Christ's Victory Over Death

He is the one who conquered death, not us. He doesn't give us the authority to conquer death. He does it himself, and it's only by union with him that we are there with him. So Jesus doesn't break down the prison gates of death and turn around and say, okay, I showed you how. Now it's your turn.

No. He picks us up off the floor saying, you belong to me. You belong to me. And he carries us out.

The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

Well, we're gonna be in first Corinthians chapter 15 again. You can head there now. It's in first Corinthians chapter chapter 15 that Paul is outlining the importance of the resurrection, Something that happened for Christ and in Christ, so it happens, for us. The resurrection, Paul says in verses one to 11, is inseparable from the gospel. He's, of course, without resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

Jesus is not raised, and that's what 20 or 12 through 20 was about. Paul was saying, this is what stuff would look like if Jesus were not raised. How bad that would be. We would have no hope. But in 20, we ended last time with, but in fact, he has been raised from the dead.

What we'll be looking at then this morning is 21 through 28. We're gonna see the way in which this victory works itself out. You can think of this morning as something like how death finally meets its demise or how Christ defeats death once and for all. That's what we're going to be looking at here. That's what Paul outlines for us, and it's an extremely hopeful and helpful section as we walk through this time in this world where we don't yet see that victory is fully realized.

We're not experiencing it in the same way we will then. And so, the truths that we learn here are extremely helpful for that. So, through 21 through 28 of chapter 15, in just a few verses, we're going to see the origin of Christ's victory over death, the order in which this victory happens, and then the object of Christ's victory over death. Where this is all going, what it's for, what it's towards, what's the purpose behind it. So origin, order, and object.

We're gonna jump in here in just a moment in verses 21 through 22. But first, let me pray for us. Father, thank you that these things are true. Thank you that as our recognition of truth kind of ebbs and flows, it goes up and down. Some days we are less aligned with truth.

Other days we are more aligned with truth. Thank you that it remains certain. And my prayer, God, is that your Holy Spirit will be changing our hearts to understand reality more accurately and responding appropriately to that, that you would help us to really know and feel Christ's victory and present reign and live in accordance with that. Bless us now. Bless me now in the giving of your word.

I pray you'd speak to your people. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Origin. So 21.

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. So this is where we start. We start out with the bad guy. You've got death introduced into the scene by Adam, and then there's resurrection, life, which is necessarily the defeat of death coming through Christ.

Now it's tempting to pass over this quickly because it's just such a few little verses, but there's a lot going on here. And in order to understand the immensity of what this is, we need to look at a bit of the immensity of the enemy that Jesus is defeating here. See, scripture shows death to be much more than simply the event when the heart start stops beating. Death first comes onto the scene right along with sin. In fact, throughout the scriptures, death and sin are intertwined.

When you hear about one, you often hear about the other. Adam disobeys God. He walks outside of God's will. He trusts Eve who trusted the serpent rather than trusting God. And and so Adam creates this pollution, this sickness, this disease, sin, the effect of which is death as extremely contagious.

All humans catch this sickness of sin and its effect of death. Every single human ever born of man and woman has inherited this disease. Paul writes something of this sort in Romans five twelve. He says, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. We're in 06/23, the wages of sin is death.

Death is something we're all affected by because sin is something we're all infected with. Death is also pictured as a ruler in scripture, Romans five fourteen, a slave master, enslaving his subjects through fear in Hebrews two fourteen through 15, in Romans six twelve as well. And, of course, it's with the introduction of death in Genesis three sixteen through 19 that we see the introduction of all things in this world which are imperfect. Trials, toil, pain, difficulty, fears, relational distress, just that that slow pull towards degradation and decay that literally everything in the world is subject to. I think of anything imperfect.

They're all simply different little bitter fruits popping out from this one common vine, which is death, the result of sin. And yet, as in Adam all were brought into and subjected to that death that influences every moment of our lives, so through Christ's resurrection, we are brought out of death into life. This is why Jesus and Adam are kind of compared side by side. They're paralleled in the bible because just like in one man, Adam, through his actions, sin, there are consequences, death, for all who are in him. So in one man who is God, Jesus, through his actions, his death and resurrection, there are consequences, which is eternal life, for all who are in him.

So they're set next to each other. Get an idea of this in Romans five eighteen. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Let me quote for you again from Hebrews two fourteen, where the author speaks of Jesus' own experience of death saying that through death, he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

How stunning, how how amazing and poetic it is that our god kills death by dying himself and then raising. There's the origin. But if you're like me, you're going to have some questions that immediately come about. We hear about this reversal of death, being raised to life, being freed from the effects of death. We just talked about that.

And I'm a Christian, so I should be experiencing that, and yet my life seems far from that. I see and feel trials and loss, and we still see death in this world. I mean, Corinthians says many Christ has made us alive, and and Hebrews says we're delivered from death's slavery of fear, and Romans implies that death doesn't reign over us anymore. And yet, I still act like I'm dead in my sin at times. I still fear, and Christians still die.

So what is going on here? Why don't we see the effects of this deliverance we've just heard about? Well, this is where understanding the order of these events is very important because from our perspective, this doesn't all happen at once. Christ's victory is not simultaneously at once for us. Now for God, it is.

Right? It is happening. It has happened. For God, this happened before the foundation of the world. He doesn't do time like we do time.

But we are bound to time. We don't see this at once. We need to plod through time at a sixty minute per hour speed limit and understand these things and go through these things sequentially. We live through these things sequentially. And God understands that limitation, that weakness.

So one of the accommodations we have right here is him showing us the order in which this victory over death comes about. So let me read that to you now. All shall be made alive but each in his own order. Christ as the first fruits, then at his coming, those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the father after destroying every rule and every authority and power for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Notice how time language kind of floods off the page here all at once? All of a sudden, have order, first fruits, then, then, after, until, last. We have very time saturated kind of sequential language here. That's purposeful.

The holy spirit in his writing of this scripture is emphasizing the sequence in which this victory over death takes place. The first thing we see where it all starts is with Christ's resurrection. Jesus is raised, glorified, seated above enemies, and suddenly death has received his death blow. Jesus has Jesus has broken him. He's broken his grasp.

It's not like the other raising from the dead that we've seen in scriptures. Right? Like the widow's son and Lazarus and Jairus' daughter because all those people, of course, were raised for time and their bodies went down and were corrupted by the grave. Not so with Jesus. He was raised in his glorified body completely incorruptible and untouchable by death.

Romans six nine says as much. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him such that when he is raised, he can righteously boast. Fear not. I am the first and the last, the living one.

I died, and behold, I am alive. And I have the keys of death and hades. That's Revelation one eighteen, Jesus speaking. Now death has a huge problem on his hands. Here's a human, someone who death is supposed to have some authority over, but death has no dominion over this human because he is God.

And Jesus has broken out of prison, and as we just heard, he's taken his keys on the way out. That right there is the death blow to death. It is now, in effect, simply bleeding out. This has already happened. Now a good way to think about this analogy for me is to picture something like a a dangerous game hunt.

Say you're going after a cape buffalo, and you get a shot in the vitals. You get both lungs and the heart. You say to yourself, okay. This Kate Buffalo is dead. I've got him.

And you're right about that. You're not gonna have to shoot him again. But the animal can still pose some problems then. Even though it's dying, it could turn and charge on you. The buffalo is dead.

Right? You've got your effective hit, but he hasn't died quite yet. That's a little bit like death's situation after Christ's resurrection. He's been decisively defeated because Jesus has raised, and that's guaranteed our resurrection also, even so much so that we can say we've only fallen asleep because we will be raised. So, that's guaranteed.

We're guaranteed this awakening in Christ because we're united with him. However, like that, Cape Buffalo, death hasn't fully died yet. We still weep. We still mourn, yet not as those without hope. We still fear.

We still feel pain. We still see brokenness and hardship in the world. In fact, we'd be a bit delusional to say that death is nowhere present in the world today. Death is dead, yes, but he hasn't fully died yet. Though he will.

We'll see that in verse 26. Let's keep going then. So Christ has risen as the first fruits beginning this entire process, the first part of this order of salvation. And then what's next? Well, his return to earth is next here.

So for the moment, it skips right over our entire lives. In fact, if you look, there's a little comma between first fruits and then. That's kind of every single thing that happens between Jesus going up and coming back down. That's our entire lives right there. So, we go right to Christ's return.

Don't worry. We will return a little bit to what happens during that comma, during our lives. But for now, in the order of this victory, Christ comes back. He returns and when he does, we see another group made fully alive with him. Who is that?

It's those who belong to him. What a powerful statement that is. Only the one the only ones raised to life, raised from the dead, delivered from death, are the ones who belong to Christ. Now, I love that terminology because for the moment, it just takes our works and our righteousness out of the equation. At this moment, the word used to describe all believers who have ever lived is simply the ones belonging to Christ.

Not those who had faith, not those who were his disciples, not those who loved him, not those who lived for him, although those are all legitimate categories for Christians used other places in scripture. But here, the emphasis is simply that those who are saved are the ones who are his, the ones who belong to him. Here, the emphasis on our deliverance from death depends fully on whether or not we are Christ's. He is the solid point of reference for our entire existence such that if you're asked who you are, it would be honest to say, I'm a person who belongs to Christ. So when asked me, who goes to your church?

I'd say, people who are Christ's, people who belong to Christ. This is the only way for the resurrection from the dead because if we're not his, not part of his group, we're not included in this because he is the one who conquered death, not us. He doesn't give us the authority to conquer conquer death. He does it himself, and it's only by union with him that we are there with him. So Jesus doesn't break down the prison gates of death and turn around and say, okay.

I showed you how. Now it's your turn. No. He picks us up off the floor saying, you belong to me. You belong to me.

And he carries us out. This great salvation comes not by earning or not because we had more faith or better faith than others, but because Jesus is our owner, because we belong to him. When the sky tears open and Christ comes back, the only thing that is going to matter to us at that point is, am I his or am I someone who he does not know? That's what it comes down to. So Christ returns, and we're made alive because we belong to him.

Now, what does that look like exactly? It's actually really exciting. We're gonna talk about that most, all the next sermon, but a little hint of what that looks like comes for us in first Thessalonians four sixteen. I'll read it for you here. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.

And the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Now remember, this is our actual inevitable future. There will be a point in our lives where we are experiencing this. There will be a point a thousand years ago where we can remember when this happened, remember the details of it. It's not fantasy.

The people who are here right now, we're going to be in the air flying. We're going to see Moses and David and all those who have lost in Christ and we're going to, together with them, meet Jesus in the air. All those who belong to him will be there. That's what happens at this point. But we're not done yet.

Our scripture continues. Back to our verse in first Corinthians 15, then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God after destroying every ruler and authority and power. So we get a good picture of the end there. The end is Jesus. He's conquered every enemy.

He's got his people who belong to him right with him. He's vanquished death, and then he hands this perfected kingdom over to God the father. That's it. That's the end. We still have a number of verses left though, and that's because this statement, the end, blossoms out with more petals to kind of fulfill our picture, the picture Paul, Paul is giving us here.

So this this verse really works a bit like a flower blossoming in time lapse photography. You can look it up on YouTube. It's amazing to see how god has that all worked out. But what happens is this. Like the flower, you've you've got the flower there, and then the center, the blossom in the center opens up, and those become petals on the outside.

And then the center of this new flower opens up and becomes petals on the outside again. Now with each iteration, the flower remains the same. It looks the same, and yet it's constantly changing as the center opens up and goes to the edge. At the end of the process, the whole flower seems more complete and more beautiful, though it's essentially remained unchanged. That's a bit like what's gonna happen here in this passage.

We see we're brought to life and the kingdom's handed to God, and then comes the end. Now what we see for the remainder of the time in '25 through '28 is the unfolding of that statement, then comes the end. It'll open up for us, and that leads us nicely also into the object of what all this is for. So what's inside that then comes the end statement? It says this, then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God after destroying every ruler and authority and power.

25. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death for God put all things in subjection under his feet. So what we see here is that this destroying of every rule and every enemy is something that Christ is actively doing while he is reigning. You see that?

He must reign until he puts his enemies under his feet. That means it doesn't all happen at once. It's not that Christ comes back and defeats all his enemies at once. Rather, when he comes back, he has finished that work of defeating his enemies, the last one to be defeated of which is death. After that comes the kingdom.

But the process of vanquishing those enemies has already begun. That's what we see here, reigning until this is finished. So a little story to kind of help us picture what this is like. We'll say you have a king and a prince, and the king has authority over a city. The king owns the city, but the governor of the city has turned evil, rose up a militia, subjected the people, and now it's in authority or it's in rebellion against the king.

The king says to the prince, I give you complete authority to go and to conquer that city. The prince then goes into the city, destroys the governor, and sits and reigns in the city. So the prince has now established authority over the city, and yet he is still hunting down and destroying the rest of the evil governor's militia. That process takes a while. Once he's all done, he writes to the king saying, city's ready to be taken back by you.

The king arrives. The evil governor's chief general, we'll call him death, is executed, and the city is handed back over to the king. The prince resumes his rightful place at the king's right hand. That situation there is like what's going on here. God has subjected all this present world to Christ, and Christ is reigning now in this present world, and he's presently putting those enemies under his feet.

Because remember, we need to always keep in mind, Christ is already raised from the dead. And that being the case, he is ruling even now. That was the the event, the inauguration of his rule. Not he's not just letting his enemies have their way right now and then he comes back and fixes it all. No.

He's actively working at this moment. So remember the comma I mentioned earlier? And I said, yeah, all of our life kind of happens on that comma. That's the until part of this phrase. Right?

He must reign until he's placed all his enemies under his feet. That's ongoing now. Christ is reigning now, and he will continue to reign until he is finished vanquishing all his enemies just like the prince in our story. There's plenty of verses that mention that same thing. Ephesians one twenty is a good one.

It says, God raised him up from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come, and he put all things under his feet. See, that happened at the resurrection when God raised him up. Again, we see in Psalms eight five through six, Old Testament here. It says this, yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and have crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands.

You have put all things under his feet. How do we know that psalm is talking about Jesus? We know that because the author of Hebrews quotes this psalm when speaking of Jesus' resurrection. In Hebrews two eight says this, Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At the present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him, but we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of suffering of death.

So, you get the same idea. Psalm eight, Hebrews two, Ephesians two, that Jesus is raised by God, the father, and presently reigning in the universe as a result of the resurrection. And right now, once again, we're going to feel tension, dissonance. With Jesus reigning and defeating his enemies, how is that possible with sin being so rampant in the world? How do we say he's reigning now?

It's hard to believe God when he says this. It's hard to believe these passages. You read them, your experience does not match up with them, and so it's very easy to say, well, that must mean something else or that can't be true. It's hard to believe that Jesus is reigning now, that death is defeated, that Jesus' enemies are being defeated. Where is it happening?

Point point to a place in the world now where evil is down, going down, and the kingdom of God is increasing. He can't do it. So how does Christ say he is reigning and all these good and true things, how are they true? When all you have to do is just talk to anyone person. We heard an example this morning.

You hear stories of loss and hardship and death and sorrow. How can we believe that things are subjected to him right now? Well, the short answer for that is faith. That's the only answer for now. The bible affirms your concern.

The bible does not say, you're wrong. Everything's perfect. Just ignore the other stuff. It doesn't say that. The bible says, you're right.

You don't yet see everything is subjected to Christ. Bible says the whole creation has been groaning together in pains of childbirth until now. And not only creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly as we eagerly await the redemption of our bodies. Bible's very openness about the brokenness of the world. We don't see his reign now.

But just because we don't see it doesn't mean it isn't true. The whole point of faith, the reason that word exists, is because faith is about believing what we do not see. Faith exists in the absence of what is seen. So though we do not see Christ's reign, we need to, by faith, believe that Jesus is fulfilling his purposes, is reigning even through the evil and the hardship of this world. We need to believe that for those who love God, all things are working together for good.

That what man means for evil, God means for good, that no purpose of his can be thwarted. And there's a helpful analogy for this I wanna share this morning who comes, the the analogy comes from Corrie Ten Boom. Now for those of you who are unfamiliar, Corrie Ten Boom was no stranger to the effects of death and the diabolical influence of human evil. She was hiding Jews from the extermination of the Nazis in World War two, and she was betrayed by a fellow countryman. She was arrested by the Gestapo, her, her sister Betsy, her father Casper, whom she loved dearly.

They're all arrested by the gestapo. Then she has three months of interrogation in solitary confinement. When she eventually gets out of that, she realizes that during that time, her father has died. He did not survive the interrogations. She never saw him again.

She never got to say goodbye to him. He's gone now. And her and her sister Betsy are then moved to Ravensbruck, which is the worst concentration camp for females during that time. All female concentration camp and subject daily to freezing temperatures, lice, of course, abuse constantly from the male guards, starvation, beatings. She regularly saw regularly saw groups of women marched in the gas chambers and the heaps of bodies dumped into the incinerator.

And she, during that time, lost her sister, Betsy, who had been kind of a a hope and a help for her during this whole time. Betsy died as a result of the conditions and the abuse of the guards. Now, in my personal opinion, if there's anyone who has ever had a right to doubt that Jesus is reigning and placing his enemies under his feet right now? It's Cory. Now, if there was ever anyone who had a reason to doubt that Jesus had defeated death, I think it would be Cory who saw death every single day.

And yet, she often used this illustration when speaking of her life of difficulty that she faced. So she'd take a tapestry. It'll be hard for you to see these embroideries. A tapestry or embroidery, and she'd show the back like this. She'd point to the the knots and the loose ends and the chaos and say, this is how life often looks.

It's disconnected. It's chaotic. We see death, and we experience death. But then she'd turn it over and say, but by faith, we know that God is working out something beautiful. We've got mountains here in the Grand Canyon.

She would often have a crown picture. And she'd say, by faith, we know God is working out something beautiful. Through the chaos, through the death, God is working out something that we will thank him for and glorify him for, and we would not change a moment of it when we are there to see him in heaven. That's what she would say. Now, that might seem trite now, but realize this faith, this understanding is what got Corrie through the holocaust.

It's a load bearing faith. She viewed her father's death. She viewed Ravensbruck through faith that God was conquering his enemies and working out good and reigning and having his way even through these evil experiences. If there was anyone convinced of Romans eight twenty eight, it was her. She knows that for those who love God, all things are working for good.

And she saw the evil of this world, and then she looked to Jesus himself beyond all this hardship raised. And by faith, she said, that's where this is all headed. That's what this is working towards. That's what I'm going to have faith in. We need that too.

We need that same faith. Even for things much less hard to endure than the holocaust. It's for daily difficulties. We need to know that Christ is reigning and putting his enemies under his feet. And joyfully so, we will not actually need that faith forever because what we take by faith now, we will see with our own eyes one day when Jesus defeats that last enemy, death.

We're going to be there for that. When death is finally destroyed, thrown into hell. We have actually an account of that in Revelation twenty eleven through 14. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it, from his presence earth and sky fled away and no place was found for them. Then I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne and books were opened.

Then another book was opened which is the book of life And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. And they were judged each one according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.

This is the second death, the lake of fire. That's it. Death is out of the picture at that point. It's eternally condemned. So there it is.

Death finally dies, and then with no more enemies in sight, not even the not even the germ or the molecule of an enemy left, Jesus hands everything over to God the father and who who is all and all. God the father who gave Jesus authority in the first place. So that's the object. Right? Now we get into the object of all this.

It's great. It's a joyful story. There's victory. There's peace. There's shalom.

There's right rightful judgment. But where does it all lead? What's the point of it? The object is that God might be all in all, fully appreciated, fully loved, fully enjoyed, fully glorified by everything and everyone in all the universe. So in closing, let me show you how we get there.

Like this. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet. It's Jesus. But it is plain that he is accepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things were subjected to him, then the son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him that God may be all in all.

You'll notice here Paul gets a bit technical with his language. That's because he wants us to be very clear about what the object of all of this is towards. He wants to be very clear that we see this is all moving towards praise and glory for God the Father. Because in this text, we have both God the Father and Jesus Christ in play. And so Paul is extremely careful with his wording to make sure we understand where this is all going.

What Paul does here is he talks a little bit and informs us a little bit of something called the economy of the trinity. That is the the rules, the manner, the way in which God works within himself. Because as you are familiar, God is three persons, father, son, holy spirit, all equally worthy of worship, all fully God, yet each person plays unique functions within the godhead. Even if you've never been taught this, you know it instinctively. If you know John three sixteen, God sent his son.

God is the sender. The son has responded to that. Right? Those are two different functions. The father initiates.

The son responds. You see that in first Corinthians 11. You see it in first Corinthians three. God is the head. Christ is subordinate to God.

That's what we call the economy of the trinity. That pattern, that economy continues into eternity as well. In that, the Bible says that God when the Bible says God put all things under Christ's feet, it doesn't mean that God put himself under Christ. Right? We know that.

Paul says that should be obvious, but he wants to ensure that no one misunderstands that the son himself in the end is also subjected to God so that God might be all and all. So you get this idea of everything in perfect order. So that is the end here, and that's the reason for why he gets very technical with his language in that last part. God is the object of all this. All glory flows to God the father.

You see the same idea in Philippians two ten, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the father. As you read through the book of John, you'll see that the glory of Jesus is to glorify the Father. His role one of his roles within the Trinity is to receive glory in such a way that he brings glory to God the Father. And coming back to that word, this is that economy in the Trinity that Paul is very careful to preserve in his last few sentences. And so that is our happy ending.

Everything perfectly, appropriately functioning in its proper place, death, authorities, powers, everything associated with that, gone. God's ransom people with him, Christ handing the entire perfected kingdom over to God the father. And then, like we hear in Habakkuk, the earth is filled with the knowledge and the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. It all moves. It all moves towards God the Father.

He's the object of this. Just like every drop of rain that falls on a continent forms into rivulets, then streams, then rivers that flow to the ocean, so every event and all of human history flows to this eventual end where glory and worship and praise is given to God the father. And that's the end or rather the beginning of the story. When you read about the future in the bible, it always ends there. Just in in it's like it gets so bright you can't see it anymore.

It's just joy eternally. In fact, in Revelation, it says, we always we always reign with him forever. That's as far as we can see into the future, and that is when this true life begins. So, what's the point of all this now? Zoom back to the present day, that little comma we saw.

What happens now? What benefit is it to know these things? Let's say I have a doctor's appointment I'm concerned about or much worse, someone I love has a doctor appointment that I'm worried for them about. Maybe there's a bill that I can't pay. You know, some mountain moving over me that I can't face.

How has I just heard affect that? But one thing is that there's an eternal mountain of joy looming over that mountain by which we'll actually be able to see this little mountain of anxiety as light and momentary. You know, objects are only large or small by comparison. Like I mentioned in the last sermon, the end of the story informs every part of the story we're living through. To know that what we've just read is invincibly true gives us practical strength and hope to use today.

Actual actual logs to throw on the fire, stuff that actually makes work and helps. Knowing that actually helps us today to move through this time in which we haven't yet seen it all submitted to Christ. We also need to have faith like Corrie Tenbone, who looked death and evil in the eyes and said by faith, Christ reigns over you. You are subjected to him. And Jesus is using even you, Ravensbruck, and even you gas chambers to work out a plan better than I could imagine.

We see death. We feel its effects. We need to understand that it's not in control. We need to stand strong in our faith and encourage one another to stand strong in our faith that these things indeed have been subjected to Christ. Death is not the norm and that pain and evil and sin are not the norm.

They are in fact passing away along with the world. What is normal is celebration and peace and joy and the worshiping of God. And when you feel joy, when you feel a moment of joy, just take a moment to realize that a thousand years after death has been damned, you'll still be feeling that that same sort of joy. That's what remains, and death is what is fading away. But that's not easy.

It may not even be possible. And so that's where this last point comes in. We need to pray that the spirit applies these truths to our heart in a way that changes the way we feel, the way we act. Because honestly, apart from the Holy Spirit transforming us by renewing our minds, this passage is not going to help. It's not going to do anything for us.

We need to throw ourselves upon the mercy of God and ask him by his spirit, allow me to hope in these things that are true in such a way that my perspective is changed and my actions are changed and my attitude is changed, the way I walk through life is changed. Let's pray that the spirit engages our hearts with these truths in such a way that blesses God and ourselves and those around us. I pray for us. Father, again, I can state confidently these things are true and they ought to change us. I pray they would change us.

We know that we cannot change ourselves. We know it's the Holy Spirit who allows us to walk in your commands. It's the Holy Spirit who allows us to believe these things. And so Lord, we pray that by your Holy Spirit, this would be applied to us. We would think, act, react, feel differently knowing that this is true.

Lord, let us live in faith knowing that you have subjected all evil to yourself. We praise you for that truth. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God and the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.