Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – 1 Corinthians 15:58-16:1

1 Corinthians 15:58, the concluding verse, but I think I’ll read the first verse of 16 as well to put it in a little bit of context. So, please stand for the reading of God’s word. 1 Corinthians 15:58-16:1.

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. Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for this verse 58, this great summation of this tremendous chapter on the resurrection. We thank you for the time in which we find ourselves, the time that the church remembers the resurrection of Christ, his post-resurrection appearances, and prepares for his ascension. We pray Lord God, you would help us to understand a little more today the implications of the resurrection for our lives in Jesus name we ask it and for the purposes of his kingdom.

Amen. Please be seated.

Now last week I got to sit in the back having taken a week of vacation. I like to do that occasionally—sit in the back of the church or somewhere out there, sort of get a view from that perspective. And one thing I noticed—and there could be a wide variety of reasons for this, I’m not trying to make anybody feel guilty unnecessarily—but what I noticed was there was a lot of people here for the sermon and there were significantly fewer people here for the prayer.

That was interesting to me. That was interesting particularly because yes, last week in the announcements, one of the specific prayer requests that was listed was love and consideration of each other, setting the pattern for our week. Enter into the prayers today with your whole heart, setting a pattern of individual and corporate prayers during the week. And then another one was discipline and organization resulting in true corporate prayer.

Now, we can pray in other parts of the building and if you’re downstairs, you can hear on the microphone the prayer you can enter into that. So, I’m not saying you have to be here, but I think you should be normally. So, maybe today, you know, after the offering, we could just wait a few minutes before we begin the prayer and give people an opportunity to gather back together here so that we can enter into that effectively.

We pray for the world. One thing we should be praying about are the food riots in Haiti this last week. Did you know about those? It’s something we should be praying about because we are to some degree responsible. We being the Western world and specifically America—we decided to compel gas stations, which in itself is an interesting thing in our day and age of liberty and freedom and all this. Gasoline stations cannot pump gas that’s just normal gasoline anymore, right?

Federal government sets required percentages of ethanol and this is going up over the next few years. In their wisdom, well, you know, number one, I’m not at all convinced—in fact, I’m pretty well convinced that it’s not up to the federal government to tell a gasoline distributor, manufacturer, seller that they can’t do something like that unless it’s unsafe. But now, you can get into the politics of that and what we’re doing in terms of global warming or cooling or whatever it is we have.

But even if you think that might be a good thing to encourage gasoline stations to use ethanol, it seems like a little bit of responsibility on our part to think globally about what we do in this country might be a good thing. And apparently there wasn’t a lot of forethought about this because what’s happened as a result of increased ethanol production is the crops are being turned over to corn. Corn is a high price commodity because people are turning to corn and reducing other commodities. Grain crops are increasing in price as well. You’ve got the same demand you had before. Now you’ve got reduced supply because of corn going into ethanol production, more acreage going into ethanol production. And the result of this has been a very significant rise in food prices around the globe, particularly in poor countries.

I mean, you know, if grain goes up, doubles in price. You know, the wheat is only about—I don’t know, maybe 30 cents out of a loaf of bread—Mike L. can tell me if I’m wrong here, but I think about 30 cents of a loaf of bread is actually the wheat cost. So if we double that, that means our loaf of bread goes from $2.50 a loaf to $2.80. And that’s not nice, but it’s not a big deal. But if you’re in a third world country, you don’t buy French bread. You buy grain, usually raw, and you then make your own bread. And now what’s happened to your food prices for your basic staple commodity? It’s doubled in price. And you know, with us it’s maybe a 10% increase because of the other stuff that’s involved in it. But in these other countries the end result has been food is going way up in price in poor countries.

There were food riots in Haiti last week and I don’t know, four or six people died. This is going to increasingly happen around the world. It’s really significant and this is what we’ve done. I sound like a kind of liberal I suppose, but we have a corporate responsibility for the world and what happens in the context of the world. And these are part of the things that should be informing our prayers.

Now, what’s it got to do with 1 Corinthians 15:58? Well, I think quite a bit. I think because we’ve sort of looked at salvation, and even though in this church we’ve tried very hard not to do it this way—we’ve tried to have a worship service that isn’t just a bunch of intellectual thoughts that disembodied spirits could engage in, but we’ve tried to get the bodies involved, standing up, sitting down, coming forward, coming up to take communion.

You know, just the fact that you take communion once every week during worship changes the way you think about it should be, because now your body, your bodily functions of eating and drinking are involved and they’re involved right at the center of our worship. And so there’s an affirmation of the body which has to do with 1 Corinthians 15:58, which we talked about last week.

So the point is let’s wait a little bit after the offertory, kind of let people settle down, everybody get back together. Get ready to enter into the work, the labor of prayer. 1 Corinthians 15:58 says your labor is not in vain and you are to abound in work. So those words are work and labor and labor is like self-sacrificial work. So maybe it’s hard for you to enter into the prayers. It can be, but you know, your labor is not in vain. It is effectual and the prayers of the church are effectual for changing the world. So let’s get at that work after the sermon today.

Let’s all try to, you know, concentrate and be diligent and enter into that prayer together. I think it’s important because our world is important. And 1 Corinthians 15:58 reminds us of that importance.

And my friend Jack Phelps, who pastors up in Anchorage, Alaska, a CRC church—Christine and I have known Jack for a long, long time. He was there at our wedding and he used to do a little newsletter. It was called the Seventh Trumpet.

The Seventh Trumpet. Well, what is that? Well, in Revelation, you know there’s seven trumpets. And what we read is this: Then the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, “We give you thanks, oh Lord God Almighty.”

So Jesus—and I think that this is a depiction in Revelation of what has happened now. Jesus’ death and resurrection and ascension is what results in the blowing of the seventh trumpet when the church comes together to worship. We trumpet basically forth this message that the kingdoms of this earth have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. And he shall reign forever and ever.

We’re not trying to get away from this. We’re trying to wait for Christ’s return to this, to sanctify this.

We just sang some songs that I thought were pretty good to think about this kind of thing. Luther’s great song—I think it’s Luther’s—”So are we now where Christ hath led, Alleluia, following our exalted head, Alleluia, made like him. Like him we rise ours to cross the grave the skies.”

Now that’s true from one perspective. But in our world today in the Christian world that enforces this idea that we want to get away from here and where he goes, that’s where we’re going. But of course what the Bible says is he’s coming back where we’re going eternally is his return and the transformation of our bodies, their physical resurrection, and the transformation of the new earth connected to heaven.

So you know, we have to remind ourselves not to fall into the trap. If there’s nothing else you do as a result of the sermon two weeks ago and today, teach your children a proper understanding of death and life after life after death, right?

So there’s the present state in these bodies. Jesus says that then we die and we’re present with him in the intermediate state without bodies yet, but at his return we get new bodies. So life after death is the intermediate state, but life after life after death is the eternal state. Now that means that our primary goal, where we’re headed, is not a disembodied existence. It is a body, physicality that is super physical.

And I want to talk a little bit more today about the implications from the concluding verse in terms of that stuff. But that’s very important and it’s quite easy to teach your kids. It’s not all that mysterious. It’s just that for some reason the church has kind of drifted away on this. You know, we affirm in the great confessions of the church the resurrection of the body. That doesn’t mean the release of the soul from the body. That’s not what resurrection is. Resurrection is a new body.

Okay? So, that’s what we affirm. And we’re going to talk today about the implications of that as we did two weeks ago. And Luther said that death is swallowed up in death. So, we can mock our dying. So, it’s important for our kids to know death is not to be feared. We can mock our dying. Death be not proud. So, we have this great victory in Christ that has implications for us now.

And the other song we sang—”Christ Jesus lay in death strong bands for our offense is given. But now at God’s right hand he stands and brings us life from heaven.”

See, that’s great. That’s a great hymn. That’s a great understanding of where we’re at right now. Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father. He brings us life now from heaven. The eternal state has already sort of invaded our world because Jesus was raised up in that new body.

So you know, this two-part resurrection—first Jesus the first fruits, and then all of creation when he returns. The understanding is then that we don’t—you know, there is implications now from that eternal state. So heaven and earth being combined together definitively finally at the end is now actually progressively being worked out.

So that’s what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about 1 Corinthians 15:58 specifically. And I want to set it in a little bit of context. Now, this verse is the great summation. It’s the “therefore” for all the doctrine that’s preceded it. There’s a little bit of exhortation in the middle of the chapter as well, but basically this is it. This is the culminating verse.

So, you know, verse 57 says God has given us victory. He’s explained what that victory means and the rest of 1 Corinthians 15. And so, now the application, the agenda side to the credenda, right? The doctrinal side first and now so-called practical side, building on that doctrine, our agenda. What are we supposed to do? And that’s what verse 58 is.

And in fact, 16 begins this discussion of collection of the saints, which is significant too because that means that verse 58 is immediately talked about by Paul. Their immediate work is the collection for the saints having to do with money, right? Having to do with bodies that are starving.

So immediately the work is not some sort of spiritual work. You read commentaries on verse 58 and I read a bunch of them this week and so often, you know, it’s the idea is well, we’re going to heaven, so it’s all okay, and just you know, suffer along here. And if there’s any application here on this earth, usually it’s talked about—well, character qualities, invisible things you can’t see. Lenski makes a big point of this, that you know, this is the sort of work that can’t be seen or measured, the character qualities. And of course there’s some truth to that. Obviously, I don’t want to deny that part of it.

Other commentators talk about, you know, well, we’ll be, you know, released from all this at our death. And so, our job here now is evangelism. And we would say, yeah, evangelism is our job. But what does that mean? And if by evangelism we mean saving souls, if that’s the full extent of our evangelism, I think we deny what the scriptures have taught from Genesis through Revelation.

Jesus has come as second Adam. Adam wasn’t just to rescue people and get him off of this world. Adam was given a cultural or dominion mandate. Jesus has restored us to that. So almost all the commentaries I read don’t touch upon the practical implications. They talk about visible things or evangelism. And yet the immediate, you know, application in terms of specific deeds that Paul then makes in chapter 16 involves money and bodies, things that can be measured.

And in fact, he says, “I am going to measure what you give to the saints in Jerusalem. You said, ‘You’re going to give me 10,000 bucks, and we’re going to do an accounting.’” It can be measured. The self-sacrificial work of the Corinthians for the starving saints in Jerusalem could be measured.

Now, I said, I’m not trying to deny the other. That the work of the Lord that’s not in vain does certainly involve relationship building, and there’s some of that going on here. It involves character in terms of being self-sacrificial for others. There’s rewards for that in heaven in the eternal state as well. But you know, let’s remember that doesn’t—that’s not the whole picture. The other side of it is things that can be measured, work that is done here on earth.

Now, that should be really good news for most of you because you’re not me. What I do every week is spiritual. It’s religious. It’s church oriented. You don’t. So, if your work in the Lord is restricted to churchy sort of things or supposed spiritual things, evangelism in the sense just of saving people’s souls, well, that’s pretty tough on you. Or if it’s just character, well, you know, my character, what’s it got to do with, you know, fixing a car, making paper, diapering a baby, etc.

The fact that this verse puts it in a much broader context—this work of the Lord having to do with things that can be measured, you know—it should be good news because otherwise we end up with a form of Christianity that’s kind of spiritual and otherworldly and ethereal.

And I was at a prayer meeting this last week at Oregon City Pastors, and we were making plans for the National Day of Prayer celebration. And I told them I really liked it two years ago when they had the lady from the Chamber of Commerce come and share prayer requests specifically about business, about the development that was going on. Then another prayer was that people would engage in commerce in Oregon City more and build, not just a bedroom community here, but commerce.

And you know, but the fact is most pastors think of that stuff as just an opportunity to witness. Business is just an opportunity to witness, as opposed to focusing on the real work that’s done in this world. So, you know, I told him I loved that person coming and sharing about the business concerns because otherwise we pastors—and it’s interesting in these prayer meetings and stuff—we tend to kind of hover above all of this menial stuff here and pray in terms of what we think is the eternal truths, which becomes saving people away from this or the character stuff.

But it seems like if I’ve got 1 Corinthians 15 correct, all that’s true, but another truth is that Paul says it makes a difference here and now. Second Adam has come and restored us to this cultural mandate.

All right, so let’s talk about this a little bit. Let’s look at verse 58 specifically. Quickly go through it in a little bit of explanation just so you’ll understand what it’s saying. And to accomplish that, you know, I also want to talk a little bit more going back to 1 Corinthians 15.

So, this is sort of finishing up what I did two weeks ago in terms of the resurrection sermon and what we said there. Now, I by the way, I wanted to use this illustration of the intermediate state. This is in Wright’s book. It actually comes from a guy named Polkinghorne who is a physicist and a priest. He put it this way: so we die. That’s the present state, ends in death. Then intermediate state is we’re disembodied spirits but present and conscious.

The Bible calls it sleep, but it doesn’t mean unconscious sleep. It doesn’t mean we dream or fantasize. It means we’re with Christ, resting with him and aware of his presence. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Great comfort and wonderful times—not as wonderful as when Christ returns and we get our new bodies.

So the intermediate state, Polkinghorne described it as this way, and some of you programmers will like this, maybe, and others will not: God will download our software onto his hardware until the time he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves.

So that’s pretty good. If your kids are computer illiterate, you could use that as an illustration. The intermediate state, we’re with God. He’s downloaded our software to his hardware, but eventually he’ll give us new hardware to run that programming again in the new heavens and new earth.

So, 1 Corinthians 15—and it begins by saying it’s gospel, right? Verse one. So, open your Bibles up and let’s look at 1 Corinthians 15. Review very quickly where we are at because the first word in verse 58 is “Therefore,” so we got to remind ourselves a little bit of what 1 Corinthians 15 has told us.

And the first thing 1 Corinthians 15 tells us is he’s describing the gospel. “Moreover, brethren,” verse one, “I declare to you the gospel which I preach to you. So this is the good news. And then he says, “which also you received and in which you stand by which also you are saved if you hold fast that word that I preached to you.”

Now that’s terminology that’s found in our verse 15:58, right? Stand, hold fast, don’t be movable, be steadfast, right? And so he sort of ends where he began, which isn’t unusual. That’s kind of what a good writer does. He kind of brings it to his conclusion. He opens the conclusion up at the beginning and then explains it.

So, you know, basically verse 58 has to be understood as holding fast, standing in the truths of the gospel as Paul articulates them in chapter 15. So he’s opening the subject up and he’s opening it up with a call to perseverance and holding fast. And he ends by saying, “Isn’t that great news that I just told you?” And he ends by saying, “This is the victory. And now stand fast and be firm knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Okay. So, so what that tells us is the gospel is linked to victory. And the victory is linked to the work that we’re called to do. And if we look at 16:1 immediately, that work is measurable and it has physicality to it. It involves money of all things and eating of all things—the things that some people think like 2001 we were supposed to transcend.

No, Paul picks it up there. Okay. So, that’s the introduction to it. And then in verse 3, he says, “I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. And he doesn’t leave with that. And that he was buried and that he rose again the third day.”

So the gospel is that Jesus died for our sins. He was buried and rose again. What does all that mean? Well, he takes the whole chapter—some verses—to kind of tell us about that rising again stuff and the implications. And then he goes to the historical proofs. And it’s interesting that in verse 8 he says, “Then last of all he was seen by me also.” I don’t know what that means exactly. Interesting verse. I wish I had time to get into it, but we’re not quite at Pentecost, ascension, and Pentecost yet. But it is interesting that Jesus appears to Paul, as lastly, he says. I don’t know if that means the end or what.

In any event, he uses the appearances of Christ, and he talks about himself laboring abundantly. You see, in verse 10, “by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all. Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”

Now that’s what he’s going to call us to do. Paul says here’s the implications of what the gospel is. And when I was brought to a knowledge of what the resurrection of Jesus Christ means and is about, I labored really abundantly. And at the end he’s going to tell you labor abundantly.

So this is kind of good news too because I sort of read in this section that well, you know, he was the least of the apostles. He wasn’t, you know, like them. He didn’t have all the background and the stuff and the relationship with Christ. But God used him anyway. Used him anyway because he worked his butt off. Okay? And he worked hard because of the truth of the resurrection of Jesus and the implications. That’s what he’s calling every one of you to do at the end of this chapter—to labor diligently. Okay? And he’s already done it. And he tells us that man, you know, you can be really effective in the kingdom if you just work hard at what God’s called you to do. Okay?

And then of course we said last week if he hasn’t been raised from the dead, our preaching is in vain. And this is interesting too because this is also picked up in the concluding verse. So your labors are not in vain. “Kenos,” the Greek word that means vain or empty. Your labors are not in vain.

Now if you don’t believe in the resurrection and appropriate the meaning of it for your life here and now, then it’s vain. That’s what he’s saying. If Christ isn’t risen from the dead, then everything is vain. It’s empty. Now, your labor would be.

So, the resurrection from the dead that Paul describes to us is not secondary to his great concluding statement. It’s directly related to it again and again and again.

And then in verse 20, we talked about Jesus being the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. So, he fell asleep, he died, he was raised up with a body, and so this truth of two resurrections—first Jesus and then the fullness—this had not been described before in the scriptures, at least certainly not openly. This was a strange thing. And but that’s what it is. And Paul says it’s important you understand this because everything isn’t postponed now. That’s begun now. What Jesus did by being raised up, the new creation, the new world, the new heavens and the new earth are to some extent here now. Now they’re not definitively here. That happens at Christ’s second coming. But he’s already been raised up and brought life to this world. You see, that’s what he’s saying. First fruits.

So, he’s raised. We’re going to be raised just like him. And then verse 22 draws this connection to Adam. “Each one in his own order. Christ, the first fruits afterwards, those who are Christ at his coming.”

So Paul says the resurrection, the meaning of it has to be set in the context not of our leaving here, but of Christ coming here. So earth is not some kind of you know, wad it up and throw it away kind of deal. Earth is, you know, Jesus is coming here and he’s going to transform the earth as he transforms us.

“He must reign. Let’s see. So then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the father when he puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.”

So at the end of this when he returns he delivers the kingdom. Now it doesn’t say that he doesn’t reign until he returns. He reigns now. And so there is this idea that Paul is saying that your work is part of manifesting the kingdom here. And what you do for Christ, the kingdom work you do, you know, some of which can be measured by accountants. That kingdom work is significant and is part of the kingdom that Jesus hands over to the father.

So it’s very much a this-worldly perspective. Heaven has invaded the earth. We can look at it that way. “He must reign until he’s put all his enemies under his feet.”

So we talked about that Jesus Christ is now presently reigning from heaven and things are happening on the earth as a result. In Revelation where it talks about the seventh trumpet, after the seventh trumpet sounds, then there’s earthquakes and there’s lightnings and all kinds of things start happening and that’s the history of the world in which the kingdoms of men are done away with and the kingdom of God is established by the work of his people.

So you now, then Paul, very as he gets to talk about the resurrection body, he says in verse 35, “Someone will say how are the dead raised up and with what body do they come? Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies and what you sow you do not sow that body that shall be but mere grain, perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as he pleases and to each seed its own body.”

Now and then in verse 39, “all flesh is not the same flesh. But there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies. But the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon.”

What is he doing here? This is where we start to get kind of like, what does that mean? And I think it’s significant that he is not just talking here. Now, this is his primary subject, but he’s not just talking about the transformation of our bodies. He can use the illustration of wheat dying and being raised up in a different form. And he can actually says that well, our bodies won’t be like the bodies of the animals and the sun and the moon and all that stuff.

The implication to me at least seems to be that these other things are transformed as well. So, when Jesus comes back to earth and there’s, you know, running around the meadows. I don’t think he burns them up. I think he transforms them, too. I mean, I think that’s what his basic line of argument is. He goes on and on about the creation of these other things.

We get a little goofed up because he starts talking about celestial and terrestrial, and we assume that’s the language that goes into his discussion of our first body and second body. It’s not. When he gets to that language, he doesn’t use celestial and terrestrial. He’s talking about things in the heavens, other parts of the creation. You’re never going to be like the sun. You’re going to be different than they are now and glorified, but you’re still terrestrial as it were.

So anyway, he talks about this as a discussion of the body and then he goes into verse 44: “It’s sown a natural body, it’s raised a spiritual body.”

And we talked about this a couple weeks ago, but just a comment or two here. So again, this doesn’t mean a corporeal or a physical body and a non-physical body. It doesn’t mean your body now and your soul disembodied spirit. It means your body now after the image of Christ’s resurrection body becomes transformed and glorified. Okay? And that’s what he’s saying here. It’s not terrestrial and celestial. It is this first body and the second body.

Now verse 46 says, “However, the spiritual is not first but the natural and afterward the spiritual.”

Now if you just think about this a little bit, right? And he says, well, Adam was created a natural body out of dust, out of the earth. But he’s saying here that the progression of the world is from natural to spiritual.

I think that you know, we have to draw the implication out here that you know, and I know it’s what-ifs are probably bad things to get into, but without Adam falling, Adam still would have had to go through the transformation that he’s describing here. He’s not talking about Adam post-fall. He says Adam was made out of dust. That’s pre-fall. And he said he had this certain kind of earthly or natural body. But he says the progression is it’s going to become a supra-physical body. It’s going to become a spiritual body. Not un—you know, not it’s still a body.

And so I think again here that Paul is telling us that what Jesus has done is put us back where Adam was moving. Before the fall, Adam was moving through the transformation of the world. He was glorifying and transforming things. The creation itself was through a series of what could be called deaths or changes being transformed and glorified. And I think what God is saying here is that Adam also would have gone through some kind of transition as he went from that first body to his glorified body. That’s, you know, important for us because what it says is that what Jesus has done for us is he’s restored us.

He’s the second Adam and our job is not to get away from all of this. Just as Adam’s job was to transform it, we’re supposed to transform it as well. We’re to bear the image of the heavenly man. Even while we’re here in these bodies, we’re to begin to bear the image of the Lord Jesus Christ who is a heavenly man. In other words, he’s not a disembodied spirit. He is the new creation. He’s the restored Adam, he’s the second Adam, the transformed Adam, he’s the spiritual Adam, whatever you want to call it.

And we’re to bear that image now, okay? Definitively at his return. But we bear his image at—if we’re Christians united to Christ, we’re united to Jesus in his resurrection and ascended body. And we bear that image now. And so as new Adams ourselves, then we go about transforming this world, not fleeing from it again.

So I think that 1 Corinthians 15 makes—this is verse 57: “Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So this is what leads up to this concluding verse and see, it sets our minds right about what this is all about. This is not a verse that has to do with going to heaven. This is a verse that has to do with heaven coming to us and that he’s already come in one sense. Heaven has come. We’re to bear the image of the heavenly now. Our citizenship is in heaven. We do that in our world. We’re new Adams and definitively this world is transformed and made new at the second coming of the savior.

Okay. So on the basis of that then he says if you know, that’s at the center of the gospel. This is the victory. This is what you’re supposed to stand fast in.

“Therefore my beloved brothers,” he puts it in the context of the corporate community, right? So we are beloved brothers. We’re those who have received the agape love of God and who exercise brotherly love toward one another. Those two root Greek words are bound together in “beloved brothers.”

So there’s a community dimension to this. And immediately when he draws the application in 16, he talks about brotherly love. Other Christians should be dearly beloved as well. And this world, you know, we should see what’s going on in Haiti and it should make us really feel guilty over what we’ve done. Now, you know, I don’t want to build up too much guilt. You didn’t make the decision, but did you see this happening? I mean, do you understand what’s happening as a result of America’s obsession with some kind of strange view of gasoline that I don’t really understand? I mean, I understand kind of the ideas that are spoken of, but at best, our ideas in that matter, you know, were completely unthought through in terms of the horrific effects on third world countries.

We’re supposed to think like Adam was to think globally. And the action, our actions, our corporate actions should be to help suffering people, not to hurt them. And we’ve done just the reverse.

So dearly beloved brothers, he says, “be steadfast and immovable.” Those are two different sides of the same coin. To be steadfast is to be firmly seated. You know, you’re just there. This is what you’re, now from now on. This is what you’re seated in. Your life makes a difference.

Jesus didn’t come and save you so you could fly away. Jesus came and saved you so that you could get up and drink wine and enjoy your bodies God gives you, looking forward to a better body, and you can enjoy the world God gives you and work productively for it even as you wait for the culmination of the new world.

That’s what you’re supposed to be steadfast and immovable in. The victory of God is in going back to what he originally began here and saying it’s happening again. Okay? And so that’s the victory. That’s the gospel. That’s the full gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s a full-fledged gospel. That’s the sort of salvation he brings. Not just individualistic, not deliverance from the body, but transformation of the body. That’s what we’re supposed to be steadfast in. And we’re not supposed to be shaken. Immovable means you’re steadfast and you’re firm, but now you can’t be shaken either out of it.

So, they’re two sides of the same thing. This is important stuff. This is the gospel. This is what we’re to be firmly rooted in and not dissuaded from. This is it. We are established.

So the end result of that establishment is “we’re to be always abounding in the work of the Lord. Abounding means to be fruitful. So always”—pretty comprehensive term. Our lives are to be coming more and more fruitful in the work of the Lord.

Now if we take “the work of the Lord,” that’s the key phrase here, right? What is the work of the Lord? Well, I think we can say that if Paul writes and says to you, and you and you and you and you and you, that you are to be abounding in the work of the Lord, and you know that you’re not called as evangelists—that’s not what the work of the Lord is in the sense of narrow definition of evangelism—you know, you’re not called to do some of the stuff that pastors and ministers of the church are to do.

So the work of the Lord is as comprehensive as the audience that’s being addressed by the phrase. This is not a pastoral epistle. This is a general epistle to the Corinthians—to real guys that went to their jobs, you know, during the week, moms that took care of kids, kids that try to work hard at being good kids and grow up and learn their algebra and do this, that, and the other thing. All of that must be comprehended in the work of the Lord because you’re supposed to always be more fruitful in it. It’s comprehensive.

Yeah. In case I don’t get to it, you know, in addition to Haiti and the global implications of that, I you know, Blake Purcell has had an education conference in Russia and he’s he’s kind of, you know, he’s kind of struggling because several of the elders in Russia are not really working hard. He says I don’t know if it’s true or not, to get their kids in Christian schooling. They’re using government schools.

And at the Oregon City Pastors meeting, you know, this is a big deal to me. I’ve gotten several DVDs I want to try to start to distribute them to the pastors. The right one. I’m still reviewing them. But you know what our culture has done is said that the normal work you work in is not work for the Lord. Public schools are horrific dispensers of practical atheism. And they create, you know, increasingly this disruption between the faith, the work of the Lord and our normal work. It creates this two-story thing. They’re horrible.

We ought to be working against the public schools, embracing people that have their kids there, loving them, trying to help them whenever way we can. We don’t want to, you know, dissuade them from coming here. But the institution itself must—it is a tremendous purveyor of practical atheism.

Secondly, why are we using ethanol? Well, in large part, because the population has been educated in public schools that dish out the latest version of political propaganda as it relates to science or the economy or whatever it is, not from a biblically informed perspective. And so we end up with a culture that becomes more and more sinful, selfish, and yet permissive toward horrific things because of public schools.

So the work of the Lord in part on the part of pastors and community leaders is to try to tear down that horrible kingdom of government education that is so politicized and has such a corrosive effect on a holistic work of the Lord. Paul is talking holistically here. And he’s saying that in everything you put your hand to, you should be abounding in the work of the Lord. You should see it as the work of the Lord.

Now, look, maybe you messed up big time last week. We’re, you know, the wonderful proclamation is resurrection, life after death. Maybe you walked in the old creation last week. Maybe everything you did, you didn’t really do the work of the Lord. Maybe you got ticked off. You were just doing things to get by. Maybe you were just slime. I don’t know what it is. But today is the day of resurrection.

Paul lays it all out the way I’ve laid it out here trying to be faithful to the text and then asks for commitment. And so you should leave today—when you come up to the offering box or if you sit, whatever you do—you should leave today with a renewed commitment to in everything you do abound, to be fruitful in the work of the Lord.

And the way you accomplish that is by being steadfast and immovable in knowing that what you’re doing is bringing forth the manifestation of the kingdom of God here on earth. It’s not just your character that God cares about. You know, Martin Luther said if he knew Jesus Christ was coming back tomorrow, what would he do? He said he’d plant a tree.

Now, I’ve used that before to talk about the need for a future perspective and all that stuff. I don’t know what Martin Luther meant, but you know, how about this? Let’s say you go plant a tree in your yard knowing that Jesus is coming back tomorrow. He returns. Will he burn that tree up? I don’t think so. I think if Jesus comes back tomorrow, those trees are going to look even cooler than they do now.

So Martin Luther could take moments of time in the present and create things for the future by planting a tree. Now that’s how I take his answer.

And what we do, you know, maybe, you know, if Jesus isn’t coming back for a long time, who knows when he’s coming back. That’s one reason why the Bible doesn’t make it clear. But if Jesus doesn’t come back for a long time, maybe the tree you plant has grown up, fallen over, and gone. But if it was done for the Lord, the work of the Lord, the text goes on to say that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain.

Actually, a little better translation would be knowing that your labor is not in vain. In the Lord, the last word of this verse is Lord. Lordship, salvation. And because he’s the Lord, you know that your labor is not in vain. Your “kopos” is not “kenos.” “Kopos” is the word for labor. It means to cut or to bleed in its original meaning. And so it means tough work. “Ergon” is the word for work earlier—ergonomic chairs. So that’s energy and working. But now he calls your work laboring. Now it’s self-sacrificial work.

And it’s not empty. Remember he said if the resurrection of Christ is wrong, we’re empty. So the implications of the resurrection doctrine that he teaches is that if you plant that tree and if you build that house and if you die for that child or whatever it is, labor done in the Lord isn’t empty.

Revelation says that their work shall follow them. That’s what it says in terms of the saints who die in the Lord. Their works shall follow them. There’s a sense of reward surely, but there’s also a sense of what we’re doing here has eternal significance.

I want to give a quote here from what’s this? I want to read a quote from Abraham Kuyper. Give me just a minute to look past these other notes I’m not going to talk about.

Abraham Kuyper was quite an influential guy on us in the original days of Reformation Covenant Church. Great Dutch pastor and theologian. Became a minister early in his life. Left the established Dutch church—it’s in the 19th century—became more conservative in his doctrines and saw that church as liberal. Actually sort of kicked out with a group, a group that became known as the grieving ones because they grieved over their separation from their brothers in the liberal Dutch Reformed church at the time. And he then began to get involved in politics.

He well actually he started a newspaper called the Standard. So very energetic guy. His work was always abiding in the Lord as a minister. He had, plus he had eight kids and Christian education is part of what drove him into the political side of things. And so because of the school system not being amenable to the teaching of Christianity, the same things that drove him you know a century ago drive a lot of us.

And he then ran for parliament, was eventually elected, and eventually became the prime minister of Holland. So very accomplished fellow and God blessed his work greatly.

And I want to read you a little bit of what he says here in I think it’s a—it’s quoted by Henry Van Til, not quoted but referred to by Henry Van Til, in an excellent book that you all probably ought to have copies of called the Calvinistic Conception of Culture. And Henry Van Til was the nephew of Cornelius Van Til. And this book, if you’re involved in art or in justice, which you should be in terms of the work of the Lord, this is a significant book that talks about these things. And he talks about the work of Kuyper and then Kuyper’s description of what goes on.

So, let me read you this quote from Henry Van Til’s book, but really it’s about Kuyper’s conception of what happens on the world now.

So, Van Til says this: “The fall of man, the seed of Adam then lost kingship over nature in which culture is basically positive. So, he’s talking about culture and Christianity. Kuyper said that through common grace—now don’t get hung up with the common grace, particular grace thing. This work by Kuyper that he’s referring to is on common grace. Much of it’s not translated into English apparently. So he’s talking about this, but he says—through common grace, this power over nature is restored in the advances of science whereby the effects of the curse are diminished. Hereby the glory of the image of God in mankind is exhibited, of which the fruits of which the fruits shall enter into the eternal kingdom.

So he’s saying that what’s done here in terms of cultural advance and progression for the Lord will enter into the eternal state, the eternal kingdom when Christ returns. Kuyper does not say that the actual cultural objects, you know, a painting for instance, or the products of culture will survive and will express themselves in higher cultural forms than they did on earth. For the fashion of this earth passes away.

So he’s not asserting something very specific about how this all works out. But he does say that on the basis of Revelation 21:26, ‘and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it,’ namely into the new Jerusalem, Kuyper believes that the universal human development in every field of culture will surely carry over into eternity.

So cultural advance has an eternal perspective and realization minus, he says, the baleful influence of sin. Of course, ‘for all the meek shall inherit the earth’—but this surely cannot mean a naked earth short of all the accomplishments of human culture or Christian culture. Meek inherit the earth. Jesus returns that meek inherit the earth, but it’s certainly not devoid of any accomplishments by mankind since their work shall follow them, Revelation tells us, and we’re to bring the glory of kings and nations into the new Jerusalem.

Such would not be a worthy patrimony. But the earth with all the rich booty of centuries of culture shall belong to the poor in spirit. ‘For all things are yours.’ 1 Corinthians 3:21. Moreover, whatever we have personally achieved in the way of cultural development will be ours and is not lost in the new earth. For it is written, ‘And their works do follow them.’ That’s the Revelation 14:13 quote.”

Your works in Christ that you’re to abound in more and more—and that refers to everything. These works follow us, and it does mean that whatever we’ve personally achieved as Van Til says in the way of cultural development will be ours. It’s not lost.

Our works are the results of our labors, both of common and particular grace. The parable of the talents teaches us that what we gain here will be a gain for eternity. All this is further grounded in the supposition that the whole creation will not be destroyed but that it shall be glorified. The form of this world may pass away, but the substance remains.

The general conclusion of Kuyper is that culture has an eternal future with the restriction that all that was interwoven with sin will perish, but that the germ, the substance, and basic meaning will be continued in the new earth. So parable of the talents—the second coming, Jesus comes back the second time. Well, those talents are maintained and brought over into the kingdom.

So, what we do now has some kind of long-lasting and eternal effect in the renewed heavens and the renewed earth.

So, therefore, in Isaiah we read in Isaiah 60, I think. Yeah, Isaiah 60:1, speaking of the future, the restoration of Israel: “Therefore, your gates shall be opened continually, they shall not be shut day or night, that men may bring to you the wealth of the Gentiles and their kings in procession.”

So, great verse for postmillennialism, right? Jesus comes, establishes the beginning form of the new heaven and new earth. This culture, Christian culture, the gates are open, the nations bring their stuff into it—not the sinful stuff. It’s stuff that’s been sanctified by God’s purpose in their lives. And this is what human history is all about. But it’s also what Revelation describes. And certainly this is the culmination of everything as well.

The wealth and culture and stuff that we do is brought into the eternal new Jerusalem as well. So Revelation 21 and 22 talks about this and this is where this citation from Isaiah is picked up. So Isaiah is talking about the death and resurrection of Messiah, ultimately the death and resurrection of Israel pointing to the coming of Messiah and his death and resurrection. And upon his resurrection and ascension begins the process where all the cultures of the world and their good stuff done for Christ are brought into the new world, but that new world then is transformed and glorified at the second coming, and so that stuff has cultural—the cultural advances, the work that we do has long-term significance.

Think of it this way: we don’t know when Jesus is coming back, but if you just wrote a neat piece of code and you did it for Christ and that’s the work that God’s called you to do and he returns tomorrow, some form of that code, something you put into that code, maybe the code itself will be used by Jesus Christ in the new creation, the new heavens and the new earth, for his purposes.

If you, you know, go out—my wife last night and I were picking up a bed. We got an old friend coming in from out of town. We needed a bed in our out building. Elijah took the one that was out there when he moved. And I was thinking about this. We were carrying in the mattress, carrying the headboard and all this stuff and laboring. And if Jesus comes back tomorrow, that bed’s kind of a representation—I don’t know, maybe I’ll get a little picture of it. A little what do you call it? Charm on my charm. We’ll have that bed reminding us that labor we did to minister to this man coming in out of town, this other Christian man in hospitality—this isn’t a work that’s empty. It’s not vain. It has eternal rewards and significance attached to it. So God says that is the result of us as well.

So you know we have this process I mentioned last week or two weeks ago—collaborative eschatology. And that refers to the early church’s view that since Christ had resurrected and brought the new Adam to light, he is the new Adam and he’s brought the new creation into history now, that the church saw itself based on 1 Corinthians 15 and other texts as carrying on that work. Now that we’re under the new Adam, we’re Christians as well doing that work now. So, we’re manifesting the kingdom that Jesus has established once for all in our cultural endeavors and in all that we do.

On April 19th on Saturday, you can go help clean up Oregon City in the name of Jesus Christ. It’s a general citywide cleanup day for Oregon City. And the churches of Oregon City has said, “We’re going to help with that, and we’re going to take particular projects”—one by the graveyard, I don’t know where they all are. There’s six different sites. And we’re going to try to clean up stuff for the city, cut down brambles and thorns so the trees and the flowers can grow.

And if Jesus comes back April 20th, then the cleanup work we did will be maintained. He’s not going to destroy all that. It’ll be brought over into the eternal kingdom. Now, maybe there’s some sin attached to it that somehow will be purged away. But these things have a connection now in the work that we do.

So as you go about your work this week, in everything that you do, do all for the glory of Christ. And in all of your work, labor hard, firm in the knowledge that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the transformation of this world is assured. Not just you we—Romans 8 says, but the earth also groans, waiting for the redemption of sons. So the world is transformed. It has fallen now. It’s—it has fallen in relationship to our sin, but it will be transformed as well at the second coming.

So, we can clean things up. We can cooperate in the name of Jesus Christ to serve the city. We can be involved in prayers for Haiti and the people that are starving there, the persecuted church in other places where a lot more of that’s going on with Muslims. We can enter into this kingdom work. We can do everything that we do this week with a perspective of are we feeding and developing the new creation, the kingdom of the restored heaven and earth, or is our foot still in death? Is our attitude still in the old world where it’s nothing is important or significant?

God says that we’re supposed to persevere, be steadfast, immovable, abounding in the work of the Lord. And he says that the end result of that is that labor is not just burned up and tossed away by him. Somehow it’s not in vain. It becomes part of even the everlasting kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for the great truths of 1 Corinthians 15. Help us, Father, to begin to think them through. Help us to teach them to our children and in teaching them, transform our lives by the great truth that they bring to us as well. Thank you, Father, that what we talked about today has significance for everything that we put our hand to do.

Help us, Lord God, to labor then in Jesus this week. Help us if we’ve messed up this last week in relationships or our labor, our work, our vocations. Help us to see today as the day of our resurrection. May we commit ourselves afresh to laboring in the Lord, being steadfast and immovable, knowing the victory that Jesus Christ has accomplished by his resurrection.

In his name we ask it. Amen.