John 11:25 – Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

John 11:26 – And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

Hello readers, another “Easter” themed blog, but this one is on resurrection. Paul said in Acts 26:8 – “Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?” I looked up resurrection in the Webster’s 1828 dictionary and the word “resurrection” means “A rising again; chiefly, the revival of the dead of the human race, or their return from the grave, particularly at the general judgment.”

The theme for this blog today really is to do with why does the resurrection matter to me? Knowing that Jesus rose from the dead doesn’t really benefit us if it just stays at that. Sure, the resurrection does matter and will matter to you… even if it doesn’t know. Because there will be a resurrection, and you will stand before God. If you’re saved, it’ll be a great time… but if you’re not, it’s the worst moment of your existence. Jesus Christ is the Lord, and he is the Judge… and he might not matter to you much… but he will.

Maybe you know about the resurrection, and you’ve grown used to it. But it really means nothing to you. It hasn’t changed your life at all. If truth doesn’t change your life, what good is it really? Salvation isn’t a bit of head knowledge… it’s a new creature. The gospel should produce resurrection. That which was dead made alive in Christ Jesus. That’s the gospel. You may know a guy called Jesus died and rose from the dead. But has it affected your life? Has it changed your life? Because the resurrection should. The resurrection should matter to you. Resurrection will take on a whole meaning to you when you experience being raised from your death bed of sin in your life today.

Resurrection takes power, God’s power. In case you haven’t noticed, nobody has ever been able to take life from being dead. People seem to think poor guy, Jesus got his life taken from him. No, he laid it down. Nobody took it from him. And he took life from being dead. That’s real power. To be dead, yet take life again. Just think about that. Nobody had ever beaten death. Death had a perfect record. The resurrections in the Old Testament all pointed to and relied on the person who was to come. They were in Christ. Every single resurrection is in Christ… because he IS the resurrection and the life.

So death was and is a formidable foe. He was waiting at the end of every person’s life. Nobody had ever come back. But one day, a man called Jesus Christ did just that, he rose from the dead. He’d been crucified and sealed in a tomb. Game over right? When it comes to death, all hope does seem lost. Death reigns over us just as Paul said in Romans. People can argue, debate, dispute, question, grapple and quarrel many things in their life, but they can’t get around death. What an enemy death is. Most of us just deal with the thought of death by not dealing with death. It seems to be too far away to be that relevant and imposing.

But the disciples come to the empty tomb on the third day, and the stone is rolled away, and it’s just a place where the Lord lay. Past tense though. Because he’s gone. He’s up and gone. Death lost his perfect record that day. Eternity centers on this event in history, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The resurrection proves Jesus is who and what he said he is. It proves he’s God, for only God can rise from the dead. It proves he did no sin, because death is a consequence of sin… but he did no sin and thus death had no hold on his soul. It proves the acceptance of his sacrifice of himself in the sight of God, for if the sacrifice was not acceptable, he would have stayed dead. It proves his word… for he said he’d rise the third day… and rise he did.

Rising from the dead enabled Christ to not just offer but execute the forgiveness and salvation he extends you and I today. See, he’s not just willing… he’s also able. And it proves the ultimate accountability that we have, if he has resurrection power, there is no escaping from him as your Judge. Even in death you cannot escape standing before him. Scary! Resurrection proves his power, his life, his truth… Romans 1:4 – “And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:”

Jesus’ resurrection is so incredibly fundamental to the Christian faith, and the source of hope for all believers today. Because he lives, we live. It all rests on the resurrection. If he’s dead, we have no salvation and no hope. If he was dead, he’d have no power, having been overcome rather than overcoming. And that’s all the other religions and heroes and stars out there. They’re all dead. They have no power to forgive, to save, to give life… but Jesus does. That’s the God I serve, and the God I declare unto you from his very own word.

As a Christian, we don’t hold to a dead prophet and a sealed tomb, we believe in the Christ, who as the angel at the tomb said to them, “he goeth before you into Galilee”. A dead guy can’t go before in your life. He’s not just out the tomb, he’s going before in our lives today, because he’s alive.

But while I thought on all this and the momentous truth and consequences and assurances of the resurrection… I thought, that’s all cool, but how does this help me? How does it affect my life? How is it useful to me? How does it profit me? Esau sold his birthright with a question “what profit shall this birthright do to me?” See, for many people, the resurrection will never practically profit them anything. Esau saw more profit in a bowl of food than the birthright. In that alone, you don’t need to wonder why God hated Esau.

Why does the resurrection matter? How does it change my life today? It should be more than an empty yearly remembrance. So a guy rose from the dead… impressive. But that doesn’t save me just knowing that. Salvation is more than just knowing Jesus exists, did good and loves me. Jesus’ resurrection is useless and meaningless to many people, because they don’t know the power of his resurrection personally. His resurrection has never transformed their lives.

Paul wrote this in Philippians…

Philippians 3:10 – That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

Philippians 3:11 – If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

With the resurrection comes power to you, in your life. Power for you also to be raised from the dead. You see, you are dead already. If the Bible calls you dead… you dead. 1 Peter 4:6 – ” For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.” The gospel was preached to you so that you could live according to God in the spirit. The gospel is so you can live… because you’re not living, you’re spiritually dead. And thus we see the huge relevance already of Jesus’ resurrection. Salvation is spiritual resurrection. It’s what’s missing in Christianity today.

How does his resurrection matter to me today? It means I can live, because he lives. I have power over that life of death not by my own power, but by his power, power that he displayed in rising from the dead, victorious over sin and death and hell. If you’ve got that power in you, that can change your thinking, speaking and doing.

What that verse in 1 Peter 4 is telling you is that you can live, you who were dead in sin… can live according to God in the spirit. That’s why you’ve been preached the gospel, so you can rise from the dead. You’re already dead, you’re already condemned, the gospel is to save you. It’s to birth you again. Being born again is called “quickening”, which means to be made alive. Jesus Christ’s resurrection can affect me here and now, it can change my life. The gospel can resurrect me. It can resurrect me out of deathbed of sin and make me a new creature. And that’s only possible because he was raised from the dead, he’s alive to make me alive. So that sounds pretty profitable.

Resurrection is not just physical. In fact, the greater resurrection is spiritual. Lazarus was raised from the dead, but he would go on to die. If he didn’t get saved, that physical resurrection bought him a few years and a good story at the bar. The most important resurrection takes place right here and right now… and when you have that one, then you are entitled to the future resurrection when all those that sleep in Christ are raised and brought with him when he returns in glory, and we also will appear with him in glory. Many people have died with that hope just like those in Hebrews 11.

So Christ’s resurrection affects us here and now, and in the future. But you’re not going to experience death in him, just as he’s saying to Martha, for he is the resurrection. In him, you can’t die, because he’s always alive. His resurrection is the foundation of our salvation, of our redemption and our sanctification here and now as we live. That same power that saved you and forgave you, that same power is present and sufficient for each day of your life thereafter. That’s why we should watch and pray, and be sober, and hope to the end, and obey and trust him in our daily lives.

Our resurrection is entirely found in him. If you don’t have him, the only resurrection you’ll experience is when you’re fetched from death to be judged and damned. That’s rough but it’s the truth. There is no life if you don’t have his life in you. That’s why in 1 John 5:12 “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Having the Son is different to knowing about the Son. Having the Son is a possessive, ownership type word. Because you must take the gift of salvation. You won’t go to hell unloved or without a chance to be saved. You’ll go there because you were invited, but had better things to do and rejected the invitation. There’s a guy that speechless at the end of Christ’s parable in Matthew 22, speechless because you’ll have nothing to say. What will you be able to say after you were invited, after God showed his love, grace and mercy to you your whole life… and you never got saved and never got born again, and never got resurrected.

There is a future resurrection coming… one is good, and one is bad. And you will take part in one or the other. So Christ’s resurrection is relevant to you, like it or lump it. If you are saved, then you are in the resurrection of life. That’s those who died saved, and thus they never experienced death like an unbeliever does. Because when a believer dies, they are in a better place, they’re with the Lord. They never see death.

But if you are in the resurrection of damnation, that is the second death. You’re raised to be sentenced to death. The Bible says “twice dead” in Jude 1:12. You were dead in this life, and you’re dead in the life to come, eternally dead, separated from God and in torments. That’s pretty brutal isn’t it? But that’s why the gospel is preached to you today, so you can be saved. You can choose life if you want.

People speak so confidently that there’s nothing after death. When you die you just cease to exist they say. But that’s so utterly stupid. They speak like they’re an authority on the subject and that they know… but none of them do. Because none of them have died. The only one can speak with authority about death is the person that’s come back from it, for real, and not just come back from it… but whipped it. There’s only one person who’s come back from the dead… that person is Christ… and he can tell us what it’s like and what’s on the other side, because he’s been through it and is alive to tell the story. He’s God and he knows what’s what, he knows everything. He has the authority to warn and foretell you, and forewarn you he did. That’s why you should trust God’s word rather than popular opinion or your peers who are literally just speaking rubbish.

So for the believe, Jesus’ resurrection gives us a complete resurrection from death, spiritual and physical. We are 100% fully redeemed from death. Talk about coming back and rising again. You can make a comeback, you can rise again. Sounds pretty profitable to me, to be given life where all I had was death. That’s pretty big. In 1 Peter 4 you see a category of people in death, and a category of people who were made alive by being saved. We don’t have to live in the lusts and in the flesh anymore. We can be raised out of that former life… it can be a FORMER life. There is a life that can be made your past life. Many people try changing and reforming and doing better, but without Christ, the best you can do will never be nearly enough. He’s the resurrection and the life… which means you ain’t.

I was recently going to do a blog on Samson’s double life… because many people have a double life, not a resurrected life. See, many people have their religious life and who they truly are when they’ve not got that religious veneer up. That’s their double life. They have their church and Sunday version of them, their Easter and Christmas version of them… and then have their other life that is full of self will, selfishness, lust and pride and flesh. Samson had a double life going, he had his religious life where he was doing his Nazarite thing… but in the meantime he had his other life, the life where he was off doing what he really wanted to do. Do you want a double life or a resurrected life?

Christ came to give us a resurrected life. You can rise again in your life through him. You can have a resurrection. But rising again comes from being born again. Many people have no resurrection power though, because they’ve not died with Christ, therefore they are not raised with him. There’s a practical truth to that today. To live in Christ, you must die first… you must die to a life of sin, a life of self. That sounds like repentance. When the law takes a knife and slays all our self righteousness and lies and pretences and rubbish. There is no rising until you can come to an acknowledgement and confession of truth. Religion can’t raise you from the dead. Many people have religion, but not the risen Saviour.

God didn’t create man for death. That’s not your purpose for existence. Death is a consequence of sin. The truth is, it’s not really possible to understand resurrection without understanding what death is. There is physical death where your body dies either of old age or disease or whatever. And there is spiritual death, which is defined by Webster’s 1828 dictionary as “Separation or alienation of the soul from God; a being under the dominion of sin, and destitute of grace or divine life”.

Adam and Eve died the instant they disobeyed God’s word. God hadn’t lied to them. God said they’d die in the day that they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, and die they did. They became separated from God, and under the dominion of sin. Salvation is about fixing that death that they earnt themselves and all that have issued forth from them, that is, the whole human race.

When you age, get sick and die, it’s proof of the truth of God’s word. God’s word has reverberated through human history. A warning ignored. They thought they knew better, they thought they could get by, and look what’s happened since. We can’t blame God for it, this world is a mess by the choice of man.

Jesus was speaking to Martha before the resurrection of Lazarus. If you believe, you’ll live again. People that have died believing in Christ are going to be raised from the dead at a future date. Furthermore, the people that believe never actually see death. Because when you die, it’s actually going to a better place, that’s why death for a believer is called “asleep in Christ”. You’re not even dead, you’re just sleeping, and you’re in Christ, you’re present with the Lord. Believest thou this?

When you believe the gospel, you experience a resurrection. That which was dead is raised to life in Christ Jesus. Where are the Lazarus miracles? They happen every day when a little nobody repents of their sin and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Lives that were once under the dominion of sin, the world and Satan… they’re raised in newness of life. That can be you, the resurrection can take on a whole new meaning for you today. You’re placed in the guy that is the resurrection and the life… how can death beat you in him?

When you believe on him, you go from “in Adam” to “in Christ”. And because he died in the flesh, you died with him. And because he rose from the dead, you rise from the dead with him. You go from being in Adam… just another hell bound sinner… to being in Christ… made spiritually alive and a completely new person inside.

Resurrection is an incredible word. Jesus’ resurrection is so important to us, because only through him can you experience resurrection from physical and spiritual death. Death is going to triumph over you completely, unless you believe in him who triumphed over it completely.

Many Christians sadly today have no resurrection power in their lives. There’s no resurrection from this world, from their flesh, from sin, from Satan. They’re captured, enslaved, in bondage… dead. They’ve never been raised from the dead practically in their lives. They’ve never changed. They’ve never been renewed or transformed from their own habits and speech and lusts and living. There’s no quickening, that is, there’s no new life, Christ’s life in them.

There is a practical element to this, because salvation is practical, it should affect your actual living life, and in our day to day lives we do have to crucify our flesh and die to ourselves with the promise that if we be dead with him, we also shall live with him. That’s true in all aspects. We do have to live in the reality of who Christ is and what he’s done for us, and reckon it to be so, because it is so.

It takes real power to live a resurrected life. It means he’s gotta be a real God. It means this has to be real, you have to have a vital connection there. You’re relying on him coming through for you. You’re relying on his power. It’s hard to fake a resurrected life. Here’s the key… Romans 8:11 – ” But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” If you have the Holy Spirit in you, it won’t be an act, performance, effort… he’ll just be there because he’s there because you believe and trust him… God dwelling in your heart by faith. How then can the resurrected Christ dwell in you, and that not produce a resurrected life that he has?

So many people live in death. They speak death. They think death. They do death. They live in sin, they live in lies, they live in darkness, they hate, they’re envious, bitter, full of lust and rebellion… they haven’t been resurrected from all that. Romans 7:5 – ” For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.” That’s why you have to put your flesh to death practically in your life, because all your flesh is bringing forth is death. Nail your flesh to the cross with Christ and live in the Spirit as he did. Do you want death to reign in your life… or the risen Saviour? You need God’s power on your behalf. A dead man can’t take life for himself, Lazarus lay dead as a doornail in the tomb… it took Jesus Christ coming and saying Lazarus, come forth!

Have you risen from the dead? Are you risen with Christ? Colossians 3:1 – ” If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.” It’s pretty simple. Why is noone seeking the things which are above? Why is nobody seeking to honour Christ with their lives? If you really loved him and wanted to glorify the Son, many issues of life would disappear. The disputes, debates, self justification and excusing and problems with sin would disappear. But many are not risen with Christ. They’re in the flesh, and they’re abiding death. The resurrection of Christ really hasn’t profited them… not because there is no profit to his death… just it hasn’t profited them… because they don’t believe and won’t repent or acknowledge the truth. Thus they’re unprofitable to God, themselves, and others in life.

If you care about death, if you’re afraid of dying, if you’re afraid of what’s on the other side… Jesus has the answer for that. He is your answer to death. Most people only care about “getting out of hell”. But the resurrection is as much about getting out of hell as it is about being made spiritually alive here and now, and getting out of a life wasted and conquered by sin and spiritual death. See, people don’t want that aspect of salvation. They want to live in sin now and enjoy pursuing selfish interests and lusts now, and also avoid hell and go to heaven. But that shows they don’t even understand who Jesus Christ is. They don’t get it. How can you live an unregenerate, dead life here yet expect a good resurrection?

Ultimately, whatever side of this you’re on… Jesus’ resurrection is relevant to you. His very resurrection spells judgment for you. Acts 17:31 – ” Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” Jesus is the only one righteous, that’s why he rose from the dead. He is the standard for judgment… and how will you shape up? Look at his word, the Holy Bible, you’re going to be judged out of that book. How will you stack up? God’s going to judge this world by Jesus Christ. You will stand before him.

So today, you can get saved and right with him. You can be risen from a life from sin, you can live with him, knowing that death is being with him, and in the future reigning with him. Or you can flip his resurrection off… but there will be no escape for you. Nobody will escape. You will be judged by him, God gave you an assurance of how good and perfect and holy and righteous his Son is by raising him from the dead. That’s quite a standard to measure up to… and one you won’t measure up to. We all have nothing to bring to the table. Or we do is come and take the unmerited, undeserved, unearned grace and mercy that is extended to us. Salvation is a resurrection, and his resurrection can mean your resurrection today. That’s pretty profitable, that sounds like a resurrection that matters to me… and hopefully to you as well.

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