Sermon Transcript
When people make New Year’s resolutions, when they start to think about new beginnings, fresh starts, because we want something better for ourselves, better for our families, maybe better for the world. And those are, of course, noble aims. I support New Year’s resolutions. I make some myself. I don’t always keep them.
More on that later. But it is healthy and right that so many of us, and really our culture at large, that we have a dedicated time of the year where we reflect on how we can improve. It means, you know, that we are self-aware enough to admit that we fall short in some ways. So whether we say, I need to lay off social media, you know, no more nighttime snacking, I need to exercise more, I’m going to go for 3 days a week. I’m going to read my Bible.
I’m going to call my kids more. I’m going to call my parents. I’m going to be an encouragement to my coworker. I’m going to volunteer more next year. Like, all those different ways we’re evaluating how to make the world better, our families better, ourselves better, all of which is positive.
That’s great. Please do that. It is wonderful that we have this kind of built-in instinct as we start a new year. But there is a lingering shadow over all of our efforts to improve ourselves, improve our relationships, improve our world. There is a futility to our work that we don’t want to admit and we rarely think about.
But if we are honest, it is there, and we are going to talk about it today, the futility. But at the same time, for Christians at least, we have a tremendous hope that overcomes the futility. We have the promise of a happy ending for all of our efforts. We even have the promise of a happy ending for all of our failures. For when we fall short, for when we don’t do as we should, we can still rest knowing that it is going to be okay in the end.
So, as we talk about the futility, which is going to be pretty bleak, warning you, stay with it because we will get to the hope. All right, we’re coming near the end of our series in 1 Corinthians. We’ll finish up next week. And today, we’re looking at a passage that is the longest treatment in Scripture of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, its significance, what the resurrection provides, how it gives us an unshakable positive vision for the future to come. So, as we look at this rather long chapter, which we could only read certain excerpts of, we will see the shadow we must face, that’s the bleak part, the contrast of what Christ offers, how Jesus is different than the shadow, very hopeful, and then how we can have confidence in His offer.
The shadow we must face, the contrast Christ offers, and why we can have confidence in His offer. So, first, the shadow we must face is death. I told you it was going to be bleak. Paul makes various references to death throughout this passage. He says, in Adam all die, meaning any descendant of the first human faces the same fate.
As the first human. He says we are perishable, we are dust, death stings, on and on, which isn’t really a surprise to any of us if we’re older than about 7. We know that death is coming. We know we can’t escape it. None of us particularly like that idea, which is why Paul calls it an enemy.
We hate it when we see it. We maybe hate thinking about our own most of all. So as a result, we don’t often consider the full effect of death, how powerful it is. But to put it bluntly, the endgame of death is the total decimation of everything that has ever been or ever will be. Death doesn’t only affect us, our lives, the lives of our loved ones, which all of that would be bad enough, but if you take the timeline out far enough, Death will consume everything in the end.
There will be nothing that remains. Scientists talk about the energy death of the universe and that it is inevitable. When all the reactive material in all of creation is spent and all of existence across the billion light-years of space, all of it cools to absolute zero or near absolute zero and nothing moves ever again. That is the endgame of death. That is the supremacy of death, which is hard for us to accept.
So, we lie to ourselves and we believe even when we end, we tell ourselves, we will have some influence that endures. We think in some way we will be able to live on. People say these kinds of things at funerals all the time. When a loved one passes away, you know, somebody who made a huge difference in their life, they get up and say something like, you know, the lessons that Pops taught me will continue to shape me. So he is still with me.
He is still forming and counseling me and so many others as well. He lives on in our hearts and minds, and those he impacted will impact others. So he actually has an increasing influence in the world now that he’s gone. We say those kind of things. About our loved ones.
We hope someone will say that about us someday. It’s maybe the main way that we comfort ourselves with the reality of our own demise. We say, you know, I built a business, I loved my family, I volunteered, I’m leaving this world a better place than I found it, I contributed to the progress of humanity, and hopefully the next generation will do the same and the one after it. I had my time in the sun, so it’s okay if I exit stage left now. I can be content with what I accomplished.
But if that is how we comfort ourselves, we are ignoring the full power of death because it is not just us who will die, not just the generation after us and the one after that and the thousand after that when every single one of our current accomplishments, even the best of our accomplishments, will only amount to how we look at cave paintings today. It’s not only that. It’s eventually our sun goes red giant, then nova, then way down the line the universe itself dies, and nothing that humanity has ever accomplished will be remembered by anyone because there will be no one to remember it. So any amount of purpose we thought we had will die. Any amount of influence we had will die.
Our accomplishments will die. The universe, our world, everyone we’ve ever known, everyone who ever will be known, all of it will come to the exact same end that it would have come to if we had never existed or accomplished anything at all. So whatever we think we’re leaving behind, however we think we have improved our world, it will evaporate, it will go dark exactly as if we had done nothing at all. In the end, we will have had zero impact whatsoever, no matter how hard we work. And that is difficult to accept.
We don’t often think of the final endgame of death, how powerful it is, the enemy that it is. Most people simply choose not to think about it in order to get through their day. I mean, in other words, they deal with reality by ignoring reality. They live in denial, which any therapist would tell you is not ideal. For the few of us who do honestly face our cold, dark, purposeless future, for the few of us who face it honestly, which is some of the atheists I read and some of my friends honestly, if they face the totality of the power of death, it seems the best comfort they can find is to say something like, if I only have these few years of consciousness, I may as well make the most of them, you know, try to find the most joy I can while I can, because when it’s over, it’s over.
This life is fleeting, but it’s here now, so I’m going to go for it while I have it. That’s the best they seem to be able to do. And that is an honest awareness of reality. That’s a fair position to take. I actually, I really appreciate anyone who lives with the consequences of their worldview.
Seriously, I respect atheists who don’t even try to claim that we can have any lasting significance because we can’t. It will all end. So, their resolution is to say, hey, these few moments we have are precious. I’m going to soak them up while they’re here, and then the end. Some people go a little further, and I have a friend like this.
Some will say, It’s exciting to think the little time we have is all that there is. So, we should wake up thrilled to get everything out of life that we can while it’s here. You know, in other words, essentially they’re saying, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die, which is exactly how Paul said we should live in our passage today if there is no resurrection. Verse 32, if Christ has not been raised, then eat and drink, You know, comfort yourself how you can because when it’s over, there’s nothing else. Tomorrow we die, it’s done.
It’s like the final meal before execution. You better make it a good one. Order it all. I mean, Paul agrees that is the best way to live if the material world is all that there is. Our lives are just one long final meal before oblivion.
That’s the best we can do. And hey, look, if you’re satisfied with that as the narrative for your life, go for it. I don’t know what I could say to talk you out of it, and you may not find what Christ offers very compelling. But if the idea to you that all existence is fleeting, momentary, ultimately insignificant, If there is something about that story that rings hollow, if you need more to your life than that, if you see death as a big problem, if you even go as far as Paul did calling death an enemy, the good news is that there is a better story. There is a better narrative to live, which brings us to the contrast of what Christ offers.
Paul lists 4 contrasts between what Jesus offers and what we must face if the material world is all that there is. All these are found in verses 42 to 49. He says, rather than perishable, we are imperishable; rather than dishonored, we are glorified; rather than weak, we are powerful; rather than dust, we are heavenly. We will go through those one at a time rather quickly. So, first, rather than perishable, we are imperishable.
Instead of temporary, we are forever. When we eat and drink today, we can rejoice that we will eat and drink tomorrow and then the next day and then the next day and on into eternity without end, without disease, without decay, without death, without separation from loved ones. We get to live a story that doesn’t end. We will be imperishable forever, which for most of us most of the time Sounds appealing. It is exactly what we want.
But there are some of us, and for all of us there may be some moments where we don’t feel like we are worthy of forever. Maybe we have made such a mess of things that we don’t see any way that we could have a happily ever after. We think if eternity is there, it is going to be full of shame. Which, depending on which culture you’re from, you may carry that burden more than others. Because in some families, in some cultures, bringing dishonor to your people is one of the worst offenses that you can commit.
So, some of us have been told that we are a disgrace. Some of us have been told that our shame will cling to us forever and our descendants with us. And if those of us are contemplating endless days, we may think, no thanks. I would rather not exist than have a forever of dishonor. And if we happen to feel that way, Paul says Christ’s offer is a comfort to you.
He says, rather than dishonored, we are glorified, which is our second contrast. In eternity in Christ is going to be one of glory. So, for those moments when we carry guilt, when we have failed, when we have blown it, when we struggle to believe that we will amount to anything, we need to hear that our eternity will be one of glory, one of majesty, where we will be exalted, esteemed, Paul says in another letter that we will be seated in the heavenly realms with Christ, Ephesians 2. The picture is Jesus is sitting on a throne and we are around Him in places of honor, elevated, meaning whatever shame we have brought on ourselves during life, it will be gone. And instead of that, we will have the highest honor that there is.
Forever and ever. So, rather than perishable, we are imperishable. Rather than dishonored, we are glorified. Now, third, rather than weak, we are powerful. For those of us who have achieved some success in life, we don’t usually like to view ourselves as weak, but think for a moment all the ways that we really are powerless.
We are physically powerless, spiritually powerless, vocationally powerless. We can’t stop death. We can’t stop aging. The older we get, the more we realize our bodies are wearing out. I’ve just recently learned that our strength, at least men’s strength, decreases in stair steps as we get older.
It’s not like a gradual decline. It’s like it goes along as a plateau and then drops and then goes along at that level for a while and then drops again and again and again to the point where, you know, even those of us who at one time had great strength We feel very vulnerable. So, we are physically weak. We are also spiritually weak. We can’t rid ourselves of sin.
We can’t make ourselves as good as we would like to be. As C.S. Lewis said, we never really realize how bad we are until we have tried very hard to be good. Paul says the same thing, Romans 7, what I don’t want to do, that is what I do, and what I do want to do, I don’t do that. So, we have less say over our own actions than we like to think that we do.
I am not saying we have no agency, no responsibility. That is a different thing, but, you know, we started today talking about New Year’s resolutions. We don’t keep them perfectly. We haven’t kept them perfectly in the past, even when we wanted to, right? Some of us today even refuse to make resolutions at all because we know that we will fail.
You go, what is that? Why can’t we do it? We are weak. We don’t do the good that we intend to do. We are spiritually weak.
We are also vocationally weak. This is what we talked about at the beginning today. We can’t make contributions to this world that will last. No matter what we build, it will crumble in the end. It is vocationally weak.
We are in many respects powerless, but Paul says in Christ we have strength. Real strength, strength over death and physical deterioration, because in Christ death itself will be defeated and plague us no longer. We will not run or fear that enemy. We will have vocational strength for the ways that we contribute to the world, because in Christ our efforts will last. We join him in contributing to his eternal kingdom.
Our good deeds here, the things we do to add wholeness to people’s lives, the things we do to help humanity flourish, done in His name to make the world a better place, to, you know, shape our societies in ways that honor God, those efforts, one, they will be celebrated forever. They will not be forgotten. And so, at least in that sense, they last forever. But secondly, another way they last, more than just memories, is they will somehow build what we will see in the future. Some of the pictures we have of eternity depict, you know, every nation, tribe, and tongue around the throne of God praising God forever, which means if it is every nation, tribe, and tongue, there must be some distinguishing marks of every nation, tribe, and tongue, every culture.
Something must be retained from each group that lasts throughout eternity. Whatever a culture has that is good, wholesome, whatever is true, whatever is lovely, whatever is praiseworthy from a group of people will in some way be there forever. And however we have contributed to that, as feeble as our efforts may be sometimes, those efforts won’t decay. So, for instance, if it is every nation in eternity praising God, how will people know the Americans? Like, how will a different group look over and be like, oh, that’s the Americans over there praising God?
Like, what are those distinguishing marks? Or is Silicon Valley a tribe? You know, when you moved here, did you finally feel like, I found my people, right? This is my tribe here. Maybe, right?
So, what are the— how do you contribute in a way that makes a people group what the people group is? Whatever that is, it will be there in eternity because you can distinguish between this nation, that nation, this tongue, that tongue, this tribe, that tribe, right? There will be something retained, and however we have contributed to that will last. So, we will have vocational strength.
And there in that eternal kingdom with every nation, tribe, and tongue, we will finally experience full spiritual strength because we will finally have power over sin. Instead of sin having power over us, we will have power over it always. Our good intentions will always line up with our actions. We will do the good that we want to do, and we will never do the evil that we don’t want to do. We will no longer be weak.
We will have true strength. So, Christ offers imperishable, glorified power. And fourth contrast, Christ offers rather than dust, we are heavenly. If this material world is all that there is, we are quite literally dust, and that’s it, because everything is dust. Everything in existence can be broken down to just the elements on the periodic table.
Right? And we will never be more than that because there is nothing else to be. I shared this story a couple of years ago, but a good story is worth sharing twice. I once had a friend who was thinking through the principle of conservation of mass in relation to the earth’s population. So, if you remember from science class, that principle states mass cannot be created or destroyed, it’s only rearranged into different forms, right?
You remember this? Okay? So in a closed system like Earth, which Earth is basically a closed system, whatever is here today has always been here, just in a different form. There’s not much that’s come in, there’s not much that’s gone out. Basically, we’re a closed system.
So my friend was adding up, you know, once upon a time, there were 0 people on Earth, right? Now, there are 8 billion. At that time, I think there were 6 billion. We’ll say 8 billion. So he’s putting the— like, he’s putting 2 and 2 together.
And he’s asking, where did all the material come from to make these 8 billion people? We weren’t formed out of nothing, right? We weren’t formed from sunlight or fairy wishes. So, like, where did the material come from that made us? The dirt!
In other words, Earth today must have a whole lot less dirt than it did when there were no people, right? Specifically, I mean precisely, however much dirt it takes to make 8 billion people, there is that amount less of dirt than there used to be. How do you argue with that, right? It’s true. If this material world is all there is, that’s all that we are.
Just dust.
But I imagine that doesn’t sit very well with you.
It doesn’t sit very well with me. I imagine your heart tells you something else. I imagine your heart tells you you were meant to be something else, more than dust. And in Christ, we have it. In a moment, Paul says, in the twinkling of an eye, we will be changed.
We shall no longer only be dust.
But we will be somehow changed to the substance of heaven. He says, verse 49, as we had been in the image of our original ancestor of earth who came from dust and returned to dust, we had been like him, but now, same verse, we will also bear the image of the heavenly Man. We will be far more than dirt. We will be transformed, imperishable, glorified to the highest exaltation with power and we will be there forever. That is the contrast Christ offers.
That is the story we get to live in Christ. And in my view, that is a far better story. The imperishable, glorified, powerful, heavenly, forever story is a much better story than the, we came from nothing, We will return to nothing. All of our efforts will amount to nothing, exactly the same as if we never existed at all. So enjoy the few fleeting moments you have while you can.
I believe Jesus is a better story. I believe there is something about Him that resonates with us. And even if we don’t know how it is true, we know it is true.
Which brings us to how we can have confidence in his offer. How do we know this isn’t just some fairy tale that we tell ourselves in order to deal with the shadow that’s hanging over us?
Because he rose from the dead. Christ rising from the dead shows, proves, Paul says, that this otherwise unavoidable progression toward the total loss of everything, you know, this plunge of darkness that the entire universe can’t escape the shadow over all of us, Christ rising from the dead shows that death can be and is in Him reversed. It shows life is the end of the story. Instead of weakness being the end, strength is the end. Instead of dishonor being the end, glory is the end.
Instead of frozen dust being the end, Eternal vibrance is the end because Jesus took on all those enemies and then He won. He made Himself perishable and then He rose imperishable. He took on our dishonor and then He rose glorified. He became weak and then He rose strong. He made Himself of the dust and then He rose to eternal life.
He was victorious over death, dishonor, weakness. He won the fights that everything else has always lost. And Paul says in this passage that if we are in Him, then we will win as well, that Christ will one day rise us from the dead, that He will share His victory with us, and we will live in a recreated earth where there is no death or darkness or sin. Because it’s not just us that Jesus brings back from the dead. There is a sense in which he brings all of creation back to life as well, to something eternal, something new, something that won’t have an end, a world where we don’t have to worry about the sun running out of energy because there will be no sun and everything will be illuminated with the glory of God himself.
And Paul says Christ rising from the dead is proof that future will happen. He says Christ is like the first fruits of a harvest. You know, Jesus is like the first apple on a tree that gets ripe, but once that first apple gets ripe, you can have confidence the rest of the apples are going to follow. Or maybe Christ is like the first drop of water that breaks through, you know, the crack in a dam, and after that first drop comes out, you know if enough time passes, the rest of that water is going to burst forth as well. Paul’s point is you can’t have one without the other.
If Christ was raised, and He was, then everything else will rise as well. Somehow, the Corinthians had gotten all mixed up that Christ had been raised from the dead, but nothing else would rise, verse 12. Maybe they thought something like, you know, eternity would be spiritual but not physical, as if we live, you know, as disembodied spirits in some ethereal dimension of reality. But hey, when we are there, Christ is there with a physical body. Paul says that makes no sense, right?
Christ wouldn’t be there in a physical body unless the rest of it was also physical. But even more foundationally, the problem with thinking that our eternity is disembodied is that it is out of step with the story of the whole Bible and what salvation is. God’s salvation is redeeming what we have broken. He is restoring what was lost in the beginning. He brings back everything we once had before we chose to walk away from Him.
And originally, God made paradise and put us in it. It is like heaven and earth were united. That place was meant to be our home. But instead of living there, we chose death, darkness, and decay. Ever since then, though, God has been working to fix our mess, to bring us back home.
That’s the story of the Bible. That’s what His salvation will eventually accomplish, getting us back to the paradise of heaven and earth together that He created in the beginning. So, it would be more than a little odd if the story took a turn and our eternity was some type of existence where we’re floating around in the clouds listening to baby angels play harps or something, right? That doesn’t have anything to do with the story whatsoever. The story is the reunification of heaven and earth.
It is why at the end of Revelation we see new heavens and new earth coming down together to our eternal home, and it is going to look a lot like an earth that we are familiar with, but without sin, without shame. Without weakness, without death, where we will be a redeemed people walking with our Creator, honored, powerful, imperishable. That’s our forever. That’s what we’re looking forward to. That’s what Christ began when He rose from the dead.
Let’s pray. Father, thank You for the future that You are providing for us. Thank You that You didn’t leave us in our sin and our darkness and our decay and our weakness, but You came, Lord, to give us strength, to make us new.
We pray that we would see the vision of the future that You are creating and that it would brighten hope in our heart. Today. We give thanks, Lord, death is not the end, but life is. I pray those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
