Die to Rise Now

Transcript

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[0:01] Well, thank you, Victoria. And now we have the time for the sermon. Our reading, our final reading from 1 Corinthians is chapter 15, and we'll be looking at verses 12 through 20 today. My voice feels a little funny today. You may notice it. I think it's all the smoke in the air. There's like a 15% chance that I will have to stop in the middle of this sermon and just stop talking. In which case, I'll just send you a copy of my sermon and you can read it at home and we'll move on to the next thing. But maybe start praying at home that God will keep my voice up and running. I don't know what's going on. I guess it's just smoke. But we'll get there. We'll get there. So just a brief word of introduction about our reading today.

[0:45] As Victoria talked about, and we've seen over and over again, and we might be a little tired of hearing this, but this church had a lot of problems. And I would say one of the big problems they had was a problem with the flesh. And by what that, but I, mean by that is they had a problem understanding why their bodies were so important. So how they eat, how they drink, what they do with their body. Paul is telling them it is incredibly important, but they didn't quite get that. And because that relates also to what happens after death, they had this view that's different than the Christian view, which is there's this line between life and death, which is quite sharp. And for the Christians, the view was a little bit different. Yes, life and death are different. But they had a problem with the flesh. And so they had this view that life ends and death ends. But since death involves resurrection, life goes on after death. And there's a bodily life after death as well in a resurrected body. And so the Christians had a more sort of comprehensive view of how the body was important both in this life and in the next life. The culture, and this is important, the culture, and if you're taking notes, this is really a big theme here, is the culture that

[1:51] that church in Corinth was swimming in, just they were surrounded by it. They didn't believe in the resurrection. They didn't believe in the resurrection. They didn't believe in the resurrection. They didn't believe in it at all. There was a more, there was more a sense that there was a spiritual part of them that would live on in the afterlife, but it wouldn't be particularly fun. They had this idea of Hades or the underworld. And people were just, it's like they had eaten too much turkey dinner or something like that. And they were just kind of bloated and just not very responsive. That was the afterlife for them. It's not exactly how they would describe it, but that's how I see it. It's just not a lot happened. It's just not a lot happened. It's just not a lot happened, you know, in the afterlife. Whereas the Christian afterlife is just, it's full of energy and full of life and full of physical bodily life. So it was hard for them to embrace this part of the gospel that there was the resurrection of the body after death. But the thing is, though, that is the gospel. That's really the most important part. I mean, it's one of the most important parts of the gospel. You can't have the resurrection without the crucifixion,

[2:53] so they're both important. But you can't have the crucifixion without the resurrection and call it. It's all the gospel. It's all the gospel. So they had a hard time believing in bodily resurrection after death. That's the point we want to pay attention to. And all the more, then, it doesn't matter what we do with our bodies because our bodies are who we are created to be. We're not these disjointed body here, soul another, the soul takes off after we die, and the body is just a shell that gets left behind. That's the Greek dualistic view of the body and the soul. The Christian view was more comprehensive. It's that you are your body. That's your identity. God created you with the body. God created matter and life and everything at the beginning. So God really cares about matter and stuff. And if you want to get down to it, he cares about atoms and protons and photons and quarks and you name it. He cares about dark matter. He cares about all that stuff. He created it.

[3:50] So Paul is saving this for the last because it really is the most important. And he's starting to say, you know what? I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. He starts with the cross. First Corinthians chapter two, when I came among you, my purpose was to know nothing but Christ and him crucified. And he ends with the resurrection. And he makes a very long, we've only read part of it. He makes a very long case for why the resurrection is real. He really cares about it. If you read all of chapter 15, it's much longer than several of the other chapters. It's quite a long chapter. So something else is going on. And I think Paul is getting to this in an indirect way. And it's true for us. It's true for that church is that that church itself needed to experience the resurrection, not life after death, but a resurrection now, a resurrection of something inside them had to die so that something new could come to life so that they could start being the faithful church that God had called them to be. So a resurrection was needed for this church. And I would argue a resurrection is needed for our church. And for us individually in the church today, not talking about life after death. I'm talking about

[5:04] life after old life, new life now. So with that introduction, and I want you to think on that idea that, that we need a resurrection now as we read. So let's go to our reading. And this is what Paul writes. I'm reading from the New Living Translation. It's printed in your bullet and you can certainly follow along. He goes like this. He says this, verse 12, but tell me this, since we preach that Christ rose from the dead, why are some of you saying there will be no resurrection of the dead? How could they say that? For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless and your faith is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God. For we believe that God raised Christ from the grave, but that can't be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost. And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, like some other people, then we are not going to be able to live in the life of

[6:28] people. We are more to be pitied than anyone in the world. Now here's the kicker. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. And we ask that you would add your blessing to it in Jesus name. Amen.

[6:58] If you read this, and it is longer than this, as I mentioned, it's a very long chapter. You see that Paul is making a case for the resurrection. He's employing a bit of logic here. If this, then that. So if there's no bodily resurrection, then Christ isn't raised. And if Christ isn't raised, then you're not going to be raised. And if Christ isn't raised, then we've been lying. And if Christ isn't raised, then you're in a heap of trouble because your sin is still with you. And if Christ isn't raised, then we have no hope. And we should have been like other people enjoying the life of Christ. And if Christ isn't raised, then we're not going to be raised. And if Christ isn't raised, then we're not going to be raised. And if Christ isn't raised, then we're going end sin our life for our life for our life life for our life for our life life for life for getting this wrong like he must be scratching his set his head saying didn't I go over this with you like yes I talked about the cross and you seem to have forgotten that I really talked about the resurrection when I was with he lived with them for a year and a half and some of you still don't believe in the resurrection how can you some of you why are some of you saying there will be no

[8:19] resurrection of the dead and and I I just keep thinking that Paul when he wrote this letter was was crying and there might have been tear marks on the parchment you know smudges in the ink because like why are these people forgetting the most important things that I've ever said said to them so he's spending a lot of time a lot of ink a lot of parchment correcting this mistake right at the end of this very important letter that's correcting all sorts of other problems so he spends a lot of ink on it but I think it's not surprising too and maybe he shouldn't have been so surprised because the culture that that church was in was dominated by two very strong philosophies there were other philosophies those two philosophies I'm talking about that were current at that time are known as stoicism and epicureanism and you can look those up on Wikipedia or somewhere else very interesting stuff but the Stoics thought that physical comfort was not very important so they did all sorts of things to kind of just isolate themselves from physical comfort and from the world and on the other side the epicureans were almost the mirror image of them the epicureans thought that physical comfort and gratification were very important and so there was no sensation that

[9:29] they would hide from at all they enjoyed themselves quite a bit but both of them in their own way saw the body as unimportant after death because it didn't matter so the Stoics sort of ignored their body and then after death their body didn't matter it just died the epicureans fed their body like crazy because after death there's no more body so you might as well shovel a little bit of water and fill as much as you can into it before you don't have a chance to anymore you see just the both of those views both saw the body as this disposable thing and it didn't matter what you did with it didn't matter what happened to it after you died but nowhere in that culture so those over two there were other cultural influences around the church in Corinth but those were two very strong ones they're current ones nowhere in the culture was this sober and moderate end for for for for for for for and it can't be separated from our identity. And so there was not a lot of support outside of the church walls for a view of the bodily resurrection. In fact, people would laugh if they heard a story or a teaching about the resurrection. They thought that was crazy talk. And so that's the challenge the church had. The church was supposed to be bringing this disruptive and amazing message

[11:21] of the resurrection into its culture, but the opposite was happening. The church's culture that denied the resurrection was infiltrating the church. And I would say the problem with that church is that it was not well insulated from the culture around it. And this is a point, if you're taking notes, take this point too, is like, what is the role of the church in this culture? Is it to import all of the culture's view into the church and operate on them? Or is it to have its own culture with Christ at the center and then bring it to the church? Or is it to bring that culture from the church out into the larger, wider culture? And so it seems that members of the church then unquestioningly brought their culture with them to church meetings. And they said, well, I think this is how it is. Maybe there isn't a bodily resurrection. So Paul has to do a lot of correcting here. And I think this happens all the time. And I think this letter is timeless. So it's not just about the Corinthian church. It's about our church. It's about the modern church. It's about the church here in Los Altos, about the church down the street, about the church with the big C all around the world. I have this idea, and let's see if I'm on the screen.

[12:34] You can see my pocket here. I remember once I was visiting an aunt, and she didn't want me to leave. We were visiting, and she was sad that we were leaving. She lived in a different state. And she said, if only I could turn myself into a tiny mouse and ride home with you in your pocket, then I wouldn't have to leave you, which is very sweet. You know, I love my aunt. And so I have this idea that we have these little mice that we carry around in our pockets, and they come with us wherever we go. And on some level, it's like we have these cultural mice, maybe, in our pockets. And as we, I can look at, I can see the front of the church right now. You can't see it. Maybe in reflection you could. But I could see the front of the church. There's three sets of double doors. Actually, there's two sets of three sets of double doors. But anyway, and I could just see me walking through those doors with a little mouse in my pocket, a cultural mouse, not my aunt, but this little cultural mouse that says, well, you know, this is the way the world is, and you're going to bring it with you into the church, and it's going to start dominating. It's not going to be so small anymore. It's kind of going to grow. And so I think it's good, and we'll leave it as an exercise for later on

[13:48] to ask ourselves, how the culture we live in comes into the church riding as a little stowaway in our pocket. Think about that. When we come together as church, how much are we living in the culture that Jesus creates? And how much are we living in the culture that we brought with us from outside the walls of this building, right? How does, say, American culture enter our church and set the tone for how we interact with each other and how we make decisions? And you can, there's probably several definitions of what American culture is, but we live in America, right? So that culture somehow is coming in the doors with us. And some of us might say, well, that's great. And others might say with us, well, I'm not so sure, because I'm not sure all of our cultures, all aspects of our culture are great. How much, this is interesting, how much does Silicon Valley culture enter in? Because though we live in America, I think we really live in a different country called Silicon Valley. And it is so different from the rest of America. You should travel a little bit. And some of you do. If you were to drive across the Midwest, you would see a very different America. If you were to drive through Detroit, you would see a very different America than you see right here.

[15:00] This is like Candyland based, compared to the rest of the world. There's so much wealth here. There's so much privilege. There's so much influence here. It's a bit weird. So how much does that, we're at the pinnacle of technology. We're at the pinnacle of a lot of wealth. How much does that come in the door as a stowaway in our pockets? And how much does that come in the door as a stowaway in our pockets? Let's just say our ethnic culture come in. How much does it come in that I'm Norwegian mostly and part Swedish? You know, how much does that come in? And should it come in? It's a great question. We're gonna save it for some other day. But that's the problem with the church. I think that Paul saw was that the cultural understanding of the human person, which divided the soul and the body, was infiltrating the Corinthian church. And the view that the resurrection was absurd was infiltrating the Corinthian church.

[15:58] But Christ calls that church into a new culture with him at the center. And it has to then be based on him in his body, both crucified and resurrected. And I think this is going to be a battle that we're going to wage all our lives.

[16:17] Is when are we going to stop? Stop letting our culture run our faith. It's challenging, right? So sometimes we call this the kingdom. And I like that. One way of thinking about the kingdom of God is that place where God rules. It makes sense, right? Where God rules. So God creates the kingdom. God creates the culture around his son, Jesus Christ. And in that center there, we have a whole new way. A whole new way of being with each other. And a whole new way of being with God. And that should, can, and should go out from the church. And from each individual believer so that they go around and they carry it with them. So we call that the kingdom. And this kingdom is so different. It's so different from all cultures of this world. It's marked by humility. It's marked by putting other people first. It's marked by being sober in our appetites. Which is an interesting idea that we have. We can also talk about some other day. About a holistic view of our bodies. And of course we saw last week, Pastor Victoria preached about love from chapter 13. That's the kingdom. That's the kingdom culture. It's not victory.

[17:34] It's not power. It's the opposite. It's submission. It's defeat. It's servanthood. It's poverty. Not wealth. It's amazing how different it is. The kingdom of God is so upside down. From the kingdom of this world. And it's amazingly upside down from Silicon Valley. I would say. So we have a real challenge. And so maybe you should just pat yourself on the back a little bit. That this is a tough field. This is a tough mission field. Silicon Valley. It's a tough place to be true to your Christian ideals and convictions. Because there's a lot of things pulling you in the opposite direction. So if you're bearing up under it, praise God. That's hard work. And only the spirit can really help us do that.

[18:20] Now. We should ask ourselves. What is the single most important marker? By marker I mean the sign. How would we know that this community really is marked by Jesus? And is God's kingdom? And I would say if Paul is to believe that it's the resurrection. The resurrection dominates this new kingdom culture that Jesus creates with himself at the center. Because he died on the cross. Yes. But that story is incomplete without the resurrection.

[18:54] And he laid down his life. He laid down his power. He laid down his advantages. He did this out of love and servanthood. And death that he went to with obedience couldn't contain him. And so our life together is marked by the resurrection. The resurrection is the mark of the new Christian community that God's creating in this world. And it's a great comfort to us. It's really wonderful. And this is often is a time to be thinking about comfort. But I don't want us to get too comfortable. But I want us to be comforted. You can have this hope that you will be raised again.

[19:33] Praise God. I mean just stop and think about that for a second. You will be raised again. You will be given a new body. I don't know what it looks like. But it's going to be amazing. All my hang nails are going to go away. I mean all sorts of problems are going to be gone. I have a bad knee now. You know I'm getting older. So all that stuff is going to be cleared up. I'm pretty sure.

[19:56] But we're going to be with God in heaven. We're going to be with people. The saints that have gone on before us. You know. I think I always feel. And you may be the same. There's this void in my life. After both my parents have now passed away. My mom died about four years, five years ago. My father died in 1990. That was a long time ago. He died 30 years ago.

[20:21] Every day there's this void. Some days it's bigger than others. But every day there's a void. That they're gone. But someday I will be made complete. And even more so because I will be with God. And I'll be in the presence of the creator of the universe. I mean that's really kind of crazy. When you think about how vast this universe is. How amazingly it was put together. How powerful somebody must have been to do it all. And there's this promise in the Bible. And there's this promise in our scriptures. That we will be with that being.

[20:53] In the life after this life. And that that being is with us now. Even in this moment. It's amazing. I mean just think how different a culture would be if it believed that. And acted out of that. How much hope would flow out from such a community. It's astounding.

[21:14] And that being whom we're calling God. The Father. Loves us each so much. That he was willing to give his son. So that we could have new life now. And a new life after we die. It's astounding. So take a look at verse 20.

[21:33] Because this is what Paul says. He says but in fact. And I love how he does that. But in fact. Christ has been raised from the dead. All these other reservations are wrong. And all the logical things that we have to draw. We can now unwind. Each and every one of them. Because in fact. Christ has been raised from the dead. So you're not still guilty of your sin. Right? And you're not to be more pitied than anyone in the world. And you're not to be concerned about all these things. All you are now. Is to be marked by the resurrection. In the new culture that God creates around his son Jesus. It's so exciting. So but in fact.

[22:12] Having a resurrection identity in Jesus. Means a lot for me. And a lot for you. And a lot for the church. Because there's no resurrection without death. And without the cross. Again it comes back to the cross. These are two things that they cannot be pulled. Just like the body and the soul can't really be pulled apart from each other. The cross and the resurrection can never really be pulled apart from each other. In how we understand this. And if we go back. And we read this letter. We see that Paul is asking people. These are the people in Corinth. But people like you. And people like me. And people like Jesus. He's asking us. To also go to the cross.

[22:53] To die. Not necessarily a physical death. But to die to ourselves. To put others in front of ourselves. To lose one. Every now and then. I keep coming back to that one. That one is the most astounding advice that he gives. In 1 Corinthians. If you're in a dispute with somebody.

[23:14] Lose one. It's okay. You know. It's okay. You lose one. It's not the end of the world. Lose one. Put other people before yourselves. Let your appetites die. Let your advantages die. Let your own sense of knowledge. How smart you are. Let that die. Let your own project. Whatever building you're building. To try to get yourself up to heaven. Like the people in Babel. Let that die.

[23:43] Go to the cross yourself. And die. And then be raised again. That's the resurrection. We won't experience that resurrection in this life. Unless we die in this life too. I'm not talking about physical death. I'm talking about the end of the Hans Erik Nelson project. I'm talking about the end of the you put your name here project.

[24:07] Let that die. So that God can bring us back to heaven. And then God can raise something new to life in its place. But in fact, Christ was raised and you will be too. But in fact, We will be raised. In the future, yes, but also now. Then ask yourself, Do I want this? That's really what it comes down to. I think you can become a believer in Jesus and you can ascend to all the things that we're saying here. But there can be this part of your life that you're still holding on to and you'll hold on you could hold on to it until you die and that's keeping you from taking the next step in your discipleship and i know the lord will take you to be with him at the end if you still never can give this up on your deathbed but i think god wants you to i know god wants you to i know god wants you to do this but you have to want to do it yourself and to take the next step in discipleship which is to say look at all the things that i've built for myself look at how i've puffed myself up with my own knowledge look at all the wealth that i've acquired look at all the power i have and the domains that i exercise it in can i let all that die so that something new could be raised up in its place something that god will use something that god will honor and do something through me so i asked myself this and i want you

[25:39] to ask yourself this do i want to die to myself not every day honestly but i do do i want to die to my own needs do i want to die to my own project do i want to die to my own sense of who i am that's been shaped by my culture my culture has been telling me how i should value some things am i ready to let go of that my connection to my own culture do i want to do that what if i did that i might lose faith in myself and i might lose faith in others if i did that if i did some things for others if i did some things for others if i did if i did some things for others indeed be raised. That's what Paul is saying. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who believe. God will raise us to a better life in this life if we're willing to go to the cross now. I believe that. And he can replace my pride with humility.

[27:01] Maybe the test of this is how much easier would it be to live with me as a husband and a father at my household. If God were to replace my pride with humility and replace my power with servanthood and replace my brokenness with wholeness and completeness and peace and love, do you think my family would like the new me? I know they would. I know they would. And I think I would like the new me better. That's what God is calling us to, to die and to be raised from the dead. Since Christ was raised from the dead, you too. Can be raised from the dead. And so can I. And he can raise my powerlessness and use it to his ends. His spirit will guide me. I want that. I really want that for his spirit to then guide me and build me into his kingdom so that I can go out of this church and be kingdom to the rest of this world. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word. Thank you for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[28:08] Father, help us to die to the self so that we could be raised anew in this life and the next. And we ask it in Jesus' name.