Death Is Defeated - 1 Cor 15:53-58

INTRO

Last weekend I was solo parenting as my wife got a chance to visit family in Missouri.

I needed a moment to make dinner and my son was asking for Gruffalo.

My son Samuel loves the kids book The Gruffalo.

Within moments we’re able to pull up the Gruffalo on youtube and he loves it.

As I was with him in the living room I thought about how different my childhood was.

When I was a kid we had to watch what was on TV.

Since I was the youngest of three it often resulted in watching whatever my brothers or parents wanted to watch.

I have seen a lot of movies, some good, some terrible.

Have you ever heard of the movie "Weekend at Bernie's"?

It's a classic '80s comedy about two guys who try to pretend that their boss, Bernie, is still alive even though he's actually dead.

They prop him up, put sunglasses on him, and try to make it look like he's still enjoying the weekend with them.

Now, as funny as that may be, it's not exactly a sustainable approach to life.

Eventually, Bernie's lifeless body is going to start smelling pretty bad, and his friends will have to face the fact that he's not coming back.

Today is Easter Sunday.

It’s a momentous day in the life of the believer, because we have a different kind of hope.

We believe in the resurrection, which means that even though our bodies will die, they will one day be raised to new life.

We don't have to pretend that our loved ones are still with us or try to prop them up and make it look like everything's okay.

We can trust in the promise of the resurrection, knowing that death does not have the final word.

Living in resurrection hope means living with confidence and joy, even in the face of death.

It means embracing the reality that we are not defined by our physical bodies, but by our eternal souls.

And it means looking forward to the day when we will be raised to new life in the presence of our Savior.

So let's not be like the characters in "Weekend at Bernie's," trying to prop up our dead bodies and pretend that everything's okay.

Let's embrace the hope of the resurrection, knowing that death has been conquered and that new life awaits us.

That’s our big idea today:

Big Idea: Live In Resurrection Hope.

My wife is really into plants.

She is what you might call a plant resuscitator.

She sees a wilted plant and thinks, “I can bring it back to life.”

I remember walking through the store and there is a rack of dying plants on sale.

Of course Hannah wants to get one and bring it back to life.

I remember her watering it and nurturing it and nothing.

That plant was deader than a doornail.

But you know what?

Even though that plant never came back to life, it taught me something.

It taught me that sometimes, things just don't come back to life on their own.

Sometimes, you need a miracle.

And that's what Paul is talking about in our passage.

He's talking about the ultimate miracle: the resurrection.

He's reminding us that just as Jesus rose from the dead, so too will we rise from the dead if we believe in him.

Now, I don't know about you, but I find that both terrifying and amazing.

Terrifying because, let's face it, death is scary. None of us wants to die.

But amazing because it means that death doesn't have the final say.

It means that just as God brought Jesus back to life, he can bring us back to life too.

So as we think about this passage today, let's remember that we are people of hope.

We are people who believe in the miracle of the resurrection.

And let's hold fast to the promise that one day, we too will rise from the dead, transformed and glorified, to be with our Savior forever.

Let’s walk through this passage together and see that in order to understand it starts with a problem...

1. The Problem

Look at verse v. 56

1 Corinthians 15:56 (ESV)

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

Every easter we hear sermons about the resurrection but for it to pack the punch it should we have to admit there is a problem.

Here it is…death still stings.

Many of you have experienced the pain of loss.

You have loved one’s you sorely miss.

This week alone I have sat to people who are battling illness, those wrestling with chronic pain, people who are fearful of death, those who are mourning and feeling the effects of death.

One author imagines our death...

Much sooner than you can anticipate, you will be the silent guest at your own funeral.

No doubt there will be relatives and friends present to mourn for you whom you haven’t seen in years.

After the preacher delivers a message in your memory, you will be taken to the graveyard, given a final farewell and buried.

The retirement that you spent your life working for will be gone forever.

Remember the new car that you worried about scratching? Its new owner just wrecked it!

The newlyweds bought your house and have remodeled the room that you had at last decorated to your liking.

Your personal belongings have been sorted and some discarded.

The dog is making a bed out of your favorite old coat.

Other clothes of yours that no one could wear or did not want have been boxed and given to Goodwill.

Your personal treasures that were valuable only to you-the carefully preserved flower, the lock of hair, the torn picture, the stained postcard-have been burned as trash.

Death is our great enemy.

Romans 6:23 (ESV)

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We all have sin. In fact we read this just one chapter earlier in Romans 5:12

Romans 5:12 (ESV)

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—

It was sin that brought humanity under death’s power.

When we decided we would rather be god then worship God and trust him as a good father, when that happened sin entered in.

The law of God gives sin its power, because it reveals our sin and condemns us because we cannot keep it.

We just spent the last 10 weeks walking through the Ten Commandments and there wasnt a single commandment that wasn’t challenging.

All of them exposing in us a brokenness, a failure to measure up and see what truly matters.

Where does our rebellion take us?

Where have our sins brought us?

To the end of ourselves.

Death is what our sin earns us.

It is the source of deep anxiety for many of us.

We fear death.

We fight it with everything we have.

We all taste it’s sting.

Death is a unifier because it comes for all of us.

-STORY_

At the end of a funeral a minister was leaving the graveside and noticed a little girl skipping through the cemetery at dusk.

Another person leaving the graveside said to her, “Aren’t you afraid of this place?”

“Oh no,” she replied, “I only cross through here to get home.”

Death for those of us who look to Jesus with resurrection hope is just that only a crossing through to get home.

That’s where we see second the promise:

2. The Promise

Look at verse 54-55 1 Corinthians 15:54-55

1 Corinthians 15:54–55 (ESV)

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.”

“O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

This is the promise Coram Deo, that our broken bodies, bodies that get old and fail.

We will put off that which perishes and fades for that which is imperishable…that which is eternal.

That first Easter Sunday.

When Jesus took one breath he put death to death.

Death is defeated.

Jesus did it.

He has done it.

This is what he has purchased for us, resurrection life.

John Stott said it this way:

“We live and die; Christ died and lived!” _John Stott

Y’all this is absolutely scandalous. Don’t loose the absurdity of this in the familiarity.

A dead man woke up and walked out of his grave

Listen to Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of our passage:

The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Chapter 15)

In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen:

everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal.

Then the saying will come true:

Death swallowed by triumphant Life!

Who got the last word, oh, Death?

Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?

It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power.

But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ.

Thank God!

What is the ultimate ‘pain’ of Death?

It is to die unforgiven.

But Christ has ‘died for our sins’ and has been ‘raised on the third day so that, on the last day, Death will fall defeated forever.

This is a promise Coram Deo.

This is why were here.

Death has no hold on us.

We will join the multitudes of those who claim the blood of the risen king and say, “Where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

Fearless.

That is what resurrection life is.

A life of perspective, a life with eternity in view and hearts united to a savior that conquered our greatest fear.

This is what scripture has been pointing to.

This is the anticipation.

Isaiah 25:8 (ESV)

He will swallow up death forever;

and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,

and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,

for the Lord has spoken.

Who gives us this victory? Look at verse 57

1 Corinthians 15:57 (ESV)

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

Victory over death is not ours.

It is a victory which has been won for us by Jesus Christ through his shed blood for us which turns aside God’s anger toward us, and in his triumphant resurrection!

This is not something we earned, but something we have been given.

Thank God!

Has this settled in your soul friend?

Do you believe that death has been defeated?

Do you dwell on the hope of the resurrection?

When renown artist Michelangelo visited several great art galleries in European cities, he was deeply impressed by the preponderance of paintings depicting Christ hanging on the cross.

He asked, “Why are art galleries filled with so many pictures of Christ upon the cross—Christ dying?

Why do artists concentrate upon that passing episode, as if that were the last word and the final scene?

Christ’s dying on the cross lasted for only a few hours. But to the end of unending eternity, Christ is alive! Christ rules and reigns and triumphs!”

Coram Deo He is alive.

And because of that, death is just a hook behind the door where you’ll leave your dirty clothes.

Listen to this poem from Milton Vincent:

Now after Christ died

He was placed in a tomb,

Which first was a grave,

but then served as a womb,

Travailing and quaking

the day He was raised

And brought forth by God

to be handled and praised.‌

The Firstborn from death

on that day emerged He

With power to save

to the utmost degree.

At God’s own right hand

Christ now reigns from on high,

A Friend in high places to sinners who cry

To Him for forgiveness,

their evils confessed.

He gives them a pardon

and then makes them blessed.

As Prince He is Savior

to all who believe,

Who come to Him humbly

His grace to receive.

This is the promise.

He is risen, he is coming back, we will rise to resurrection life.

As a young man, D. L. Moody was called upon suddenly to preach a funeral sermon.

New to ministry he hunted all through the Four Gospels trying to find one of Christ’s funeral sermons, but searched in vain.

He found that Christ broke up every funeral He ever attended.

Death could not exist where He was.

When the dead heard His voice they sprang to life. Jesus said, I am the resurrection, and the life (John 11:25).

The promise is sure, he brings life.

All of this leads last to a word of encouragement.

Let’s see third...

3. The Encouragement

1 Corinthians 15:58 (ESV)

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.

---------

John G. Paton, a nineteenth-century missionary to the South Seas, met opposition to leaving his home in Scotland and going to preach to the cannibalistic peoples of the New Hebrides Islands.

A well-meaning church member cornered him, “The cannibals, the cannibals! You will be eaten by the cannibals!”

Without hesitation, Paton replied:

“If I can live and die serving my Lord Jesus Christ, it makes no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; for in that Great Day of Resurrection, my body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer!”

Christ has been raised, and we will be too, which means that no “labor in the Lord” is useless, and no work done in faith is in vain.

Diligence has eternal consequences.

Work—not just Christian ministry but ordinary, everyday labor in an office or on a construction site or in the home—is made meaningful by the fact that we, and everyone we work with (and for), will outlive this world.

The effects of our parenting last for ever.

So Coram Deo we can stand firm, and let nothing move us, and always give ourselves fully to what the Lord is doing in the world.

The resurrection changes everything.

Are you living this way?

Are you letting the richness of the gospel infuse every moment with purpose.

The call of easter is to lift your gaze from selfishness, don’t look to yourself...consider the one who gave everything.

Consider how he is risen and is now ascended to the right hand of the father interceding, praying for you.

How he gives you the Holy Spirit and calls you to live in the power of the resurrection.

To say the same power that conquered the grave lives in you is not just a mantra to cheer you up but deep gospel truth when you are parenting an incredibly frustrating child.

It’s what gives you the ability to respond with grace when someone is nasty to you.

It’s what set’s your life in perspective.

You don’t live a vain life, you live a life of rich meaningful purpose!

Jesus Christ’s resurrection not only ensures our final victory in the end, his resurrection gives meaning and purpose to everything we do here and now.

There is no reason to give up in despair and live as people without hope.

The labors of God’s people are never in vain.

“The difference between knowing Christ and knowing the power of his resurrection, is the difference between knowing a person and resembling a person . . .

It is not about relationship but about supernatural character growth. When Paul says, “I want to know him,” it means, “I want to be with him,” but when he says, “I want to know the power of his resurrection,” it means, “I want to be just like him.”

Look at the deadness in your life. Look at the anger. How is that going to be turned into forgiveness? Look at the insecurity. How is that going to be turned into confidence? Look at the self-centeredness. How is that going to be turned into compassion and generosity?

How?

The answer is that the dead stuff gets taken over by the Spirit of God . . . The minute you decide to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord, the power of the Holy Spirit comes into your life. It’s the power of the resurrection—the same thing that raised Jesus from the dead.” _Tim Keller

No matter what difficulties and trials we are called to endure in this life, we know how the great redemptive drama will end.

Every tear will be wiped from our eyes, there will be no more pain or tears, we will receive our glorious inheritance in Christ, and we will finally see God with our own eyes.

This is the basis for our hope.

The degree to which we learn to set our mind on eternity…to keep this glorious final outcome before our eyes,

the more we do that the greater our strength to persevere during times of trouble.

The more we fix our faith on the final outcome of history, the greater our ability to live lives of gratitude before our gracious God.

Death (when body and soul are torn apart because of human sin) is not the end.

For on that great Day, when Jesus Christ comes back, the dead in Christ will be raised, and we shall all be changed.

We will be immediately transformed from lowly to heavenly bodies, from corruptible flesh to incorruptible bodies like Jesus had in his resurrection.

And so “in a flash,” in the twinkling of an eye, we shall all be raised.

What a glorious hope we have!

Maranatha! Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Application Questions

How have I tasted the sting of death and how does that fuel my longing for Christ’s return?

How can I live now in light of the resurrection, how can it shape areas of work, ministry and money?

What am I most looking forward to about the resurrection?

How can I be encouraged to be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord?