Main idea: Let the truth of the resurrection message motivate you to fearlessly give up everything for Christ.
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Morning, everybody. want to extend a welcome to those of you who are visiting with us this morning as well. We're glad that you have chosen to be here with us on this Sunday morning. Let's get into First Corinthians 15, shall we please stand for the reading of God's Word. I'm going to read to you chapter 15, beginning in verse 29. And then we're gonna go all the way through to verse 34. Paul writes this otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? Why are we in danger every hour? I protest brothers by my pride in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day. What do I gain if humanly speaking, I fought with beasts and emphasis. If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Do not be deceived. Bad Company ruins good morals. Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right. And do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Father, we're thankful to be able to come to your inerrant and sufficient word together this morning. We're thankful for this passage. We're thankful for what it teaches us how it encourages inspires motivates us. As we consider the resurrection and all the implications of it, I pray that you'd help us to be attentive, help us to go out of this room at the end of today. Understanding what this passage means but also seeing how it affects our lives that we will be changed per these things in Jesus name. Amen. Please do have a seat. So this passage is very much a change passage, or series is marked by the gospel and I've entitled this sermon risen to change. And we'll see that unfold as we work our way through these verses. So what happens when I die? What happens when I die? I wonder if you have ever considered that question before? I'm sure you have. It's a question that worried me when I was an unsaved 10 year old boy living in Ivybridge. England. I would lay in my bed at night, wondering about this. And I didn't have the gospel. At that point. I'd never been to church. I didn't understand or have any kind of confidence or hope, in any truth, from God's word to answer that question. So I had no hope. I was I was lost. And I was worried about what would happen to me when I died. It's an important question. And God gives us clear answers to it. Through the Bible. His word is sufficient. He even answers this type of question. He answers questions about our daily lives like marriage and parenting. And he answers big questions about our eternity as well. Like, where am I going to be? When this life is over? Will I be anywhere? So the Bible clearly answers this question. It tells us that we will all die. Every single one of us will die. And Scripture is clear that we should all expect to live on after death. Death is not the end for anybody. Whether you're a believer or an unbeliever, Scripture tells us the unbelievers will be sent to a place of punishment for their sin. followers of Christ on the other hand, believers have had their sin paid for by Jesus. He died in our place. And we will live eternally with him because of that, in blessing and perfection. I think it's important for us to have a grasp on this question, as what we're considering in First Corinthians 15 Is this topic of the resurrection We need to be thinking through and have in just fresh in our minds that question what happens when I die? What happens? What like where am I going to be one second after I die for unbelievers who die before the second coming of Jesus. We know from Scripture that there are no second chances after death. Scripture actually tells us that for people that died before the second coming of Christ, they go to a place of torment, called Hades, to a rate to await their own resurrection. And that will be a resurrection to judgment that we're told about the end of Revelation, after which they will be thrown into the lake of fire hell, for eternity. But for believers who die. We go to heaven, to be with Jesus, until the Second Coming when he comes to rain on Earth. And it's at that point that we receive a physical resurrected body and live for eternity under him as he rains on Earth. Dan talked about this last week, as we were in the previous passage, on the Easter Sunday, that Jesus will be the fulfiller, on Earth of what Adam was created to do, but failed to do. If you remember all the way back to Genesis one and two, God created Adam and Eve, and he gave Adam this task, to have dominion over all creation, to rule all Creation under God. God was to be his authority, and he was to rule over the rest of creation. That was what Adam was supposed to do, but Adam sinned. And the consequence of that sin was death. And he was cut off from God. But Christ in the New Testament is called the second Adam. He came God in the flesh. He lived in perfect righteousness, He never sinned. And yet he was taken to the cross. And he still died, he died a death in the place of sinners like you and I, so that we could be forgiven of our sin and not bear that sin, debt or burden ourselves, not bear that punishment of death ourselves, because he took it in our place. And then he was risen. And he rains. And one day, he will rain once more on this earth, and He will do what Adam failed to do. Not only did he do what Adam failed to do by living perfectly seamlessly in His first advent. But when He comes again, second time, he's going to reign over the whole earth perfectly and Well, under the authority of the Father. So it's the physical, bodily resurrection at the Second Coming of Jesus, that's being spoken about in First Corinthians 15. But I think sometimes we can think that resurrection is something that begins in the Bible when Jesus is risen from the dead, like, oh, okay, Jesus has risen from the dead, He told the disciples that this was going to happen to him. And then, okay, well, Jesus has risen from the dead. So probably all believers are going to be risen from the dead as well. And we think about it in those terms. But in fact, resurrection is something that goes all the way throughout Scripture. Even in the Old Testament. We see things about resurrection. Go all the way back to Genesis chapter 22. And you find that story about Abraham and Isaac. So Isaac was the miracle child, that Abraham and Sarah had in their old age. I remember it, remember the story where Abraham, he takes him up the mountain, and he's gonna sacrifice Isaac, because God commanded him to, and his faith was tested there. And he, he continued to obey God, even though it was a really hard thing for him to do. And then just at the decisive moment, God says, Stop, don't sacrifice your son, I can see that you trust me, and you will obey what I call you to do. Listen to what Hebrews 11 And verse 19 says, about that incident with Abraham and Isaac. It says, By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he who had received promises was in the act of opera offering up his only son of whom it was said, through Isaac show your offspring been named.
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He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead. From which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. So even Abraham all the way back then 1000s of years before Jesus had a concept of resurrection, and believed in the resurrection power of God, and Job chapter 19, you guys hopefully are familiar with the story of Job. He was wealthy, he had a great life. And God removed all of that from him. His health was gone, his family was gone, his possessions were gone. And his life was basically in the gutter. And one of his friends comes by the name of Bill, dad, and he shares with job well, I think probably because God has done this to you, there must be some wickedness in your life, you must have been living in unrighteousness, or God would never have done a thing like this to you. And Job's response to that part of his response expresses hope, in a future bodily resurrection, even though God has him in the gutter right now. He says, I know that my Redeemer lives, this is Job saying this. And at the last he my Redeemer will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, some Bible say, after my skin is eaten by worms, after I'm dead and buried in the ground for a long time, Job says, Yet in my flesh, I shall see God whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. The resurrection is Job's hope, when he's going through this evil and it's our hope, in a life filled with evils and difficulties as well. Abraham Jobe, David, Second Samuel 12, and verse 23, after the death of his newborn baby is filled with resurrection hope, as well. He assumes that he will be he will be raised that there will be life beyond his death. So after his newborn baby dies, he says, But now he is dead, the baby is dead. What Why should I fast now that he's dead? Can I bring him back again, I shall go to him, but he will not return to me. So he's not going to come back to life, but I'm going to be resilient, and I will go to him where he is in the life after death. Isaiah 53 And verse 10, shows us that our resurrection, our resurrection is made certain by the completed work of Christ. It says this, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him, the Messiah. He has put Him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for gilt, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days, the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. So even though he goes through death, the Messiah will see his offspring. He will live resurrection, we see it there. And finally, I'll point you to Daniel chapter 12. And verse two, which predicts the events that we see at the end of revelation of the Second Coming of Jesus, Daniel says, Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake these to everlasting life by the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt. So as you hear passages like that, and as you reconsider what we have seen in First Corinthians 15, already, we should be left in no doubt, at this point that physical bodily resurrection is a part of all of our futures. And that leads us to the main idea for today for our passage, and is this. Let the truth of the resurrection message motivate you to fears fearlessly give up everything for Christ. Let the truth of the resurrection message. Most motivate you to fearlessly give up everything for Christ. If you picked up a faith weekly on your way in maybe You're new, or maybe you just don't know. But there's a way to follow along with the message on like the back third of that, if you want to take notes, or follow along with the main idea, or if the main idea was too long and you couldn't write it down, it's in there, okay. And then the points are in there, too. So you can follow along that way. So we're going to divide this passage into two parts. One part talks about our eternity. So our future. And the other part talks about our present case, the point number one is that the resurrection changes everything about your future. And we see that in verse 29. Let me reread that, just to refresh our minds. It says otherwise, what do people mean, by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? I know you're looking at that verse. And you're thinking, why are people baptized on behalf of the dead? Like, I don't get it either. What does that mean? So as I was studying this, I looked at some commentators, and they all agreed that this is one of the most difficult verses to interpret in the whole Bible. So let's try and do that now together. Okay. So I also I, I found a sermon by John MacArthur from 2010, where he preached this exact same passage. And he said to his congregation, he said this now, I know you've asked yourself, or have asked other people. What does that mean? Verse 29. And MacArthur says, I'm here to tell you, I have absolutely no idea what it means. I cannot be dogmatic. There are somewhere between 40 and 400 possible interpretations of that. So MacArthur is saying he goes on this right at the beginning of his sermon. And then he goes on to explain, this is my view. And here's how I got to the view. All he's saying is, there are other views as well. And just by looking at the words and looking at the Greek, looking at the language, and understanding history, it's not possible to be completely definitive about this. So what we're going to do together, you're like, you'll hear other good preachers that you trust with a different view than the one that I'm about to propose. So I'm going to bring you the view. And then I'm going to tell you how I got there. And I'm going to show you why I don't think the other main view that people hold is, is one that really stands up. Okay. So it's difficult for us to interpret this verse, because Paul mentions baptism for the dead, or baptism on behalf of the dead. However, your Bible translates it in passing. He doesn't get into detail about it, he's not trying to describe it, he's not in some explanation of what baptism is, and what it accomplishes. He's talking about resurrection, right. And it's not mentioned anywhere else in Scripture, either. It's not mentioned in other ancient writings of the time. And it's not a practice that historians have found any mention of in reference to Corinthian culture. So we just kind of see it here. And we're left thinking, I don't really have anything to compare this to, or anything else that helps me to understand this. Because the words as they appear here, don't come up anywhere else. So how are we going to know what it means? Well, the way that we determine what this verse means, is the same way that we determine what any other verse in the Bible means, right? We read it, we study it. We study the words, we studied the grammar, especially here we pray and ask God for help. Then we read the verse within its context. Here is chapter 15. We're right in the middle of a big explanation and talk about resurrection, and pull proving resurrection and the implications of resurrection, life after death, physical bodily resurrection. So we read it within its context, and then we determine how it fits in within the flow of the the argument that the writer is, is writing here. Then we go on and we answer this question. Does this verse present anything that appears Contrary to other teachings in Scripture that are clearly taught? So here you might say, Well, yeah, it seems like this verse is teaching the if someone living gets baptized on behalf of someone who's dead, then that somehow achieved some thing for them. So then what you do is you say, well,
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there's this one verse that maybe seems like it might be saying that. But then I've got all of these other verses that say that that never happens. Like, like, that's just not how baptism works. It's not how belief works. It's not how faith works. It's all between me and God. It's not me doing something. And then something happens for my mother, and it affects her relationship with God. She needs to have her own faith, she needs to have her own repentance, or my my son, like he needs to have his own faith, he needs to have his own repentance, right? So that's how we can know what a difficult verse is not saying. So we can say, well, we know all of these other verses are saying this. Therefore this one verse can can be contradicting that it can't be going against that. And then when you've gotten a bunch of information, and you've done your study, you can compare what you found to what Bible teaches you trust, say about the same verse. You can come to your pastors at church and say, Hey, I've been studying this. I think it means this. What do you think you can come to your elders, your Bible study leaders, you can come to your MacArthur or ESV Study Bible and see like, does what I've found match up with what they say, here. As I've looked, MacArthur has at least three sermons on this passage alone. And more on the whole of chapter 15. Piper has a sermon on it, and others too, so you can go to your favorites and see how it lines up with what you found. So there are two as I've worked through that process. There are two main views that commentators and preachers the itrust seem to hold. The first is this, and this is not the one that I hold, is the baptism was being vicariously performed on the living on behalf of people who had died. And it was accomplishing something for them. So guys that hold that view. They're not saying that that's right. They're just saying that there was some people that were doing this. So it'd be the equivalent of me saying something like this today. So like, if Paul was alive today, people that held that view, they would be saying something like, Well, you know, Mormons baptize living people on behalf of people that have already died. Even Mormons believe in life after death. So he's not saying that it's right. He's not saying that it's okay. But he's just saying, look, there are even these other people, even people that aren't Christians believe that there's something that comes after death. So that's one view. There are two main problems with that view. One is that if that were a common enough practice, in Corinthian culture, for Paul, to be aware of it and mentioned it in his letter, surely he would have addressed it somewhere as heretical and warned believers about it, he wouldn't have just brushed over it and not mentioned it anywhere else. But he doesn't write. The second reason, and this is probably the stronger one is that contextually, I think that there's a better fit. I think while we're at it, hopefully it goes without saying. A third thing to mention is that we know from other places in Scripture, that one person's faith or baptism does nothing vicariously for another person, that's very clear in Scripture. So you can't pray. And that you can pray and confess on somebody else's behalf and say, God, forgive them of their sins, and now they're going to be in heaven. No, it's between that person and God. You can't be baptized on behalf of another person. Right, you can't express faith on behalf of someone else. So that goes against Mormonism. It goes against a lot of Roman Catholic doctrine as well. It's all between an individual and the Lord. So the second view, and this is the one that I hold. Is this, that there was some people who are getting saved and being baptized, not on behalf of the dead, but because of the dead? Okay, so they're in this verse, there's this little Greek preposition, hoo pair, and it's the all important word, okay? It can be translated a number of different ways. And if you look at a few different versions of the Bible, you'll see different translations. In the ESV, which I think most of us have here, it says on behalf of, which is what I read, if you have the New American Standard, if you have the King James New King James NIV, it doesn't say on behalf of it says For what do people mean by being baptized for the dead? The legacy Standard Bible also says for, but it has a footnote down below that says it can also be translated because of because of so then, assuming that that's true. The question becomes, why on earth would someone get baptized because of a dead person? And that's where the context comes in. Last week, in verse 28, as Dan was wrapping up, he was talking all about God being are all in all, okay, God being premium, the most important, the center of everything, the focus of everything. And now he gets to this passage, and we see after verse 29, so that was 28. Then we get 29. After 29. We see Paul starts talking about martyrdom, people who are willing to give their lives because they trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is of such eternal worth, that I'm willing to even give my life for him and his message. People have been convinced of the Gospel by the life of a person who is now dead. People were being saved and baptized because of the testimony of dead people. How many of you have heard the phrase, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church? Have you ever heard that is believed to have originated in the second century, from a North African church father named Tertullian. And he lived in the height of Christian persecution as a rough time, Christians just merely for the fact that they professed faith in Jesus Christ, and said that they would follow him and believed that he was resurrected and the ruler and rain are over everything. Just because of that profession. Christians were beaten. They were whipped. They were chained up in prison cells. Some were fed to lions, some were burned alive, and put to death in many more cruel ways. Some have said the persecution purifies the church and all they mean by that is that when persecution comes, it forces church attenders to count the cost of following Christ. To ask themselves a question like, Am I really willing to give up the things of this world, possibly even my life to follow Christ faithfully. Many previously regular attenders and servers turn away when persecution heats up. Persecution purifies the church, sorts out the wheat from the chaff. Some have said as well persecution multiplies the church. Many turn away as they don't consider the value of Christ worthy of the cost of persecution. But others faith increases, or faith is born. And by God's grace, they become even more committed to sticking with Christ than they were before. And as the fiery faith of one is witnessed, some observers catch fire to and they say, I want to follow I want that. I want now, well, that person has I want the life. I want the passion, I want the forgiveness. I want the resurrection. I want all of it. I want well, that person has the fearlessness, the courage, the love. The book of Acts is full of this kind of stuff. It's been sweet. I've been reading it in my quiet time. I just got through chapter eight this morning. Listen to it play out in the death of the first martyr of the church, who is a deacon named Steven.
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In Acts seven, Steven preaches a sermon in which he accuses the current batch of of Jewish leaders of being just as stiffnecked just as uncircumcised, just as resistant of the Holy Spirit, as the Jews of the Old Testament were the ones that we read about in Moses time and the times of the prophets. They killed those who proclaimed the coming of the Messiah. The current batch of Jews actually killed the Messiah. Of course, the Jews were enraged at this accusation from Steven. They dragged him outside the city and threw heavy stones at him until he died. But all the while Stephens faith remained intact. His eyes were told in Scripture were fixed on Jesus. And his heart remained compassionate and merciful, toward even those who were murdering him, and attempting to thwart the gospel and destroy the church. Then we read in chapter eight, and verse one. After the death of Steven, it says there arose on that day, a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. So, all of the people of the church because of the persecution, some fled, some were scattered, some were pushed out, they were removed from their homes, all for professing faith in Christ and scattered around all the regions of Judea and Samaria. The church underwent persecution. And then in verse four, it says this, those who were scattered, went about preaching the Word. The gospel spread. It didn't remain contained within Jerusalem. But God used persecution to spread His gospel into Judea and Samaria. He used the martyrdom of Steven to progress the world reaching gospel advancing a program that he laid out in Acts chapter one and verse eight. Jesus said to his apostles, before He ascended into Heaven, you will receive power, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. This was God's plan, working our way one writer has said the bravery of martyred Christians inspires faith and boldness in those who observed that deaths think that's what verse 29 is getting. Or Gustin said this, the martyrs were bound, imprisoned, scourged, racked, burnt, rent, butchered, and they multiplied. Matthew Henry, a Bible commentator said this God sometimes raises up many faithful ministers out of the ashes of one. Sir, if there's no resurrection, pulsating, salvation is uninspiring. Is unappealing, and is pointless. But there is so isn't, there is a resurrection. So salvation, the Gospel following Jesus is inspirational. It's appealing, and it does have a point it has great purpose. The resurrection changes absolutely everything about all of our futures. It affects your eternity. Hebrews 927 says it is appointed for all men to die once and after that comes judgment. Death is not the end for any of us. All of us will live for eternity after we die. Some in the eternal punishment of God for our sin, some in the blessed freedom and peace of God, because we've been forgiven by him and made right with Him through the work of Jesus Christ. Someone want to ask you an important question. What's going to happen to you when you die? Where will you spend eternity? Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus ascended into heaven and He reigns over all things and he's going to return And he's calling you to come and follow him. He's calling you to come to him so that you can be forgiven of your sin. So if you haven't already turned to Christ, don't push away that invitation. I encourage you to talk to someone in our church, look at the person beside you find someone who regularly attends this church and talk to them about this stuff. Ask them to help understanding it. And they would be more than happy to point you in the direction of Christ. Alright, point number two. The resurrection not only changes everything about your eternity, about your future, it also changes everything about your present. The resurrection changes everything about your present. It's not just about where am I going to be when I die? It has huge implications and effects on your life right now. And we see that in verses 30 to 34. I'm going to read that again. Just to refresh us again. Why are we in danger every hour? I protest brothers by my pride in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day. What do I gain if humanly speaking, I fought with beasts emphasis, If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Do not be deceived. Bad Company ruins good morals. Wake up from your drunken stupor as is right. Do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God, I say this to your shame. So we're going to break the present down into two sub points and you can see that on the notes. The first one is this the resurrection motivates steadfastness. And we see that in verses 30 to 32. The resurrection motivates steadfastness in the present. In verses 30 and 31. Paul highlights the fact that he as well as other believers put their lives on the line to steadfastly follow Christ. We've already seen in the example of Steven one who was steadfast for the gospel, he believed it to the point that he was willing to die proclaiming it. The same can be said of Paul. In fact, not only that, but he was willing to die so that others could hear the Gospel. In Second Corinthians 11, Paul uses the example of his steadfastness through suffering, to prove himself and his message the gospel as true over that of false teachers who are attempting the Corinthians with a false gospel. Listen to what he says. Paul says, are they the false teachers? Are they Hebrews? So am I and the Israelites, so am I? Are they the offspring of Abraham? So am I are thy servants of Christ? I'm a better one. I'm talking like a madman. with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings and often near death. Five times I received at the hand of the Jews the 40 lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I was adrift at sea. On frequent journeys in danger from rivers danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles danger in the city, danger in the wilderness dangerous see danger from false brothers in toil and hardship through many a sleepless night in hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure. And apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me with my anxiety for all the churches. A Damascus the governor under King a Rita's was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through the wall and escaped his hands. All of that. The steadfastness of the apostle Paul, was motivated by his understanding that there was a resurrection. Peter and John, you could go to them as well as reading that just a few days ago, Acts chapter five. Remember that story? They get arrested for preaching the gospel and they get beaten and they get threatened. And as they're getting put back out,
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the leaders say to them, all right, Stop preaching about Jesus. And what do John and Peter say? They Fresh, fresh from being beaten and in jail. Pierre and John like, you tell us, should we obey a man? Or should we obey God? And what appear in John do, they go right back out and they start proclaiming the name of Christ again. They're willing to put it all on the line for the sake of Christ. In verse 32, of First Corinthians 15, Paul nails it for us, essentially saying this, if there's no resurrection, being steadfast and risking death for Christ, and the gospel is pointless. Why do I do all of this, we might as well just enjoy what there is to enjoy in this life. And then we will end a death. There's nothing more to come that we need to worry about if the resurrection is not true. Without the resurrection, life after death, there's no more point to life than eating and drinking good food, and doing the things that we enjoy. If the resurrection weren't true, if death was going to be the end for Paul, why would he or anyone put their life on the line? Again, in Paul's rhetoric, he draws us to the conclusion that he has been staying the whole way through, and that we see all that we see all the way through scripture, that there is a resurrection, there is a resurrection. So life isn't pointless. being steadfast in the Gospel, and in Christ is not pointless. Knowing that the resurrection is true, the death is not the end, means believers can put it all on the line in this life, and not fear the outcome. Ultimately, one second after we die, we will stand as believers with Christ in glory with the cares of this world behind us. Life is hard. I'm sure Paul thought that a lot of the time. This is hard. We go through hard stuff. There's a lot of distress. This law good stuff, too. There are many temptations not to be steadfast in this life. So how do we bear the fruit of steadfastness? How do we make sure that we are steadfast? John 15 Five tells us Jesus speaks to His disciples and He says, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is the bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. So if we just if we are to bear the kind of fruit that displays God as all in all, we must abide in Christ. Which brings us to the second sub point here. So the resurrection motivates steadfastness. Second is the resurrection motivates sanctification. The resurrection motivates holiness of living in a believer. And first, when you see these two verses, they simile point like the other verses in this passage, they seem random. You're like, what does this have to do with the resurrection? Why Why? Why is he talking about not going on sinning? Like, it just seems like he's gone off on a completely different tangent for two verses. And then he gets back to the resurrection. Again, I think this is this is why it's to do with the death, your definition of faith. Faith is living according to what you believe. living according to what you say you trust in. It's not just saying that you believe something that's not faith. It's it's when that belief affects your whole life. American history ready. The British guys gonna talk about American history. All right. The Wright brothers, I believe that I was learning about them from my kids the last couple of weeks because they would do one of them was doing a paper on the Wright brothers. Orville and Wilbur. Yep. All right. They had faith in physics. They didn't have faith in God. But they had faith in physics. They had faith In their engineering skills, and they had faith in their ability to fly a plane. Like one of them crashed. And then they built another one made some changes. And then he got in it again and went up again. It's like, he wouldn't do that if he didn't believe in physics. Right? He wouldn't do that if he didn't believe like, I know how to build stuff. Okay, I know how to make this stuff work. He wouldn't go up if he if he didn't know how to fly the plane. He's like, Yeah, this is gonna go up. But I don't know what to do is probably going to crash and I'll die like he wouldn't go up. He That's faith. That's faith. So when we see here is Paul is turning a corner in First Corinthians 15, in this little section. And he's shown us the link between what we believe about the resurrection, and how we live. If you believe that one day, you will be resurrected and stand before God. It will affect the way that you live. It will motivate you to sanctification. It will motivate you to obey Him. It's so important to see how precise and accurate theology understanding of what the Bible teaches affects the way that we live. And this is just a great example of that. These two verses contain the only three commands in this little section we're looking at, do not be deceived, wake up, do not go on sinning. And as a flow between those commands, they link. Paul appears to be concerned that the Corinthians are being led astray by bad theology. They're being led astray by a wrong view of what happens after we die. Nothing. They're being led astray by that belief and that teaching. So he calls them back and he says, Don't be deceived by this false teaching. Wake up, see, and believe what God has truly said in His Word. And that needs to be a practice for all of us. The age, the media age that we live in, we're surrounded by so many voices, we can find any number of voices to talk to us about anything that we want them to talk about. And what Paul's saying here is, don't let that lead you astray. Come to the Scripture first, and see what God says about that subject. Family Weekend to see what God says about marriage. See what God says about parenting. See what God says about how to raise your kids. See what God says about what to do with babies. See what God says about how to be an employee. We need to come to God's word first, not these other things. Don't take what someone says to be the truth, investigate for yourself and God's word and come to a conclusion that way. Paul sees the connection, that this drifting into wrong thinking and belief could have with their sanctification. The sin that we've seen as we've gone all the way through First Corinthians that so many of them are involved in or approving of my in part be down to the fact that they don't believe that there's a resurrection, that there's nothing after this life, that they won't be held accountable beyond this life. Hopefully you can see the logic there. Why would I live a holy life if there's no resurrection? If there's no resurrection, living a holy life is pointless and unimportant. But again, there is a resurrection. So living a holy life is does have a point. And it is important. So let's wrap this up. We've talked a lot about heroes, Bible heroes, right? People from history that have given up everything. They've given up their lives, they've gone through hard stuff. People like Paul and Steven. My life's not really like y'all life like mine is probably more ignorable than that of the martyrs or the apostles. A lot more humble. More everyday, less spectacular. No one's gonna write a book about us. Let's be honest. But don't get caught out. Just because that's true. It doesn't mean that your life is less meaningful.
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God has you here got God has given you life. God has saved you if you are a believer, and he's given you a great purpose, to be a light shining in the darkness, in the humdrum of the office, the kitchen, the warehouse, the laundry room, the school campus, the home, wherever it is, you spend most of your time throughout the week. A life lived faithfully for Christ can have spectacular influence. When you persevere with joy, for thankful contentment, and holiness and devotion to Christ, you testify to the reality of the resurrection to those around you. You show others that Christ is someone worth making your all in all, you glorify Him. And it's the best and most secure way for you to live. So I want to encourage you as we close, meditate on the resurrection. Let it motivate you to steadfastness and holiness. Find ways to remind yourself throughout every day that Jesus is risen, and he reigns. And that death at the end of this life is not the end for you. But you will stand before Him. He will call you to account and then you will live with Him in glory forever. Let's pray. Father, we're so thankful for the wonderful, certain truth of the resurrection. I pray that as we've heard all of these things this morning, heard about those willing to give up everything, to follow Christ and proclaim His message, that that would move our hearts to trust in Christ more, that it would motivate us to steadfastness and to sanctification. We pray these things for your glory that you would be all in all. Amen.
Ian is the Youth Pastor of Faith Bible Church. He and his wife, Claire, have 5 kids and recently spent a few years serving in a small church in England.
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