The Why of Love | Don't Waste Your Life - 1 Corinthians 15 | June 16

A WASTED LIFE

Hey family!

Good morning. Good morning.

Can we just dive right in? Can we go deep real quick? Just skip all the pomp and circumstance and get right down to it?

In the darkest nights of the soul, I have a fear that I’m wasting my life. I know I’m afraid of a lot of things. But when I reflect on what is most terrifying to me, what is most gut turning, it is to be at the end of my life, look back, and have the realization that I didn’t do anything of any value – of any real substance.

I fear that.

When I was in High School, as many of you may know, I went to the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham – go Unicorns!

When I was in High School, I was fortunate enough to have a mentorship in an ecological lab at Duke University where I helped in their research studying the effects of climate change through the measurement of phosphorus levels in rainwater. Trust me, it’s as exciting as it sounds.

Do you know what some of my classmates were doing in their mentorships? One girl was a part of a team that discovered a link to a gene that causes breast cancer. How life changing is that? Another kid contributed to the discovery of a galaxy. Isn’t that incredible? What was I doing pipetting rainwater into a spectrophotometer? (Still as exciting as it sounds)

Many of my friends from those days have gone on to be neurologists/neurosurgeons, you know – brain doctors. Probably some are quite literally rocket scientists.

I’m not envious of them. It’s not wealth and status that I fear I’m missing out on. I’m not afraid that I’m missing out on life or accomplishment. That’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t envy these people. In fact, Paul actually insinuates in this chapter that we are the ones to be envied.

Jesus said in Luke 12, “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.” 16 Then he told a story: “A rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. 17 He said to himself, ‘What should I do? I don’t have room for all my crops.’ 18 Then he said, ‘I know! I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll have room enough to store all my wheat and other goods. 19 And I’ll sit back and say to myself, “My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!”’ 20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’ 21 “Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.”

I love my life. I love my family. I love Jenny. I love Canaan and Ada. I love my job, both of them. I’m not in it for the money, I have no idea how much I make, probably less than you and more than I deserve. I love this family. Being relational is hard for me and challenging, but it’s good. I’m satisfied. I’m satisfied in God and with life. Would I like to own the house I live in? Yes. Would I love to travel more? Perhaps. But those aren’t necessities in life that I’m going to one day regret if they don’t happen.

When I peer into the future, what I fear most is that I will look back and that my life would have had no significant worth to the Kingdom of God. That’s what keeps me up at night. I’m not all that worried about not being welcomed into the open arms of God. I have assurance that my salvation does not depend on me. So, I’m not worried about getting into Heaven, you might say, even though, Biblically speaking, that’s not exactly the prize, I am worried about not bringing anyone with me.

To that, Paul has some encouraging words.

“58 My dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.” (1 Corinthians 15:58, NLT)

Everything you do for Him is worthwhile. It’s all worth it. No matter how great or seemingly insignificant, and even if you can’t see it, if it’s for the Lord then it is valuable and your life is not a wasted life.

Therefore, devote yourself fully to the work of the Lord. Do everything no matter how great or small for Him. When you brush your teeth in the morning, brush the Hell out of them. Eh? “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

I used to believe that even if none of this is real then it would still be the best pursuit to set your heart to, to love selflessly, to care for people, to do good in the world. Isn’t it right, and admirable, and noble to try to leave this world better than you found it? Should it lead to more fulfilling relationships and a more fulfilling life to treat each other well?

Through these passages in chapter 15 I’m beginning to see what Paul seemingly knows and what the world at large understands. If there is no God then why not pursue self-pleasure, why not chase after what feels good, why not be lovers of self? Without God there is no purpose but to enjoy life in whatever way seems most enjoyable to you no matter what harm you cause to yourself or others. That’s what the world believes. If someone gets in your way of pursuing whatever life you want, then toss them aside because they don’t really love you anyway. “If there is no resurrection, “Let’s feast and drink, for tomorrow we die!” There’s no point. Waste your life in whatever way seems least wasteful to you.

But because God is real. Because Jesus lived on this earth. Because He died, was buried, and rose again forever conquering death so that Paul can write and the Scriptures be fulfilled, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:54, NLT) Because this reality points to an even greater reality where there is no pain, or hurt, no more guilt or shame, no more tears. Because all of this is true and really happened and will one day happen, our lives are not wasted and a life lived for God is to be envied. A life in pursuit of God’s presence is not a wasted life. A life lived in the presence of a God who sees you, who loves you, who cares for you, who is for you, who will never leave you, and will never abandon you, who is hear right not just in your corner, but fighting for you, a life lived in pursuit of God who reveals Himself to you to be experienced and enjoyed by you in a million different ways is not a wasted life.

That’s what we call the Gospel.

WHAT IS THE GOSPEL

It’s no wonder that the majority of this chapter centers around the good news that King Jesus has come. 1 Corinthians 15 may be the clearest definition of the Gospel in all the Bible.

“Let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the Good News I preached to you before. You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it. 2 It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place.

3 I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. 4 He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4, NLT)

Paul writes, I’m telling you what is of first importance: that Christ died…

“The gospel begins with [those] two words… Christ died. The first word in the gospel is Jesus, and the second word is died.”

The resurrection is important and inseparable and indispensable from this good news, but you don’t get there without this first part. Jesus died for you, to eliminate your guilt so that you can enjoy Him. Jesus died so that you may have a new full life centered around God and the enjoyment of Him now and in this life. Jesus died so that one day you will get to enjoy Him in the fullness of who He is with resurrected bodies and fear, and pain, and death will no longer be a thing.

There’s nobody for whom this message is irrelevant. Everybody will die, unless Jesus comes back first. Though it is a defeated enemy, we all have to deal with death. It is the last great trial.

The Gospel is such that “you have spectacularly good news about death. Nobody else does. Nobody. Muslims do not have good news about death. They’re crossing their fingers. Hindus don’t have good news. Maybe you’ll come back as a cat. Jews don’t have good news. It’s a conflicted message in the Jewish synagogue about death. Atheists don’t have good news about death. The world wants to run away from this because nobody has any good news — except you. You have phenomenally good news [for] people who are facing death.”

Jesus’ resurrection gives us hope in this life and for our own future resurrection. It gives us forgiveness. It gives us acceptance. It gives us freedom – an abundant life now. And it gives us hope for a life to come.

PROOF OF THE GOSPEL

As there were some in the Corinthian church who were doubting the resurrection, Paul doesn’t just leave us to trust him that Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection form the foundation of this hope in life and for the future. That you can’t just get rid of Jesus’ resurrection and say it didn’t happen. All of life depends on it. He provides evidence.

In our modern day, there are some who would say that evidence for the resurrection is non-existent, or at the very least worse than you may imagine. They would contend that Christianity is a baseless religion that is stuck in the past and as Karl Marx famously described an “opiate of the masses.”

These same people will recognize the historical accuracy of the events Paul talks about. That they did actually happen in history. But they deny the Biblical conclusion.

So in response we must demonstrate two things. “We must maintain a reasonable case that [the] biblical portrait is true. But in addition, we must also demonstrate that [Jesus] is worth following. We must show from Scripture and experience that this Jesus is not only true, but that He quenches the deepest soul thirst of all humans—that he is ultimately what all people long for.”

Paul seeks to do both of these things in what can only be described as his defense of the Gospel. He starts with the evidence.

He says, “3 I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. 4 He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.”

There are more than 300 prophecies in the Hebrew Bible about the anointed king of Israel that would one day come. Some Jesus had control over, like when He turned over the tables of the money changers in the temple. He could decide to do that. Others were out of His control such as being born in Bethlehem.

A mathematician named Peter Stoner set out to calculate the statistical odds of one man born of the time fulfilling all these prophecies. His scientific article was peer reviewed and approved to accurately represent the probabilities. He found that to even fulfill eight prophecies, the odds were one hundred quadrillion to one. That’s a one with 17 zeros. I think it’s something like a million billion to one. It is perhaps possible but you would have a far better chance of winning the lottery twice in a row.

If you expand that to fulfill even 48 of the prophecies in one person the odds are not in your favor. It skyrockets to one in 10 to the 157th power. That’s 157 zeros. I’m not even sure they have a name for that. This is what scientists would explain to be so improbable that it’s basically impossible. I mean what’s the difference. And of course the inevitable conclusion is that there is not a computer in the world that is powerful enough to crunch the statistical value of fulfilling all 324 prophecies. It is impossible.

And yet Jesus did it.

“5 He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. 6 After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.”

Paul is stacking on the evidence. Peter saw the resurrected Jesus. The twelve disciples saw Him. Then 500 followers all saw Him at once. It wasn’t a hallucination or something of the sort.

We can, at times, tend to look back unfavorably upon the more ancient generations. We believe ourselves to be more advanced, more sophisticated. Those superstitious fools believing that people can come back from the dead.

They didn’t think that. They knew people don’t do that. That’s why the apostles ran away when Jesus was killed. That’s what happened time after time when someone would claim to be the Messiah. The rabbi was killed and the followers scattered. But something changed within the disciples of Jesus. There was something different.

Not only that, but some of those 500 were still alive Paul says, so you can go ask them. Don’t just believe what I’m saying, go find out for yourselves.

Also, James saw the resurrected Jesus. James, the brother of Jesus, who would become the Bishop of the church in Jerusalem encountered the living God and He worshiped Him. James, who thought his brother was crazy when He was alive, worshiped Him after His death. Something changed in James.

“8 Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him. 9 For I am the least of all the apostles. In fact, I’m not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God’s church.”

Here’s the crazy part about all of this, Paul’s encounter with the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus was only about three years after Jesus’ death. Already there was an established doctrine of the resurrection, within three years. Don’t you think someone could have checked to see if Jesus’ body was still there? Don’t you think Paul could have investigated to make sure?

Not only that, but pretty much every Apostle who would have been among those who could have potentially stolen Jesus’ body died horrible deaths holding fast to the faith that Jesus was alive.

Paul was not interested in Jesus before his conversion. Jesus was a dark stain on all that he cared about and had dedicated his life to. Yet, he suffered more than any of them.

In Acts 9 God told Ananias, “Go! I have chosen Saul for an important work. He must tell about me to those who are not Jews, to kings, and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”

Paul writes here, “30 And why should we ourselves risk our lives hour by hour? 31 For I swear, dear brothers and sisters, that I face death daily.”

Why would they do that if not for the resurrection?

Something had changed. Jesus is not only true, but He is ultimately what all people long for.

RESULT OF THE GOSPEL - GRACE

10 But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on me—and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it was not I but God who was working through me by his grace. 11 So it makes no difference whether I preach or they preach, for we all preach the same message you have already believed.

By the grace of God, I am what I am. Our whole life is a dependence on the power of grace to be what we ought to be and do what we ought to do.

There is every bit the real sense that this whole chapter is to encourage you that no matter what it may appear to you, no matter how much you believe that you fall short, no matter how undeserving you believe yourself to be that by the grace of God you are becoming who you already are, who God sees you to be. You are preparing yourself for the imperishable body. You are in His eyes, precious beyond belief.

“Paul is saying the secret of contentment, the secret of satisfaction, is trusting the promises, “I’m going to strengthen you. You’re mine. I love you.”

“He’s saying, “Believe me. Trust me. Every hour of your life, trust me. I will help you. I will strengthen you. I’ll hold you up. I’ve got an avalanche of promises for you. Trust me.”

Grace is the unmerited favor shown to us by God. It is a blessing of standing, of status as God’s beloved children that we did not earn and we do not deserve. And grace is also the power of God for us who believe to do what we ought to do and to be who we ought to be. There is past grace that says you are mine. I have chosen you. I love you. And there is present and future grace that says I’ve got you. I am with you. I love you.

“The right response of the heart towards past grace is thankfulness, and the right response toward future grace is faith.”

Trust Him in all things, pour yourself out for Him, spend your life telling everyone you meet about King Jesus and demonstrating Jesus in the way that you live and the way that you love and in the end you will find a life not wasted.

“Our God doesn’t leave us to labor, and sing, and overcome, and run our race in our own strength. He has good works prepared for us ahead of time, and gives us his Spirit to empower them in and through us. He doesn’t demand a dead sprint, but invites us to walk in them, and to say with joy in the end, “Yet not I but through Christ in me.”

A LIFE NOT WASTED

“If Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. 15 And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. 16 And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. 18 In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! 19 And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.

20 But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.”

We are not to be pitied – we are to be envied. Don’t let that puff you up, but let it lift you up. Don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t wonder if I’m wasting my life. “A life lived for personal pleasure rather than for the glorification of Christ is a wasted life.” A life lived to bring glory to King Jesus is a life not wasted.

The Corinthians had taken their eyes off of the purpose, off of the outcome.

There’s a joke from the comedian Jim Gaffigan that I’ve heard repeated in increasing frequency as of late. It’s when he’s talking about cake. He says, “Cake's a powerful food. Cake can actually bring people together. You know... "It's Bill's birthday" "Yeah I hate that guy." "There's cake in the conference room." "Well I should say hello."

If we could see the purpose, if we could see the value. If you could only peer into the future when you have shuffled off this mortal coil – if you could see what you will be. That’s a powerful motivating factor. When you can see what it's all for. Then you will know it’s not wasted. This is a life not wasted. Nothing you ever do for the Lord is wasted, none of it is useless.

Jim Elliot, the missionary who was famously killed in Ecuador with seemingly no fruit to his work, said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.”

Therefore abound in good works with an unshakeable foundation.

We love, because it provides an unshakeable foundation for our life and purpose in all that we do. “Therefore, do huge amounts of Christ-exalting work because none of it is in vain.”

PRAYER

Lord, pour out your Spirit in such a way that your people desire Jesus more than they desire other things and other people. That we would experience the satisfaction that only comes from you, the satisfaction that quenches the deepest thirsts of the human desire. Lord, empower us to love, empower us to do good works, knowing that nothing we do for Your glory will ever be wasted. We are not wasting our lives, but we will spend them. We will spend them for You and You alone to proclaim Jesus with our words, to demonstrate Jesus with our lives, and to call all peoples in all places to join us as we step into becoming real people, who are a part of this real loving family, all to worship You – the real and true God.