Grab your Bibles and go to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. You guys have the last installment of the will to go up? I don't see it anywhere. Y'all seen the will anywhere? There it is. There it is. The last part of the will is a church God uses as a pattern for others.
Notice the flow of the phrase. Not that you say, look at us, we're a pattern for others, but others begin to inquire of you, others begin to contact you, others begin to ask you, can you help us understand your journey, your pilgrimage, and help us learn how we'll never arrive, but we can be more consistent, more thoroughly biblical. I like to submit sometimes using the phrase a true church or true church conference. People tell me, we all think y'all are the true church.
You're the only one. Absolutely not, but if you're not striving to be a true church, what in heaven's name are you striving to be? Our God's the God of truth, and we would surmise that his word is true, of course, and it gives us the foundational principles upon which to build his church, and so your goal should be, Grace Life Church's goal, and that's, Lord, make us so biblically, thoroughly sound and balanced that others would be inspired by us. I challenge you, look through the New Testament and count the number of times the Apostle Paul raises one local church up to be an example to others. It's in there a lot for giving, for their faith, for their love, on and on and on we could go. So it's God's purpose that we emulate, if you will, be a good expression, a good model of healthy church life to encourage one another, and that's what Anchored in Truth is about, so we can do that for each other.
So I would challenge you to strive to that end, and you know what? When you pray what's on God's heart, it just gets God's attention. It just gets God's attention. I don't want to be irreverent here, but I do want to make a point that take God to task. Say, Lord, now you've ordained that these things be done this way for your glory.
By your strength, I'm going to strive to do that, and I expect you to help me. Remember when Moses went to God and God said, Get out of the way, Moses. I'm just going to kill all of them. Moses appealed on God's namesake. Well, God, you called us out here.
You want the whole world to know this is the way you deal with your people? Now, that's not a quotable verse, but basically, that's what Moses is saying. He took God to task. God, what about your glory? So ask God to bless what you're doing based on his namesake, because if you're thoroughly biblical, you're bringing the character of the very God to bear in all that you're doing.
Well, enough on that. But that purpose doesn't matter if you're not joying in Christ first, if you're not loving Christ first, if you're not treasuring Christ foremost. And to help us get there this evening, I want to preach on Christ the preeminent conqueror. The preeminent conqueror, and I'm going to approach it from 1 Corinthians chapter 50, which gives us the spoils, if you will, the treasures that are now ours because of this conquering Christ, and particularly this this Christ who has conquered through rising from the grave, his resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15, beginning in verse 50, going through the end of the chapter. Paul writing to the church at Corinth says, But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on the immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is in the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. So in our text, we see what our mighty conqueror, the victor of the Lord Jesus Christ has done. He has, in effect, given us the victory over all of our enemies, which are also all of his enemies. We see the enemy of death is taken out of the way. The enemy of sin, the sting is gone.
We see the enemy of the law husked into silence against us, all conquered through Christ, particularly his resurrection from the dead. Now, Satan is also involved here. This text doesn't mention him, but certainly he's the one involved in all of these things that come against us to crush us, to defeat us. As Hebrews 2 14 reminds us, he has the power of death. That's Satan.
So he's behind these things, though he's not mentioned particularly here. Now, the word victory is mentioned three times in our text. So there's an excitement, if you will, a celebratory, an exclamation-type spirit to what Paul has to say here. In verse 57, for example, as he comes to the end, he says, thanks be to God who gives us a victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here's what I'm saying. Everything centers in Christ. He is the mighty conqueror. It all centers in him. He placed the whole burden of our eternal life, our victory, if you will, on his own shoulders. And he won the day crushing all opposition. The text contains that exultant triumphant tone as it sets forth the conquering achievements of Jesus Christ.
Three points as we unpack our outline. Number one, the explanation of his conquering work. That is, what he has done for us. Jesus didn't have to come and face death and die and conquer death just to prove something for himself. He came and did it for the children.
He knew what he was doing. Verse 51 says, we will all be changed. Now, it's not necessary that you die to be changed, but you must be changed.
Now, Roman numeral one in our outline under Roman numeral one, notice it's a necessary change, verses 50 and 51. He says, bread and flesh and blood, your natural mortal sin-diseased bodies cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Well, that's a problem because God has predestined some to be his for eternity. God has elected some to be his for eternity. God has foreordained and has foreknowledge of those he's ordained for eternity. Yet all of those he's predestined and all of those he's elected and all of those he's foreordained and foreknown, all of them have fallen sin-corrupted flesh and blood bodies. What's he gonna do, John O.?
He's gonna fix it's what he's gonna do. And that's what Jesus, he conquers our problem through his death and his burial and his resurrection. It's a necessary change that we lose these old natural, as he says here, flesh and blood bodies. These old bodies are corrupted by sin and they cannot inherit an uncorrupted glorious eternal kingdom.
These present earthly bodies do not fit our heavenly home. We must be dressed up and made presentable before he takes us home. I kind of like that idea, don't you? I kind of like the idea that he says, I'm gonna get you all cleaned up.
I'm gonna get you, we have grandchildren, and sometimes we might tell, we're gonna get you all fixed up. Well, that's what the Lord's gonna do. He's got to do something about these old earthly bodies. The bride of Christ must put on the wedding garment.
She cannot enter the groom's kingdom wearing a corrupt, weak, perishable, dishonorable, dying, and decaying body. The resurrection day will be a new day, a new heaven, and a new earth, and a new kingdom, and we must have new bodies to be there with him. You know, today I have a kingdom heart, but I do not yet have a kingdom body.
My spirit is regenerate, but this old flesh-corrupted package called my body, it's not yet regenerate. You see, my eyes for now do not always act like kingdom eyes. My feet for now do not always act like kingdom feet. My hands in this day and time do not always act like kingdom hands. My mind doesn't always think like a kingdom mind. It's all still corrupted and affected by sin, but when I am changed, my new body will have no sinful corruptions, and it will wholly yield to the Holy Spirit.
I remember early in my Christian experience, it might have been Dr. Gray Allison who said, heaven will be heaven because I will finally serve Jesus perfectly, and I'll want to, and I'll be happy to, and I'll never want to do anything else but that. Oh, our conqueror has made this change possible. Notice he says in verse 50, he says they cannot inherit. I say to this to you, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit. So the point is, before you can get home to heaven, let's just say in this flow of the chronological context, before you get home to the new glorified eternal state, you're going to have to have a change.
It's a necessary change. Now Paul said in Romans 7 18, there's nothing good that dwells in my flesh, but also writing to the Colossians, he's in Colossians 2 10, Christ has removed the body of the flesh. Now he's talking from an eternal perspective. God's not limited to time, and in Christ Jesus, you're already fixed in his eternal mindset. You've already got the old corrupted offensive body removed because Jesus, the spiritual surgeon, has removed that chunk, that body that's corrupted out of the way.
So now you and I, through the mighty conqueror Jesus Christ, stand as righteous and just and acceptable in his sight. Now we're just waiting for time to pass until the actual fruition of the new glorified body takes place. You must have a changed body.
It's a necessary change. This physical body is offensive to God. It's incompatible with his kingdom. It's called a perishable, verse 50, a perishable body. It means a disposable body. James and Fawcett and Brown in their excellent little commentary says, we have animal-souled bodies. We die like animals, and our bodies rot in the earth like animals, and they decay like animals, and become fertilizer for plants, our present bodies.
We have a disposable body that fits a disposable world. So look what he says in verse 51, behold I tell you a mystery. Now again in the New Testament, the mystery meant something that was veiled in the past, but now made clear. Now they saw bits and pieces. They saw types and shadows, examples, but in the New Testament, this side of Calvary, we look back and we see clearly. So he said, now what's been unveiled that was once a mystery, we shall not all sleep.
That's good news. We may not have to die, but we will all be changed. You may not die.
The rapture may just call you up, but you will be changed, so you'll fit the new perfect, sinless, glorious kingdom of God. So dying is not essential, but changing is. There are two routes. You can go by death, you can go by rapture, but both lead to the same place.
So you don't have to die to enter, but you sure got to be changed to enter. It's a mystery. Once concealed, at least vaguely known, but now revealed as the sunlight of midday. And by the way, Paul's bringing this by revelation.
You know why? Because the human mind would never have found this out by human reason. We know it by divine revelation. Brother John, I've got to our people that early in my Christianity when people say, well, how do you know the Bible, the Word of God? How do you know it's accurate? How do you know it doesn't have any mistakes? And I try to cut them up with some pseudo-intellectual research thing. The anthropologist found this out and that out, and all the manuscripts are available, and that's all good stuff. But you know what it is today? Faith. I read it, and it's self-authenticating. I believe in the resurrection.
I believe in the resurrection because the book tells it to me, and there's something inside of me, and that something is not something, it is someone. And as we read these truths, that someone says, amen! That's right.
And that's why I stake my claim. Well, not only is it a necessary change, as he explains what he's accomplished in his conquering work, he also says it's a lightning fast change. Oh, I like this. Usually, I like fast stuff. I like to get to the end of it, don't you? My wife's so bad about that, she'll read a book and just, I can't wait to get to the end.
I kind of want to enjoy it sometimes, you know, just join the journey, but getting to the end is a key thing. And here, God does this miraculous changing of us. He does that lightning fast.
Look at verse 52, if you will. He says, in a moment. That's how fast it's going to be.
The scholars tell us the Greek word there means an indivisible sequence of time. It's so quick, you can't tell when it's stopped and started. Then he says, amplifying further, in the twinkling of an eye. That's the time it takes your eye to react to light. Sometimes it's used in the ancient Greek of the buzzing of an insect's wing, or the twinkling of a star. So quick, you can't tell when it wasn't twinkling, when it started twinkling, when it started twinkling.
It's just going to be so very quick. Then he says, at the last trumpet. That would be the seventh trumpet. Psalm 47 verse 5 says, God has ascended with a shout, the Lord with the shout of a trumpet.
There it is in her text. In a moment in the twinkling of the eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound. There were six trumpets already sounded in the book of Revelation that unfolded, unveiled the judgments of God pouring out on planet earth. And then Revelation 11 verse 15 tells us, then the seventh angel sounded and new stuff really began to happen then. And there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. Just like that.
He will reign forever and ever. Also, I like to think about the fact that often a trumpet sound means that one thing has ended and another thing has begun. Revelry, revelry I should say.
When the military has the revelry trumpet sound, it means the time of rest and relaxation is over. It's time to get in line and stand in attention. The bell rings at school, that class is over and hopefully recess is next. That has ended, something else has begun. The whistle blows at the plant, first shift is over, second shift has come.
That's the idea here. That old dispensation is over and in a moment, instantaneous, in the twinkling of the eye, you're going to be radically, miraculously changed. If your body's in the grave, it's coming out. You're alive, you're still got to be changed. You won't look at grandma when she comes out of the grave and say, whoa, you've been changed. You look back and see, you've been changed too. We'll all be changed.
A radical. A radical, rapid, lightning fast change. So first we see some explanations of the spoils, if you were the treasure, that the conquering Christ has achieved for us. Let's go to Roman numeral two. Let's talk about the exclamation of the conquering work of Christ. Again, there's a triumphant tone all the way through here, but it's picking up speed and you can't help but notice the triumphant tone, the exclamation, if you will, that Paul puts in his pen as he begins to write. Notice, first of all, a in our outline, the victory itself.
Here's the way he words it. And to me, as I read these things, it's hard to separate them and categorize them just out as a sequence of events. And they really intertwine.
One overlaps the other. But he says in verse 54, when this perishable, the old disposable, sin-corrupted, flesh-and-blood body, will have put on the imperishable, the new purified, glorified body. This mortal will have put on immortality. Then will come about the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Now, that's the first one. That's the first thing he's exclaiming, if you will. It's not like, well, death is swallowed up in victory.
No, no, no. Death is swallowed up in victory. Now, Joshua in India, this may mean a little something different to him when the government may pass a law to put you in prison. This may have a different meaning when you live in a culture where the name the name of Christ could be your death warrant.
Then this means something, and that's the kind of culture and context he's writing in. Death is swallowed up in victory. Isaiah 25, verse 8, prophesied this very thing. He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces. He will remove the reproach. I believe that includes the old corrupted bodies.
Those things are reproachable. I think it also means the reproach of the people who hate us, of his people from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. The Hebrew scholars tell us that he will swallow up means he'll make the whole thing disappear. That is so good. Boom! Death's gone. It's just over.
It's just gone. Just as a cake, once baked, cannot be unmade. Just as a butterfly, once it comes forth, cannot go back to being a caterpillar. Don't eat those things.
Wait for them to turn into a butterfly. Just as a plant cannot go back to being a seed, so the resurrected, glorified body cannot be returned to a corruptible state. Consequently, it can never face death again. It's eternally past death.
Death has, boom, disappeared. Hebrews 2 14 says this about Jesus, that through death he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil. Through death he put death to death.
That's what Jesus did. Through death he's put death to death. From the resurrection onward, death is an impossibility. In God's new, glorious, sinless, eternal kingdom, God will enforce a zero-tolerance policy on death.
Not gonna be allowed. Death will never be heard from again. I've always liked, my people can tell you, I've always liked the story of Samson in Gaza. And in the night, the men of Gaza decided, we're gonna meet Samson at the gate of the city at daylight when the sun comes up. But Samson said, well, we'll see about that. Samson got up in the middle of the night, goes down to the gate of the city of Gaza, puts his massive shoulders under the city gate, bars posted all, rips them up out of the ground, and takes the whole gate and throws it down on the hill opposite of the mountain.
So did Jesus. To the city of death, he's gone down and he's put his massive shoulders under the gate, posts, bars, and all, and ripped it up and has plundered the city of death and thrown them away, never to be a problem again. You see, today the city of death is plundered, it's crushed, it's defeated. The lingering dust of death settles on the city of death like the dust settled in Jerusalem in AD 70 when Titus of Rome marched through with his Roman legions.
Nothing but just dust was left. On that great resurrection morning, death will release its claims on the bodies of God's precious elect, and on that day the Holy Spirit commissioned by the omnipotent Christ will storm the graveyards of planet earth, open the graves, and let those precious bodies go to be glorified and changed. Never, never to face death again. And Paul's quite, if you will, triumphant about this and excited about this.
Number two. Not only does he talk about that, but the second thing, he says death's sting is removed. Again, overlapping truths, but we'll talk about it in just a moment. Verse 55, oh death, where's your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? Well, the sting of sin is death, but the stinger has been removed. Hebrews 9 27 tells us it's appointed unto man to die once and then after he dies to face the judgment. Man has always faced an eternal existence.
Every person will live forever in heaven or in hell. At death, man faces the full and just consequences of his sin. That's the sting of it. You see, death for the Christians a kind messenger that takes you to a better home, but death for the man who's in his sins faces the consequence of death before a righteous and holy God.
I mean, the consequence of sin before a righteous and holy God at his death. That's the sting of it. This is death's sting.
But for the child of God, the stinger has been removed. I'll never forget years and years ago reading the commentary by M.R. DeHaan, and the best I can discern, M.R. DeHaan was the radio preacher that I was listening to driving to Murfreesboro, Tennessee when I came to know Christ as my Lord and Savior.
And M.R. DeHaan tells the story of being in a field with his two boys. One was older than the other, and as they're walking through the field, it's early summer, a honeybee got after the older boy and stuck its stinger right in the flesh above his eye. Oh, he goes to the ground flailing and knocking and swinging around screaming, and the honeybee flew off and got after the younger boy. And the younger boy hadn't even got to him yet. The younger boy falls on the ground, drama upon drama. Oh, just wailing and crying.
And Mr. M.R. DeHaan said, son, son, don't worry about it. He has extinguished his stinger in the flesh of your older elder brother, so there's nothing left for you. When Jesus died on the cross, the stinger was extinguished in the flesh of Jesus Christ.
There's nothing left to harm us. The exclamation, the triumph, but note of this. Number three, the law's condemnation is silenced. He brings the law in here because we've got the balance in New Testament scripture that tells us more about how the law is our enemy in a sense, the law is a curse, but we know the law is holy and pure, but for the child of God, it stands over us to condemn us and curse us by itself if we're by ourselves.
Verse 56, the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is in the law. You see, the law is unalterable. The law is non-negotiable. All are under the law. The law is the exact reflection of the holy character of God himself. You cannot deal with the law. You can't hide from the law.
You can't change the law. It's God's very character. But for the child of God, through the conquering work of Jesus Christ, the law's thundering condemnation against us is silenced. Silence. The law sits over there, looks at you now that Jesus has forgiven you, and he says, I ain't got nothing to say. As far as you're concerned, I'm totally at rest because all I can see in you is the law keeping perfection of Jesus Christ.
Wow. The law's condemnation is silenced. The thundering crush of the law was silenced in the vicarious death of the victor, the conqueror, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ kept the law and life, and he faced the consequence of law for us law breakers in his death on the cross.
Now the law no longer has a just claim against us. It's hushed now into eternal silence. So as we think about these powerful phrases, as we see the exclamation, the triumphant praising of God for all of these things where he says, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God, it gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And I thought about this, I said, you know, it's still hard for me to unpack this in little, precise little pieces.
They just connect together and overlap. And I thought, though I cannot wrap my whole mind around it, I do rest my whole heart upon it. We don't, I don't, preach, teach, and think on the resurrection enough.
It's so essential. We're going to see more of that in just a moment. We've been talking about the exclamations concerning the victory itself. Now there's an exclamation concerning the victor himself.
Be in our outline. The victor himself, but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory to our Lord Jesus Christ. The victor is God working through his son, the son of God, co-equal to God, the Lord Jesus Christ. God has accomplished this conquering victory of redemption. I like to think about the priority of everything, the priority of the text, the scripture, and its totality. It's the glory of God. Then the second thing is the preeminence of the son of God. God is going to bring about his glory through the premier person, Jesus, and the premier work of the person, Jesus, is saving the children and building his church.
They always go together. So he, God, brings the victory through the preeminent person and the premier work of the person, which is his work on the cross securing the children. That's the victor.
He does that. But thinking about Jesus, just for a moment, let's consider the law again. If you walk through our mall out there, you'll see the Ten Commandments. They're all ten are out there, and you see the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me.
You failed there. Jesus has not. There's the commandment out there that says, you shall make no idols for yourself.
Make yourself no idols. You violated that commandment. Jesus has not.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. You failed at that commandment. Jesus has not.
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. You've broken that commandment. Jesus has not.
Honor your father and mother. You failed at that commandment. Jesus has not.
Do not murder. At least in your heart, you have. You've broken that commandment. Jesus has not. You should not commit adultery.
All of you have in your heart. Jesus has not. You shall not steal. You've broken that commandment. You've broken that commandment. Jesus has not.
You shall not bear false witness. You failed on that commandment. Jesus has not.
You shall not covet. You've broken that one, too. Jesus has not. You see, he achieved victory in everywhere that we failed. He's proven righteous in everywhere that we're unrighteous.
He is fully just in all the ways that we are unjust. There's supposed to be another verse in this building. Do you remember it?
It goes right there on that wall, but we've been remodeling. They hadn't got the verse up, and we got a price from a guy. He wanted like eight to nine thousand dollars to put the verse up, and our lady said, no, and I said, amen. One verse, brother. Here's the verse.
Romans 10, 4. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes, because he's the mighty carper. He's the mighty carper. He's the victory. He's the mighty carper. He's the victory. He's done it all.
This would be more brief. Romans number three. Brother John, I keep talking to you because I know I can count on you to agree with me. We get to 58, and it's like Paul can't help but exhort the local church a little bit practically. That's what this is all to come to is our application of devoted service based on the fact that if they do the worst they can do, kill us.
They can't stop us. We're going to be resurrected. So he says, verse 58. Therefore, therefore, based on these glorious, conquering, victorious truths Christ has achieved for us, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. First of all, he says, my beloved brethren, and Paul just throws himself in with all the Corinthian believers here in this text and said, we're all in this together. We are all God's children, all won by Christ, all sharing the souls of the victory.
It's for all of us. I like historical documentaries and reading about history, and some of you remember when I was doing some reading on the conquest of the Texas territory before Texas was a state. There were a lot of advantageous men who wanted to leave the east and go out west to this vast, rich, immense land called the territory of Texas and stake their claim and have their own great farms and land and their own kingdom out there. These had to be rough, tough, adventurous men, but there was one big problem. Santa Ana and the Mexican army, because Santa Ana and the Mexican army decided the whole Texas territory ought to belong to Mexico, but a man named Sam Houston, a former governor of Tennessee, decided, no, it needs to be ours.
Sam Houston goes marching east. Before that, of course, there's a group that went out to the Alamo, read the other day, where Davy Crockett took 30 of his Tennessee volunteers out there with their long rifles. They didn't have rifles back then. You shot muskets. Muskets go about 25 yards, then you didn't know where it was going to go. When they came out with those rifled barrels, those guys could pop those guys 300 yards away, and it was something to see, they said. So anyway, you know the story of the Alamo.
Americans are routed, crushed. Sam Houston goes over to the Texas territory, and every time Santa Ana would march his army north, Sam Houston would retreat north. Santa Ana would march his troops north again. Santa Ana would run and retreat north.
This went on several more times. Sam Houston's soldiers begin to gripe and complain, even come to his face and say, you're a traitor and you're a coward. Let's stand and fight. You know what they did to our brothers at the Alamo. Sam Houston said, it's not time. Finally, they retreated one more time, and an advanced scout came back and told Sam Houston, said, Santa Ana has now divided his army in two parts, and the half that Santa Ana is leading is coming toward us just a few miles away. And Sam Houston said, that's what I've been waiting for. He drew a line in the sand, lined up his troops, and he said, he drew a line in the sand, lined up his troops, and as the Mexicans advanced, they charged back on the Mexicans.
This time scared them to death, and in 18 minutes, they routed the Mexican army. They dragged Santa Ana up to Sam Houston, who was sitting under a tree. He had taken a mini ball to one of his legs. Sam Houston heard a commotion. A number of his soldiers were coming.
Dust was flying up. They were hooping and hollering, and they dragged Santa Ana, the commander of the Mexican army, before Sam Houston said, let's do it. Let's kill him. Let's let's lynch him right now. He said, no, no, no, no.
Stop it. An alive Santa Ana is better than a dead Santa Ana. He was right. Captured, he went to Washington, D.C., and signed the document ceding the entire Texas Territory to America. He told his men, he said, men, you want Santa Ana.
I want Texas. Satan came to Jesus one day. In effect, said Jesus, you know, right now, I'm God of this world. I have authority over all the kingdoms. Jesus, if you'll just do things my way, I'll give you ruling authority over everything. And Jesus, in effect, says, Satan, you think I came just for authority? By the way, I've always had authority.
I don't need you to give it to me. But anyway, in effect, Jesus said, you think I came to have authority? I didn't come for authority. I came for the children.
You see, Jesus could have been ruler and never redeemed us, because he was already ruler. You know, today, you know how big Texas is? It's big. 30 million people live in Texas. The net worth of Texas is about three trillion dollars.
Sam Houston made the right decision. He wouldn't just get, he wasn't gonna claim all Texas for himself, but he's claimed it for millions of others to share in the spoils. So our conquering Lord Jesus Christ has won the victory with a heart to say, I'm doing this for the children.
I want them to have all the treasures, all the accomplishments of my conquest and my conquering. Hallelujah, what a Savior. It all belongs to him. He says, brethren, we're all in this together. Right quick, he says there in verse 58, so my beloved brethren, all this being true, all that's been won for us and given to us, and is secure to us, life everlasting, death can't harm us. So therefore, verse 58, be steadfast. Be steadfast. In other words, hold to this glorious doctrine and don't ever again change. Then he says, be immovable. That has the idea of don't let anyone else teach you false doctrine to get you off the doctrine of the resurrection.
Don't ever let it aside. Then he says, always abounding in the work of the Lord. There it is, pastors. You see, now if you're doing local church centered exposition, you get to the glorious doctrine of the resurrection, you stop right there and exhort your church to faithfully serve in the church.
That's where he's getting to. This is a local church he's writing to. I'm not doing exegesis here, that's exegesis, just with good local church application. So he's saying to them, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Now, that phrase always abounding is used in Ephesians when Paul writes that Christ lavished his grace on us.
Same word. When Jesus gave us grace, he didn't just give us a little portion of it, he gave us a God-sized lavishing of grace. Paul takes that word, brings it over 1 Corinthians, after he's preached on, taught on the glorious doctrine of the resurrection, and says, now church, now church, now church, keep on lavishly giving yourself to serving God and working for God. Knowing, verse 58, that your toil, typically a word that means to labor, to exhaustion, your toil, he goes on, is not in vain in the Lord. Matter of fact, the only toil on earth that's not in vain is to serve Christ faithfully. That's the only one.
That's the only one. Make no apologies, pastor, when you charge your people to put serving Christ through his local church first. You're helping them. You're helping them from wasting their life on vain things.
Now look, God knows we've got to go to school and go to work on it. Look, nobody's saying that's not true, but in your heart of hearts, it should be centered in, I'm going to serve my God in his local church. You might look at my people, hopefully you'll look at them and think, I like their spirit, I like their godliness, I like their servant spirit.
How do they get that? Well, you've got to preach it into them, and they leak every week, and so do I. I needed this text. I'll be honest, it's a blessing to see God bless our work like this over these decades. I'm telling you, it's a lot of responsibility, and it's a lot of work, but our toil's not in vain in the Lord, amen? It's not in vain. The point is, if the resurrection's true, you can't possibly do too much for Jesus.
You can't give too much, you can't work too much, you can't sacrifice too much. Then he uses that phrase, therefore my beloved brethren, steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. The scholars tell us that just means according to the Lord's will, and there I get back to the local church again, because I can say with a crystal clear conscience based on the abundant systematic teaching and authority of the Word of God, if you will make the church find you a good one, find you a biblically, spiritually healthy church, or at least some elders who are heading that way with all their heart, amen?
Nobody's arrived, we sure have it. Find a sound church, get in there, and serve the Lord. That's the will of the Lord. I don't know if it's the will of the Lord for you to be in Gideon's or not.
I'm not going to tell you it's not, but I don't know if it is. I don't know if it's the will of the Lord for you to be... Yeah, I do know that one's not the will of the Lord. I shouldn't say that one. I was going to talk about the ladies. We'll skip that one. I don't know if it's the will of the Lord for you to be in Peacemakers or Voice of the Martyrs.
Got a dear brother I know that worked there. There's some good things, but I do know this. The center of your service and work for God is his local church. Then in your spare time, you do the other stuff. You see, when you got saved, God added you to a church, you took a wife, you took a mate, and they're your first priority. You might do good things for other families, but your priority is mala or daddy. Y'all knew I couldn't preach without getting on this. You just knew it was coming, didn't you? Local church-centered work.
And one other quick thought, and we're done. I teach this to my people. I repeat it often.
It's worked over and over and over again. When someone joins your church and they say, Man, how am I going to serve the Lord? Here's what you say. Find the small group you're supposed to be in. Go to that small group leader and ask this question.
What needs done that I could do? And whatever they tell you, try to do it. Well, yeah, but I've got this gift and I've got that.
Doesn't matter. It's not about your gifts. It's about you gaining the character of servanthood. And when you get that down, then God will line you up with your gifts where you're supposed to be. Are y'all hearing me? Y'all remember Dig a Ditch and You'll Find Your Niche?
Do y'all remember that? My very first job at Grace Life Church of the Shoals was carrying 14-foot sheets of double sheetrock up the steps with a college buddy because we built these buildings during the week, didn't we, Gary Meany? We built these buildings during the week. They didn't know me from Adam. I was just visiting the church and I showed up one night. They said, we're gonna have a work night.
I showed up to work. I'd just been visiting a little bit and the pastor thought I was part of a contractor crew. He said, who do y'all work for? I said, we work for the Lord.
Shouldn't have said that. He said, well, to pick up those 14-foot sheets of sheetrock and take them upstairs. And that's what we did all night, not by ourselves. I had two of us. I couldn't do it today.
A little bit later on, I became on as part-time and we just bought the skating ring building. The senior pastor wanted a bathroom in his study and we dug a hole in the concrete and dug out the mud and laid water lines and I was digging that ditch. And sometimes when I was digging that ditch, I thought, this ain't my spiritual gift. I called to preach.
What's wrong with you people? But I dug that ditch and lo and behold, Brother John, I now use his bathroom. It's mine now. I had no idea.
No idea! It's my office now. I had no idea. See, God needed Jeff Noblitt to learn the character of service. Just do what needs to be done for the glory of God and shut up.
He's talking to me. Because if you dig your ditch, you'll find your niche. That's it. And it's worth it. It's not in vain if the resurrection's true. The resurrection's true. Because, all because, of our preeminent conqueror.
