Sunday, May 4, 2025

There we go. Alright, I'm going to read through our text here this morning, and then we'll just spend a little bit of time unpacking what is going on here. Paul writes this at the end of 1 Corinthians 15, "When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then it shall come to pass the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." Father in heaven, we ask that you would teach us, encourage us, that you would help us to see

that we are filled by the truth, that it's expressed in worship, and that we are called to put that worship into action. Help us to see the goodness of Jesus, the power of the resurrection, and the strength and hope you have given your church. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Now, I don't know if you have ever gotten something really, really out of order in your life. There was a point this week where it seemed like I had been running every which way. It was the middle of the afternoon, and I was just one of those moments where you're tired, but you're not just physically tired, you're mentally tired, and it seems like you're kind of going through life in a fog. And so I said, "You know what I need is I need another cup of coffee." And so I walked home, and I walked in the door.

Kaiser barks at me, say hello to the dogs. I walk over to the coffee maker, grab my coffee cup, and I'm standing there. I open up the coffee maker, I put my little coffee pot in, and I close it, and I hit the button, and I'm just standing there going, "Man, I am so looking forward to this cup of coffee." And you hear the coffee machine going, "Vrrrrr," as it's brewing the coffee, and you hear the coffee start pouring out, and I'm just like, "Man, I can smell the coffee. Life is good." And I look over, and there's the coffee maker, and it's not brewing into the cup, which is still in my hand, right? It's brewing directly into the little thing in front of the coffee maker that's supposed to hold the drips when it's done brewing, and I am so tired and so foggy that I'm going, "Huh, I mean, that's interesting."

And then I'm like, "Oh, no, right? Rachel's gonna find out. There's gonna be coffee all over the kitchen." And so I'm like, "I can't use the cup that's in my hand, because then it's not gonna be a full cup of coffee, because most of it's already on the floor, so I need to save this clean cup." And then finally I was like, "You snapped out of it." Put my cup of coffee there. You know, I had like this much coffee left, thankfully. Quickly cleaned up so I didn't get in trouble, then brewed a second cup of coffee. And in case you're wondering, it did not help. Maybe sometimes for us this is how life feels, right? Everything is sort of pouring out of us. Nothing's working. Our cup that we're holding is empty, and we are tired and exhausted.

And I think for us, many times it is easy for us to find ourselves living the Christian life backward. And what I mean by that is we know the commands of God, and we seek to obey the commands of God, but we still, at the end of the day, find ourselves sort of tired and discouraged and frustrated and maybe even, a little bit hopeless. And often, when I say that we get things backwards, what I mean is that instead of coming to God for hope and for comfort and strength, fueled by the worship of His goodness, we're simply trying to do it ourselves. That instead of operating in the strength that God supplies, we're doing it on our own and then wondering why we are so empty. And as we move into our text this morning in 1 Corinthians chapter 15,

and we're going to end up spending, I think, probably most of our time in verse 58. We're going to talk about all of it, but we're heading toward verse 58. It's this four-part command, right? It says, "Sedfast, immovable, abounding in the work of the Lord, and then knowing that your labor is not in vain." And there are several commands throughout 1 Corinthians 15, but this is sort of the big one that sort of sums everything all up. And if we come to these commands to be steadfast, to be immovable, to abound in the work of the Lord, to know the value of our labor, and we come in our own strength, it's like standing there waiting for the coffee to brew, holding your cup over here, and then we wonder why we're so empty. And I want you to notice this morning that before the Apostle Paul commands, he worships.

And the worship that he brings finds itself in the truth of the resurrection, both in the witness of it in the beginning chapter, in its defense through the middle toward the end of the chapter, the grace of God evidenced in the power of the resurrection, and now he begins to worship over what he has seen. And as he looks back to what he's just written, and the centrality of the gospel that keeps us safe, the testimony of the resurrection evidenced in the life of the apostles, the grace that has been poured out to him, and as he defends the truth, it's filled him up to this point where he now overflows in worship. And I want you to make sure that you understand, before the work, we must come in worship. And Paul's worship and his joy is based upon a foundation of the truth.

In our text this morning, he quotes from both Isaiah 25 and Hosea 13, as he talks about this world-shattering truth that Jesus is alive. And I want to begin this morning by showing you four reasons for joy that we find in this text. And so we'll begin in verse 54. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. And so he brings forth, first of all, two wonderful changes, right? Perishable to imperishable. Mortal to immortal. And what he is saying, first of all, is that in the resurrection life is no longer fragile. That's what perishable means. Something that over time rots away. Like the expiration date on milk. It's only good for so long. And even less time if you leave it on the counter, which I've never done.

And what happens? It has to be poured out. It goes back. And he says, first of all, in Christ, in the resurrection, life is no longer fragile. But the second mood for joy is that he says, is the mortal puts on immortality. And what he's saying is nothing, it no longer comes to an end. And we are so used to things coming to an end, right? We get to the end of a TV show, the end of a game we're watching, the end of a service that we attend. Our cars get to the end of its life. Our clothes need to be replaced. Our food goes bad. We are used to life coming in stages that have both a beginning and an ending. And Paul says there's reasons for joy. First of all, life is no longer fragile because of the resurrection.

And secondly, it doesn't come to an end anymore, right? The mortality has been replaced with immortality. And it's not just about the changes that have happened that brings Paul joy. He says it's the absolute defeat of death. And he quotes from one of my favorite passages in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 25. This picture of a resurrection banquet. And in verse 8 of Isaiah 25, it just says, "Death is swallowed up in victory." And the picture here in the original language is pretty picturesque. This is not that death just sort of disappears, the word swallowed up. But if you've ever seen anybody drink a large amount of liquid very quickly, there's some guys who made a whole YouTube career out of this. There's a guy who will get you, you see one of those giant boots, giant glass boots?

And he'll fill it with whatever. He's like filling it with Mountain Dew. It's like eight cans of Mountain Dew. And he just sort of drinks it down all in one drink. And then somebody's like, "Hey, try orange Gatorade. Try Sprite." And you have this picture, and we understand, like drinking something very quickly. The picture here is that death, it wasn't even a struggle. That it was gulped down. The word literally means gulped down. And it's not just that death is removed or swallowed up, but it's replaced with victory. And so it's not just that the bad is taken away from our life, it's that the good has been brought in. And so Paul says, "I rejoice, because things are no longer fragile. They no longer come to an end. And it's because of the victory in Jesus Christ, which is bigger than any of my fears."

Let's take a look at this second part of joy. Two more reasons that he gives us. And he says, "Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting?" He's quoting from Hosea, the 13th chapter, "The sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." There is no victory for death, nor for the sting that goes with it. Now, I want to see these two things that he's thankful for, and I want to zoom in, first of all, on this word "sting." It can have sort of two pictures in your Bible. One, the picture of a sting can be like that from a bee or from a scorpion. In the book of Revelation, it's used to talk about the stinger of a scorpion, something that we really want no part of us.

Unless you're kind of really weird, most of us don't go looking for bee stings. Most of us don't go looking to get stung by a scorpion. And so Paul says the picture of death is that at one time it was like a bee or a scorpion. But then there's another picture, and it's used I think in Acts chapter 9. And the picture of the sting is a long iron rod with a really sharp point on it. And what you would do if you were moving livestock, and they were being stubborn, you had your big sharp metal stick, and you just poke the animal, and you poke them again, and it gets them moving, and when they get out of line, you poke them again. And so there's two pictures here. First is the sting of a bee or of a scorpion, and then a sharp stick that's being used to keep people in line.

Now consider these two pictures. How do we react to stinging insects? Right? Nobody is real excited about that, right? And so when there's stinging insects, especially if they are dangerous stinging insects, right, we run, we hide, we get out a can of rain. Maybe if it's really bad, we break out a flamethrower, right? It's like, I don't want any part of those stinging insects. And what Paul says here is that the stinger death has been ripped off, that we can rejoice, because just like we might run from a poisonous scorpion, that stinger has been ripped off. And secondly, the second reason is there is a picture here of slavery to sin, right? And here is sin, and we're walking down a road, and sin is behind us with a sharp stick, and it's driving us along, and it's keeping us in the path, and Jesus shows up and goes,

"Give me your stick." And he takes it away. And so there's a freedom from fear and a freedom from the oppression of sin. And the sting, whether it's a poisonous insect or a sharp stick, comes from sin. That broken rebellion before God, we know that sin is sin because of the law of God, and then here comes Jesus, who is two things, right? First of all, he's sinless, never done anything wrong, always done everything right, but he also perfectly fulfills the law. And so Jesus, by becoming sinless, and by coming to us in the perfect fulfillment of the law, rips the stinger and takes the stick away from death. But notice it's, once again, not just taking something away, not just swallowing up death, but look what it says, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Right? The bees are gone, and the stick has been ripped away.

And that leads us to this place of joy. And so Paul has been rejoicing. He's saying it's no longer temporary, no longer fragile, no longer comes to an end. There's no longer a sting, and instead there is hope and there is victory. And it brings us to the place where this worship now goes to work. And so what Paul does now in this last picture in our text is he puts that worship to work. Because things aren't fragile, because it doesn't come to an end, because the sting of death has been ripped away. He says, "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." So first of all, what we see is this is Paul's call to action regarding the resurrection.

That word "therefore" just means "as a result of." And so what Paul is saying as he comes to the end of this section of 1 Corinthians, he's saying "as a result of the truth of the resurrection, as witnessed by the apostles, as seen in the grace that is poured out in my life, as defended by my answering all of these different arguments, and as I have been brought to worship, as I realize there's no longer a sting, there's no longer a stick, there's no longer a time limit, and there is no longer an end." He says, "Therefore, this is how we live in light of this." And what you find is that truth leads to worship, worship leads to action, and that worship fills our cup and energizes us. And I want you to understand, these instructions that Paul gives here, first of all, the result of truth

brought into our lives that leads us to worship. But secondly, this is not Paul giving us sort of a checklist, right? It's really easy to see instructions in the Bible sort of as a simple formality, right? You're on a plane, it says, "Ladies and gentlemen, you know, please turn your attention to the flight attendants as they give a brief safety demonstration." And if you spend any time flying, you're like, "Yeah, I know how to use my seatbelt. I know that kids get the oxygen mask last. I know that there's a life jacket under my seat, but I don't need to listen to this." Notice that Paul's instructions aren't simply walking down a checklist. What does he say? "My beloved brothers." And he looks at the church in all of their brokenness, in all of their hurt, in all of their disagreements,

and he goes, "I love every one of you, and I'm telling you this because it comes from the joy of the resurrection of Jesus." So Paul gives us four instructions. You can see them there in the text, right? "Be steadfast, be immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, and knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." And these instructions are, first of all, called faithfulness, fueled by the wonder and worship of the resurrection, but they're also a warning and an encouragement, right? So fueled by worship and encouraging us where we struggle and correcting us where we're going the wrong way, the Apostle Paul, in his love, says, "Let me sum up the joy and the glory and the worship of the resurrection and how it works out in your life in three ways." So I want to take a look at these,

not necessarily by saying, "Be steadfast," but let's take a look at them as questions. I want to turn these four commands into questions and into evaluation for our life. And so as we look at this, I want us to look at our lives as well. First of all, where is your foundation? In the original language, this is a picture of a solid seed that's carved out of stone, and you plopped yourself into it, and you are not moving. The idea of steadfast in the New Testament, specifically this word, is that there is a big old rock, and it's got a big old seat carved into it, and you are sitting on that, and you are not moving. And it leads us to this question for our lives, where is our foundation? Paul is saying to Christians, maybe who are struggling with hope or discouragement,

he's saying, "Sit down on Jesus. Do not move. Do not leave." Maybe you've found yourself in that place of comfort. In other areas, you say, "I don't want to go out there." That's what Paul is saying. He says, "You don't want to go out there. Stay where you are." I was sitting in my office last night, and I was like, "Oh, I've got to run home, and we've got to do this, we've got to do that." I looked outside, and it was just sprinkling, and just in a moment, it went from sprinkling to absolute downpour. And I'm like, "I'm never going home. I will die before I go out in that." Rain's pouring off the gutters. It was rough. Lightning flashing. Not doing it. And what Paul is saying is that there is a safe place, and that is firmly built upon the foundation that is Jesus.

His life, His death, His burial, and His resurrection. And the question that we as Christians must be asking ourselves is, "Where is our foundation?" And you might say, "Well, how do I evaluate this in my life?" What do you fear the most? What do you fear to lose the most? It points really quickly to what we're trusting in. What do you hope in the most? If there was one thing that you could have right now that you think would fix all of your brokenness, what would it be? Maybe I could have more, enough resources to take care of things. Maybe this relationship, or this health. And Paul would say, "There is only one thing that really is a true foundation, and it is the solid rock of Christ." And so the first question we ask in light of the resurrection is, "Where is our foundation?"

And the second is similar, but a little bit differently. It's, "Where is our attention?" You might say, "Well, isn't this the same thing? You're not supposed to be moving." I was told to stay seated, so I plop myself down. There's a picture here of movement after the wrong things, right? It's real easy for us to chase the wrong things. I mentioned we have a little puppy, and it's crazy, because I can take him over here to the office, and I can be like, "Sit," and he sits right down. In fact, I clicker trained him to sit, like, three and a half minutes. And I'm so excited to take him home, and so we're outside, and I'm like, "Hey, look, I clicker trained the puppy to sit," and I click it, and then he goes chasing a bird, right? I get him back, and I'm like, "All right, let's click. Let's sit."

And then he's after one of the kids, right? And then he's like, "Oh, there's Kaiser. I'm going to attack him," right? Every little thing he chases after. And Paul says, "Not just where your foundation is, but where is your attention? What is it that you are focusing on?" Because in our Christian life, right, sometimes there's distractions, right? Those things that move really fast, that draw our attention, and maybe we run that way, but there's also, in those moments, temptation that we want so very badly. Let me ask you, where is your focus? Where is your attention? What are your thoughts to come? Maybe this, what do you dream about? Maybe you never tell anybody about it. You say, "Man, this is how I would like my life to look. This is where I would like it to go."

Because our dreams, and I don't mean like in the middle of the night when we're sound asleep and not conscious, but those things that we look at and say, "Man, if I could just..." That's where our attention is. It's not just our hope, but it's also our attention. Where does your brain go in its default settings? What are you focused on? And so Paul has said, "Hey, stay on the foundation. Don't be distracted. Don't be tempted." Look at what he says for the third command: "What are you filled with? Abounding in the work of the Lord." Now, the word abounding here just means something that overflows. And if we as Christians are to overflow, we have to be filled with something first. And so I want to take a look at what this overflowing really means, and then sort of what we are supposed to overflow with.

And I think a great place to go to understand this idea of filling and overflowing or abounding is in John chapter 6. There's two miracles that are recorded in all four Gospels. One of them, obviously, is the resurrection. The other is the feeding of the 5,000. And Jesus is in the wilderness, and there's 5,000 men. And that's not counting women and children, which means there's probably somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 people in this crowd. And they are in the middle of nowhere. Everybody has been with Jesus for a while. Everybody is hungry. And Jesus, first of all, uses it as an opportunity to teach his disciples. And he says, "All right, let's get these people fed." It's like, "We don't have enough money. There's no grocery stores. We had a grocery store. We couldn't afford it. There's no grocery stores that don't even have that amount of bread."

And then, a guy by the name of Andrew brings somebody to Jesus. It's kind of his trademark. And in verse 9 of John chapter 6, it says this. It says, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many? Five loaves, two fish, and 15,000 people." Now, I want you to understand, we're not talking about this massive loaf of sourdough and a couple of swordfish. We're talking about a lunch. So the better picture here is like a couple sardines and like five crackers, right? This is a small, light lunch. Probably most of us as adults would think of it as a snack. And here, Andrew brings this boy to Jesus and goes, "Hey, we got a snack. Five crackers and a couple of sardines and 15,000 people."

And Jesus goes, "All right, sit everybody down. Hand me the sardines and crackers. I'm going to pray over it. Let's start passing it out." And look at what he says next. And they had eaten their fill, all those thousands of people. He told his disciples, "Gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost." That word "leftover" is the same word used in 1 Corinthians 15:58 for "abounding." And you go, "Well, how are these leftovers abounding?" Remember what we started with. All right, you got five saltines, two sardines, and this. They gathered them up. They just fed 15,000 people. They gathered them up, and they filled twelve baskets. I never thought about this before, but that's one basket for each disciple to carry, right? Twelve baskets with the fragments from those five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

So they start with like a lunchable, and they end with twelve baskets filled with leftovers, right? That's abounding, right? From nothing to twelve guys having to carry the leftovers out. And the abounding and the feeding of the 5,000, right? We see how you go from emptiness to fullness to overflowing, and it happens not in our strength, but in the power and provision of God, and it's so wonderfully encouraging, right? Because maybe your thought is, "I don't have anything." But God takes those little crackers, and He overflows it. And in the work of the Lord, what He says we are abounding and overflowing in, in one sense that means everything that you do. Right? From sweeping the floor, to going to work, to washing your dishes, we do all things as if we're serving the Lord.

But in a more specific sense, in the church. Right? It means being a part of a body that is built upon a foundation, that is focused on Christ, that is seeking to declare the good news to the world. It means those moments of forgiving, of encouraging, of strengthening, of walking through your brothers and sisters in trial, bearing one another's burdens, sharing and proclaiming the good news of the gospel for the kingdom. And so, He says, "You're abounding, not in your strength, but in the work of the Lord." Now the fourth is a little bit different. Right? We've seen the foundation, the focus, and the filling, and now it's knowledge, and so we're going to turn it into this question, "How are you feeling?" Right? It's the question when you go to the doctor, and maybe you haven't been doing so good, and you're back for a follow-up, and they go, "How are you feeling?"

It's a diagnostic question, and maybe this morning you're frustrated. Right? Nothing works. It's like going to work, and the printer has no ink, there's no electricity, you're constantly interrupted, and you're frustrated, and maybe you're fed up. It just feels like everything is a battle. Maybe you're fatigued, and you're just worn out. Maybe you're frightened. Look at this wonderful encouragement as we go, "How do I do this?" He says, "Knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." Right? There's a confidence that's given that we may not even see, just like we sang earlier and talked about during prayer time. Right? All we tend to see is the battle, but God sees the victory. And he says, "Those of you who rejoice, felt upon the foundation of the truth of the resurrection, rejoicing in worship, filled up with joy,

and now you're steadfast. You're unmoving. You're abounding in the work of the Lord." Now know this as your encouragement, that in the work of the Lord, what you're doing, it's not in vain. It's not empty. Right? Our enemy comes to us with lies, right? You're too weak. You're too broken. You're too sinful. What you're doing doesn't matter. You're too small. Your church is too small. Your problems are too big. And if Martin Luther was to answer that, as he once answered the accusations of the devil, he said, "And what of it? Because of my Savior, who gave himself for me." That those temptations of discouragement, where we are fatigued, we're frustrated, we're fed up. Paul says, "No. Know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." Paul is saying, "We've diagnosed your struggles, but I'm going to point you to Christ."

In 1 Corinthians 15:58, Paul has just summarized the entire chapter. He says, "Because of the resurrection, we're not empty." Right? It's not in vain. But even in those moments where we are frustrated, and we're tired, and we feel like we're broken, God is at work, even when all we see is the battle. But also, because of the truth of the resurrection, we are in the Lord, right? Just as Christ rose, so will we. There is hope in your labor, there is light in the darkness, there is hope in your discouragement. Psalm 127 says this, "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain, unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early to go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep."

Now this is not a psalm saying don't labor. It's not a psalm saying I'm not going to build a house, I'm not going to be a watchman, I'm going to sleep in late and I'm going to go to bed early. That's not the point of this psalm. The point of this psalm is that if we try to do these things under our own strength, it means nothing. That our labor on the house must be under the master builder of God. That our watching over and watching for those dangers and difficulties must be under the chief watchman, who is God. He said we try to get as much energy out of the day as possible. We get up early, we go to bed late, we're so very busy. And what does he say? You're eating the bread of anxious toil.

And the psalmist is just saying, "Stop. Work under the providence and the power and the care of God. Take a nap." He gives to his beloved sleep that God is the one who gives us rest. And the point of these four encouragements in 1 Corinthians 15 about where is our foundation? What is our focus? What are we filled with? How are we feeling? They're really diagnosing this question in the heart. Are we eating the bread of anxious toil? Are we trusting in the belder and the watchman of our souls? Let's pray. Father in heaven, in the resurrection, you bring to us hope and victory and peace with you. I ask that we would not eat the bread of anxious toil, but that we would run to you, that you would help us to look to our foundations, our focus.

Look to what it is we're filling our life with, and that you would help us to look to our feelings and see that there is something we can know. That in the midst of our discouragement, that you are at work, and that our labor for you is not in vain. Thank you for loving us. We ask that you would bless us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We are going to stand and sing. Turn your eyes to Jesus.