Hello; I’m Mack Lyon. What a joy it is, friend, to invite you to our Bible study program In Search of the Lord's Way. Easter is past, and if you are a church-goer, you have probably heard your annual resurrection sermon for this year. However, stay tuned for another; it may be different from the one you heard Easter Sunday, though.
My warmest greetings to you, friend! It’s good to have you with us for our Bible study In Search of the Lord's Way to become a Christian and to live the way that Jesus taught. Our message today is about our Lord’s resurrection, the power for daily living for those who believe it. We’re here without any appeals for money and without selling anything, because we are a ministry of some Christians and some churches of Christ in the area that’s served by this good television or radio station. I hope you’ll accept their invitation and ours also, to attend some of their Bible classes or worship assemblies. If you need some assistance with locating one of these churches near your home, get your pen and paper ready right quickly because in about a minute I’m going to be giving you our address and phone number so we can help you.
Do I believe that Jesus, who was pronounced dead by the Roman authorities, was literally, bodily raised from the dead the third day and actually lives on today? Oh yes, I do! I surely do, friend! You may have heard the story of the preacher’s small son, during the sermon he whispered to his mother and said, “Is daddy telling the truth now, or is he just preaching?” Well, I’m telling you the truth, friend. You can call it preaching, too, if you want, but you can count on its being the truth. Our program today will have the title: The Power of His Resurrection.
If you think you might want a free printed copy of it, you may have it without cost simply by mailing your request to In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083 or by e-mail to searchtv@searchtv.org. Or, you might just use your telephone, and use our toll-free number if you do. That is 1-800-321-8633; 1-800-321-8633. It’s also on our website at searchtv.org. Ken Helterbrand’s going to lead us now as we sing, then I’ll be back and we will read together Philippians chapter 3, verses 7 through 11.
We are going to be reading today from Philippians chapter 3, verses 7 through 11. Now you notice the very first word refers to something that has already been said. And we are going to get to that before we end. We begin with the reading of verse 7. “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Now let’s go to God in prayer. Holy Father, we are so thankful to You for this passage of scripture that gives us an insight into the change in a great man’s life by his faith in the resurrection from the dead of our Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen!
I hope that you noticed we read in our text that it was the apostle Paul’s ambition in life, his personal commitment, that in spite of all the afflictions and trials of living for Christ, he “might know the power of His resurrection..... if, by any means, he might attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Oh, I would like to divide this story into three sections: (1) Paul’s life before he knew Christ was raised from the dead; and the power of this faith in his life after he learned it and (3) the power of Christ’s resurrection on our lives and the lives of other people. Let’s get on with the first one, what do you say?
Our first introduction to Paul, or Saul as he was known before his conversion, is in the last paragraph of the seventh chapter of the book of Acts. He’s present there at the stoning of Stephen, a beloved disciple of our Lord. Stephen was preaching a sermon in which he had charged the Jews (his own kinsmen mind you) with being “stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears.” Oh, he went beyond that, though. He asked them: “Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?” He also called them betrayers and murderers. Whew, that’s strong preaching! We don’t hear that kind of preaching anymore. We’re too polite nowadays to preach that kind of sermon. Consequently, we don’t hear or read many stonings of preachers, either, do we? There would probably be fewer getting the “call” to preach if there were more such stonings. Well, anyway, the Scripture says, “When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth...” That is verse 54.
Saul was in that group. As a matter of fact, he was the “ring-leader” of it. While the Scripture doesn’t say he was, or that he even cast a stone at Stephen, it does say that “the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul” (Acts 7:58). And, some say that it was the custom of those who did the stoning to lay down their garments at the “ring-leader’s” feet. So, if that’s so, Saul was the leader.
Following that terrible incident Saul continued, maybe he even intensified his persecution of Christ. The Scripture says, “As for Saul, he made havoc of the church entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison” (Act 8 and 3). And Acts 9:1 to 2 says, “Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were in the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.”
“As he journeyed and he came near to Damascus, and suddenly a bright light shone around him from heaven. And Saul was blinded by the brightness of that light. He fell to the ground, and he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”
He said later that from his youth he had lived in Jerusalem. So, he was there when Jesus was coming in and going out of the city. He was bound to have heard about, if he hadn’t seen some of our Lord’s miracles and he heard some of His teaching for sure. But he didn’t believe He was the Son of God. He thought Jesus was a fake “Messiah,” an imposter. Well you know there had been others who had made that claim, who were proven to be false. We’re sure he knew about Christ’s crucifixion, though, because he said to Governor Festus in the presence of Agrippa that it “was not done in a corner,” meaning, of course, “everybody knew about it!” So, Festus and Agrippa must have known about it. Well, Saul would have known about it, too, then, wouldn’t he? Furthermore, Saul knew the twelve apostles were going around preaching everywhere that God had raised up Jesus Christ from the dead. This to him was a lie, the heresy of all heresies! It was deceitful and blasphemous and Saul, in all good conscience would be one who would silence such claims and those who were spreading them!
Then on the road to Damascus the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” If Jesus is alive, and Saul is engaged in conversation with Him, He is risen from the dead, then, isn’t He? Saul’s response was, just as you might expect, “He trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what do you want me to do? Then the Lord said to him, Arise and go into the city, and it will be told you what you must do.” Saul told King Agrippa about all that. He said, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” He went into Damascus and a disciple of the Lord there, whose name was Ananias, came and asked him, “Why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” He did so! Luke, God’s inspired historian, wrote “...he arose and was baptized” (Acts 9, verse 18).
Listen, please, to how Saul describes his past life, himself. To an angry mob of Jews, threatening his life, he said, “I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law, and was zealous toward God as you all are this day. I persecuted this Way to death, binding and delivering into prison both men and women, as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished.” That is Acts 22, verses 3 through 5.
Well, that’s an apt description of Saul’s past, too. Now, after his conversion he said, “If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so; circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3, verses 3 through 8).
Well, this bitter enemy of Christ became the apostle of Christ, called out of due time as it were, to go to the Gentile world “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Christ Jesus” (Acts 26, verses 17 and 18). My friend, what do you see as the motivating power in that man’s life that compelled him to give up everything to preach Christ Jesus? Oh! I know what you’re going to say. It was “the power of His resurrection.” Once He met Christ on the Damascus Road, being convinced that He was raised from the dead and that He lives on, Saul, or Paul, never looked back. Everything he had that would make any Jewish man proud, he gave up and counted them but rubbish that he might gain Christ. He knew the power of His resurrection in his own life, and he preached it with passion to other people.
For example: He told Agrippa of the power of Christ’s resurrection on himself. He said, “Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout the whole region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, and turn to God, and do works befitting repentance” (Acts 26:19 and 20). He asked Agrippa, “Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead” (Acts 26 and 8)? Well, old Governor Festus shouted, “Paul, you are beside yourself! Much learning is driving you mad!” “But King Agrippa said to Paul, You almost persuade me to become a Christian.” That’s precisely what Paul intended to do, to persuade him to become a Christian. Some preachers and others think he was ridiculing Paul, but I don’t think so. One reason I don’t think so is because the apostle took him seriously.
Another example: Paul is often credited with having preached the “second greatest speech in all of world literature,” second only to Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. That speech, or sermon, (Well, of course, all sermons are speeches, but not all speeches are sermons) anyway, it’s known as “Paul’s Sermon on Mar’s Hill” and it’s a sermon about God who was unknown to those people. Oh yes, they had their gods alright, surely they did, but not God. The sermon’s found in Acts chapter 17, verses 22 to 32. And according to verses 31, 32, 34 Paul said, “He (meaning God) has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, We will hear you again on this matter...However, some men joined him and believed, among them was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.”
Example Number three: From Athens, a city known for its philosophers, Paul went to Corinth, a commercial city, perhaps the most sinful, indulgent and debased city of that day. And what do you suppose he preached to them? Let’s see. He said, “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you (when I was there), which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast to that word which I preached to you-- unless you believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I received: how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; that He was buried; and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas (that would be Peter), and then by the twelve. And after that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to this present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then of all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen of me also, as one born out of due time.” That is 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 to 8.
“Now,” he says, “if Christ be preached that He was raised from the dead, how do some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead rise not. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; and you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished” (1 Corinthians 15:1 to 19). Then he concludes his chapter on the resurrection with this victory. Note! Listen please: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be you steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” Let us pray. Holy Father, we are so thankful that You raised up Christ and You give us hope of a resurrection from our own graves to live with You in Him and because of Him throughout eternity. Amen!
I have cast my life with the apostle Paul on the resurrection of Christ. How about you, friend? The motivating force in my life has been and continues to be the power of His resurrection. I not only believe that Jesus died for my sins; I believe, too, that He was buried and raised from the dead and lives forever. Therefore, I am not ashamed that I was “buried with Him through baptism into [His] death, that just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, I too, was raised with Him, to walk [with Him] in newness of life,” just as we read in Romans 6 and 4. I stake my hope of a home in heaven on it.
Would you confess Him, turn from your worldly lifestyle and be buried with Him and raised with Him in baptism now, even today, friend? We’ll help you do that any way we can. Be prompt about it, will you? If you need assistance with locating a church of Christ, someone who can and will assist you in obeying the gospel of Christ; well, if you would like that or if you would like a free printed copy, or a CD or an audio cassette tape of the program titled, “The Power of His Resurrection,” simply mail your request to In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083, or by e-mail to searchtv@searchtv.org. Or, you may want to view the program again, hear the message or read it along with others on the website. It’s at www.searchtv.org. And, our toll-free telephone number for your use is 1-800-321-8633.
Well, we’re sponsored here by some churches of Christ in the area and some individual Christians. They would dearly love to have you visit a Bible class or a worship assembly with them. We’d like that too. Why don’t you just do that, even today if you still have time? Well, God bless you. We love you.
|