Sermon Transcript
Hi everybody, thanks so much for joining us. I have an opening activity that I’d like for you to participate in with me. I want you to think of 3 words that best describe you. 3 words that best describe you. Now you may need to take a moment to think about that, so you can push pause on your video player there, and then whenever you’re ready and those words come to mind, then you can push unpause there and you can play.
Okay, ready, set, go. 3 words that best describe you. Okay, now how many of you, by a show of hands, one of the words that came to mind as best describing you is the word victorious? Anyone? I’m guessing not.
For me, I know I certainly didn’t think of the word victorious to describe myself. But I bring up this word because in today’s passage that we’re looking at, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Paul is pointing to us to an eternal victory. And I know this because if you read through these verses that were read just a little bit ago in our time of worship, you may not have noticed this. I didn’t notice it the first time, but the word victory shows up 3 different times. Victory.
And what it’s describing is not our victory. It’s describing Jesus’ victory. But because Jesus has been victorious, it then becomes, for those who are Christ followers, our victory. What Jesus has done is, is he’s provided victory over sin and and of death. It’s the ultimate victory.
He’s dealt death a death blow. So this is a song of celebration. This is a song of freedom for the church to say, Jesus has taken care of death? Are you kidding me? That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s this incredible victory that we could never experience on our own.
But we’re grateful that God has made it possible for us to be able to experience that. Well, when I hear that term victory, I automatically think about sports. Maybe some of you do as well. I grew up watching sports and playing a few sports, and different images may come to mind. There was a group of sportswriters I read about who recently were asked, what is an image that comes to mind that is the most iconic image to describe victory and champion and winning in sports?
And there were a lot of responses, but the one that got the most responses is this one here. Muhammad Ali knocking out Sonny Liston in a 1965 heavyweight title fight. Apparently it took less than 2 minutes for Muhammad Ali to knock out Sonny Liston. And just the way he stands over Sonny Liston, this is just an image of victory and of being more than a conqueror that many sportswriters said that is what comes to mind for them. Now, I wasn’t alive at this time, so that’s not the image that came to mind for me immediately.
But I have seen the image and I think it’s a very powerful image. I thought of the Miracle on Ice and I thought about how in 1980, the Winter Olympics, the U.S. Olympic hockey team in Lake Placid, New York won this incredible underdog victory and they just kept on winning and nobody expected them to win and they won the gold medal. And I remember being very little. I didn’t watch any of the games, but I do remember the images and people talking about it at that time. Well, you may have other images that come to mind for you.
You may think about the Golden State Warriors or the Giants or the 49ers or whatever your team of choice is, or whenever the Olympics come around or the World Cup or whatever sport you like to follow, whenever your athlete or the athletes that you’re following and you’re rooting for do well, you sort of sense a vicarious form of victory. And that’s kind of what victory does for us, is it enables us to experience victory. And that’s what Jesus has done for us. I would say that one of the reasons why the word victory doesn’t really resonate as much with my own sports career was because when I was younger and I played about 10 years worth of baseball, almost all the teams I was on were just exceedingly average. We would win about as much as we would lose, and we almost never went to the playoffs.
I can’t remember ever going to the playoffs except one year. It was maybe my 7th or 8th year of playing baseball on a team that was called the Cardinals. And I don’t remember much about the season except that we caught lightning in a bottle and we just kept on winning. And we’re like, this is amazing. We won game after game after game after game.
And in fact, we never lost that season. We kept on in the regular season winning. We would come from behind a lot of times. And the parents and the families were just getting into it each and every game. It was exciting.
And it was something that most of us playing baseball had never experienced. And I played baseball for a number of years up until this point. And so this was a new and exciting feeling for me. But I remember when we made it through the playoffs, the first round, second round, and then the championship round, we finally won and we never lost a game that season. I just remember me and my teammates throwing up our gloves up in the air and just dogpiling one another on the pitcher mound and rolling around in the dirt and just running around like we just won the World Series or something because that’s what champions do, right?
They run around and they just revel in it and that was our experience of Victory. It was an incredible feeling. We just wanted to keep on playing, going like, who’s next? And that’s kind of what victory does for us. Well, you contrast those feelings of victory with the times that we feel defeated.
And if we’re going to talk about sports, one image that comes to mind for me is I was thinking about not just victory but also defeat, the opposite of victory. Nobody wants to experience defeat, but there’s one guy in particular who came to mind as I was thinking about defeat in sports, and it’s a guy named Vinko Bogataj. And I want to show you a quick video of Vinko Bogataj, and I want to talk about him.
Now, who is Vinko Bogataj? Great question. I’m gonna tell you, Vinko Bogataj— I didn’t even know his name, but the reason why I know him is because I grew up watching a show on Saturday mornings, or Saturday afternoons I believe, called The Wide World of Sports. And they would show a variety of different sports, as the title suggests. And they would always do the same intro.
And they would talk over the intro and they would show different teams and athletes from different sports. And they would talk about the thrill of victory and they would show these victorious athletes and these victorious teams. But they inevitably would then say, and the agony of defeat. And they would always show that ski jumper. And I didn’t know his name.
I just literally looked up on the internet, agony of defeat guy, to see who he was. His name is Vinko Bogataj. He’s a Slovenian ski jumper. And week after week after week after week, that’s what he was known for, that ski jump in 1970. He’s still alive.
And I think he accomplished other things in his career, but that’s not what he’s known for. What he’s known for is for being the agony of defeat guy. How would you like that to go on your tombstone? That’s not a great legacy for anybody to want to have, even, you know, like where your defeats outweigh all of the other things that you accomplish. Well, I bring that up again to just help us to think about victory.
But here’s what I know is it’s very possible that many of you who are watching this may not be feeling very victorious lately because of the world in which we live in. You may be feeling quite defeated, maybe feeling discouraged. You might be feeling just weighed down. And so I want to talk today about different aspects of the victory that Jesus has provided to his followers that I think can give us tremendous help and hope and encouragement. And that doesn’t mean to minimize the difficulty that we go through.
See, here’s what I know is this world is not our home. This world is going to weigh us down and it’s going to make us long for heaven. We groan for heaven. We long for eternal— for eternity and for eternal life. But Jesus has made it possible for us to be able to have that eternal victory and to be able to look forward to that one day that we will be free from the presence of sin, whether because of being delivered through the rapture and being called up into heaven, or if we’re dead whenever Jesus returns and we’re called up to meet him in the air.
However it happens, we know that there’s going to come a day for Christians and Christ followers all over, those who are still living and those who have died, to be able to experience eternal victory, free from the presence of sin forever. And it’s going to be an amazing thing. We already have victory over the penalty of sin. Jesus took care of that. We already have the ability to be free from the power of sin, being able to say no to temptation because of the Holy Spirit living inside of us.
But we will one day be free from the presence of sin. We’ll never experience that here in this life. But one day we’ll get to experience it. Now, Pastor Dave talked to us last week about the rapture. He talked to us about what the rapture is going to be, this meetup of all meetups.
You’re not going to want to miss it. He talked about the location and the occasion of it and the timing of it. And the week before, Pastor Dan talked about Jesus’ return and how it’s, it’s going to come suddenly. It’s going to catch a lot of us off guard. We’re not going to be ready for it.
So why are we continuing to talk about the rapture? Like, why are we continuing to spend another week talking about these eternal matters? Well, Because we want you to be ready for it. We want you to be hungry for it. We want you to look ahead because this world is not our home.
We were designed to experience an eternal relationship with Jesus, and that’s what he’s made possible for us. So I want us, whether we’re going to be here still alive whenever Jesus returns, or if we’ve died and we’re going to experience being called up into heaven at that point whenever Jesus returns, either way, we have things that we can draw from that can give us tremendous hope because of Jesus’ victory. I want to take a look at 3 aspects of encouragement from this passage here in 1 Corinthians 15:50-58. One of the things that the eternal victory that Jesus has provided for us is something that our future absolutely requires. Our future requires what Jesus did for us by conquering sin and death.
Our future absolutely depends upon it. And I want to read a couple verses for you. He says, I declare to you— the Apostle Paul is speaking here— I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed 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.
Notice this: for the perishable must clothe itself. It must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality. Our future requires the perishable clothing itself with the imperishable and the changes that are going to come about because of Jesus’ return. We’re going to talk about those changes in just a moment and when it’s— when those changes are going to happen and how they’re going to happen and why we need those changes to take place and why we need this eternal victory. But before we do, I want to go out back just for a moment to this idea of mystery that Paul is talking about here, verse 51.
When New Testament writers talk about a mystery, what they’re talking about is not some sort of spooky thing or some sort of thing that they discovered on their own. They’re talking about something that used to be hidden and has now been found, something that was undisclosed previously, like to the Old Testament folks, that has now been disclosed by God himself, that he’s revealed. It’s like saying, here’s some new information for you. And what this new information is, what this mystery is, is Paul is saying we will not all sleep, meaning we will not all die or be dead, but we will all be changed when Jesus returns. Paul was anticipating that Jesus would actually return, the rapture would actually happen during Paul’s lifetime.
Now that didn’t happen. He was anticipating that would happen. That doesn’t mean anything other than the fact that he was— of course he was wrong, but Paul wasn’t all-knowing. What it should tell us though is that he was anticipating it. He knew that it was imminent and he wanted to be ready for it.
And you and I need to be ready for it because we will not all sleep. We will not all die when Jesus returns. It could happen at any moment. It could in fact happen before I finish this message today. It’s quite possible.
In fact, I’m rooting for it to happen because that would be really amazing for the rapture to happen. Are you kidding? While I’m preaching about the rapture. Now here’s the deal. If that happens, I hope that none of you are still here.
If I disappear, I hope that none of you are still here. What would be even more awkward and embarrassing is if you all left and I was still here. So let’s just make a deal and let’s just all go together. Okay, how about that? Like, let’s just all be ready for it.
But this mystery— we will not all sleep, we will all be changed. And then he talks about these changes that are going to happen. And I want to talk about just briefly about what these changes are going to look like. For instance, When we will change. When we will change.
It mentions a couple different things there. If you notice there, it talks about we’re going to change in a flash. It’s going to be instantly. It’s going to be all of a sudden. It’s going to be a fraction of a second.
Instantaneous. It’s going to happen also in the twinkling of an eye. If you think about how long it takes for your eyes to adjust to being in the light after you’ve been in darkness for a long time. You come out of a dark room, turn on the bathroom light, you’re stumbling around. Your eyes need to adjust.
Well, your eyes aren’t going to need to adjust. The twinkling of an eye is much, much faster than that. That’s how quickly this change is going to happen, and it’s going to happen at the last trumpet. The last trumpet could describe a variety of things. Certainly in Israel’s history, the trumpet held great import for celebrations and victories and festivals.
But I think another great thought of this last trumpet that to me conjures up the Roman armies. The Roman armies would, before they would break camp, would blow a final trumpet to just let people know, hey, we’re getting out of here, and if you want to come with us, you need to leave now. Like, we’re leaving. Maybe there was a series of trumpets, but there’s the last trumpet, and you need to be ready. And I kind of like that, how that describes how we need to be ready for the rapture.
It’s going to happen, and we need to be ready at the last trumpet because there’s no turning back. If you miss it, you miss it. And so we don’t want to miss it. We want to look forward to it. So when we will change— it’s going to happen in a moment.
It’s going to happen in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. Well, how will we change? What’s going to happen? In what way will we change? Well, I think 2 things that this passage suggests.
One is, is we’re going to experience a change of body. We will experience a change of body. We will be altered. We will be transformed. We will go through Through a metamorphosis.
Paul said we will all be changed. Well, what kind of change of body are we experiencing now? I was told by Pastor Dan that his oldest son, Kaden Stockum, has been asking questions about what our bodies are going to be like in heaven. And I want to tell you, my buddy Kaden, that’s a great question. And so I’m talking to you, buddy.
I hope that you’re going to watch this. You need to know that that is a question a lot of people want to know the answer to. I want to know the answer to it. What is our body going to be like? Well, will we look the same?
Will we be the same age in heaven that we were whenever we left the earth? What are we going to look like? And are we all going to look the same? Well, what I do know is that God’s going to decide all of that. God’s going to choose what our bodies will look like, whether we’ll be of a certain height or weight or what age we will be, how we will appear.
God’s going to take care of all of that stuff. We’re not going to look identical to one another. I do know that because Revelation chapter 7 tells us that in heaven is going to be a gathering of a multitude of languages and tribes and tongues and nations. And so people of different races and ethnicities are going to kind of come together. And we’re not just going to all lose those racial identities in the same way.
I don’t think we’re all going to be identical. But the cool thing is, is our bodies, these new bodies, this change we’re going to undergo, this metamorphosis, is, is going to be untouched by disease. It’s going to be untouched by illness and by any limitation or restriction. And we’re going to be content with whatever form it is that God chooses to give us. None of us are going to get up and look at ourselves in the mirror and go, yuck.
Now, maybe you’ve never done that. Kudos to you if that’s the case. But for many of us, as we get older, we sort of don’t like the way that we look and we wish that we could change things. Well, guess what? We’re not going to be discontent with the new bodies that we will have in heaven.
We’re gonna be content with whatever form God gives us. We’re not gonna be comparing ourselves to one another. There’s not gonna be insecurity and inferiority. There’s not gonna be pride or boasting about it. Here’s another thing that we know is that the same person in heaven was the same person on earth, just with a new body.
You don’t become an angel or a different person or a disembodied spirit just floating around. You’re given a new body, but you’re the same person. But either way, I think Jesus’ resurrection body, Jesus’ body after he resurrected and walked on the earth, gives us the best idea, the best clue, a sneak preview of what our resurrection bodies might look like. All the things that Jesus looked like and all the ways that he was able to interact with others and be recognizable, and he was eating and moving about, I think that we’ll be able to do the same things. But I think it will blow our mind, which is maybe part of the whole mystery of it all.
Maybe, maybe if God had told us sooner what all of this would look like, it would just blow our minds. So we have that to look forward to. So we’re gonna experience a change of body. We’re also gonna experience a change of location. We’re gonna experience a change of location.
You know how like whenever a business decides they’re gonna move for whatever reason, they put up a sign saying, we’ve moved, or we’re moving? Well, that’s us. We’re moving. We’re moving to a new location. We’re moving from the earth to to be for eternity with the Lord up in the clouds, up in heaven.
And we’re looking forward to that. We’re gonna experience a change of body and a change of location. But one of the questions then we need to ask is, why do we need to change? Why we must change and why we need to hold on to this hope for eternal victory and these changes that are gonna take place in us? Well, there’s a spiritual reason that I don’t want us to miss.
First, certainly, in 1 Corinthians 15 elaborates more on this. That, that what this eternal victory provides is it reverses the effects of original sin. You know how when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden and they sinned, that God told them the consequences of their sin, the penalty of their sin was death, separation. And they experienced— they tried to hide themselves from God, and God said, you will surely die. But what we’re going to experience in heaven, friends, is God looking at us and saying, you will surely live.
The effects of original sin that have been passed down generation after generation after generation will be broken. And he’s going to look at us and he sees— and he’s going to say, you will surely live. This eternal victory that Jesus won, it’s yours as well. So there’s a spiritual reason why we must change and why we need to hold on to this hope. But there’s also a practical reason.
The place that we’re moving to is going to demand it. We can’t go to heaven in these bodies. We’re going to have to have some new equipment We can’t go to heaven in these perishable bodies. The perishable must clothe itself in the imperishable. And it reminds me of how special places require special equipment.
You want to go up into outer space? You’re going to need some special equipment. You want to go into the ocean? You’re going to need some special equipment. You want to climb Mount Everest?
You’re going to need some special equipment. Special places require special equipment because our bodies, which are subject to decay and decomposition and death and disease and all of these things. Our present bodies aren’t going to cut it in heaven, this new location. And so there’s a practical reason why we must change. And the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable.
Our present bodies are going to need to change. And God provides that through Jesus. I want to talk about a second aspect of the victory that Jesus has provided for us that I think can give us tremendous hope. And that is that the Scriptures predicted it. The Scriptures predicted it.
Because of Jesus, death is finally defeated. And this was foretold in Scripture back in Old Testament. This is a fulfillment of Scripture. And in fact, Paul talks about here, when the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, when these changes have happened, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying— the saying that he’s going to quote here is from Isaiah chapter 25, verse 8. So he’s reflecting on what had been predicted.
Then the saying that is written will come true. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. What we know is that death is inevitable. As long as we live here, death is inevitable. You can take care of yourself.
You can exercise. You can eat well. But inevitably death comes for all. But Jesus defeated death. And so we’re going to be free from the presence of death.
The scriptures predicted that. And what Jesus did specifically, and this points to it, is Jesus dealt with the sting of death, which is sin. Jesus became our sin payment. He substituted himself on the cross. Jesus took care of sin for us.
And the power of sin is the law. The law is great. It’s God’s perfect standard. But keeping the law doesn’t overcome death. None of us are perfect enough that we can overcome the penalty of breaking the law.
If you— the Bible says you break one of the laws, one of God’s standards, one of God’s commands, you’re guilty of breaking all of them. But Jesus again broke the power of sin and the power of the law, which again, the law is good, but it’s like a mirror. That just shows us our sin. And so we’re reminded about it all the time. And so as we get older, we’re just reminded death is coming.
Death is coming. Death is coming. Separation is coming. Separation is— separation is coming. But here it’s like almost like Paul is singing.
I mentioned a song of victory, a song. Jesus took care of all of these things. There is no death in heaven. It’s the death of death. We’re going to— death is— it even talks about how death is swallowed up, which describes complete and total destruction.
Death is completely destroyed. He’s almost taunting death. He’s mocking death. It’s like, like, like what victors do over the defeated. We sort of taunt and mock.
Now, I wouldn’t recommend doing that if you actually are victorious here in this life, but what we’re doing here is we’re taunting the devil, we’re taunting sin, and we’re taunting death, saying all you can do since Jesus has taken the sting of death for us as the Scriptures predicted, all death can do is just sort of buzz around us and annoy us like an annoying gnat. We just swat it away or whatever, but it can’t sting us. It can’t sting us because Jesus took the sting of death. He dealt with the sting of sin and the law and of death. Well, how was this made possible?
Thanks be to God, he gives us the victory Not through you, not through me, not through our obedience, but through our Lord Jesus Christ. This was made possible because of him. He experienced the sting of death for you and for me. And here’s why this matters, that the scriptures predicted it. It’s also a reminder, not just that God— this was not a Plan B.
This was God’s plan from the beginning, from the foundation of the world. But it tells us that God keeps his promises. That when God says he’s gonna do something, he does it and he comes through. And he did for us here. He said he would provide victory over death.
Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? And he’s provided that just as he said he would. God comes through on his promises. That’s an encouraging aspect of the eternal victory that we have.
One more I want to show you briefly is that our present life should be motivated by it. Our present life should be motivated by this eternal victory that we have. Look at verse 58. This is a verse of application. This is what we’re to do with this passage.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm, which means to be steadfast, means to, to be firm in the way that you live. To— it says let nothing move you, which means that we’re not to let the, the cares and the burdens of this world, the temptations of this world, the fallenness of this world blow us off course. Sometimes difficult times come and they cause us to lose our footing, and it’s saying don’t let that happen. Let nothing move you. 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. He’s saying don’t waste your time. Be purposeful in the way that you live. The time is short.
I know it seems like it’s long, but it’s short, and Jesus could come back again at any moment. Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord. Don’t waste your time. If you want your life to count for something, don’t stop looking for eternity. Eternal life begins the moment that a person puts their faith and trust in Jesus for salvation.
If you think about what is it that gets you going in the morning, what is it that inspires you, what is it that moves you? This verse is not a picture of just barely getting by. It’s not just grinning and bearing it and just gritting your teeth and just trying to live one day to the next. No, this is This is a picture of resolve and commitment and faith and confidence to stand your ground. So what it’s saying here is don’t stop looking for eternity.
Don’t stop looking for Jesus’ return. Don’t stop fighting against temptation. Don’t lose hope. Don’t give up. This is a— this is something that we can stand firm on because God keeps his promises.
Don’t lose your hope because of the eternal victory that is available for you and for me. Here’s what I know is that Jesus could come at any moment. We could also die at any moment.
I’ve heard it said multiple times, and I don’t know who first said it, but the quote is, you’re not ready to live until you’re ready to die. So I ask, are you ready to die? You are if you understand the victory that Jesus makes available to you and to me. If you’re not sure that you have victory because of who Jesus is and you’re kind of feeling defeated and you’re like, I don’t really feel very victorious, I’m not sure that I’m going to be in heaven one day, would you please again, as we just plead with you often, stop what you’re doing and just call upon the name of the Lord and ask him to save you and to rescue you. And the victory that Jesus made possible for all who call upon his name will be yours, and you will be able to be in heaven and have eternal life.
You don’t have to wait for it. You can experience that here. You’re not ready to live until you’re ready to die. I know that I’m ready for Jesus to return. I can’t wait.
I hope that you can’t wait either. God keeps his promises, and he’s— his eternal victory is sure. Let me pray for us.
God, I want to thank you for what Jesus has done for us, and I thank you for the hope that it gives us.
We have a secure hope. I hope— pray, God, that in light of what we’ve heard today, that we would do what verse 58 is talking about: standing firm and not letting anything move us, always giving ourselves fully to live for you, because our labor is not in vain, Lord. We’re to make our lives count. And what causes our lives to count is Jesus in us, the hope of glory. To live is Christ, to die is gain.
Lord, we pray that, that you would help us to live our lives with the hope that you want us to live with. And I thank you again for the victory that Jesus has won for us. Lord, we look forward to the day of being free from the presence of sin. Thank you for making that possible. And we say, Jesus, come quickly.
Come. We cannot wait. Come, Lord Jesus. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
