The Hope of the New Creation - 1 Corinthians 15:50-59

Well, good morning, Northland Riverside. Very excited to be here with you this morning. Just 4 weeks ago, no one was in here meeting on Sunday morning, and now here we are for our third week, very excited to be joined by you. So, if you don't know me, my name is Dalton Leslie. I'm the other pastor here at Northland Church Riverside. And we are very, very fortunate to be here, and we're very, this has been prayed over for a very long time. There's lots of people who serve, lots of people who do things, and the Lord has just blessed us immensely for being here, and by being here. But today is Easter Sunday, and that is the reason why we are here this morning. I'm going to teach you something. Some of you may know this. Some of you may not. There's a traditional Christian greeting on Easter Sunday where someone says he is risen, and then that people respond, he is risen indeed. We don't have to do this, but I think it's fun as a church, we can, as one accord, we can proclaim that he is risen. So I'll say he is risen, and you say he is risen indeed. Ready? He is risen. Man, it's so good. And he is. And today we're celebrating the fact that Jesus came, he lived a perfect life, that he laid aside his glory, and he came and wrapped himself in human flesh, that he lived a life perfectly, the life that we could never live, and he died a death that he did not deserve. He died the death that we deserved. And he was under God's righteous wrath for our sin. And Jesus died. And he was buried, and he was buried for 3 days. And on the 3rd day, he rose from the grave, victorious over sin, victorious over death. And as the 1st fruits, we heard about last week, as the 1st blade of grass, coming from the ground, that's signaling, more will be coming soon as the 1st fruits, we look to Jesus as our hope for eternity. Because Jesus has risen from the grave, as we who have faith in Jesus, will also raise with him when he returns. Because he lives now, we know that we will live with him forever and forever started when he saved us. When we put our faith in him. This past week, I was thinking, I was praying about Easter. And a big event happened in our country, in our world even this week. The Artemis 2 space shuttle launched. Anybody watch the space shuttle takeoff, a few of us. If you didn't, go back and watch it. It was super cool. I actually forgot about it. I knew it was happening, and I forgot we were making dinner, and then I realized, oh man, we missed the lunch. So I brought my kids downstairs on our couch. We turned on the TV, and we were an hour late. They were already in space. So we're like, okay, I still want my kids to witness this historical event. So I rewound, and I went way too fast, and I was an hour or too early. So we started listening to these random people just talking about things I don't understand. And all the reasons why going to the moon right now is really cool. So I'm like, okay, I don't want to watch an hour of this. I do want to watch some of it, so I fast forward to 10 minutes. They put a 10 minute clock on the bottom of the screen. So we watched a 10 minute countdown of the space shuttle lunch, and we're talking to our kids, and the whole time they're like, uh, Dad, when is it gonna take off? Like, just go a little further, and we can watch it take off. I was like, No, no, no, we need to watch this. We don't have to watch it. But I wanted them to be excited about this. This is something really cool. We'll be reading about this for forever. This is a historical moment. If you don't know about this mission, They are sending a rocket further than any rocket manned rocket has ever been. They are going around the dark side of the moon. They will be the furthest humans away from Earth ever. So it's a really cool historical moment, and I want my kids, who are 4 and 3, to understand the gravity. No pun intended, the gravity of this moment. So we watch it for 10 minutes and they're like, Dad, come on. But eventually it gets to the 10 minute, the 10 2nd counter, and we all know that, right? And we've been kind of doing this on our own without even thinking about the rocket. We'd be at our table and we count from 10 and we'd bang on the table and we'd pretend a rocket's going up. But we count down from 10, and we watch in a moment that rocket just shoots straight up. And then if you've seen any of the videos or any of the stuff, you just kind of see the exact same shot for like 20 minutes, it's just the rocket going up, tons of fire and flames going out. But we were super excited. And I wanted them to have the excitement and the anticipation of the launch. Just watching the launch itself is cool. But having the anticipation built up makes the launch that much, much more satisfying. Now, we had the luxury of knowing the outcome because we were an hour late to the party, right? We saw that they were already in space. So we weren't watching it with anxiety thinking, is this going to be successful? We weren't watching it thinking, oh, I really hope, I don't watch, let my kids watch a rocket explode, and I have to explain to them what just happened. We didn't have to wait extra hour for takeoff. We had the luxury of being able to go back and watch the exact amount that we wanted to. And the anticipation made the launch that much more satisfying. The kids, my kids were very excited. I were very excited. But we can't skip through life. We can't skip to the end either, right? We can't skip the ads of life. We're living life right now. The slow times, the fast times, the anxious times. But although we can't skip through life, we know how everything must end. Paul, in our last portion of one Corinthians 15, is allowing us to see what the end will look like, what it must look like. He's showing the Corinthians, what must take place in our bodies for us to stand in eternity with Christ. Paul shows the Corinthians the end to build anticipation and to teach them how they ought to live in light of that coming day. So let's read. If you have a Bible in 1st Corinthians 15, starting in verse 50. We'll read a few verses here to start. I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the imperishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this imperishable this perishable body must put on the imperishable. And this mortal body must put on immortality. Let's pray. God, we thank you for today. Another day for your glory, another day to worship you. Lord, we thank you for this day in particular that we can look back and think about the resurrection so that we can look forward to a day that will be with you in your likeness, in your image, at your throne. Lord, I pray that in the reading of your scripture and the explaining of your scripture that we would be built up, that it would not be the Dalton show. It would not be the words that I have produced here, Lord, but you would take the scribbles on this page and you would make them obedient to you. They'd be glorifying to you and that we would be built up in the hearing of them. Lord, we love you. Help us love you more. Amen. And these 1st 3 verses of this portion of scripture, we see this common phrase, that the imperishable, sorry, the perishable, messed it up. The imperishable must be put on. We must put on something that lasts in order for us to live in the end. We must be changed into something else. It says flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, which makes us ask the question. Why can't flesh and blood inherit the kingdom of God? And Tyler hit on this a little bit last week. It's sin. Adam and Eve as our representatives all the way in the very beginning of all of creation. They chose to sin. They chose rebellion. They chose to take from the tree. And as our representatives, their sin spread to all. Romans 512 says, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, Adam, and death through that sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned. Adam is our representatives similar to how we have representatives today for our state, who represent us in the government. He represented us and his sin passed to all of his descendants, all humanity. In the garden. God told Adam and Eve if they were to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that they would surely die because of their sin. Yet they lived 100s of years after that before they died. Did God mislead them into having them think that their death would be immediate? No. What we actually learn here is that death is one physical, but also he was talking about spiritual death. God was speaking of both that now in our sin. We will endure a physical death, and we are enduring a spiritual death. And we'll explain that. First of all, we're all bound for a physical death. All are on a one way track to death. Perishable when we talk about the perishable must put on the imperishable, is something that does not last. We think about perishable goods, right? Some types of food, whenever you're donating food. You don't bring perishable goods because they won't be any good by the time they're handed off. We need something that does not perish, something that does not end. We think about a best used by date. Tyler so lovingly, last week showed us that everyone older than 30 is on the back 9 of their life. And I can feel it. I can feel it. 31, I'm just too old. But we know that we're on a one-way path to the end. The things that end cannot inherit the things that do not end, namely heaven, Christ himself. There's this guy in popular culture. You might have heard of them. His name is Brian Johnson. He's a guy. He has this, some people know Brian Johnson. Okay, he has some nods, like really popular. All right. This guy, he's on a, he's on a mission. His mission is called Don't Die. Seems really simple, but this is his whole plan. He plans to not die. He actually hopes his goal is to make humans immortal by 2039. So he has a very crazy schedule. He is a self-proclaimed most measured man. Which is funny. He measures his blood. He measures everything about himself in order to track and to make small changes to make him last forever. He's 48. And this is what his morning routine is. We're not going to go through the whole thing because it's a little wild. But he wakes up at 430 to 5 o'clock every morning, and he has to wake up naturally without an alarm. He has to maintain circadian rhythms. He takes measurements. He immediately checks his inner ear temperature, which runs a little bit cooler than the average person due to his protocol, which is this routine. And he uses a smart scale to track weight, body fat, muscle mass, and hydration. Then, he exposes his eyes to 10,000 lux light for several minutes to simulate a sunrise. Then at 5.30, he does precision exercising for 60 to 90 minutes, which includes strength training, cardio, high intensity, interval training, and flexibility work. Then at 645, he eats a breakfast that he calls the green giant. It's the 1st meal of the day and it's nutrient dense. It's a blend of broccoli, cauliflower, black lentils, mushrooms, hemp seeds, and it's often drizzled with olive oil. Delicious, right? And then he takes what he calls a supplement stack, which is dozens of pills. that have all kinds of vitamins, all kinds of things, some that are not FDA approved. He's just trying to take these things that they have done some research on. And then at 7.30 to 10, he does advanced therapies where he wears a red light cap on his head, that supports hair growth, and he uses red near, sorry, near infrared panels for skin, and cellular health. And then he spends time in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, and he spends 90 minutes in pressurized oxygen to accelerate healing, and then he spends 20 minutes in a sauna, and then he goes into an ice bath. And now, there's much more that he does every single day. And he's going to spend all of his money. He's going to spend all of his time. He's gonna spend his entire life for one goal, to not die, and he is gonna die. It's just the fact of the matter. That we are promised in scripture, as a result of our sin, that all must die. We are all bound for death. Our bodies are perishable. There's no stopping them. It's a fact. There are no number of pills, therapy, broccoli shakes, there's no amount of any of those things that are going to stop our death from coming. The Bible says right here, we must put on the imperishable. We must perish in order to do so. So we're all bound for a physical death. The 2nd one is that we're all born spiritually dead. The spiritual death is a death to righteousness. Because of our sin and our nature towards sin, We are dead of towards doing good things, dead towards God's righteousness. We are hopeless in our sin to please God. To live a life that is worthy of rewards, we are unworthy of that. We cannot earn heaven. Although we live and breathe, and we move in buildings like this. In our sin, we are dead men and women walking in our sin. And we are just waiting for the inevitable judgment of our works before an all perfect and all powerful, sinless God. In our sin, apart from Christ, we are hopeless, and we are spiritually dead. Ephesians 2, one, and sorry, Ephesians 2, one, and 3 says this. And you are dead in your trespasses and sins, sorry, and we were among those who once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Paul, in the book of Ephesians, says that we are dead in our sin. What good can a dead man do? Nada. What inheritance can a dead man inherit? Nothing. Dead men give inheritances, right? They aren't given anything. In our sin, in our spiritual death, we cannot hope to inherit anything because we are absolutely separate from that. We need our sinful, dead flesh to be transformed into a living, spiritual flesh in order to receive the imperishable inheritance that Christ has won for us. Revelation 5 paints a picture of what our future will look like. Verses 11 through 14 It says this. This is John, the apostle John writing. He says, then I looked and I heard around the throne, and the living creatures and the elders, the voice of many angels, numbering myriads and myriads and 1000s of 1000s saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. And I heard every creature, every creature in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, to him who is seated on the throne, and to the lamb, be blessing, and honor, and glory, and might forever and ever. And the 4 living creatures said, amen. And the elders fell down and worshiped. This is our future. This is the day where every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess. Whether you're in Christ or apart from Christ. Everyone will bend the knee and will say, you are God. You are worthy of all. Our confession as believers is that he will reign forever, and all worship is due him forever. This is a picture of everyone's future, that all will bend the knee. All will confess, but not all will be in his presence forever. Not all will be in the new heaven, in the new earth forever with Jesus and the saints. Some will be in a very real place under the wrath of God, a real place called hell, a place that also lasts forever, a place that also requires an imperishable body. Back to the end in Revelation 20, there's this passage in 27 through 10, it says this, when the 1000 years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison, and they will come out to deceive the nations that are the 4 corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea. It can't be counted. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints. the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and consumed them. They're defeated like that. And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire in sulfur where the beasts and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. The imperishable punishment that will happen for those who are not in Christ is forever and ever. And in order for them to inherit that, they must also have a body that does not fail. A body that does not give up. The language says the perishable must put on the imperishable. This must happen in our limited body that ends, to stand in the weight of his glory. We must have a body that doesn't end. And our limited body that ends, that perishes, that disintegrates in order to be under the wrath of God forever and ever, must be unending. So whoever you are, whatever you've done, whatever you put your faith in, you will stand before Christ, and you will stand before him imperishable. Either you will be with him forever in his glory and in blessing and honor forever, or you'll be under his wrath forever. We must be transformed because of sin in our limits as dying humans. It must happen. So we ask the question then. Okay, Dalton, but what happens to those who are still alive when Christ comes back? Are we just waiting for everybody to die 1st and then Christ will come? Like, how is that going to go down? Paul says this, that although all are bound for a physical death, not all have to die before he returns. Verses 51 and 52. It says, behold, I tell you a mystery. A mystery is something that was once hidden, but now is made unveiled. He said, well, we shall not all sleep, that is, to die, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. We shall all be changed in a moment, whether you are already dead or you're alive at his coming in a moment, all will be changed. He uses this phrase, the last trumpet. Now this is language from the Old Testament. In even the New Testament, that's signaling the day of the Lord. Joel 21 says this, says blow a trumpet in Zion, sound an alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. It is near. The trumpet is the signal to all creation that the day of the Lord is here. That our present reality changes to the final reality, in the twinkle of an eye. In an instant, all will be changed. All will be made imperishable. The end has come. And he says that we won't all pass, but all will be changed. We need, we must have imperishable bodies, not primarily just because we sin, not because we die, but because we sin. We have a corruptible body and sin. Even the most holy person that we can think of, that's not Jesus. Even Mother Teresa, whoever you want to say, even they are corruptible, even they have a bend towards evil, even they are unable to please God in their sin. They are prone to sinfulness, prone to rebellion, prone to pride. We need a new incorruptible body to stand confidently before Jesus on that day and worship him with eyes wide open without shame and guilt of sin and failure. We need a body that can bear the weight of his glory forever. In Psalm 54, we get this phrase. It says, for you are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you. Evil will not stand in his presence. We see multiple examples of this in scripture. If you've read Isaiah at all, Isaiah 6, Isaiah is caught up in the vision. He's brought into the throne room of God, and we see this incredible image where just the hymn of his robe fills the temple. He's huge. God is huge. And the seraphim are flying around. They're saying, holy, holy, holy as the Lord God almighty. And then Isaiah says this phrase says, woe is me, for I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwelt in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. He says, I am unworthy. He falls down on his face. He says, I am ruined. Woe means I am ruined. He falls right at the feet of Jesus, like a dead man. The feet of God, like a dead man. Evil cannot stand in the presence of the holy. In Revelation one, we see the disciple John, again, he's caught up in the vision, and he hears a voice from behind him, and he looks behind him, and it's the resurrected Jesus in his glory. And John falls down. Remember who John is. This is the best friend of Jesus. He calls himself the beloved one. He falls down at the feet of his best friend and says, I am a dead man in your presence. I am a sinner. I am unworthy to be here. Evil cannot stand in the presence of the holy. And then lastly, with John, not John, with Paul. He's on the road to Damascus, and he's a bright light shines, right? And he's blinded immediately. And then Paul would say that he saw the physical resurrected Jesus in front of him. And he says, who are you, Lord? And he falls down on his face like a dead man again. He's blinded by the glory. And we learn this through all of these stories and from the scripture that the perishable cannot stand in the presence of the imperishable. Our perishable flesh, flesh must put on the imperishable. The 2nd point is the imperishable will be put on. It's subtly different. It says that we must. We have a need. We absolutely have to have this happen for us to stand in that day. And the 2nd point is that we will put it on. It's a promise. Look at verses 54 through 57. He says this. 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. Oh, 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 victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. All will be resurrected, whether while living in a moment, or while dead from the grave, all will be raised with new imperishable bodies when Christ returns. This is a promise. We must have this happen in order to stand on that day, and it will happen as a promise that he has given us. The trumpet will sound. The dead will be raised. We will be changed. And how can Paul have this confidence? How does he absolutely know this will happen? Christ is for the same reason that we're celebrating Easter. That Christ is risen from the grave as the 1st fruits of the resurrection, that he who he is who he said he is. He is Lord. He is God in flesh. What he said on earth, he said with authority, not as a good teacher, but as God. It is a fact. Verses 3 through 8 of this chapter, remember the credibility of the resurrection, that it was promised 1000s of years prior in scripture, and Jesus appeared in the flesh to more than 500 people after he died and after he rose from the grave. They all went to the grave defending that truth. Even Paul, who was an opponent of Jesus, went to the grave defending that truth. Paul is confident because he saw the living Jesus on the road to Damascus. Our resurrection is sure because of Jesus who went before us and who said he's coming back to take us with them. We will put on the imperishable. This is a call back to the last verse that Tyler preached with last week. In verse 49, he says, just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, the man of sin, the perishable, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. That's Christ. We will bear his image. We will do that if you were in Christ. The word bear means to carry. It means to support. It means to put on, and put on is the placing of something to carry. We will not just have a new body. We will not just have a new good body, but we will have one like his that we've put on his righteousness. We've put on the imperishable. We put on that which he's given us. We will be like him. We will, and we must. Tyler mentioned last week that when Christ returns, he will make things the way that they were always supposed to be. The way that they were before the fall. Before the image of God in us was tainted with the ugliness of sin, before rebellion and pride came into the world. He will remake us into the very image of Christ, into the image that can stand in his presence forever and ever. When he returns, we will put on the imperishable. We will put on immortality, and death will be defeated, it will be swallowed up, swallowed up. That means finished, engulfed. We think about Jonah and the whale. He was swallowed, and most of the time, if you're swallowed by a whale, you don't come back. But with Jonah, he did. But here we see that death is swallowed up. That is completely covered by his victory. There's no more left of death. Death has no more victories, no more physical death for all, no more spiritual death for those who are in Christ. It is fully defeated. Death is fully defeated. And then he moves to this strange phrase. He says the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. What are you saying here, Paul? You're kind of changed. You were going one way. It seems like you stopped and you dropped a random thought into this current argument. It doesn't seem to progress what he's thinking. It seems to be quite ambiguous. So how are we to understand this? One Bible commentator says this. He says, the nexus between sin and death, which goes back to Eden is uncovered. Sin brings death. That is, it separates people from God. The sting of death, then is that it separates people from God, and that separation is permanent if one does not have life in Christ. So death is going to happen. It's a mortal wound that all of us have, and we're on a one way path to dying. The thing that makes death worse for those who do not have the thing that makes death worse is being separated from God for forever in a real place called hell. Sin is the salt in a wound that never goes away. It's the salt in the wound that will continue to be there, that bothers you for forever. The sting of death is that we will all die, but that makes it that much worse. A sting that doesn't heal, doesn't go away in time. A thing that makes the mortal wound that much worse. Death is made much worse by sin through the separation from God that results in eternal wrath in hell. That's what sin is, sin is the sting of death. Because if we die in our sin apart from Christ, We will be separated from him forever under his breath. So how is the power of sin, the law? What does that mean? And Paul, he's saying the Jewish law. is it evil? Is that what he's saying? No. But without the law, sin has no power in that you don't know that you're sinning. Romans 520, it says this. Now the law came in to increase the trespass. This is the idea that when you're reading the law, you start to see that you're even a worse sinner than you thought before. It's like trying to get out to go to church in the morning and you don't look into mirror and you fix yourself, you fix your clothes and you walk out, you're like, I think I look pretty good. But then as soon as you get to church, you look in the mirror and you're like, I've had that in my teeth the whole morning. I've had the toilet paper stuck to my shoe all morning long. Like, it's looking in the mirror. The law is looking in the mirror and seeing you as you actually are, not just how you think you are. The power of sin is the law, because as we look into the perfect law, we see how imperfect we are, how utterly sinful we are. The law is meant to be this mirror that we can stare into and see each flaw in sin, and if we try to boast in our flesh, we're cut down quickly. And Judaism, there was a common thought that the more study of the law personally, and as a world or as a community, that there would be more life, the more we know of the law, the more that we can avoid that sin. That's kind of what their thought was, which makes sense. If you think about sports, if you're trying to play a game like basketball, the more you know the rules, the less you travel. The more you know the rules of football, the less you run out of bounds to try to catch a touchdown, right? Like, the more you know the rules, the more you should be able to interact rightly. But Paul completely as opposed to that thought. Paul disagrees strongly and directly attacks this phrase by saying that the law doesn't give life, but it kills. The law was never meant to bring life. It was meant to kill. It was meant to reveal our inability. It was meant to reveal our sin. You can't be good in yourself. All flesh is corrupted by sin, and we are naturally deserving of his wrath. You can try to be as good as you want, but when Jesus came, and he saw the Pharisees who were the most righteous people of the day. He says, on the outside, you look great, but on the inside, you have dead people's bones. It doesn't matter how you clean the outside of the cup. The inside must be cleaned. The law kills. But verse 57, he says, thanks be to God, who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. It's not through the law that you have victory, it's through Jesus Christ that has been given to us. The sting of death is removed, and the victory is Christ because he is the one who lived the perfect life. He is the one who has power over sin. And he's the one who has power over death, who died and was rosen from the grave. The victory that we have is in Christ. And through Christ, there's nothing that we can boast about. There's no hope in the law. There's only death in the law, but hope and victory are in Christ alone. Ephesians 2, 8 through 9, it says, for by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is your, not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of work so that no one may boast. All the glory and praise go to thee victor, Christ. We have no room to boast, no room to judge ourselves. We humbly submit to his grace towards us, and we repent of the pride that so sneakily comes in. The power of sin is the law. And so often we make it about ourselves. whether it's how we don't measure up to the people next to us, or how we do measure up to the people next to us. I may be sitting over here, Lord, but I'm a lot better than that guy. Lord, I know I'm keeping this secret thing. I haven't confessed it. I know that this is not glorifying to you, but at least I'm not doing these things. Or maybe it's the flip side. Maybe it's, Lord, I can't keep it. You must hate me. Lord, I can't stop doing this thing. You must hate me. We make it about ourselves, even if we're not boasting in our works. We're not boasting in Christ for his finished work that he's given to us despite our inability. We are comparing ourselves to others. and not to the law. We're not, we're comparing ourselves to the law and not giving Christ the glory that's due to him. It's not about what you do. It never has been. It's about what he's done to pay for what you've done. Christ is the victor, that he gives to us grace. The end is set for those who are in Christ. The perishable must be put on, sorry, the imperishable must be put on, and it will be put on. And the 3rd point is the imperishable is being put on, even currently it's being put on. As a result of the fact of the resurrection. Paul instructs the Corinthians in verse 58 to be steadfast, immovable. Read with me. He says, therefore, my beloved, 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. It's a callback to 2 weeks ago. stand firm. Hold fast. Be immovable. The gospel that has been presented to you is the true gospel. Stand firm in that. It was never about you. Quit making it about you. It's always been about Christ's grace towards you. Hold fast to that. When you want to boast in the, you want to boast in yourself, remember that there's no room to boast, that you've been saved by grace. Hold firm to the true gospel. Be immovable. Don't deviate. Don't let go, keep all of your attention on it, and continue in it. The fact is Christ is God in flesh. He lived perfectly, died of death. He didn't deserve, was buried 3 days later, rose from the grave, and he's coming back, and he gave you victory despite your works. Be steadfast. Hold fast. Be immovable in this eternally eternity rattling truth. Then he says, always be abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Whose work is it? What does he say here? Is it their work? No, it's the work of the Lord. We take this phrase often. And maybe it's almost become like a meme in some ways. I think about the meme with like the kind of like the farmer guy, he's sitting there, he's like, it ain't much, but it's honest work, right? We think about doing the Lord's work is kind of like this joke that you say to somebody who's doing something simple. Like, we think about, oh, that man's doing the Lord's work. Or maybe that's an encouragement we give to somebody that we give the worst job. I know it ain't much, but you're doing the Lord's work. Like, keep it up, right? Or maybe we just think it's like pastors or evangelists or missionaries, whatever it is. They doing the Lord's work. But here it's not what they're doing. It's what he's doing. It's what the Lord's doing. John 15 will help us kind of sum this up. John 15 verses one, 4 through 5 and seven. I kind of skipped around. There's a ton there, and we're not going to be able to hit all of it, but let's talk to some. Jesus says, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him. He it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. If you abide in me. In my words, abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. It isn't the branch that grows the fruit. The branch is attached to the vine that is producing the fruit on the branch. He says, you must abide in me. This word is like the active the active word for abode. We hear the word my humble abode, where we live. Abiding means live, be a part of, be connected to. Jesus says, live in me, be attached to me. As you're attached to me in relationship, that's where the fruit is produced. That's where the ministry is done. So the Lord's work isn't what we do for him. It's what he does through us. It's a continuation of the work that he already started and he gave to the disciples. He says, I will be with you to the end of the age. He says, you will do far greater things than what I've done here. As the Holy Spirit lives within us, as he's continuing to do ministry through us. He is the one continuing his work. As we hold fast to the gospel, as we make every effort to live in Christ, through reading his word, through praying. He does the work through us. Verse five, he says, for apart from me, you can do nothing. Your labor apart from Christ is nothing. That's what Paul says. In verse 58 of chapter 15. He says, as long as your work is in the Lord, your work is not in vain, and vain means purposeless, empty, nothing. Jesus says, if you're in me, your work is not in vain. He is the one doing the work. Your labor apart from Christ is useless. It's nothing. We can be here on a Sunday morning and have a really great looking service. We could have really great looking worship. But if Christ is not the one doing it, if he's not the one who is stirring us up and moving us in the direction that we should go, then all we're doing is singing songs. All we're doing is lining up chairs. All we're doing is having good coffee. All we're doing is watching kids for an hour. of it matters if Christ isn't the one doing it. Apart from me, you can do nothing. So how does he work through us? Number one, through prayer. Very great church answer, right? We understand this, but look at what he says in verse seven. If you abide in me, if you live in me, and I live in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This verse has been taken out of context so often, and we think it's about what we want. It's about that secret thing. It's about that awesome job. Maybe I always say this. It's not about Lamborghinis. It's not about Lambos, right? It's not like, hey, Lord, I've been reading my Bible today. I think I deserve Lamborghini, right? Like, I think I'm in you today. Give me a Lambo, right? That sounds good. It's a good exchange that we have here. It isn't about houses or jobs. It's about the fruit that he bears in your life. He does the work through us as we hold fast to him, and as we understand his word, as we understand his character, as we understand his love and his desires. He works within us, his own desires, and stirs us to pray the things that are glorifying to him. He answers prayers and he moves us to pray. Last week in a few times, I've mentioned this. Man, we've been praying for a way to move this trailer every single week. We are so glad that Richard is here. Richard Brumman. He pulled the trailer this morning. We have the trailer stored at his house. It is such a blessing. absolutely such a blessing. But we've been praying, Lord, if Richard were to not have a truck anymore, we couldn't get the trailer here. Lord, if Richard decided he didn't like me anymore, then we wouldn't have a truck to pull the trailer. Or if it was a snowstorm, and I couldn't quite make it to his house. I couldn't bring the trailer over here. And then what would we do? We don't have any of this stuff. So we've been praying, the Lord has worked in us. What would that look like? Do we just go buy a van? Do we not even pray about it? Do we have the ability to do that? And Tyler and I and Shannon and my wife and all of our families. They said, we just got to pray about this. What would the Lord have us do? And at one point it was, okay, we just kind of give up. We have Richard. It's absolutely a blessing. We're gonna figure this out. And he's so gracious. He said, yeah, I'll even pull it once a month for you. Thank you, Richard. Thank you. But we kept praying. And then just a few weeks ago, right before we launched, a mission team came up here from Oklahoma, and it's my parents' church. It's a church that I used to serve at, they came up and they said, they gave me and Carole the keys to a van, and it's a sweet van. I already said this. It's absolutely awesome. Chevy 3500 big enough to pull the trailer. Every single week. Now it ain't pretty. They spray painted that thing. Like, it doesn't look bad from afar, but you get close and you start to see, yeah, that doesn't look very good. But the Lord answered that prayer. He stirred within us to pray that prayer. So I would say this. This verse isn't about Lamborghinis for ourselves, but maybe it's about rusty vans for his glory. Maybe it thought rusty vans to see his mission in riverside expanded. Maybe it's about his purpose the whole time that he stirs within us a reliance on him and not a self-reliance in ourselves or in our own money or in our own power. It's reliance on him that he would answer those things. The 2nd thing, the 2nd way he works is through relationship. It's through a relationship. Verse 5 of chapter 15. It says, you can do nothing apart from me. It doesn't say you can't do good things. It doesn't say you can't do some okay things. He says apart from me, you can do nothing. Nothing at all. So in this relationship that we are talking about here, Christ is instructing, you have to be in me. You have to live in me. Bring your weakness, bring everything that you have, which is nothing to Christ and allow him to work through. It's about living in Christ. He says in verse 49 of chapter 15 of 1st Corinthians that we will bear the image of the man of God. This is a promise for a future day, but it's unfolding day by day. Our relationship with Christ is realizing that we have no ability in that he has all ability. It's our relying on him to do the work through meditating on his promises in his word, reminding ourselves, putting it deep within our heart, storing it away in our mind, so we are holding firm in our faith, the things in his way, and not our way. We see that the image of Christ, the imperishable image of Christ, that we are promised that must happen, that will happen is happening today, the relationship with Jesus, that he is putting on the imperishable in us even now. He is being more present in the world as we abide in him and his word comes from us. His ministry comes from us. The more we're with Jesus, the more we are like him, and his image is growing within us. And we know this. The more you spend time with somebody, the more you start to act like them, right? Maybe you've been married for a while and you'll start to say something about a show or some kind of thing comes up and you and your spouse say the exact same phrase. Carole and I are about to be 8 years in. So, like, we're absolutely veterans, absolutely pros, right? But it's real. Like, you start saying the same phrases. Start to enjoy the same things. Start to talk the same, maybe the same kind of inflection with certain words. My wife says jokes that she never used to say, right? So sorry, Carole. But even it's even true as you're married to somebody, you start to look like that person. It's kind of weird. You start to think about, hey, those people, are you married or are you brother, sister? Like, something's happening here? Where you're starting to even look like each other. What's even strangers when the dog starts to look like the people? Anybody experience that? You got a dog that looks just like that owner? You're like, this is some weird stuff going on here. But the principle there is the more time you spend with somebody, the more you look like them. The more time we spend with Jesus, the more we look like him and his image is in the world. And that's what we're here to do. Expand his kingdom by bringing more of Jesus into the world and not more Dalton. Not more Tyler, not more Matt Halsell. We don't need any more Matt Wholesale. Just joking. We don't need more of us. We need more of him living through us in doing his work, bringing his glory into the world. As we're in relationship with Christ, learning his character, learning his loves, placing it deep in our hearts, his image is being formed in us, through the difficulties that draw out our weaknesses, our inabilities, and we come to him for all ability. Through the good moments that remind us of his mercy and his grace. The losses that remind us that life is fleeting. He is doing this through a relationship with his people. This relationship that we will share with him, where we will be brought with him into heaven, is not in the future thing. It a now thing. And a future thing. Although the resurrection with new incorruptible bodies in the future, he is moment by moment making us more into that image now. I said there's a phrase a few weeks ago. We'll be there, worshiped him for all of eternity. Right now, we're just practicing. Right now we're just learning our craft. We're honing it in order so that when we're on that day, we can stand with unveiled faces, glorifying him forever. The hope of the resurrection of the gospel is not just for the end, but it's now. Without a relationship with Christ, we will be raised imperishable, but not to a hope of heaven, but the reality of wrath in hell. Today, if you're hearing this and you have not put your faith in Jesus, if you don't have a relationship with him, hope is being extended to you by Christ Jesus, through his own words to you. He came down from heaven. He put on flesh. He lived perfectly. And the 2 things that Paul said, this is the 1st important thing I ever told you, that Jesus died for your sins. and that he's not dead now, that he rose from the grave victorious. to show that he is God and that his promise to return for judgment is sure. On that day, all will go before the throne, and all will give an account for their life. You'll be asked to give an account for your life as Jesus is reading the book of your life in front of you. What have you done? And there's 2 answers. The 1st one is, I'm guilty of all that. Everything you're reading is true. And the 2nd one is, Jesus paid it all. How will you stand on that day? You will stand forever? Have you placed your faith fully in Christ? We can't fast forward through life like YouTube. We can't work through all the difficulty now to get to that day. We can't get to the end like the Artemis launch, like I said earlier in this sermon. We have to live through the anticipation, the anxiety, the great difficulties, the great highs, the nerves, just like the astronauts did on that rocket ship. Those were real. But we do know the end. And how we respond to that end now matters. Paul says, I give this to you as 1st importance. and last importance. The gospel in your life is urgent. Have you placed your faith in him? The end has been presented to you. For the believer, we know that it'll all turn out well because of Christ and his victory. In Christ, we can live an expectant joy of his return. For the unbeliever, here's a warning of judgment that's been given. Will you hear the call, to turn from your sin, and place it on him and live forgiven. If you don't know him, come talk with us. Come talk with me or Tyler or Matt also. We need more Matt wholesale. Come talk with us. We love to introduce you to Jesus and talk about what this would look like. He is risen. Let's pray. God, you are good and you're gracious to us. You've given us a hope for tomorrow that we can live in today. Lord, you are patient with us. Lord, although we're forgiven, although we have our eternity set. We still mess up. We still get off course. We still think about things that are not honoring to you. Lord, we need more of you in our lives. We need to speak more about you and our conversations. Our kids need more of you, not more of us, any more of you in us, Lord. Lord, would you be big in our lives? Would you be moving and breathing as this community of believers gathers each week as we move our ministry in the riverside and into our coworkers' lives? God, would you be visible in the words and actions and thoughts and desires of all of the people in this room? God, we need more you. Thank you for being alive and thank you for making us alive in Christ in Jesus' name. Amen.