NOT IN VAIN IN THE LORD – 1 Corinthians 15:50-58

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on April 21, 2019 under 2019 |

Bethany Bible Church Resurrection Sunday Message; April 21, 2019 from 1 Corinthians 15:50-58

Theme: Jesus’ resurrection means that our labors for Him are not in vain.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

One of the greatest passages of the Bible to think about on Resurrection Sunday is 1 Corinthians 15. And this morning, I want to share with you especially from the last verse. It’s the conclusion that the apostle Paul gives to all that he had to say in Chapter 15 about what the resurrection of Jesus means to Jesus’ genuine followers.

It’s 1 Corinthians 15:58; and it says,

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Those words remind us that the resurrection of our Lord Jesus from the dead isn’t meant to be thought of by us as something that is ‘symbolic’ or ‘mythical’. The Bible presents it to us as a real, historical event—something that actually happened and that was seen and verified by eyewitnesses. But it isn’t meant to be thought of by us as merely something that happened long ago in history either—something that is true, but that no longer has any practical relevance to our lives today. Far from it! It’s meant to be thought of by us—and embraced wholeheartedly by us—as the great encouragement to live the Christian life! It’s meant to be held on to by us as the reason for why we can give our all to live for Jesus Christ every day; to love Him with all our heart, and to live for Him in that love with joy and expectation and hope in the midst of all the troubles of a dark and fallen world. It’s meant to be the reason why we should never give up in our faith in Jesus—no matter what the cost—even when the pressures of the world around us mount up against our faith in Him.

It’s the one great event upon which the whole of our Christian faith hinges.

If we are thinking rightly about the thing that we celebrate today—that is, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead—then, as a result, we will become even more steadfast in our faith, even more unmovable from our trust in Him, and even more over-the-top in our service to His kingdom … and all because we know, with absolute confidence, that our labor for Him and His kingdom will never be in vain.

We affirm this morning that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and is alive—that He has conquered death and the grave—that He has paid the debt for our sins and ever lives for us—that we are united to Him and are risen with Him by faith—and that we are destined to be victorious over death in Him and will live forever with Him in glory. And all of that being absolutely true …

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Now; the Holy Spirit led the apostle Paul to write this great chapter of the Bible—1 Corinthians 15—for a very practical reason. The Christians in the ancient city of Corinth were getting confused about the truth of the resurrection. There had been some false teachers who had slipped in and had begun to teach them that there is no such thing as a resurrection of the dead. And of course, if there was no such thing as a resurrection, then Jesus would still be in the grave—and the Christian faith would therefore be a waste of time.

And so; Paul started off by stressing the fact that Jesus truly is literally, physically alive from the dead. It was key to the message of the gospel. In verses 1-8, he wrote;

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time (vv. 1-8).

Jesus is alive—and this was testified by eyewitnesses who touched Him, and talked with Him, and even—in some cases—ate with Him. Paul himself was one of those who encountered Him. That encounter had changed him from an unbeliever into a great preacher. And did you notice that he wrote to these Corinthian believers that they are saved by this wonderful news that he preached if they hold on tightly to it all—unless they believed ‘in vain’? What he meant by that was that, if there was no such thing as a resurrection, and if Jesus didn’t really literally raise from the dead—then their faith was an empty one and they were not saved by it. They believed the gospel ‘in vain’. We can know for sure that that’s what Paul meant by what he then goes on to say; starting with verse 12:

Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished (vv. 12-18).

When he speaks of those who have ‘fallen asleep in Christ’, he’s talking about faithful Christians who have died and who were buried in the grave. And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then they truly are dead … and they have no hope of ever living again. They have perished … and perished once for all. In verse 19, he says;

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable (v. 19).

And I’ll bet that there are some folks who never would have imagined such words were in the Bible! They’re strong words; aren’t they? But they’re also very true and reasonable ones. If there is no such thing as a real, literal, bodily resurrection from the dead, then that means that Jesus did not rise from the dead. And that would mean that the Christian faith could not be true. And what’s more, we would have no hope. Two-thousand years of history would have been built upon an enormous fraud. Those who give their lives and their energies to the Christian faith would be wasting their time. Worse than that—they would, of all people, be the most miserable.

But I love the affirmation that Paul then goes on to make. He encountered the resurrected Lord Jesus—personally and physically. And in verse 20, he declares,

But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (v. 20).

The ‘firstfruits’ is the first portion of a harvest—the promise of more yet to come. And that’s what Jesus is. He has risen indeed; and therefore, He has become the first of the great harvest of all those who will also be raised from the dead because they are united to Him by faith. If He had not been raised from the dead, then this couldn’t be true. But since He was raised from the dead, it’s an absolute certainty. In verses 21-23, Paul went on to say;

For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming (vv. 21-23).

The Bible teaches us that not only is it a fact that Jesus rose from the dead; but also that it is a fact that Adam and Eve were our first parents. They disobeyed God and sinned in the garden of Eden; and when they did so, they brought sin and condemnation and death upon all of us who came from them. Ever since Adam and Eve fell in sin, all the people who have been born from them keep right on sinning and dying. But you know what it says in John 3:16; don’t you? It’s one of the best-known verses of the Bible:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

Jesus—the sinless Son of God who was born into the human family—took the guilt of the sin of humanity upon Himself and died on the cross. He suffered the death penalty for us. And then, three days later, He was raised again to show that the payment of the cross is complete. And now, just as all of us where in Adam when he sinned, we now become ‘in Christ’ when we believe on Him and put our trust in what He did on the cross for us—and are thus forgiven! We receive “everlasting life”! I hope you have trusted Jesus, and placed your faith in what He did for us on the cross. If you have, then you have everlasting life in Him!

But ‘everlasting life’ means much more than only the forgiveness of our sins. It also means that just as Jesus was bodily raised from the dead, so will our own bodies be—if we have placed our faith in Him. ‘Everlasting life’ isn’t really everlasting life unless it means that we will also be raised all the way from the dead like Jesus Himself was.

And thanks to the resurrection of Jesus, that’s now our confident expectation in Him! And that’s why we can give our all to living for Him! We will never be doing so ‘in vain’. As Paul says at the end of this chapter;

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Now; look with me at verse 50. Verse 50 tells us that—as things are right now—we have a problem. It says;

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption (v. 50).

Let me tell you about something that happened to me a few months ago. I got hit in the face with the reality of this; and it sure makes the hope of resurrection practical to me.

I was with my brother. He’s seven years younger than me. We were up on the Olympic Peninsula—hiking along on the trail at Hurricane Ridge one afternoon. It was a beautiful sunny day. And as we were strolling along—with my brother a little ahead of me—I thought I’d be a smart aleck and say, “You know; with this bright sun shining down on you, and with your hat off, you can tell that you’ve really gotten gr—“ And then, I stopped. In fact, that’s all the further I dared utter … just the half-a-word “gr—“ And then he stopped on the path, and turned around, and gazed right at me smiling —as if to say, “Take a look in the mirror sometime, Buddy!” My brother may be turning a little “gr—“; but at least he’s still just a little “gr—“! Not me, though! I’ve almost turned completely “whi—“! Who am I to talk?

Now; I have believed on the Lord Jesus; and by faith in Him, I now have eternal life already going on in my inner-being—my spirit. But my body hasn’t caught up with that yet. In fact, it’s going in the other direction. And I don’t mean just my hair. Every day, the reality of the weakness and mortality of my body is made clear to me. And do you know why my brother and I were together up in Washington State? It was because of a family-member’s funeral. That family member’s body failed; and I know that mine will—in time—fail also. It’s already well on its way.

Now; there’s no way that these frail bodies of ours could ever—in the present condition they’re in—hope to inherit the kingdom of God. That kingdom is an eternal kingdom. But we are in fallen bodies that are prone to weakness and frailty and death. If we have trusted in Jesus, our spirits may be have been brought into a condition fit for an eternal kingdom; but not our bodies.

So; what can be done? If the Lord Jesus were to come today, how could we—who are still in this frail condition—enter into the kingdom of heaven? How can this problem be solved? Well; Paul goes on to tell us in verse 51:

Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— (v. 51).

A ‘mystery’ in the Bible is a truth that God reveals to us in His word. It’s something that we would never know unless God had first told it to us. And look at this amazing mystery! Not all of us who are in Christ shall ‘sleep’—that is, not all of us will ‘die’ physically. But we will all be ‘changed’. Not every one of us who follows Jesus will physically die; but we will all be physically transformed.

Did you know that from Adam and Eve onward—throughout all the centuries of human history—everyone before our time has died except for only two people? Those two people were the man Enoch in the Book of Genesis, and the Old Testament prophet Elijah. Those are the only two people in recorded history that did not die. They were taken away, in a marvelous and mysterious way, into the presence of God without having experienced death. But everyone else has died. Even our Lord Jesus—the Son of God in human flesh—has tasted death. But God is revealing a mystery to us through the apostle Paul. Not all of us who are in Christ will die; but we will all absolutely be changed.

How will this happen? Paul goes on to tell us;

in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised in corruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality (vv. 52-53).

It won’t happen gradually. We won’t wake up one day and feel different—and wonder what’s happening. It’ll happen ‘in a moment’. The word that Paul uses here is the one we get the word ‘atom’ from—the smallest indivisible unit conceivable. Today, we would say, ‘in a nanosecond’. In the tiniest flash of the eye—quicker than can be seen. This corruptible state of ours must be changed into an incorruptible one; and this condition of mortality of ours must be exchanged for one of immortality. And it will be suddenly—by the power of the Creator God who made all things—that we will be transformed into a state of glory that is fit for an eternal kingdom.

Paul says that this will happen at the last trumpet—the heavenly announcement that signals the bodily return of our Lord Jesus to this earth. Paul wrote about it in 1 Thessalonians 4. It’s a passage that I love to read at the funeral of a believer. It says;

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

And it’s then that we will fully experience eternal life—both spiritually and bodily. On the day of His resurrection, our Lord conquered death for us. And on the day of His return, we will fully experience that victory. Paul went on to quote some passages from the Old Testament when he wrote, in 54-55;

So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?” (vv. 54-55).

Do you know how death got the temporary victory over us? It was through sin. God told Adam and Eve that on the day they ate of the fruit of the tree He had forbidden to them, they would die. God gave a commandment; and they broke it; and as a result, they experienced a separation from God and thus spread sin and death throughout the whole human race that was born from them. You and I know this is true. All of us have sinned before God; and all of us have experienced the impact of death. How terrible the victory of death! How painful its sting!

But the temporary victory of death came to an end when Jesus rose from the dead! He lived a sinless life for us, and died on the cross for our sins. And then, to show that Jesus gained the victory for us, God raised Him from the dead. As Paul says in verses 56-57;

The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (vv. 56-57).

So then; the victory has been won. But we’re still in these frail bodies; aren’t we? If we only looked on the outside—that is, on these frail bodies of ours—we might not think that there was a victory. But because Jesus has risen from the dead, we can now be sure of it!

And dear fellow Christian; that sure and certain expectation should greatly motivate us! Later on, in 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul would write to these same Corinthian Christians and tell them;

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him (2 Corinthians 5:1-9).

* * * * * * * * * * *

Now; everything I have shared with you this morning is for those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ. Their spirits have already been made alive; and they are already living eternal life in their inner-being. Soon, their bodies will be brought up to the condition of their spirits. If they ‘fall asleep’, and their bodies are placed in the grave, then their bodies will be raised up in glory at the coming of the Lord. If we are still alive when Jesus comes, then in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, our bodies will be transformed—without ever dying—into the glory of our Lord Himself. I’m so glad for that hope! It’s what we should celebrate on Resurrection Sunday.

But if you have never trusted in Jesus as your Savior, then what I’ve shared with you this morning is not for you yet. You do not have eternal life inwardly. But you can have it. All that you need to do is simply pray to God and ask for it. You can pray a prayer like this:

God in heaven, I am a sinner. But today, I have heard that Jesus died on the cross to pay for my sins. And today, I have also heard that He was raised from the dead; and that He has conquered sin and death. Right here—right now—I place my faith in what Jesus did for me. I believe on Him and trust Him. I invite Him to help me live—from this day forward—for Him. Thank you for hearing my prayer and saving my soul.

And if you will now pray that prayer—and genuinely mean it—then by the promise of God’s word, you have entered into eternal life; “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” You have the right to look ahead to the day of resurrection at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ!

And I say to you what Paul says to all who believe on Jesus:

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in the Lord.

EA