Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Can Easter Offer Hope, Even to Cynics? | Mark | 1 Corinthians 15.58

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Tim Minna Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. My name is Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. If this podcast has been helping you in your walk with God, would you take five seconds to help us? Hop onto Twitter and follow our new Twitter account at TMBT Podcast. If you go there, you can see our latest episodes. You can also follow Keith and I and send us messages. We'd love to follow you back and see what's happening in your life.

Starting point is 00:00:34 Right now we're asking, who is Jesus? Easter is far and away the most significant day in my personal faith. Of course, on Easter, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and that really forms the foundation of Christianity. If you take out the resurrection of Jesus, and by resurrection, I mean bodily resurrection of Jesus. Well, you take that out, and there's no Christianity left. But Easter is also important to me because it changes the way I live my life.

Starting point is 00:01:03 it shapes the way I live my day-to-day life. I just want to take a few minutes today and think about how the resurrection, the message of Easter, brings hope to our life. I have been called cynical, and unfortunately, I have to plead guilty as charged. I do have this cynical streak in me, and I've got to constantly monitor it or else it will send me into a tailspin, causing me to doubt that anything I do really matters. I think I'm prone to see my life as being really busy but not necessarily significant. Busy, but not really making a difference. My best guess is that my cynicism comes from growing up in a home where both my parents were involved in high-level state politics. Our kitchen was, quite literally, at least when it came to state politics, the room where it happened. As a young teenager,

Starting point is 00:01:55 I was the bartender serving drinks to the state power brokers, in on their conversations. As I listen to them process political strategy, as I listen to the way they talked about each other and about their political opponents, it's true that I grew more cynical, but at least I never viewed politicians through rose-colored glasses. I don't think I'm alone in my cynicism. We want to trust people and give them the benefit of the doubt, but it sounds hopelessly naive. We've been burned too many times. Many of us feel like we're losing the ability to trust anyone ever. I had one of my friends in a Bible study the other day tell me, I don't trust anyone. I trust nothing I hear from the government, nothing I hear in the media,

Starting point is 00:02:41 and I don't blame them. If that's you, I know how you feel. But the problem is that it doesn't work out very well in real life. The inability to trust other people, the inability to believe the best about them, it leads to a lonely, isolated life. You see, to the cynic, everyone has an agenda. No one can be trusted. Everyone is kind of spinning the facts or spinning the truth for their own advantage. If you like to follow politics, you know that, say, in a presidential debate, there's the first debate between the two candidates. And then there's what happens in the second debate in the spin room after the debate. See, that's where the candidate's representatives get a chance to tell their version of the truth to the news media, hoping to shape the news coverage.

Starting point is 00:03:34 The spin room is where a lot of things get said that can't really be trusted. It's where facts are fluid. It's where people's personal agenda overrides their quest for the truth. What happens when the whole world becomes a giant spin room? well, I guess we're finding that out, aren't we? This mistrust that we have? Well, it gives birth to cynicism, and cynicism leads to despair. And when despair is full grown, we lose hope that we can make a difference. Do you know the pull of cynicism? Do you know what it feels like to not trust anyone? Do you know what it feels like to think there's not much hope in this world? Things are never going to get better.

Starting point is 00:04:23 well just live for myself and check out because there's nothing I can do that's really going to make a difference. But here's the thing. The phrase despairing Christian is kind of like the ultimate oxymoron. Those two words shouldn't really go together. How do you believe that with God, all things are possible and yet simultaneously lose hope that people and the world can really change? Well, here's how you misunderstand Jesus's resurrection. See, sometimes Christians are so focused on presenting evidence that the resurrection actually happened, that they lose sight of what difference the resurrection makes in our life. As important as it is to ask, did it happen?

Starting point is 00:05:14 That shouldn't distract us from asking, what difference does it make? Now, here's where it gets really odd, because a lot of times Christians think, about the resurrection in ways that the Bible doesn't. For many Christians, the main benefit of Jesus' resurrection is that they'll go to heaven when they die. But do you realize the Bible never talks that way about Jesus' resurrection? Instead, the Bible says that the resurrection declares that Jesus is God's Messiah, the Christ, God's anointed king.

Starting point is 00:05:50 The Gospels tell us the story of how King Jesus defeated all the rival kings, whether it was Herod's family or Caesar or the dark spiritual forces under the authority of Satan, who's called the ruler of the kingdom of the heir in Ephesians 2. Jesus' opponents, they thought they defeated him at the crucifixion, but in reality they had enthroned him. Jesus won by giving his life. he won by dying. It's after the resurrection that Jesus announces in Matthew 28, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Jesus is the reigning and universal king. So we live our life between two worlds, the world as it is now corrupted by sin and the world of the resurrection in which sin and death have been defeated. Jesus taught us to pray that God's will come to our world. He taught us to pray, may your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in

Starting point is 00:06:56 heaven. He taught us to pray that the two worlds, our world and the world of the resurrection would become one world. And we have his promise that when he returns, that is exactly what will happen. So if we know that God's kingdom is coming, it turns cynics like you and me, into optimists. You see, cynicism says, don't waste your time mentoring a kid because all that mentoring is so incredibly insignificant compared to all the disadvantages he faces. Cynicism says that addicts can't change, that the community is too divided for racial harmony, that a small group meets too infrequently to make much of a difference, that a 30-minute sermon isn't going to change anyone's life. Cynicism says that too many years have passed for this marriage to turn around, that the school system is too broken to justify running for school board, that we live in a world of sin and death, so you might as well make the best of it you can.

Starting point is 00:08:01 Cynicism says that this world is too messed up for you to make a difference. The resurrection takes a clear-eyed view at this broken world and agrees with cynicism's diagnosis, but not the prognosis. Yes, the world is messed up, but Jesus is risen. Yes, you're only one person, but Jesus reigns. Yes, injustice and oppression are real, but Jesus's kingdom is coming. Paul talks in 1st Corinthians 15 about the resurrection of Jesus. And at the end of that discussion, at the end of 1 Corinthians 15, he gives, I think, the ultimate reason to keep pressing on to love and good deeds. to keep pressing on to prayer, to keep pressing on to coming to church, to keep pressing on to serving, to keep pressing on in growing in our faith, to keep pressing on in being involved in our community,

Starting point is 00:08:57 whether it's mentoring kids or fighting for justice or making a difference in your school PTA, in the face of insurmountable obstacles, or what at least seems like insurmountable obstacles, Paul gives us the ultimate motivation to keep going. Here it is, 1 Corinthians 1558, the last verse of the chapter, therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. See, he knows that we are prone to have feet of clay. He knows that we are prone to give up easily. He goes on to say, let nothing move you.

Starting point is 00:09:34 Let nothing move you. All the distractions, all the obstacles, all the reasons why you should give up. Don't be moved. Don't cave. Don't cower. Okay, back to Paul. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Whether it's inside the church community or outside the church community, he says we should always be giving ourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Whether it's activism or prayer or inside your business where you work, if it's a small group you lead, or if it's a friend that you counsel, or whatever it is that you are doing in life for God, always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord.

Starting point is 00:10:18 Here's why now, because you know your labor and the Lord is not in vain. God uses it. It makes a difference. It advances his kingdom. We know how this story ends. Jesus wins. We know his kingdom comes. The resurrection says,

Starting point is 00:10:37 that your prayers and your sacrificial giving and serving, and that your work and your counseling and your friendships and your efforts, they matter. Cynicism is ahead today. If you look at the scoreboard right now, cynicism is ahead, but love wins the future. The resurrection of Jesus guarantees that. So whatever you do, don't give up. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Can Easter Offer Hope, Even to Cynics? | Mark | 1 Corinthians 15.58

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