Are You Awake?
Notes
Transcript
This question must be asked. Are You Awake to the Power of Christ’s resurrection, or have you been lulled to sleep by the lullabies that our modern culture is singing in your ear? The songs started ever so softly, in the background, but as we drift into spiritual slumber, they get closer to our ears to drown out all of the other noises. Now it seems, the one voice that we are to listen to, God’s small voice according to the Bible, is being drown out by this spiritual lullaby, meant to drift us off into dreams of ferry-tails and complacent slumber.
Are you awake?
Critical Race Theory (atheistic Marxism) and radical transgender and pro-abortion (as birth control) ideologies are unarguably anti-God and humanly demoralizing. Eric Metaxas, in his book, Letter to the American Church says, “So, they are dedicatedly at war with the ideas of family and marriage, and with the idea of America as a force for good — as a force for spreading the Gospel and Gospel values throughout the world. These ideas have over many decades infiltrated our own culture in such a way that they touch everything, and part of what makes them so wicked is that they smilingly pretend to share the biblical values that champion the underdog against the oppressor. As Stalin and Hitler, and Mao would butcher millions in the name of fighting for ‘the people,’ so these forces do the same and we are angling to do much, much more of the same — if we will allow them the time to strengthen themselves, if we do not fight with all our might and main against them right now.” Introduction p. xii
Metaxas went on to ask, “But where did we ever get the idea that we should mind our own business along such lines, as though the truth of God were a parochial, subjective idea that had no bearing on anything beyond our private prayer times and churches? Where did we who claim to be the Church, ever get the idea that we shouldn’t express any number of things too loudly, that we shouldn’t — for example — express the biblical view of human sexuality as a sacred and mysterious bond which God created only for the marriage between men and women for life? Where did we get the idea that we don’t have an obligation to tell the world what God says about such things — about the unborn and about human freedom and human rights? Or about anything, including the deadly perniciousness of Marxist theist philosophy, whether in economics or in any other sphere? Where did we get the idea that we couldn’t be at the forefront in criticizing the great evil of communist countries like China that brutally persecute religious minorities in ways that bring to mind the Nazis themselves? and Why would we not speak out against American and international corporations that do business with them until they force them to take human rights seriously and change their inhuman practices? How dare we be silent about such things?”
“How Dare We Be Silent?”
The Dutch statesman and theologian, Abraham Kuyper in 1880 said, “There is not one square inch, in the whole domain of our human existence, over which Christ, who is sovereign, does not cry ‘mine!’”
Are we comfortable living Godless?
The church of Corinth was on the same cultural train that we the American church is on now. Paul wrote to confront them in their slumber. After confronting the misuse of spiritual gifts, sectarianism, wordly wisdom, pure immorality, breaking down of marriage, neglect of the needy, self-focused and selfish living, idolatry (the act of replacing the pursuit and worship of God with things of this world), and the function and purpose of God’s church, the Apostle shouted in the slumbering ears of the Corinthians a wake-up cry to the fact and power of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ in chapter 15.
In vv. 1-11 Paul presents the witnessed proof of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In vv. 12-19 he pleads with them about the impact of Christ’s resurrection and in vv. 16-19 specifically, the futility of religion if that impact is left out of our relationship with God.
1 Cor. 15:16-19 “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 worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.”
Our text today then shouts Paul’s wake-up call into the ears of the sleeping Christians of his day and absolutely needs to be shouted into the slumbering ears of the world today.
Look at verse 20 with me and notice what Paul shouted:
++Christ is risen
++He is the first of many who are raised
++If all died in Adam, then all can be now alive in Christ
We can die to self and live for Christ through embracing His resurrection and death’s defeat.
We can die to self and live for Christ through embracing His resurrection and death’s defeat.
We can die to self and live for Christ through embracing His resurrection and death’s defeat.
We have been made alive through the Resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:20-25)
We can die to self and live for Christ through embracing His resurrection and death’s defeat.
We can die to self and live for Christ through embracing His resurrection and death’s defeat.
Death will be abolished, for all is subject to Christ (1 Cor. 15:26-30)
We can die to self and live for Christ through embracing His resurrection and death’s defeat.
We can die to self and live for Christ through embracing His resurrection and death’s defeat.
Die to self and live for Christ (1 Cor. 15:30-34)
We can die to self and live for Christ through embracing His resurrection and death’s defeat.
++We have been made alive through the Resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:20-25)
++Death will be abolished, for all is subject to Christ (1 Cor. 15:26-30)
++Die to self and live for Christ (1 Cor. 15:30-34)
All that is in the world (self-gratification, daily-grind focus, self-fulfillment, entertainment, pleasures, disregard for those around you, despondency and worry) is not from the Father.
15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
Are you awake?
“How Dare We Be Silent?”
Are we comfortable living Godless?
1 Cor. 15:53-58 “53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about 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 brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”
We can die to self and live for Christ,
Through His resurrection and deaths defeat,
For in Him we find eternal life,
And in Him, our souls are found complete.
He rose from death, our living Lord,
And conquered sin, the grave, and strife,
His victory we can now afford,
For in Him, we gain eternal life.
Death is crushed in subjection to Christ,
And in His name, we are set free,
His love will guide us through all of life,
And in His light, we will always be.
So let’s die to self and live revived,
For in Christ’s grace, we find our worth,
Our hearts and souls are now to thrive,
For in Him, we can truly find rebirth.
We have been made alive through Christ,
Through His power and sacrifice
For in His love, we find perfection,
And in His mercy, we have protection.
by Rev. Lex DeLong, M.A.