Sunday, March 31, 2013 - 5:45 pm

Happy Easter! Today we celebrate Jesus' resurrection - His victory over death, on all our behalf. This is the central point of Christianity, as Pastor Kip explained in his sermon today. Without the resurrection, Christianity would have been over and done with at the cross, but in a very short time it was growing in leaps and bounds, crossing cultural, social and economic barriers and reaching people of all backgrounds. Sometimes new believers would bring different ideas and beliefs into the church, and in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is writing to set the record straight. People were setting aside the resurrection, believing something which seems very modern, very tolerant - that sincerity of faith is more important than content. The idea being that as long as you sincerely believe something, it doesn't really matter what you believe. The only real problem with that idea is that it makes absolutely no sense. Belief doesn't bend objective reality to our whims and preferences, if we have wrong beliefs they will affect our lives. According to Paul, of everything we believe, there's one thing which it is absolutely essential that we get right. Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and raised to life again, and appeared to many witnesses. We don't just have faith for the sake of faith, we have the truth, and hope in a God who knew we couldn't fix ourselves, so despite knowing all of our faults and sins He came to us as we are and absorbed the punishment for our sin, so that we could be restored to a relationship with Him, because He loves us. Now that really is good news.