Resurrection Hope 1 Corinthians 15

Transcription

1 KCC Dec2014 Resurrection Hope 1 Corinthians 15 Turn to 1 Corinthians 15 please. Here s a blessing that Dave read last Sunday, and I ended with it: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. The last line says, So that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I know what that line means. There were two or three years of my life during which this was my story. I overflowed with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I would not have said it that way in those days. I did not know about this verse. What I did know was that the common Christian hope took hold of my soul and was a huge force in my day to day life. I was in a hard place in those days, a deep personal struggle, this is not the place to talk about it, if you want to know more you ask and I ll tell. In that place the Spirit moved in me, and taught me, and brought me to this: that I was ready to live in that distressing situation for the rest of my life, I was about 30 then and in my mind I had about 40 years to go, I will serve the Lord like this for 40 years because he was waiting for me with an inheritance for me that eye had not seen, nor ear heard, not the heart of people imagined. I don t know if I could have sustained that for 40 years. I did not have to, life got better, but this was my bedrock for a few years. I was overflowing with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I did nothing special to get this. I did not seek it, or pray for it, I was doing no spiritually powerful thing to receive this from God. It was a grace gift from God. I was desperate, I said: Help, God. What is happening? Help me! And I started to notice these things in the Scripture, the things Debi spoke on a month ago about why we do not lose heart, and what we talked about last Sunday from 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, and will cover this Sunday from 1 Corinthians 15. And the power of those truths overwhelmed my soul, my life. In these hope sermons I am giving the Holy Spirit something to work with. The Original Four Spiritual Laws 1 Cor 15:3-5 - For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. Four statements (not laws ) that probably go back to the 11 disciples themselves. This is what they told evangelists to preach: One, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and two, that he was buried; and three, that he was raised the third day according to the Scriptures; and four, that he appeared to many of his followers, beginning with Peter.

2 2 In the early church, that was the gospel. More than anything else, that was what people needed to hear. It is not laws, of course, it is a story in four sections, the story of the most important parts of Christ s life. And everything in those four lines is crucial. They could not condense it any more than that without losing essentials. And another reason to get this straight, my brothers and sisters, is that YOUR story and MY story boils down to the same elements. We will die, and we will be buried, and we will be raised, and we will be seen by many of Christ s followers. The Corinthian Problem - 15: What exactly did the Corinthians not believe about resurrection? Some of them did not think believers would be raised from the dead. They all believed Christ was raised from the dead, but some of the thought believers would not be raised. Why did they say no resurrection of believers from the dead? Because they did not think they needed it, they thought it unnecessary, or not helpful. That s remarkable, we can only guess how they got there. But all the way through 1 Corinthians 15, this long chapter, Paul argues that they and we NEED the resurrection. No part of Christianity works without the resurrection. We must have resurrection for our faith to work. That is apparently what they needed to hear. No Resurrection, no Christian faith 12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. If believers are not raised, then Christ is not raised, and then our Christian past is useless. Someone told us the gospel, and we believed, but if there is no resurrection, the gospel and faith are both useless. If believers are not raised, then Christ is not raised, and then our Christian present is useless: because we are still in our sins. If believers are not raised, then Christ is not raised, and then our Christian future is lost: those who have died in Christ are lost, and we are without hope. There is a certain view of Christianity around that I want you to beware of. It is common, and it is this: we measure how well our faith in God is working by how many kindnesses of God we can bring to ourselves. People differ on what kind of kindness from God that they want.

3 3 This error says: if we don t have too many troubles, and if we are satisfied, then Christianity is working. If we do have quite a few troubles, and we are not satisfied, then our Christian faith and obedience are not working. Watch out for this view. God certainly brings good things into our lives now because we are his children. But we dare not measure our own faith, or Christianity generally, by the amount of goodness from God that we get. Jesus said, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23) Every day we deny ourselves and get ready to die, and we that mindset we follow Jesus. That is the measure of our faith and obedience. And this is for everyone, and it is the way to eternal life: whoever wants to be my disciple. We use the resurrection to give hope to believers near death, or to those who have lost a loved one. That is not enough. We don t make the resurrection is part of daily living for healthy Christians, we don t make Christian hope part of daily living for healthy Christians. In this way our faith is immature. The Corinthians were prosperous (1 Cor 4 they lived like kings), proud, had many remarkable gifts of the Holy Spirit, and were selfish. They were also worldly and immature, and some of them did not need the resurrection. Paul, though, denied himself and risked his life, he could not imagine living one way without his hope in the resurrection. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. A gospel music artist sang this song long ago, and he still sings it: if heaven never was promised to me, it has been worth it all, just having the Lord in my life. Paul s thinking was as far from this as one could get. For Paul, it was NOT worth it without hope. The Corinthians were not being persecuted, and neither Paul nor any other place in the NT ever wishes persecution on any believer, so do not begin to say that persecution would have done them good. My point is that Christian hope is essential for all Christians, for us to live well. 1 Corinthians is 16 chapters long. Two chapters near the end are the main pillars of this book, chapter 13 on love, and chapter 15 on hope. Everything earlier leads up to these two high points: the love chapter and the hope chapter. We in this church hear the call to love, though sometimes don t love well; but I don t think we get Christian hope. I urge you: be faithful to the Lord one day at a time, in this life, because our inheritance from God, after this life, will make it all worthwhile, a thousand times over. Christianity as Paul understood it was openly worthless and foolish without resurrection hope. It was never intended to make sense in this life only.

4 4 If we have Christ in this life only, we are the most pitiful people of all. Just like Christ, we also will die, be buried, we will be raised, and be seen by other disciples. This way of living makes no sense to the world. And I will tell you that I have read Christian books that criticized this way of thinking, and heard Christians criticize it. They say it is naïve and too disconnected to this world. Don t be fooled by talk like that. Peter opens 1 Peter by telling us that by God s grace we were born again into hope, into a living hope, born again into waiting for an inheritance that God promised and is bringing to us. Later, Peter says, be ready always to answer those who ask you the reason for your hope. I have found that a peculiar line: ask us about our hope? But it is only peculiar because hope in our inheritance is not a big part of how we live our daily lives. Our Bodies and Our Inheritance vv But someone will ask, How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come? 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. 50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. God has an inheritance planned for his children. We are his children, and will receive his inheritance. But our present bodies simply cannot receive what God has for us. What is your favorite meal? If you were hungry and could imagine the meal of your choice, what would it be? What would be the most satisfying meal you could imagine? Now imagine yourself holding a two week old baby in your lap, and cutting up your meal into small pieces and sharing with this infant, spooning some of it into the baby s mouth. That s a bad idea, not a good picture. No matter how good that meal is, and how much that baby would enjoy it in twenty years, the baby will not enjoy the meal, in fact the food would be bad for the child. God giving us our inheritance now would be like you feeding an adult meal to an infant. The child can t use it. Fred likes to ride bikes, and Tiffany likes to ride horses. Try putting the two week old baby on a horse, or on a bike. Bad idea. These gifts are no use to an infant. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. We do not come into real life unless we are planted and die and are then made alive, just like happened to Jesus. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in

5 5 weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. THEN we can inherit the kingdom of God. We will not all die, but we WILL ALL be changed 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. What a day that will be! I would love to be alive on that day, not just to avoid death, but to hear the trumpet and experience the raw excitement of knowing that THIS is the Day of the Lord. The crucial thing here Paul writes two time: we will all be changed. A whole generation of believers will not die, but even those ones have to be changed. Why? Because this flesh and blood cannot inherit what God has planned and promised for all his children. Resurrection Hope and Daily Life - 58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. The result of all this is that we always give ourselves fully to serving the Lord. Be firm in this, don t be steered off this. Always give yourself completely to serving the Lord. Because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain. Paul does not mind saying that serving the Lord is labour. We work for the Lord, we serve him, it is labour. It is okay to speak of a life of obedience in that way. Paul says of the Thessalonians: you turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath. We turned from idols to serve God, and to wait for Jesus. That s Paul s summary of Christian faith. We turned from idols to serve the true God and to wait for his Son, Jesus. Back to 1 Corinthians: Because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain. In other words, if there was no resurrection hope, then our labour in the Lord would be in vain, empty, futile, a waste of energy. But giving ourselves fully to the work of the Lord, giving ourselves fully to serving the Lord, is NOT empty, NOT a waste of energy, because we have hope. After we serve, we will inherit the kingdom that God has prepared for his children. Serving the Lord was not designed to make sense within the boundaries of this life. Resurrection hope is not only for the dying and for funerals. This hope is for everyone, including the young and the healthy, to encourage us to serve the Lord with all our hearts every day. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.