Sermon Text:

This morning we continue our series Growing in Grace, working our way passage by passage through the letter of 1 Corinthians. All week long, we are bombarded with the false wisdom and foolishness of the world. We come here to hear the voice of God, speaking through his word, so that we will be strengthened. Our thinking corrected and our hearts shaped by the truth.

As we have journeyed through this letter together, one of the things that has really struck me is how tightly connected the practical and the profound really are. I guess we often assume that the deeper and more profound something is the more abstract it will be. The most sophisticated works on physics, philosophy, or mathematics are not accessible to the average person. The deeper we go into most things the less obviously practical the application of them are. They become very academic, but the word of God is not like that.

What we have in the Bible is the practical application of the deepest and most profound truths in the universe. A wisdom so deep that it appears as foolishness to the word but is of tremendous usefulness and value to the average believer. That is part of what it means to be a believer in Jesus. We are the ones to whom God reveals in everything his wisdom and glory!

In this letter, Paul regularly introduces deeply profound truths and applies them to the everyday lives of God’s people. That is what we have again in our passage today. Paul is going to touch on certain weighty matters of theology, but he does it to bring confidence and peace to believers. His main point is that through resurrection every believer is a participant in God’s victory over his enemies. That is also the main point of the message today, through resurrection every believer is a participant in God’s victory over his enemies.

If you have your Bible, please turn with me to 1 Corinthians 15, verse 20. If you are using the blue Bible we provide, it is on page 1199. If you do not own a Bible or need one, please take that one as our gift to you as you leave here today.

In the preceding 18 verses, Paul has been explaining why the truth about physical resurrection is essential to the Christian faith. If we deny the possibility of resurrection, we deny the faith. To deny resurrection, is to deny the gospel. The entire thrust of the Christian message is the hope of redemption and all of history is moving toward that great day when God will be vindicated, and sin and death will be destroyed.

As we pick up here in verse 20, Paul is going to pull back the curtain and give us a glimpse of how these events will unfold in the last days. The study of the last days, or end times is called eschatology.[1]

Eschatology can get very complicated. You will see these guys with massive charts as long as your arm, trying to fit together everything into timelines and figure out how it all works out. I remember as a young believer thinking that the teachers often caused me more confusion than clarity. Well, we don’t have to worry about that this morning. In our passage today, the apostle Paul gives a very high level summary of the last days. It won’t answer all our questions, but what he shares is powerful and it is helpful.

In a few short sentences, Paul hits on the high points of God’s plan of redemption in relation to Jesus. It is a bit like Mary Poppins bag. There is a lot packed in here but the overall emphasis is simple. Through resurrection every believer is a participant in God’s victory over his enemies. He begins in verse 20,

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Those who have fallen asleep here means those who have died in the faith. Paul is emphasizing that death is not the end for believers. By referring to them as asleep, Paul indicates the expectation that they will rise again. It is like what Jesus said about Lazarus. When Jesus was told, in John chapter 11 that his friend Lazarus had died, he says, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” And if you remember, after three days Jesus spoke to Lazarus who came back to life. Believers who have died are not gone; they are resting until Jesus calls them back to life.

Paul identifies Jesus as the firstfruits of those who have died. In ancient Israel, the law required farmers to offer up the first sheaf of a crop to God for his blessing. The firstfruits were a “proof” or indication of the nature and quality of the rest of the harvest and were given to God in thanks and hope for more. The first harvest proved that the yield would come.

I don’t think we have to be farmers to understand how that works. Beth and I love fresh tomatoes and so we usually plant a few tomato plants. If you have ever grown tomatoes, you know that you get these small green tomatoes and you watch them and watch them until one day, you see a red one. Then before you know it, there is this beautiful red tomato ready to be picked. Once that first tomato comes, it is only a short time before you have bushels of them.

Paul is saying that by triumphing in his resurrection, Jesus is the first sample of man raised from the dead, offered to God, and an indication of the coming harvest. Paul continues in verse 21,

²¹ For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. ²² For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

This is one of the most basic summaries of the gospel we could imagine. God created the world and everything in it and called it good. He created man and woman in his own image to enjoy fellowship with him and called it very good. But rather than fulfill God’s purpose for them, the man and the woman chose to believe the word of Satan rather than the word of God.

When Adam chose to follow Eve into sin, he plunged the world into chaos and brought upon all of us the curse of death. We are all descended from Adam. We are born “in Adam” and we see that family resemblance in the choices of our own lives. Each of us are born with selfish and sinful hearts, in the image of our first parents. We follow in their footsteps.

As children grow, we can see in them certain family traits and resemblance. They may have their father’s eyes or their mothers’ mannerisms. They may have a striking resemblance to their grandparents or look just like an aunt or uncle. Not just in appearance. How often do we recognize they take after one family member or another. There is a spiritual equivalent to this. We inherit a sinful and selfish heart that leads us to break God’s laws and reject him as king of our life, just as Adam and Eve did.

The sin and death that the first man Adam brought into the world continue to reign in our own hearts. But in an act of amazing grace, God sent another Adam. He sent another man who would break the cycle and give mankind a new start, with a new spirit. Jesus is the Son of God, who has come to earth as truly man. He experienced what we experience, and he lived as one of us. He knows what it is to be tempted. He knows what it is to suffer. But he followed God’s law perfectly. He loved perfectly. He lived the life we are supposed to live without sin.

Not only did he live the perfect life, but also died the perfect death. He took all the sin of those who would put their faith in him as their substitute and offered himself as payment for that sin. He was crucified, died, and buried so that the sin could be punished. But then, three days later, he rose again proving that the price had been paid. Proving that he accomplished his mission.

All who put their faith in Jesus as their righteousness are forgiven and have inherited eternal life, because he has overcome death. We then receive his Holy Spirit and where we used to resemble our father Adam, we begin to be transformed to increasingly resemble God the Father who adopted us in Jesus. We are made more and more like Jesus, who is our brother, and is the exact resemblance of the Holy God.

This world is a world of death. Your life and mine, apart from grace, is filled with death. But there is more grace in Jesus than sin in us. It doesn’t matter who we are or what we have done, if we repent and believe, we will be saved.

The promise, however, is only to those who believe. When Paul says ²² For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

He is talking about believers. Just as all redeemed humans had died in Adam, all redeemed humans will be made alive in Christ. This is the crucial question. Have you been made alive by faith in Christ?

 Sadly, there are millions of professing Christians who are not converted, there is no life in them. They are betting on promises that were never made to them. They hear and read of the victory of Jesus and assume it is theirs, but they are not his. There is no more important question for us to get clear in our mind than if we are in Christ.

Believing isn’t something we do one time, sign a card or come forward during a song and go back to what we were doing. Faith produces a fundamental change in the desires of our heart. We are saved by trusting in Jesus, not simply saying we trust in Jesus.

This is the evidence the Bible gives us that we are in Christ:

1. A growing love for and desire to be associated with Jesus
2. Repentance and a growing hatred of our own sin
3. A growing love and desire for the word of God
4. A growing love for other believers expressed in serving them
5. A growing desire to see God glorified leading to prayer, worship, and evangelism

We are not made acceptable to God because of these things but they are flow inevitably from the presence of the Holy Spirit in our heart. Friends, let’s examine our hearts by the word. What brings us joy? What entertains us? Where do we spend our time and money? What does our prayer life look like when nobody else sees us?

If loving Jesus became illegal tomorrow, would there be enough evidence to convict us? When we look at our lives, can we see anything of Christ there? If we find any true faith, and true love for the Lord, then we have confidence he will complete the good work he began in us. We have assurance that we will one day be perfected in glory. Paul tells us how this will work,

²³ But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴ Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.

The first to be raised was Jesus. He is the firstfruits. Faithful Jews looked forward to the resurrection, but they believed that it would mark the last day. We see this in John 11:21-24 when Jesus talks to Martha, who is the sister of Lazarus, who had died,

²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” ²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴ Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”

The shocking thing for Jews was not so much that Jesus was raised, but that his resurrection did not coincide with the establishment of the kingdom. Remember after he was raised, this is what his followers wanted to know, “will you now establish the kingdom”?

In the coming of Jesus, the kingdom of God has come down, though it is not yet here in its fullness. We are living in the last days. We live in a time of already, but not yet. The kingdom has dawned but is not complete. There is more to come, but we are in the final era of redemption which began with Jesus being the first to be raised. Paul says we are next,

²³ … then at his coming those who belong to Christ.[2]

When Jesus returns, all believers will be glorified. Those who are in dead will rise and those who are alive will be transformed. So, there is a gap between Jesus being raised and believers being raised. That is the gap we live in. Elsewhere in scripture we learn there is another gap between our resurrection and what happens next.

²⁴ Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.

We learn in Revelation 19 and 20 that there is an earthly rule of Jesus on the earth between his coming, when we are glorified, and the end when there is final judgment, and the heavenly kingdom comes in its fullness. Revelation 20 says this period will last 1,000 years. That could be a literal number or simply mean a very long time but this is often called the millennial kingdom, because millennial means 1,000.

We refer to young adults these days as millennials because they are the generation that marks the change to the next 1,000 year period on our calendar.

Jesus will return, believers will be glorified, and Christ will rule on earth. Satan will be bound so that he cannot deceive the nations any longer and it will be a period of unprecedented peace and blessing upon the earth.

Then at the end of that period, Satan will be released again for short time and there will be yet another rebellion against God proving that sin cannot be blamed on the environment, it comes from within us. But This time the enemies are quickly defeated by the power of God. There is a final judgment, the enemies and all whose name are not written in the book of life are thrown into the lake of fire.

Those who are believers are brought into the new heavens and new earth with God where Revelation 21:4 says,

⁴ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

Maybe one of the hardest things for us to understand is why it is taking so long. Many scholars teach that Paul and the other apostles expected Jesus to return in their own lifetime. I am not convinced that is true.

I think the biblical evidence for that is weak and there is no evidence this was a concern in the literature of the church for the first several hundred years. A delay between the first and second comings and then again between the second coming and the end of days was expected.

When Jesus was raised, he was seated at the right hand of the Father. That means that he is now sharing the throne of the Father. Ephesians 2:6 says we also have been seated with him in heavenly places. But in the same way that we do not yet experience the full reality of our position, neither does the world. God has exalted Jesus, but rebellious provinces are still being conquered. Hebrews 2:8-9 says,

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. ⁹ But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

That’s why Paul says in verse 25,

²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

Both Paul and the author of Hebrews are applying a prophecy from Psalm 110 that records God telling the Messiah to wait until all enemies are subjugated. The first phase of this is Jesus, through his Spirit, bringing into his kingdom all who will believe and be saved. 2 Peter 3:9 says,

⁹ The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

It is like when we were kids and went on a field trip. We would pile onto the bus and the teacher would count everyone to be sure we were all there. They would take a count and then go back to get the others. We didn’t leave until all the children were safe on the bus. John 6:39 tells us that Jesus will not lose any of those the Father gives him.

The fact that some mock our faith because Jesus has delayed his coming in order to save more people from wrath shows how dark the heart of sin is. How dare we mock God for being a patient savior? That the world continues as it has is not a testimony to God’s inability, but to his grace. What kind of insanity is it for a sinner who will be condemned to mock God for his patience?

There will come a time when Christ will conquer his enemies by calling down fire from heaven and judging them by throwing them into eternal fire and suffering. But today, he is conquering enemies by grace. He is drawing all who will ever come, into his kingdom so that he may glorify all whom he calls and justifies.

After this, he will rule on the earth to fulfill all the prophesies and promises until all things are under submission to him and every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that he is God. That is completed in his final victory at the end of the millennial kingdom, and it is then that Paul tells us in verse 26,

²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

The redemption will be complete. Satan will be defeated forever, God’s creation will be redeemed, and we will enter the new heavens and the new earth. The world, Satan, and death itself will have all been brought under the righteous rule of our savior and if you are believer today, this is the victory and the promise you have in Jesus. Therefore, we have joy in suffering and peace in a time of great stress for this world and all its sorrows are passing away and a new age is dawning with Christ.

Paul continues,

²⁷ For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him.

Sometimes the Bible talks about the Father defeating the enemies and sometimes the Son. Sometimes we see the Son exalted as ruling and sometimes the Father. This isn’t a contradiction, we must keep in mind that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all one and each participate in the life of the other.

God defeats the enemies in Christ, through Christ, and for the glory of Christ. Likewise, when Jesus hands over the kingdom to the Father it does not mean that he no longer rules the kingdom. It means that through him the devil and all his rebellious forces are defeated so that the Father receives the glory he deserves. That is why Paul says in verse 28,

²⁸ When all things are 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.

The salvation of believers is not merely an individual experience between us and God. Our salvation is part of a much bigger story. God is establishing his rightful rule over all that he created. He is marching to victory over spiritual powers and principalities in a war of cosmic proportions. The heavens and the earth, nature itself, and human beings who were created in his image are all redeemed and transformed by his power demonstrating his final and absolute victory over sinful rebellion. Remember our main point?

Through resurrection every believer is a participant in God’s victory over his enemies

Resurrection proves that God is more powerful than his enemies. It proves that the doom of Satan is sure, and that Christ will prevail.

So, what do we do with all this? How should we respond? I think in two ways. First, we should have an unshakable confidence in our faith. Our salvation is itself a picture of what God will do with the world. In the same way that we are works in progress ending in glory, so too is his plan of redemption unfolding over time ending in glory.

Believers do not be discouraged by what we see now. Do not be afraid and do not be anxious, because your enemy is Gods enemy and you have been adopted as an heir to his kingdom. If you are his, your perfection is guaranteed, and your glory prophesied.

Secondly, we must recognize judgment is coming to this world and the only hope is Jesus. There will be a time when God patience is exhausted, the elect will be gathered, and it will be too late to repent. Time is precious.

It is like we are on a ship that the people around us do not realize is sinking. The lifeboats are ready and waiting but few seem to be paying attention. Are we willing to give up our own comforts and conveniences for that message to reach more people? Do we feel the urgency of bringing others with us as we head for safety? Let’s pray and prepare to be obedient to our Lord’s command that we be ready to share the hope within us.

I would like to leave you this morning with the words of the apostle Peter in 1 Peter 1:3–9 as he describes what it is to live now in light of these eternal truths.

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, ⁷ so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, ⁹ obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Amen.