Sermon Text: 1 Cor 15: 1-8; 12-20
When difficult seasons of life roll in nobody ever steps back and says, “Yes! Widespread hardship! This is exactly what I was hoping and waiting for!” Nevertheless, challenges do have a way of causing you to step back and ask, “What am I really banking on? Am I building my life on a foundation that’s strong enough to prevent circumstances beyond my control from taking it away?”
Today we gather to remember and celebrate the only hope capable of carrying a human life through anything that this world can bring.
People have not gathered for the past 2,000 years to proclaim, “The economy has risen, it has risen indeed.” They have not gathered to shout the dollar has risen over the world market, or average life expectancy is risen, or the employment rate has risen, or residential home values have risen, or the value of your 401(k) has risen. Here’s the one indestructible hope that has strengthened human beings across the world for two thousand years in the face of the difficulties of poverty, disease, pain, all manner of hardship, and even death itself: Jesus Christ is risen – indeed!
Depending upon who you are that may seem like an abstract concept. You may ask, “What does Jesus Christ’s resurrection have to do with my life in this world today?” We’re going to seek to answer that question this morning against the backdrop of three questions: How much are you worth? How secure is your future? Is your past forgivable?
Hoping that the answers to those questions give you strength and joy,
Will (for the pastors)
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