Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

This morning we’re continuing our “Re:series.” In this series, we are exploring the truth of Jesus’ resurrection by working our way through 1 Corinthians 15.

Our theme verse from this series is 1 Corinthians 15:17, which says, “Unless Christ was raised to life, your faith is useless, and you are still living in your sins.” (CEV)

The resurrection is at the very core of our faith. Everything we believe hinges on it. Everything that we are comes out of it.

Last week, we began by thinking about how Jesus’ death and resurrection reveals God’s love for us. It reveals just how far God will go for us. It also forces us to ask how far we are willing to go for God.

This week, our theme is Reset. As we really dig into 1 Corinthians 15, one of the first things we learn is that the resurrection of Jesus has the power to push the reset button in our lives.

Let’s start at the beginning of the chapter.

“Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4, NIV)

Now let’s skip on down to verse 20. “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:20-22, NIV)

That’s some complicated stuff to wade through, but when we break it apart, you find that it holds some critical truths for our lives and for our faith.

It all starts with this truth. We messed up our first chance.

If you watched last Sunday’s Bengals game, you’ll remember the missed kick. Near the end of regulation play, the Bengals had moved the ball to within field goal range. The Bengals kicker, Shayne Graham, was facing a 38 yard kick to win the game and send the Bengals into the playoffs. The entire season came down to one play. And Shayne Graham missed the kick. This sent the game into overtime, and the Bengals quickly proceeded to lose the game and to lose their chance at the postseason.

Shayne Graham had one chance to get it right, and he missed. He messed it up. And there was no penalty flag. There was no re-kick. There was no do-over. He had one chance and he missed.

That is exactly what every single one of us have done in our lives. We were given a chance and we blew it.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:22, NIV)

“In Adam, all die.” Paul is referring back to the creation of the world in the beginning of the book of Genesis. The first man’s name was Adam. And you’re probably familiar with the story. God had commanded Adam and his wife, Eve, not to eat from one specific tree in the Garden of Eden. However, they were disobedient to God and sinned by eating the fruit from that tree.

This first sinful act set the wheels in motion for the rest of humanity. It ushered sin into our world and we’ve been reeling from the consequences ever since. Adam chose to sin, and all of humanity after him has made the same choice.

But it is just that. It is a choice. Adam may have brought sin into our world, but he didn’t force it into our lives. No one forces us into sin. Like Adam, we’re faced with a choice. And like Adam, we have all chosen wrong. This is why Paul can say that “In Adam, all die.” The ultimate consequence of sin is death.

First of all, the consequence is a physical death. God never intended for Adam and Eve to die. Disease, suffering, and death were not in his blueprints for our world. But sin changed the equation and brought about the reality of physical death.

But even more significant is the reality of spiritual death. By choosing to sin, we are choosing spiritual death. We are choosing to separate ourselves from God, now and for the rest of eternity. And Paul reminds us that we have all made that choice. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been a part of the church your entire life or if this is your very first church experience. We’ve all messed up our first chance.

But here is the great news. Jesus’ resurrection gives us a second chance.

Let’s go back to what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15.

“But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:20-22, NIV)

We all had a chance and we all messed it up. We chose to sin, and then by extension, we chose death. But then here comes Jesus. Adam brought sin and death into our world, but Jesus brought grace and life through his death and resurrection. And the Bible teaches that this second chance is available to us when we accept Jesus as our Savior and we are baptized into him.

In the book of Romans, a book that Paul also wrote, he says, “Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:3-4, NIV)

Our baptism is inextricably linked to the death and resurrection of Jesus. When we are baptized into Christ, there is a death that occurs. Our old way of life, with all the sins and shortcomings and failures, is put to death. And the result is that, just as Jesus was raised to life after his death, we are also given a new life. His resurrection is our reset. It provides us with the second chance that we need.

The far reaching implication to this truth is that your past doesn’t matter. A lot of us walked in here this morning dragging a very painful past behind us. Choices that we made 20 years ago and choices that we made last night still haunt us. But the power of Jesus’ resurrection is the power to push the reset button in your life.

My favorite video game system ever is the Nintendo Entertainment System. I’m talking about the original system. No Super Nintendo, no Nintendo 64, no Nintendo Wii…we’re talking the original…old school.

For me, since I’m really no good at video games, the best part of the original Nintendo system was the huge reset button that was right on the front panel of the system. The reset button was there, promising me that if I made some serious mistakes in the game, all I had to do was push the button and all my mistakes were gone and forgotten and I got a second chance.

Jesus’ resurrection is our reset button. Without it, we would be doomed to a life of pain and regret and we would be doomed to an eternity separated from God in a real place called Hell. But instead, the resurrection is the power to put our past behind us and give us a second chance at life. To give us a second chance in our relationship with God. To give us a second chance in our relationship with other people. To give us a second chance in any area of our lives that we had messed up. We can’t really put into words how far-reaching and powerful the resurrection of Jesus is, but the amazing truth of it is that your past doesn’t matter.

And this also means that your judgment is invalid. If the power of resurrection means that a person’s past doesn’t matter to God, then we’d better be darn sure that it doesn’t matter to us either. We can’t assume the role of judge ourselves. We don’t have any right to judge what God has already erased. That goes for anyone who comes to faith in Christ, including ourselves.

In reality, our harshest judgments are often reserved for ourselves. But the truth of the resurrection is that, not only are our judgments about other people invalid, but the judgments that we pass on ourselves are also invalid.

I often struggle with feelings of being an absolute spiritual loser. There are people I know who just seem like spiritual giants and I’m just a little peon Christian. I look at my life and I see all these flaws and all these shortcomings. And I judge myself. Why does God even mess with me? Why would God love someone like me? I’m such a loser.

Sound familiar? But remember, the resurrection of Christ frees us from judgment, including the judgment that we place on ourselves.

So now we know that we all messed up our first chance. But the good news is that Jesus’ resurrection gives us a second chance. And now the news gets even better.

The resurrection gives us a third chance, a fourth chance, a fifth chance, and so on.

Let’s go back to the very beginning of 1 Corinthians 15.

Paul tells the believers at Corinth, “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:1-2, NIV)

The gospel that Paul preached is that Jesus died, was buried, and then physically rose to life after three days.

And Paul said that it is, “by this gospel you are saved.” We have to understand that Paul wrote Corinthians in Greek, and your Bible is a translation of that original writing.

It’s really possible that a better translation of this is, “by this gospel you are being saved.”

There is an aspect of our salvation that is a one-time event. You admit that you have sinned, you accept Jesus as your Savior, you are baptized into him. It’s a one-time event.

But there is another aspect of our salvation that is an ongoing process. And that is likely what Paul is talking about here. By the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are being saved. In other words, God is doing a perpetual work in our lives.

We have all messed up our first chance. And then we’ve turned around and messed up the second chance that God gave us. But the continuing work of Jesus’ death and resurrection means that we’re offered another chance. And then another chance. And then another chance. Isn’t that great news? The resurrection hits the reset button again and again and again in our lives. There is an old saying that says, “Be patient. God isn’t finished with me yet.” And even though that saying is old, it couldn’t be more true.

But there is something that we need to remember about all the chances that God gives us. It’s the last lesson we’re going to pull out of our text.

Chances are not excuses. The danger is that, since we know that God will always forgive us, then it’s party time. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. After all, God will forgive me, so bring it on.

And here’s where Paul says, “Whoa, wait a minute. Not so fast, compadre.”

Look at what he said in verse 2 again.

“By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:2, NIV)

We are saved, and we are being saved, by the gospel, that is the death and resurrection of Jesus, if we “hold firmly” to the truth.

Up until this point, it’s been all God’s doing. God gives us a second chance. Then God gives us multiple more chances because his salvation is a constant work in progress. But here is where our part of the deal comes into play. If God is doing all of that in our lives, his expectation is that we “hold firmly” to his truth.

If we interpret all of the resets that God gives us as a free license to sin, then we are not holding firmly to God’s truth. We’re not holding up our end of the bargain. And check out what the result of that is according to 1 Corinthians. Our faith is “in vain.” In other words, useless. Pointless. Worthless.

In the book of Romans, Paul said, “Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?” (Romans 6:1-2, NLT)

It’s quite easy to fall into what Philip Yancey calls “grace abuse.” Sin doesn’t seem like such a big deal since God’s forgiveness is limitless. So we sin and experience more grace. It’s kind of like what W.H. Auden said. “I like committing crimes. God likes forgiving them. Really the world is admirably arranged.” [For the Time Being (London: Faber and Faber, 1958), p. 116]

But we are called to “hold firmly” to God’s principles. The chances that given by the grace of God are not excuses to ignore the truth of God. They’re not excuses to live by our own rules, they’re not excuses to sin. Quite the contrary. A God who loves us enough to always give us another chance deserves our love and devotion and obedience in return.

As we wrap up this morning, let’s reflect on the amazing truth we have walked through today. We messed up our first chance. But the resurrection of Jesus hits the reset button, giving us a second chance. And then a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh chance and so on. And our response to all these chances God gives us is to hold firmly to him. To devote our lives to him, to live by his truth and walk in his principles.

This morning, if you find yourself in need of a reset, you need to know that God is a God of second chances. And third chances. And twentieth chances. And hundredth chances. It’s the power of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and it’s available to you. When you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and you are united with his death and resurrection in baptism, the floodgates of God’s second chance grace are thrown open. He hits the reset button and your past is gone and forgotten.

Or maybe this morning you find yourself committing some “grace abuse.” You believe in God’s grace, but you’re not holding firmly to God’s truth. You’ve allowed yourself to stray from the Lord and you don’t like where you’ve ended up. The reset button still works and God is willing to press it again. He simply invites you to come back to Him.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: 1 Corinthians 15, grace, resurrection, Romans 6, second chance, sin