The Why of Love | Don't Waste Your Life - 1 Corinthians 15 | June 16

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Hey, there you go. Hey, family. Good morning. Good morning.

I guess we can just dive right in. We can just get started.

We can go deep real quick. We can skip all the pomp and circumstances and just

get right down to it. We don't need any fluff this morning.

I guess maybe we can start with a confession after all, but I'll start.

In the darkest nights of the soul, darkest nights of the soul,

I have a fear that I'm wasting my life.

Anybody ever have that fear that you're wasting your life?

I know that I'm afraid of a lot of things. I've shared those with you.

I'm not ashamed of being afraid.

But when I think ahead, when I reflect on what is most terrifying,

what is most gut-turning within me, it's to get to the end of my life,

look back, and come to the conclusion that I didn't do anything of any value,

of any real substance. I fear that.

When I was in high school, as many of you know, I went to the North Carolina

School of Science and Mathematics. Go Unicorns.

That is their mascot. That's not a joke. It's not a joke.

But anyway, when I was in high school, I was fortunate enough to have a mentorship,

I think is what they called it, where I worked in an ecology lab at Duke University

and I helped in their research to study the effects of climate change through

the measurement of phosphorus levels in rainwater.

It is exciting as it sounds. It is as exciting as it sounds.

But do you know what some of my classmates were doing?

You don't have to guess out loud. One girl was part of a team that helped discover

a link to a gene that causes breast cancer.

How life-changing is that? Another kid contributed to the discovery of a new galaxy.

Isn't that incredible? What was I doing pipetting rainwater into a spectrophotometer?

It's still as exciting as it sounds.

So, many of my friends from those days have gone on to be neurologists,

neurosurgeons, brain doctors, and probably some of them are quite literally

rocket scientists, I imagine. I don't know. I'm bad at keeping up with people.

I'm not envious of them. That's not where this is going.

As Shania Twain said, that don't impress me much.

That's like the only country reference you'll ever get from me because I don't know any country songs.

I don't really know that one, to be honest. But I'm not worried about missing out on wealth or status.

I have no fear of missing out on life or accomplishments, you might say.

I'm not envious of these people.

And that's not what I'm saying at all. Because in fact, Paul insinuates in this

chapter that we are the ones to be envied.

And Jesus even says in Luke 12, he says, beware, guard against every kind of

greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.

Then he told the story, a rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops.

He said to himself, what should I do? I don't have room for all my crops. Then he said, I know.

I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones.

Then I'll have room enough to store all my wheat and other goods.

And I'll sit back and say to myself, my friend, you have enough stored away

for years to come. Now take it easy, eat, drink, and be merry.

But God said to him, you fool, you will die this very night.

Then who will get everything you worked for? Yes, a person is a fool to store

up earthly wealth, but not have a rich relationship with God.

We'll see Paul say some of the almost exact same words today. day.

And so, that's not what I'm talking about. None of those wealth,

accomplishments, life, whatever you would attribute to it.

I love my life. I love Jenny. I love Kayden and Ada. I love my family.

I love my job, both of them.

I'm not in it for the money. I don't know how much money I make.

I tell people that all the time.

It's probably less than you and it's probably more than I deserve.

That's as close as I can get.

But I love this family. Being relational is difficult and challenging for me, but it's good.

I love, I'm satisfied in life. I'm satisfied in God and with life.

Would there be things that I change? Maybe. Would I like to own the house that

I live in so that we can actually do something productive with it? Probably.

Would I like to travel more? Maybe. I don't know. But none of these are necessities

that I'm going to get to the end of my life and look back and say,

oh, I really lost it on that one. I really missed that, missed out.

But when I peer into the future and I look and I think about looking back and

reflecting on my life, my fear is that I would have no significant worth to the kingdom of God.

That's what I'm talking about. That's what keeps me up at night.

I'm not worried so much as being welcomed into the open arms of God.

I have assurance that my salvation doesn't depend on me.

So I'm not so much worried about getting into heaven, you might say,

even though biblically speaking, that's not exactly the prize.

That's not exactly the goal.

That's part of it. but it's not the main goal, right?

I am kind of worried about not bringing anyone with me.

To that, Paul has some encouraging words for us.

Chapter 15, verse 58, not 38.

My dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you.

Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. For you know that nothing

you do for the Lord is ever useless.

Everything you do for him is worthwhile. while. It's all worth it,

no matter how big or small.

Everything you do, when you brush your teeth in the morning,

brush the hell out of them.

Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.

I used to believe, I used to believe that even if all of this,

all of this turned out to not be real, that it's still the best way to set your

heart, the best thing to set your heart to pursue, right?

To live and love selflessly, to care for people, to do good in the world.

I mean, isn't it right and noble and admirable to leave the world a little better than you found it?

Shouldn't it make relationships more fulfilling? Shouldn't it be life more fulfilling

to treat each other well?

But this is a difficult passage to continue to believe that.

Through this passage in chapter 15, it seems to say that there's something that

Paul seems to understand and that he is grasping. And something that the world

at large seems to understand.

And that is, if there is no God, if God is not real, then why not pursue pleasure?

Why not do whatever seems most right in your eyes? Why not chase after what

feels good? Why not be lovers of self?

If, if there is no God, why not? That's the only joy you're going to get in this life.

And that's what kind of the message we hear from the world is right.

That if somebody stands in your way of being who you want to be doing what you

want to do, then you should just toss them aside because ultimately they don't

really love you anyway, if they're not for you in whatever way that you want them to be.

If there's no resurrection, Paul says, let's feast and drink for tomorrow we die.

And there's no point. Just waste

your life in whatever way seems most or least wasteful to you, right?

But because there is a God, because God is real, because Jesus lived on the

earth, because he died and was buried and rose again, forever conquering death

so that Paul can write and the scriptures be fulfilled,

that death is swallowed up in victory.

Victory, because these things are true, because this reality points to an even

greater reality where there will be no more pain, no more hurt, no more guilt or shame.

There will be no more tears because all of this is true and it really happened

and it will one day happen.

Then our lives are not wasted and a life lived for God is to be envied.

A life lived in the presence of a God who sees you, who loves you,

who cares for you, who will never leave you, who will never abandon you,

who is not only right here in your corner, but he's also fighting for you.

A life lived in pursuit of a God who reveals himself to you to be experienced

and enjoyed in a million different ways.

It's not a wasted life. And that's what we call the gospel.

So we call the gospel that God is real, that he loves you, that he pursues you,

and that all he wants is for you to enjoy him.

It's no wonder that the majority of this chapter here in 15 centers around the

good news that King Jesus has come.

And this chapter may be the clearest definition of the gospel that exists within the Bible.

Starts out, let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters of the good news

I preached to you before.

You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it.

It is this good news that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you.

Unless of course you believe something that was never true in the first place.

I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me.

Christ died for our sins, just as the scripture said.

He was buried and And he was raised from the dead on the third day,

just as the scriptures said.

So Paul writes, I'm telling you what is of first importance, that Christ died.

The gospel starts with those two words, Christ died. The first word of the gospel

is Jesus. The second word of the gospel is die.

Yes, the resurrection is important and inseparable and invaluable from this good news.

But you don't get to the resurrection without this first part,

that Jesus died for you. He died for you to eliminate your guilt so that you can enjoy Him forever.

Jesus died for you so that you can have a full life now centered around God.

Around the enjoyment of God in this life here and now.

Jesus died for you so that one day you will get to experience Him in the fullness

of who He is with resurrected bodies and there will, and pain and fear and death

will no longer be a thing.

There's nobody for whom this message is irrelevant.

Everyone experiences death, unless Jesus comes back first, I guess,

but everyone is going to face death.

Though it is a defeated enemy, we all have to deal with death.

There's no one to whom this is irrelevant. It is the last great trial that we all go through.

And the gospel is such that you have spectacularly good news when it comes to

death. You have such good news.

Nobody else has good news when it comes to death. The world wants to run away from this.

If we survey all the major religions, even perhaps what we would say is not

a religion, but it's still a religion, nobody has good news.

In Islam, they do their best to follow what Allah teaches them.

But in the end, he could just do whatever he wants. There's no assurance.

They're all hoping, but there's no good news there. In Hinduism,

I guess you would hope that you come back as something good,

but you might come back as a cat or something. I don't know.

There's no good news there.

Even in the Jewish world, they are conflicted about the message with regard

to what happens after death.

There's no good news even in Judaism.

Atheism, there's no good news there. The world is running away from this message

because nobody has any good news except you.

You have phenomenally good news for people who are facing death.

And Jesus' resurrection, that good news is that Jesus' resurrection gives us

hope in this life and also for our own resurrections to come.

That there is good news. It gives us forgiveness. It gives us acceptance.

It gives us freedom. It gives us the abundance of life now, and it gives us hope for a future.

As there were some in the Corinthian church who were doubting the resurrection,

they were denying the resurrection.

Paul doesn't just leave it up to us to trust him, that Jesus' death,

burial, and resurrection form the foundation of this hope in life and for our future hope.

He doesn't just ask us to trust him, that you can't just get rid of Jesus' resurrection

and say it never happened.

That it is what life depends on. He doesn't just ask us to trust him,

but he provides evidence.

And in our modern day, there will be some who claim that the evidence for the

resurrection is non-existent.

At the very least, they may say that it is worse than you may imagine.

And they will contend that Christianity is a baseless religion that's stuck

in the past, or as Karl Marx put it, that it's an opiate for the masses.

And these same people will recognize, they will recognize the historical accuracy

of the events that Paul is about to talk about, that they actually did It did

happen in history, but of course they denied the biblical conclusion of what that means.

So in response, we as the church must demonstrate two things.

We must maintain the case that the biblical portrait is true.

But in addition, we must also demonstrate that Jesus is worth following.

We must show with the scriptures and with our own experiences in life that not

only is Jesus true, but he ultimately quenches the deepest soul thirst of every human.

That all people long for Jesus, that he satisfies what all people long for.

So Paul seeks to do both of these things in what only can be described as a defense of the gospel.

He says, starting in verse three this time, I passed on to you what was most

important and what had also been passed on to me.

Christ died for our sins, just as the scripture said.

He was buried and was raised from the dead on the third day,

just as the scriptures said.

And so there are more than 300 prophecies in the Hebrew Bible regarding the coming king of Israel.

Over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament. Some of these Jesus had control over.

He could decide to do them.

When he went and cleansed the temple of the money changers, he decided to do

that, right? He set his mind to it.

Others he has no control of, such as being born in Bethlehem or when he was

a kid being taken to Egypt. And there's a lot of those as well.

A mathematician named Peter Stoner set out to figure out what the statistical

probability was of a man born of the time fulfilling all of these prophecies.

What would the actual numbers be?

And of course, his article was

actually peer-reviewed and was shown to accurately represent the numbers.

So, this is an accurate representation of the statistics regarding these prophecies.

Even to fulfill eight of them, just eight, would be 100 quadrillion to one.

So, that's like 10 with 17 zeros. I think it's something like a million billion

to one. it's at least possible, but you have a better chance by far of winning

the lottery twice in a row.

That's how unlikely it is. If you expand that to even 48 prophecies,

the odds are quickly not in your favor.

They skyrocket to one in 10 to the 157th power.

That's now 157 zeros. I don't know that they have a name for that number.

Maybe somebody does. I don't know what it is.

It is astronomically unlikely. This is what maybe a scientist would describe

as being so improbable that it's basically impossible.

I mean, at that point, they're essentially the same thing.

And of course, the inevitable conclusion is that there is probably not a computer

in the world powerful enough to crush the statistical value of one man fulfilling

all 324 prophecies in the Bible.

And yet, Jesus did it.

Jesus fulfilled all of the prophecies.

Verse 5, he was seen by Peter and then by the 12.

After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time,

most of whom are still alive, though some have died.

Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.

So, Paul's building a case. He's stacking the evidence.

It says Peter saw the resurrected Jesus. The 12 apostles saw the resurrected Jesus.

Then 500 followers all saw him at once. It wasn't a hallucination or something

of the sort, as some people may claim.

We can at times look unfavorably at more ancient generations.

We believe ourselves to be more advanced, more sophisticated, superior in many ways.

And so, we can easily think those poor, ignorant fools believing that people

can come back from the dead. They didn't think that.

Even then, they knew that people don't do that.

That's why when the apostles ran away when Jesus was killed.

And you see that time and time again. Jesus wasn't the first one who claimed to be the Messiah.

There were others. And whenever the rabbi was killed, the followers scattered.

Scattered, but something changed in the disciples.

Something changed. There was something different about them.

Not only that, but Paul says that some of these 500 followers who saw Jesus are still alive.

You don't have to believe me. Go and ask them, go and find out for yourself, investigate.

They're still alive. Go talk to them.

Also, James saw the resurrected Jesus, James, the brother of Jesus who would

become the bishop in the church in Jerusalem.

James, the same brother who thought his brother was crazy when he was alive,

worshipped him after he died.

He encountered the living God and he worshipped him.

I don't know about you, but if my sister dies, I'm not going to start worshipping

her. Something had changed in James.

Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him.

For I am the least of all the apostles. In fact, I'm not even worthy to be called

an apostle after the way I persecuted God's church.

Here's the crazy part about all of this. Paul's encounter with the living Jesus

on the road to Damascus was only about three years after Jesus had died.

Already within three years, there was an established doctrine of the resurrection.

Within three years. Don't you

think someone could have checked to see if Jesus' body was still there?

Don't you think that Paul could have investigated to find out if what he encountered

and envisioned was true? He could have asked some questions.

Not only that, but pretty much every one of the apostles that could have potentially

stolen Jesus's body in some great hoax, all died horrible deaths,

holding fast to the belief that Jesus was alive.

Why would they do that? Paul was not interested in Jesus before his conversion.

Jesus was a dark stain on all that he knew, all that he cared about,

all that he had dedicated his life to.

And Paul suffered more than any of them. In Acts 9, just after his conversion,

God told Ananias, Go, I have chosen Saul for an important work.

He must tell about me to those who are not Jews, to kings and to people of Israel.

I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.

And then Paul writes here in this chapter, And why should we ourselves risk our lives hour by hour?

For I swear, dear brothers and sisters, that I face death daily.

Why would they do that if not for the resurrection? direction.

Something had changed. Why would they do that?

Jesus is not only true. He is not only alive. He is not only God,

but he's ultimately what all people long for.

I keep reading in verse 10, but whatever I am now, it is all because God poured

out his special favor on me and not without results.

For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles, yet it was not I,

but God who was is working through me by his grace.

So it makes no difference whether I preach or they preach, for we all preach

the same message you've already believed.

By the grace of God, I am what I am, Paul says. That our lives are a dependence

on the power of grace to do what we ought to do and to be who we ought to be.

Our entire lives, our whole lives are dependence on grace to be who we ought to be.

There is every bit the real sense that this chapter, this whole chapter is to

encourage you that no matter what you may believe, believe no matter how you

may see yourself as, as falling short, as undeserving,

that by the grace of God, you are becoming who you already are, who God sees you to be.

That we see this picture, picture of our resurrected bodies,

that you are becoming that person.

You are being prepared to take on the imperishable, to take on the immortal,

that you are becoming that person that in his eyes, you are precious beyond belief.

Paul is saying that the secret to contentment, the secret to satisfaction is

trusting the promises of God.

The trusting the promises where he says, I'm going to strengthen you. You are mine.

I love you. He's saying, believe me, trust me. Every hour of your life, trust me. I love you.

I'm for you. I'm going to strengthen you. I will help you. I will hold you.

I've got an avalanche of promises for you. Trust me.

Grace is the unmerited favor shown to us by God.

It is the blessing, a blessing of status and position of standing as God's children

that we did not earn, that we do not deserve.

Grace is also the power of God

for us who believe to do what we ought to do and be who we ought to be.

Grace is power in our lives. So there is past grace.

There's past grace that says, I have chosen you. You are mine. I love you.

And then there is present and future grace that says, I've got you.

I'm with you. I love you. And the proper response of the heart to the past grace is thankfulness.

Thank you, God. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for choosing us.

And the proper response of the heart to future grace is faith.

We trust. We trust in Him for all things.

Pour yourself out for Him. Spend your life telling everybody you meet about King Jesus.

Telling everyone with your words, demonstrating it in a way that you live,

in a way that you love. And in the end, you will find a life that is not wasted.

God doesn't just leave us to labor and sing and overcome and run this race on our own.

He provides us with his spirit. He provides us with good works and mercies that are new every day.

And he gives us his spirit to empower us in them and through them.

He doesn't demand that we just run with no purpose, us, no goal.

He invites us to walk into them, to walk alongside him.

To the end of our lives, we may say with joy, yet not I, but through Christ in me.

If Christ has not been raised, then all of our preaching is useless,

and your faith is useless.

And we apostles would all be

lying about God, for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave.

But that can't be true if there's no resurrection of the dead.

And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has.

In that case, all of you who have died believing in Christ are lost.

And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone.

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great

harvest of all who have died.

We are not to be pitied. We are to be envied.

Don't let that puff you up, but let it lift you up. Let it lift you up. Let it encourage you.

Don't feel sorry for me. Don't wonder if I'm wasting my life.

A life lived pursuing self-pleasure rather than pursuing glorification of Christ is a life that is wasted.

A life pursuing the glory of King Jesus is not wasted. It is a life that is

not wasted. It is a life that is not wasted.

So, we see here in this chapter that the Corinthians had taken their eyes off of the outcome.

They had taken their eyes off of the purpose, off of the goal.

And I'm sure that there are a hundred different stories from war or from sports

or something of much greater valor than what I'm about to share that point to

the fact that when there's an outcome or a purpose or a goal in mind,

I'm sure James has some wrestling analogies that he can share with us.

When there's a goal in mind, people have purpose in what they do.

But I have a story from the comedian Jim Gaffigan that is perhaps less filled

with valor and honor, but it seems to illustrate the same point.

It's something that I've heard increasing frequency as of late.

So I'm sure that God was trying to put it on my heart to share this with you.

I'm sure that's what happened here.

So it's when he's talking about cake. So if you've ever heard the a joke.

You already know what I'm about to say.

But he talks about how cake is a powerful food, that cake can actually bring people together.

You know, if you've ever worked in an office, say something like,

it's Bill's birthday today. I hate that guy. There's cake in the conference

room. I should say hello.

When there is a goal, an outcome, a purpose in mind, we could just see the value.

If we could only peer into the future and see when we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

when we are becoming who we were made to be, when we can see as we put on the

imperishable, that's a powerful motivating factor.

When you can see what it's all for, then you can know that this is not wasted.

Nothing you ever do for the Lord is wasted. None of it is useless.

And of course, this isn't an accident that this comes after we've had chapter

after chapter where Paul is telling us to lay down yourself,

lay down your rights, lay down your desires, that I die to myself,

that I pursue the good of other people.

And now he's telling us it's never wasted. It's never wasted.

There's the missionary that I'm sure many of you are familiar with,

Jim Elliott, who was famously killed in Ecuador, with seemingly no fruit to his labors.

And what some could probably have said, it was a wasted life.

And he said, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

In the next chapter, we'll see Paul encouraging the Corinthian church.

One thing he will say is to welcome in these various saints who are pursuing

and pursuing their lives and dedicating our lives to sharing Jesus.

And one thing he says, I think it's about Timothy, but it could be about somebody

else. He said that he is spending his life for the glory of God.

Abound in good works. Spend your life for him with an unshakable foundation.

I just want to read that verse that we opened up with again.

My dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you.

Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord, for you know that nothing

you do for the Lord is ever useless.

So we love, we love with a purpose in mind.

We love with a goal. We love because God has provided us an unshakable foundation,

and he has provided us purpose in all that we do.

Therefore, do huge amounts of Christ-exalting work because none of it, none of it is in vain.

It is never useless. So let's pray.

Lord, would you just pour out your spirit in such a way that your people would

desire you more than we desire other things and other people,

that we would experience the satisfaction that comes from you and you alone,

the satisfaction that you provide that quenches the deepest soul thirst of every human,

that we would be who we ought to be, that we would do as we ought to do,

you, Lord, that you would empower

us to live and to love, that you would empower us to do good works.

Knowing that nothing we ever do for you and for your glory is ever wasted. None of it is useless.

We are not wasting our lives, but we will spend them.

We will spend them for you, telling everybody,

all peoples in all places about Jesus,

demonstrating Jesus in the way that we live and the way that we love and inviting,

inviting all those people to join us as we step into this reality,

as we put on the imperishable, as we walk into who we are becoming,

as we become real people, as we step into faith of being a part more and more

of this real and loving family,

all so that we can worship you, God.

It's all for you. It's all for your glory. The one real and true God. Amen.

Music.