Introduction<\/b><\/p>\n
It is good to be with you here on this first Lord\u2019s Day of the new year, 2022. I have been asked to speak to you today about the resurrection of Christ and the continuing ministry or continuing work of Christ. Or another way to put it is to say the resurrection of Christ and the progress of history. Or even another good way to put it is to say that resurrection of Christ and it\u2019s victorious results. This is a fitting subject to consider as we begin a new year. The year is A. D. 2022. A. D. is short for a Latin phrase by which we count time, Anno Domini, which means \u201cthe year of our Lord.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So as you think about the year that you just had, maybe for some of you it was a very difficult year with lots of sadness and heartache. Maybe for others of you it was a really great year. But if you are a Christian, no matter how many difficult and hard things happened that you had to walk through this past year, it was still a good year, a year in which God was working things for your good. It was still a year in which Jesus was still alive and well, resurrected from the grave. It was still a year in which Christ sat on His throne, ruling and reigning over all the work, advancing His Kingdom, saving His people, and judging His enemies.<\/span><\/p>\n Maybe you had a year in which you sinned and failed a lot to believe that, or to trust in the providence of God, or to rest in Christ, and so enjoy the peace and comfort that belongs to you as a Christian. But those of you here today are here because God has seen fit to let you into another year of His reign, and He has let you enter alive into another year of His era of victory on the earth. You see, the year we have entered into is the Year of our Lord, 2022. And it is yet another year in which Jesus is still resurrected from the grave. It is another year in which Christ is still seated on His throne, ruling and reigning. It is another year in which the Kingdom of God continues to advance, where Christ is saving His people and conquering His enemies. My friends, what a time to be alive. We have each been given at least the beginning of another year in which we can believe that and trust God and rest in Christ and have an unmovable comfort and joy no matter what happens this year. No matter what happens this year that is easy or hard, we can say this and believe this because it is true. This is how we are more than conquerors and how our faith overcomes the world. The reason we can say, \u201cno matter what happens, Christ is King and is on His throne,\u201d is because Jesus rose from the dead. It is because He died, was buried, and raised from the dead on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. There is nothing and no one that can undo that. Christ cannot be put back into the grave. This is a historical fact and it is the central tenet of the Christian faith. If you don\u2019t believe that Jesus rose from the dead and is alive today then you are not a Christian, and I implore you to repent of your sin and unbelief and believe upon the living Jesus Christ and be saved.<\/span><\/p>\n But if the resurrection of Christ is a central tenet of the Christian faith, then you would think that we would think about it more often, and that we would live like it more often. I hope to be able to help you do that today. You see, even as Christians, we often forget about the fact that we live in a world in which a dead person came back to life after three days in the tomb. That actually happened. It cannot be refuted. The world we live in is one which has been fundamentally changed since the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 that the resurrection of Jesus was the first fruits of resurrection. He makes the point that since Christ has resurrected, it is inevitable that all those in Christ will also resurrect from the grave. It will happen. It cannot be stopped, no matter how hard Satan tries. We in Christ, will rise again because Jesus rose as the first fruits from the dead. You see, if we believe that we live in a world in which people rise from the dead, then there is no bad thing that can\u2019t be fixed with a good resurrection. Christianity is a religion of resurrection. But resurrection implies death. You can\u2019t have resurrection without first having death. Therefore, Christianity is a religion of death and resurrection, founded upon the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.<\/span><\/p>\n Fruit Bearing Death<\/b><\/p>\n Listen to what Jesus says in John 12:24, \u201cTruly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0In the context of the passage, Jesus is talking about His own death, for the previous verse Jesus says that the hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified, which in John\u2019s gospel is a reference to His being lifted up on the cross. But notice how Jesus describes His death, or what He describes it as – He describes it as a seed being placed in the ground. The modern man often thinks of death in terms of returning to nothingness or becoming one with the elements of the earth. This is why you see modern people having cremations and then sometimes they will have their ashes thrown into the ocean or something like that. While it is true that Christ will have absolutely no problem resurrecting scattered ashes, this is not a Christian practice, it is an ancient pagan practice. Historically Christians have believed in burying the body. And one big reason is because Jesus describes His death as a seed being put into the ground. Death is emphatically not like ceasing to exist or becoming one with the earth. It is emphatically like planting a seed into the ground. And what does a seed planted in the ground do? It bears much fruit. In other words, it resurrects. It comes back up out of the ground. And a seed planted in the ground does not simply come back up out of the ground as the same seed that went into the ground, rather it comes back up out of the ground fruitful, as a flower, or a plant, or fruit, or vegetation – something better. This is, fundamentally, the nature of the death of Christ. His death was and is a fruitful death, because, one, He came back up out of death in resurrection, and two, He will lead us all out of death in resurrection in Him. You see, Jesus was not just describing His death here, He was also describing His resurrection. And notice that Jesus said that if a seed remains alone and is not planted in the ground then it remains alone. Or in other words it is unfruitful. So Jesus is essentially saying what I just said to you here, that in order to have resurrection, you have to have death. You have to first be put into the ground.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, if the death of Jesus is a fruitful death, that bears much fruit and multiplies and produces good fruit, then, as I said to you earlier, our world has been fundamentally changed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If Christ was a seed planted in the ground, He has, does, and will continue to bear much fruit. This means that His life and death was not in vain, and if we are in Christ, neither is our life or death in vain, no matter how normal and important it may seem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So if Jesus\u2019 death and resurrection was like a seed being planted in the ground that produces much fruit, what then is the fruit that is produced, grown, and brought forth? The answer is truly too big to explore the depths of today. It is far more cosmic and detailed than we generally ever even think of. But I just want to go to some important biblical basics today. Consider Psalm 2:<\/span><\/p>\n