Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

What is the Christian hope?

Would you say that the main Christian hope is that God forgives sin?

What about that God loves sinners?

Or maybe you’d say that the main Christian hope is that Christ will return.

Today we are concluding our year-long series and study through the Apostles’ Creed, and we’ve arrived at those final two phrases: We believe in… the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.

I’m going to argue today that the main Christian hope is summarized in these two phrases… that these phrases encompass – they draw together – all the promises that God has made in Christ for those who repent and believe.

I’m going to start by reading a lengthy passage from Scripture, 58 verses. 1 Corinthians 15 is not only a long chapter, its also the place in the Bible where we get the most comprehensive teaching on the resurrection.

Of course, I will draw from other texts of the Bible as we go, but my aim today is to give an introductory explanation of what Christians believe about the resurrection and everlasting life.

At the conclusion of my sermon, I’ll lead us in observing the Lord’s Supper, which is itself a marvelous picture of the very Christian hope we’re focusing on today.

Let’s all stand together as I read from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth.

I’ll start with chapter 15, verse 1, and I’ll read all the way down to verse 58.

Scripture Reading

1 Corinthians 15:1–58 (ESV)

1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.

On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.

16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.

17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

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

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.

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.

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

26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

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.

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.

29 Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead?

If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?

30 Why are we in danger every hour?

31 I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day!

32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus?

If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”

34 Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning.

For some have no knowledge of God.

I say this to your shame.

35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised?

With what kind of body do they come?”

36 You foolish person!

What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.

38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.

39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.

40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another.

41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead.

What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.

43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory.

It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.

44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.

47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.

48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.

49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

51 Behold!

I tell you a mystery.

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

55 “O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Main Idea:

We believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting for those who repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

Sermon

1.

The Christian Hope

Resurrection from the dead is the defining Christian hope.

Christianity is not fundamentally a religion that seeks to reform society, to redeem the culture, or to recover some lost golden age.

Rather, the fundamental Christian hope, and that hope which separates Christianity from all other religions and philosophies, is the belief that God in Christ has reversed the curse of sin and that the same Jesus who conquered death will one day resurrect all those who repent and believe in Him.

Resurrection from the dead is the sort of climactic and central feature of an entire renewal of all creation, which Christ will bring to full completion in the end.

Paul says in v13-14, “if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.”

And v17, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”

And v19, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

John Gill (a prominent English Baptist pastor and theologian from the 1700s) commented on this passage, saying, “The object of a believer’s hope is not any creature, man, or angel; nor any creature-enjoyment, as gold and silver; nor any creature-righteousness, moral, legal, and civil; nor any external privilege… but Christ alone as a surety, Saviour, and Redeemer; his person, blood, righteousness, sacrifice, and fullness: and what [Christians] hope for in him are, all grace, and the supplies of it; the forgiveness of their sins, the justification of their persons, eternal life and salvation; grace here, and glory hereafter… but if their hope in him was only in this life… if they had not hope in death, that they should live again… we are of all men the most miserable…”

Gill went on, “[This is] true of all… that hope in Christ, and believe in him; for these not only deny themselves the pleasures, honours, and profits of this world, but are exposed continually to the hatred, reproach, and persecution of it… they are harassed and distressed by Satan, who follows them with his temptations and suggestions, which are so many fiery darts, which give them great pain and uneasiness… they groan under a body of sin they carry about with them, and desire… to be unclothed [from this body of death], that they might be clothed upon with glory and immortality; and yet these very desires and earnest longings after a blessed eternity do but add to their misery…”[i] if their hope is only in this life.

Friends, the Christian’s basic posture toward this world and this life and the pleasures of it is not as an ambitious-resident but as a suspicious-pilgrim.

Christians live in a world that is not our home, and all that we observe and experience is likely to deceive us, since we are prone to value the temporal over the eternal, the convenient over the costly, the luxurious over the virtuous.

This is not to say that there is nothing of the good, the true, or the beautiful in our world, but it is to say that the post-Genesis-3 effects are so pervasive (both in us and in the world around us) that we are more likely to be corrupted and afflicted by the stuff of this world than we are to gain great benefits from it.

The Christian hope, the Christian longing, then, is not that we will be able to make a safe and comfortable and virtuous home in this world.