Eat, Drink and Die
Notes
Transcript
Volleyball Tournament
Volleyball Tournament
SUPER excited about the volleyball tournament in a couple weeks. Putting my team together, some real crazy players. Tryouts are next week so, we’ll see...
We actually played a game of volleyball at youth on Wednesday. There is a thing I have worked hard to learn in volleyball over the years.
It’s called “not being a raging competitive lunatic.” Like I said, I’m working on it. I have that competitive spirit that wants to win.
But I also recognize… I should be nice to the small child… even if he keeps missing the ball… Connor!
Spike the ball in your face!!!
You know who’s great at this? (Besides “not me). Brandon Parker. It’s like he’s got his eye on the meta-game… which is making sure that people want to play the next volleyball game and the one after that.
Then people can come and learn and not be great at first and that’s okay. That’s where the focus should be. It’s not just the game in the moment, what’s the next game and the next one after that going to look like?
This is a “long term life strategy.”
as opposed to YOLO. (Do people still say that? I’m thinking not)
Life Strategy: Eat and Drink for Tomorrow We Die
Life Strategy: Eat and Drink for Tomorrow We Die
As I have said before, if this life is all there is, this is actually a GREAT life strategy.
The Ancient Greeks called it Hedonism.
Maximize pleasure in this life, or even just right now, because tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. Use it or lose it. “Live your best life now.”
… with the assumption that’s that is all there is. This is the only volleyball game called life you are ever going to play, so might as well make it EPIC and AMAZING and get all you can out of it.
This isn’t a new idea, humans have returned to this again and again. That phrase “eat and drink for tomorrow we die” comes from Ancient Israel.
In that day the Lord God of hosts called for weeping and mourning, for baldness and wearing sackcloth;
and behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
God was telling them to mourn, to repent. They were like, nah, live my best life now! Live it up while we can!
We can laugh and mock… but we have to recognize, this is in us.
This idea shapes our culture, more and more.
And it explains a whole lot of the decisions you and I make about our time and attention. “Season 4 of Stranger Things isn’t going to watch itself!”
And here’s the biggest thing: if there is nothing else… I think that’s right. If there is no God, no eternity, nothing after death, maximizing pleasure, making the most of this life is the only logical thing to do.
Heresy in Corinth
Heresy in Corinth
Paul writes to the Corinthians here in chapter 15. And it’s clear… there are people in Corinth who simply don’t believe that anyone can be raised from the dead. Not Jesus. Not them. Not anyone.
This sounds strange to us, perhaps, because “why are they in the church at all?”
But the argument about resurrection was a hot one before Jesus between the Pharisees and the Sadducees… and many Jews came to believe in Jesus as the Messiah, but perhaps took that same rehearsed theological debate right into their new church.
And people have long done this.
There is a version of “liberal” Christianity that wants to take Jesus’ moral lessons and example of love and cut away all the miraculous “nonsense.” That stuff is metaphorical… Jesus is “alive in our hearts and minds” as long as we remember and love.
That ignores most of what Jesus actually said. Misunderstands love the way Jesus loved. How did the ones who knew Jesus best apply his teachings? Living lives of obedience, boldness and sacrifice unto death.
Paul leaves no room for it.
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
And, as we saw last week, and we shall say again and again and again we are all about the resurrection of Jesus.
All in:
But 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.
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.
For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
BUT… and this is one of the “big buts” of the Bible. It is a huge reversal, reversing all those awful sad things Paul just said. “Because He Lives” all of that is flipped on its head and becomes glorious good news.
But, in fact...
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Jesus destroyed sin AND death
Jesus destroyed sin AND death
Do we hear that?
We talk a lot about how Jesus took all the sin to the cross. Yes. But in resurrection, first in Jesus, then in ours, death itself is destroyed. The last enemy to be destroyed is death!
We all die (I hope that’s not news.) Are you human? A child of Adam? Then you will die, because sin and death entered the world. It’s a broken and fallen world and everyone and everything dies.
We know the story of the fall, original sin, Adam and Eve sinned and sin and death entered in. But it’s not all their fault or “just” their fault, every one of us ever since have all repeated that same pattern over and over again.
There’s a beautiful symmetry Paul calls out here. Sin entered by “one man” and is gathered and reversed by “one mane.” Death entered by “one man” and is reversed by “one man”, Christ.
Jesus, Lord of All
Jesus, Lord of All
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.
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.
(Interesting Christology there, making clear that God, the Son, is subject to God, the Father. even within the Trinity.)
That is the theology piece… but then Paul is going to build some more proofs. The Corinthians themselves are doing things that only make sense in the light of resurrection and eternity.
And Paul’s own life, he knows, only makes sense in the light of eternity.
Living in Light of Eternity
Living in Light of Eternity
First Example: Baptism for the dead
First Example: Baptism for the dead
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?
What do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead??? What was going on in Corinth?
Conclusion: we don’t know.
This isn’t anywhere else in Scripture.
Even here, Paul doesn’t applaud this idea, doesn’t say it is something we should do, only points out that doing so is an example of
I do expect it was not something directly opposed to the gospel… or Paul would be throwing a fit. Some harmless misunderstanding of how baptism works, perhaps.
The most convincing example I’ve seen put forward is that people were getting baptized on behalf of Christians who died without having the opportunity to be baptized themselves. As long as you aren’t confused that this is necessary for salvation… go for it, I guess.
DEFINITELY NOT the Mormon practice of baptism for the dead which conducts this right as part of a works-based earn-your-way-into-heaven false gospel. They baptize for the dead as a way of obtaining heaven for that person. That is heresy.
But, whatever apparently harmless weird baptism thing they were doing for dearly departed Grandma… it makes no sense if this is the only life there is. This is not YOLO, this is “I’m going to live forever!”
Second Example: Paul’s Reckless Life
Second Example: Paul’s Reckless Life
Paul has a second example, far clearer: his own life is wholly banked on eternity.
Why are we in danger every hour?
I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day!
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.”
There’s that quote, he is quoting from Isaiah.
So, we say it isn’t “eat and drink for tomorrow we die” and instead “my life only makes sense in light of eternity.”
I think that was true of Paul.
That isn’t so much true of me. I hedge my bets.
My life actually looks pretty good if there is no resurrection. Maybe I’m not maximizing my pleasure… but I have a comfortable threshold.
WAKE UP!
WAKE UP!
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.
Paul had this sense of urgency “some have no knowledge of God.” It is an URGENT priority, eternal life is open and available and people you are passing on the street are missing it! If we understood that, if we believed that at the core, wouldn’t our lives look different?
What does “living in light of eternity” look like? Sold out, wholly and completely, living for the gospel? I know that’s crazy… and taking that seriously would lead to radically altering my life and reducing my preferred levels of comfort and entertainment. Less Netflix and more hardship. Who wants that trade?
I do! Or at least… I want to want it. That’s a start.
I recognize that there is “another game” coming, another life, another world, an eternity.
The hour has come for us to wake up. Salvation is near. Resurrection is near. Eternity is near.
What can I do, now, to live as a resurrected immortal being, offering immortality to those about to perish?
Pray for my waiter. Love it.
Tell my story - His story.
Be his hands and feet in the park. On the street.
Pray for, pray with, read His Word so that we can then go and speak His Word.
We know the answers. They are simple, they are basic, we don’t like them, because doing them is hard or scary or awkward… or it comes at the cost of our “other” life.
We know that it isn’t about this life… and we have to discipline ourselves to that… because we keep getting swept up in the “game” of this life.
But actually, the volleyball tournament is a perfect example. Will there be friends and fun and food and all the things? Yes!
But all of that is in service to one purpose: to point to Jesus. To point to eternity. To invite our friends and family into life and life more abundant and life eternal.
We are so easily lulled into sleep, into “drunken stupor”, into complacency, comfort and calm.
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
God, let that passion drive me.
God, let me live in the light of eternity!