has always tried to cope. Because man had been created for worship and for happiness. He will try to pursue those things, and he will try to cope. But he will always desperately fall short and be disappointed and be desperate. Doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, it doesn't matter your race or your historical context. It doesn't matter your gender, it doesn't matter your age. People know that they will die.

We just don't like to think about it. People know that this world is evil. I might not be evil, but the world is, right? Well, at the very least, you agree that there is evil in the world. Every single person that has ever lived knows what futility feels like, frustration feels like, and what failure are. Every single person has felt the effects of futility, of frustration and failure, but we try to be happy and cope anyway. That's just our reaction, right? So some people mistakenly think that happiness can be found in money. Realistically, are rich people happier? If you've lived long enough, you go, no, money doesn't solve the problems, right? Others think success or fame will bring me happiness.

Some of the most successful and famous people kill themselves. Still others think that true happiness can be found in experiences and in pleasures. Well, you only live once. Experience everything. Try everything. Those are the people that always end up being addicted and just again, suicidal. Some in war-torn countries especially believe that happiness can be found in a change of a regime in security or in freedom. So the commonality that we all have for all time is that we all desire to be happy. Some people who think themselves a little wiser will turn to formulaic religion for happiness. Right? If I adhere to this religion and find inner peace.

Okay, so Galatians chapter 4, verses 4 to 5. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law of the old, so that he might redeem those who were under the old, that we might receive the adoption as sons at the right time. So Jesus was a historical figure. You cannot refute this. Okay. So Jesus, we believe was fully God and fully man. We just can't fathom our minds. He's 100% God, 100% man. And he alone could bring together both the holy justice and the perfect love of God. He alone was qualified to do so. And the cross was where that perfect hatred of God towards all sin and his perfect love for fallen man would come together. And Jesus was put to death for the sins of all mankind, past, present, and future.

So God the just would be satisfied to look on the shed blood of Christ as a pardon for all of man's sins. So God would not judge man according to those deeds that we saw, but according to the deeds of the advocate, according to the deeds of the high priest of the high or the intermediator. So God the just, the holy one, would be satisfied to look upon Christ and to pardon the man for whom Christ died. So we believe that the events of Good Friday are glorious because God placed man's sins onto Christ. He placed Christ's righteousness as a status cover over man. And the Christians call that double imputation, a glorious exchange. God made Christ who knew no sin, become sin on our behalf, so that we would become the righteousness of God in Christ.

That's what it says in 2 Corinthians 5 21. And that news is what we call the gospel. Now, for those who believe Christ's death to be enough, you don't have to earn this now. They are given the gift of eternal life. It is that simple.

So also in Christ all will be made alive. So Christ's death, the historical Jesus, was the payment. And that took care of the dilemma of the old. So the consequences of the old would still temporarily be present in the fallen world. This old would still be cursed. That's why so many people who believe in Christ still get cancer, still lose their jobs, still hurt because of failed relationships. So that temporary curse is still very present. The old would still suffer death and futility, but now there is a way to be delivered and transition out. Man had been created by God and for God to love God and to serve God, and the first Adam messed it all up by rebelling against that purpose. But the second Adam could and would restore man to his original purpose.

And what is the last thing he said? It is finished. Now what is it? It is finished. What is that? The old is finished. Payment was finished. The cost for restoration is finished. Upon the cross, Christ would usher in the new. And this new is already, but not yet. So it's here, but it has not been fully actualized. It hasn't come to full fruition. But it will be actualized and come to full fruition when the old is permanently wiped out. But praise God that the old still remains so that more and more people could be restored. He is giving us time. Revelation 21, 4 through 7, we get a glimpse of the new.

And he who sits on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. And he said, right for these words are faithful and true. And what that means is what God says, it will happen. These words will come to pass. And then he said to me, it is finished. Just in a different tense. You guys see that? They are done. I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the string of water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things. I will be his God and he will be my son. Now, why is resurrection Sunday so significant? And here's an important question. Why is the resurrection of Jesus Christ the most important event in all of human history?

Why wasn't it the crucifixion? Think about this. If our payment was made at the cross, why was that not the most important thing in all of human history? Why the resurrection? Why is it even needed? Did Christ need to rise from the dead? Yes. In 1 Corinthians 15, 14 and 17, the apostle Paul said that if Christ wasn't raised from the dead, the saints' faith would still be worthless, and we would still remain in the old. Christ had to rise from the dead. So what did Christ's resurrection do? Next slide. First, it fulfilled everything that was prophesied in the past. Second, he proved through his death that he alone could defeat death. And he took care of not only the symptoms, but the very root of the disease itself.

At the cross, Christ defeated sin. At the resurrection, Christ defeated death itself. You guys following? The consequences were also taken care of. And in doing this, he confirmed that God's word will always come to pass going forward as well. Jesus had foretold that he would die and then be raised to life.

What do they hear? Matthew 28, verse 6. The angels tell the woman, he is not here.

Just as he had said, just as he had said, and those are more important words than you would think.

And what did Jesus say about himself? Why did people put him on the cross? It wasn't because he called himself a good teacher, a good example, or a moral prophet. He was put on the cross because he said he was God. You guys tracking? He's a crazy man. Or he's a liar, or he's a he's a liar lunatic. If he wasn't God, but he claimed to be God. And his resurrection proved that he was God because death was that one incurable problem that everyone had faced past, that everyone was facing at Jesus as present, and that everyone would face going forward. He proved that he was God. And then his resurrection ushered in the new, so that people who believe that that was enough would be raised into newness of life with Christ.

That's Romans chapter 6. The old made all mankind sinners. So if you're like, I know I'm a sinner, I don't quite understand how that happened, but I know I'm pretty evil in my heart. He might be more evil, but I'm still pretty evil. Well, now you know why. Our representative head brought you into this old. The old brought in death, both physical and spiritual. It cursed all creation, subjected it to futility. But in the new, through the second Adam, let's see what he does. He redeemed man, and that sinful man is now a saint. Through the second Adam, that saint has been set free not only for the consequential judgment of sin, but he has been set free from sin itself and raised into newness of life.

Every person who is a real Christian will become like Jesus over time. That is an inevitable, absolutely guaranteed thing. Now there are many people in the church who say they are Christian who seem to just get worse. Most likely they're not real Christians. They're just masquerading as religious people. But every child of God has been set free from sin. So he will start to change. Third, through the second Adam, the saint is now an heir into the eternal life in the new heavens and the new earth. So if anyone has cleaved himself to Christ, he is the only way.

Increased freedom from sin. Jesus Christ has reconciled that one sinful man fully and holy to himself. And 2 Corinthians 5.17 says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come. Now all of these things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us a ministry of reconciliation. We have been created by God and for God to love God, to serve God. We've been restored to that purpose. Now we can point to others to do the same, is what this is saying.

The old is passed away, the hold, new things have come. God hasn't just spared us from punishment, he has reconciled us to himself through Christ. This is why the resurrection of Christ from the dead is so important. Because both the first and second death have been defeated. And I want to take you back to the passage I read for us while we're all standing in the beginning. 1 Corinthians 15, 54 to 58. But when the corruptible puts on incorrect in on the incorruptible, and this mortal puts on immortality, then will come about the word that is written. Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where's your sting? Now the sting of death is sin. The power of sin is Allah.

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. That is why we celebrate. The old is gone. And that is why we labor hard for the Lord. You should not meet a lazy Christian. Because a Christian is laboring hard to bring others to be reconciled, right? Because no longer is the Christian on the at the center. God is at the center. And I want people to worship this God. Now, be assured that the resurrection is historical fact. We're just far removed from it. So it kind of feels like, oh, it's hard to prove, right? There were many witnesses, both Jew and non-Jew at the crucifixion of Jesus.

It was incontrovertible fact that Jesus had indeed physically died to those early witnesses. So he for sure died. They killed him. It's in all over the historical records. Okay. Slightly as an aside, how many of you remember the LA riots of 1992? Raise your hand. LA riots. Some of you guys remember it? You were born in like 1990, dude. How do you remember? Okay, two year old, you're a genius, all right. I was 14. I was a uh, it was like the beginning of my sophomore year of high school. I remember it vividly because from my house I smelled the smoke. Because we're I live in Temple City, so we were close enough to see the smoke and smell the smoke. Now, there are a good number of you that have zero recollection of it.

Right? How many of you don't know that that happened? How many of you were born in LA and actually just uh you weren't you don't remember it? Okay. There's a handful of people in here who hadn't even been born yet in 1992. Do you assume it to be historical fact? Why? Because there's enough of us who've been around to actually say it happened. There's enough of us to be around to actually tell you what we felt. I remember the newspaper clippings. I remember the Korean angry man sitting on the roof. I remember all of that. I remember the curfew, I remember the sounds. I remember everything about the LA riots from my vantage point. And there are also plenty of records, and we still have many, many, many people alive who would contradict you if you disagreed with fact.

Right? If you were to come and say there was never a man named Rodney King who was never beaten by the LAPD at the time, triggering a wide-scale riot, I would say, you are dumb. You are a liar. And there's millions of people who could still say that today. Right. There were well over 500 eye witness eyewitnesses who saw the resurrected Christ. And with decades after the resurrection, there were more and more people who chose to die because they could not deny the resurrection. The Roman Empire said, deny Christ, deny the resurrection, and we will let you live. We will let your kids live. But the number of people persecuted for this who allowed their kids to be killed for this grew exponentially the next few decades because of the testimony of the eyewitnesses who had seen it all.

And there were many who had seen both the crucifixion and the resurrection. Are you guys tracking? No theory discrediting the historicity of the resurrection has ever held any ground in the last 2,000 years. There are atheist scholars and Jewish scholars who acknowledge the resurrection as historical fact. They just can't explain what happened. There were people who sought out to disprove the resurrection who ended up becoming Christians. Because they could not disprove it. And they couldn't explain. How did a man who was publicly tortured, publicly tried, publicly executed, publicly buried, all of a sudden publicly live, publicly teach, publicly break bread and have meals with people. So the resurrection is historical fact without a shadow of the doubt.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ was historical fact. I would challenge you to try to disprove that. But if it is true, what does that mean? Uh-oh. God is who he says he is. Christ is who he says he is. So how does a person transition out of the old and into the new? Okay, my life is horrible. The old sucks. I take your word for it. I agree with you. My old, it stinks. How do I transition out of this? Well, it's very simple. Romans chapter 10, verse 9 to 10. If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart a person believes, leading to righteousness, with the mouth he confesses leading to salvation. This is not an easy gimmick.

Okay? It's not a superstitious magical word. The heart in the time of the New Testament was not the place of emotion. The place of emotion in the New Testament was the stomach. That's why, in a place like Matthew chapter 9, it says that Jesus had a stomach churn. He had it literally had a bowel movement when he saw the crowds and had compassion. The stomach was the center of emotion. The heart is the volitional center of the person. So in the paradigm of the Greco-Roman world, the heart never acted on impulse. You guys following me? The heart made calculations. The heart made commitments after those calculations. That was the heart. So to believe in your heart, it's a long-term volitional choice, not an impulsive or temporary reaction.

And out of the overflow of that heart, the mouth will speak. The mouth will make confessions. And the mouth of the person and the life of the person will proclaim Jesus' Lord. So if a person makes a life commitment to Christ in faith and makes a profession that Christ is the only way and believes on and lives out the truth of the resurrection of Christ, you will know he is saved. And that's a wonderful gift received by grace through faith alone. And the thing that prevents it is not thinking. It's arrogance. What prevents me from submitting to the Lordship of Christ is because I don't want Christ's Lordship over me. That will, that will be what causes me not to turn to him. Not fact. So hallelujah.

We serve an undead Savior. Amen. We serve a risen Savior. Christ is risen from the dead. So to close, we all feel the consequences of the choices of the first Adam acutely. We're reminded of these consequences at every funeral, right? I've been to two funerals this month. And I've embraced and hugged both people that were dead.

When they were alive. But I hope that we all experience the freedom and joy of our master, the second Adam, and that we commit the rest of our lives to lead others to enjoy the same. The word of God has always been proven true. It's an expert at the man, at human condition. If you want to know what people are really like, look at the Bible. Nothing will surprise you. Wow, it's pretty spot on. God's promises have always come to pass. There will be death, there will be a judge, there will be a judgment.

And to this truth I cannot but exclaim, happy Easter. And I mean that with all my heart. Happy Easter, because for those of us who believe Christ's being raised from the dead, the following is what awaits us at the judgment. The righteous judge, the risen Christ, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, will say, here's the verdict. The next slide, please. He will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed of my Father. Inherit the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. And we will spend eternity in the new, with the new, with the Lord and the King of Kings of the New. So happy resurrection Sunday. He is risen indeed. It is finished. Amen. Let me pray for us.

Father, I ask that you would help us to think. Many in the world who accuse believers to be unthinking and backward, they don't think. And as we mull over all the consequences of the first Adam's disobedience, and as we mull over the world that we see around us and the chaos that we see around us, help us to look to you for salvation. There is no other hope, there is no other way to the Father outside of Christ. And we believe that.

So we pray for that to be the case. For your glory and for our collective joy. And we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.