The Power of the Resurrection

Easter Sunday 12 April 2009
Speaker: David Tan
Text: Philippians 3:7-11

Php 3:7-11 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

In contrast to some of our uncertain grasp of the historical significance of Jesus’ bodily resurrection, Paul had no such reservations. A single encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus changed Paul around. He became a believer, an apostle, a writer of much of our NT (13 out of 27 books), a church planter, and one of the greatest living missionaries in the spread of Christianity.

So central was this experience of Jesus that Paul called Jesus his Lord, and himself Jesus’ humble slave. His whole life was completely overturned, and a new life was reconstructed to hold a new centre, a new purpose, a greater reality – Jesus the risen Lord.

Paul went on to declare in his letter to the Philippian Christians that he not only counted knowing Jesus of greatest worth, he wanted to identify with Him in every way – and he wanted to know the ‘power of his resurrection’ pressing on to experience it in increasing vitality and in greater depth, with all-consuming passion.

What does the power of Jesus’ resurrection mean to us?

1.The promise of salvation

In 1 Cor 15:2-5, Paul said that the gospel that saved came from believing that Jesus died for our sins, and that he was buried and was raised from the grave. Unless this forms part of our confession, we dare not call ourselves Christian. Salvation also includes being rescued from death. If we think our salvation only comes after death, our bodies decomposing in the ground while our spirit lives on somewhere, then we have not been rescued from death. This is why for us to be truly saved, death our last enemy (1 Cor 15:26) had to be meaningfully defeated. Jesus defeated death by his physical resurrection.

2. The hope of new creation

1 Peter 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

2 Corinthians 5:15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again…… Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation

The day a person puts his trust in Jesus, the old familiar way of life is interrupted – and something new takes over. What the Bible calls ‘new creation’ also means in the words of John Piper, a new taste. The child of God finds new hunger and new thirst for the things of God. God’s people need to remember that this new creation starts here and not after we die. This new creation is part of God’s Kingdom project, and therefore Christianity cannot be merely a private faith.

When we live outside this framework of God’s new creation, which is also the inauguration of God’s Kingdom, we miss the fullness of Christ – much like a musician performing alone is deprived of glorious music that’s only possible in a full orchestra.

The church of God is at the center of this new creation framework (Eph 1). This is why the early Christians met on the first day of the week – Sunday – to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus and to mark the renewal of faith in their risen Lord. On this day of worship, symbolic of Easter, they met and anticipated God’s renewing power at work in their lives.

3. The key to endurance

1 Peter 1:6,7 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Philippians 3:13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

One reason why conflict and pain are to be expected is because we live in the framework of Jesus' resurrection, while in the world, Jesus' victory is denied and rejected. However, the power of Jesus’ resurrection is a great source of divine strength in the face of such trials and suffering whatever their cause. Meanwhile, like Paul, we have a race to run. The prize is in heaven. But here on earth, we are called to finish the race. Easter gives hope of salvation, motivation to participate in God’s Kingdom, and power to overcome the past and complete the race.