Good morning again.
My name is Matthew Capone,
and I'm the pastor here at Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian Church,
and it's my joy to bring God's word to you today.
A special welcome if you're new or visiting with us.
We're glad that you're here.
I'll remind you what I mentioned at the beginning,
which is that we'd love to be able to connect with you,
and the way that you can do that is by going to our website at cmpca.net.
There will be a pop-up as soon as you go to it
that gives you a link to our Connect card,
or if you're already on our website,
under the New Here tab, you can click the link that says Connect,
and that'll give us a chance to have a record of your time with us
and to be able to begin to build a relationship.
With that, we're going to jump into God's word.
We're at the portion of our service where we study the Bible together,
and we study the Bible together because we're convinced
that there's no one so good that they don't need God's grace
and no one so bad that they can't have it,
which means that God has something to say to everyone in his word,
and he promises us that his word is powerful.
It does what he intends for it to accomplish,
and so we come to it knowing that he offers to speak to us.
We are again in the book of 1 Corinthians at chapter 15,
like we were last week, and as we come to this section,
we're starting at verse 50.
I am reminded of when I grew up.
Now, many of you know that I grew up on the East Coast,
right outside Washington, D.C.,
and one of the things that happened many times
when we were growing up there
is that my mom would drive us into the city,
and she would take us to the National Gallery of Art.
My mom was a real lover of art history,
is a real lover of art history,
and so she wanted to pass that on to us as well,
and it was wonderful for us to have access to that.
The museum was free, as many are in D.C.,
and so we spent many days and many hours there,
and I remember one time when we were there
coming across a painting,
and all that the painting had was a skull.
If I remember correctly, it was a skull that was on a table,
and you might find that strange, right?
Why is there just a painting of a skull?
But it's actually part of a broader genre within art history,
and it's a genre known as the memento mori,
a reminder of death.
And I bring this up not to be morbid,
but because it was a theme that people would focus
from time to time on things
that would remind them of their mortality.
It wasn't always a skull.
Sometimes it might be a clock or an hourglass.
But it was a way of remembering,
no matter what's happening in this world,
death is the great equalizer.
It's something that comes for all of us.
And it's something that we're reminded of,
not just by pieces of art,
but also by small tragedies, everyday tragedies.
We're reminded of it as our bodies begin to fail.
We're reminded of it as other people around us experience death.
We are reminded of it when we feel our own weakness.
Of course, it's not something that just small crisis reminds us of,
but that big things remind us of.
The situation that we're in in this world right now with a pandemic
is a reminder to us of what's always been true,
which is that we're fragile and mortal.
No matter how successful we are now or were in the past,
death is as real as it's ever been.
And in fact, that's the backdrop that Easter comes against.
It's what makes our celebration of the resurrection a celebration.
It's that knowledge of death.
It's that reminder of it.
And so that's going to be our simple focus this morning.
What is our hope in the face of death?
What's our hope in the face of death?
Of course, that's a question we should always be asking
and be aware of,
but it's something that for many of us is even more pressing at a time like this
where we're watching many people die
and we're reminded of the frailty of our own bodies.
I had a friend remind me recently
that we read the Bible differently when we need it to be true.
Of course, we always need it to be true,
but it's times like this that underscore that for us,
that bring it to the forefront of our minds,
that we realize more now than at other times our need for comfort and hope.
And so that's why we're going to turn now to 1 Corinthians chapter 15,
and we're going to be starting at verse 50.
I invite you to read along with me, perhaps on your phone.
You may be able to easily open this passage up on your computer browser.
However you open it up, remember that this is God's word.
And God tells us that his word is a lamp to our feet
and a light to our path.
In other words, he has not left us alone to stumble in the dark,
but instead he's given us his word to show us the way to go.
And so that's why we read it now, starting at verse 50.
I tell you this, brothers,
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,
nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Behold, I tell you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.
Verse 52.
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet,
for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable
and we shall be changed.
For this perishable body must put on the imperishable
and this mortal body must put on immortality.
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?
The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 58.
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.
I invite you to pray with me as we come to this portion of God's word.
Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word.
That's both a challenge and a comfort to us.
We praise you that you haven't left us alone,
like orphans,
but that you've spoken to us.
And you've spoken to us in words that we can understand.
And so we ask that you would do that this morning,
that you would send your Holy Spirit
to open our eyes,
to unstop our ears,
to clear our minds and to soften our hearts,
that we would be able to see and hear
and understand and believe
everything that's written about you in your word.
We ask these things,
not because we have earned them or deserve them,
but because we belong to Jesus.
And so we ask these things in his mighty name.
Amen.
Paul begins at the beginning of this section
by reviewing simply what we saw last week.
In verse 50, he tells us,
Now, you'll remember from our discussion last week,
we talked about the new body
and the fact that the new body is going to be connected
to our current bodies,
but it's going to be different.
It's going to have a different quality to it.
While our old bodies are subject to decay and death,
our new bodies will not be.
Now, you might be confused by this phrase
about flesh and blood.
It might sound like Paul is telling us here
that we won't have physical bodies
in the world that's going to come.
Of course, we spent a lot of time
talking about that last week.
That's not what he means.
What he means here is what he called the difference,
I believe it was in verse 44,
between the natural body and the spiritual body.
And he actually clarifies it here for us in this verse,
verse 50.
Flesh and blood, perishable, imperishable.
In other words, flesh and blood refers
to the perishable body.
It's the body, the natural body that we have now
that's subject to sin and decay.
The spiritual body is the body that we look forward to.
It's the body that's powered by the Holy Spirit
and does not experience sin and decay.
And so it's just a reminder, as he tells us here,
the kingdom of God is coming.
The imperishable are coming.
That's what he's telling us in verse 50.
And so what's happening with our bodies
is what we prayed already this morning
in the Lord's Prayer,
that it would be on earth as it is in heaven.
It's with that reminder that Paul jumps in
and tells us what this is going to look like.
In verse 51, he tells us it's going to be a mystery.
And he outlines what that mystery is going to entail.
First of all, it's going to be instantaneous
and it's going to happen to everyone.
So we shall not all sleep.
Verse 51 is referring to the fact
that some people will still be alive when Jesus returns.
Some people will not.
Everyone who has faith in Jesus Christ
will receive this new body.
We shall not all sleep.
In other words, some of us will be alive,
but we shall all be changed.
There will be this change in our bodies
that we discussed last week
that was like the difference between the seed
and the fully grown grain.
Not only will there be a change as part of this mystery,
but it will happen instantly.
Verse 52, in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.
Now you might be wondering
why there's a reference to a trumpet.
This is a image throughout the Old Testament
and the New Testament that accompanies Jesus' return.
In the Old Testament,
the trumpet accompanied what was called the day of the Lord.
And Israel in the Old Testament
understood the day of the Lord
to be a reference to the time when God would come.
He would bring judgment
and He would make everything right.
This is refined for us or clarified for us
in the New Testament in Matthew chapter 24.
We're told that when Jesus returns,
there will be a trumpet sound.
And so this sound of the trumpet
is simply a reminder to His readers
of what they most likely already know,
that He's referring to Jesus' return.
And that return is going to happen immediately.
It's going to happen like the twinkling of an eye.
It's going to be in an instant.
Now Paul is writing this to Christians
and so he means this here as an encouragement to them.
But of course, there's also a warning implicit in it.
When Jesus comes,
as we're told throughout the New Testament,
there will not be a telegraph about it.
We won't know that it's coming.
It will happen instantaneously around the world at one moment.
There won't be a warning
outside of the warnings
that God's already given us in His scriptures.
And so I want you to think about it like this.
We're in a current crisis, right?
Had we known exactly what was going to happen right now,
we would have done things differently.
If we could have seen the future,
if we could have seen March of 2020
in say November of 2019,
we would have prepared in a different way.
Perhaps there's certain things we would have purchased.
Maybe some of us would have purchased masks
that we didn't have.
Maybe some of us would have purchased more toilet paper.
Maybe some of us would have saved more money.
There's all sorts of things that we would do
if we had known.
We had some warning, right?
But we didn't have tons and tons of warning.
What I want to highlight in all of that though
is that had we known,
we would have prepared in a different way.
Jesus' return will be like that even more so.
Jesus is not going to return to one part of the world
and then the rest of the world
have a chance to watch it happen and prepare.
It will happen in such a way
that there will be no preparation.
At that moment,
in the twinkling of the eye,
the sound of the trumpet,
there will be those who have faith in Jesus Christ
and those who do not.
And at that moment,
it will be too late.
And so this passage reminds us
that all of us
need to be prepared for Christ's return.
Jesus walked on this earth
in his first coming as a man.
He ascended into heaven
and he told us that he was going to come back
with his second coming.
And when he comes back,
that's when he's going to make all things right.
That's when he's going to restore and renew
the bodies of those who are believers.
And that's when he's going to bring full
and final judgment on the earth.
And so as we're asking this question
about what our hope is,
as we face death,
our hope is that we will be
those who belong to Jesus Christ
when he returns.
And so we need to be prepared,
all of us,
for Jesus' return.
And the way that we are prepared for it
is very simple.
It's what the Bible refers to as faith.
Faith has three parts to it.
The first part,
this is according to a man named Charles Spurgeon,
is knowledge.
It's knowledge of the facts about the gospel.
The fact that we are sinners
and we deserve God's punishment and judgment.
But also the fact that Jesus came,
he lived life in this world,
he lived a perfect life,
the life that we should have lived.
And then he died a death,
the death that we should have died for our sins,
taking God's punishment and wrath onto himself.
And he offers life through that
to anyone who has faith in him.
And so it's knowledge,
but faith is also a belief.
It's actually believing that those things are true,
believing that we are sinners
and we have no hope
outside of God's mercy and Jesus' sacrifice.
It's even more than that belief though,
it's action,
it's trust.
It's living our lives as if those things are true,
revealing through our actions
that that's what we believe.
Brothers and sisters,
Jesus is coming back.
And when he comes back,
it will be like the twinkling of an eye.
It will happen instantaneously.
There will not be a warning.
And so the warning is now,
the call to faith and repentance
is both important and urgent.
Just as most of us did not see this crisis coming,
we didn't know when its timing would occur.
We didn't know it was going to happen.
We don't know the timing of Jesus' return.
However, unlike this crisis,
we know that it's going to happen.
And so Jesus' call to repentance is urgent.
And so if you do not have faith in Jesus Christ,
I encourage you now,
I urge you to repent and believe on him,
knowing that when he returns,
it will be too late.
He is the one who gives us hope.
And he's our only hope in the face of death.
That's what we learn here from knowing
that it's going to happen in a moment
in the twinkling of an eye.
Paul then goes on to outline
what will happen at that return.
He says these words over and over.
We see perishable, imperishable, verse 53.
Perishable, imperishable, verse 54.
Or mortal, immortality, verse 53.
Mortal, immortality, verse 54.
Paul's making a point.
He's repeating these things over and over
to hammer home what it is
that we're looking forward to.
We're looking forward to God's restoration
and his renewal.
We face death now.
If we're in Christ, we won't face it forever.
We experience death now.
We will not experience it forever.
Our hope in the face of death
is that the perishable
will be replaced by the imperishable.
The mortal will be replaced by the immortal.
Paul repeats that here over and over
to drive this home.
That we have a hope.
And it's not in what we can do,
but what Jesus will do
when he returns to the earth.
We have that hope
because of his resurrection from the dead.
And so that's what we celebrate now at Easter.
Paul then tells us
that this is going to happen, right?
This perishable, imperishable,
mortal, immortal.
And at that time,
he gives us a quote here.
There's going to be a saying
that's going to come to pass.
Death will be swallowed up in victory.
And we'll say,
oh, death, where's your victory?
Oh, death, where's your sting?
These are quotations
of Old Testament passages.
And you'll remember
when we were in the letter of 1 Peter,
I told you at one point
about the quote from Martin Luther
where he said that
Jesus, after his resurrection,
went and thumbed his nose
at the devil.
This is similar to that.
It's a acknowledgement of the fact
that when Jesus comes back,
we will thumb our noses at death.
We will thumb our noses
at sickness and disease.
And that is going to mean
that our bodies are restored.
And that's part of the emphasis
of this passage.
And the body's restoration
proves the victory.
You'll know there's a logic to victory,
which is that victory
and territory come together.
If you win a battle,
you receive the territory
that goes with it.
Jesus won the battle against death.
He receives the territory
of our bodies
that were under the reign of death.
And so the restoration
of our bodies emphasizes
how complete and total
Jesus' victory is.
It's in that resurrection,
our resurrection,
that we finally thumb
our noses at death.
That taunt, though,
highlights something else for us.
Remember I pointed out
in our congregational prayer
that it says in verse 54,
then shall come to pass.
In other words,
this is not true yet.
We still experience
the sting of death
in some ways in this world.
It is shown by those
who are dead,
and it's already at work
in those who are alive.
It's shown by those
who are dead.
When we know someone
and they pass,
they're deceased,
they die,
that reveals that death
still has some ability
in this world.
And we also experience
it ourselves,
as I mentioned earlier
in our congregational prayer,
when we experience
a weakness.
I came across a story
recently about a man
named Mr. P in Italy,
and Mr. P was being lauded
for the fact that he had
survived the coronavirus.
Now, there are many people
who have survived,
but Mr. P is special
because he's 101 years old.
He was born in the year 1919,
which means that he was born
during the Spanish flu.
He lived through the Holocaust.
Now he survived the coronavirus.
And he's being celebrated, right?
Here's this man
who's an overcomer.
He's a conqueror.
He's going to be able
to beat death so many times.
Man, look at him.
And I don't mean to devalue that.
There is something encouraging
and something that gives us
hope about that.
On the other hand,
when I heard that,
I thought,
that's wonderful.
And Mr. P is still going
to die one day.
Ultimately and finally,
he's not going to be able
to escape death.
He's not going to be able
to escape that sting.
He will not live forever
and neither will you
unless Jesus returns
in our lifetime.
And so the point is this.
No matter how much kale you eat,
you cannot escape death.
No matter how much you exercise
and take care of your body,
you cannot escape death.
No matter how productive you are
and how much you save
for retirement,
you cannot escape death.
No matter how wonderful
of a job you have,
no matter how much fulfillment
you find in that,
you cannot escape death.
Even if you find
a wonderful man or woman
who's compatible with you
and wants to spend
the rest of their life with you,
you cannot escape death.
It is something
that all of us feel
the sting of.
And Paul goes on
to explain why that's so,
why we can't escape it
in verse 56.
He says,
the sting of death is sin
and the power of sin
is the law.
In other words,
no matter what we do,
we're all going to die
and the reason we're all
going to die
is because none of us
can defeat sin.
None of those things
that I listed
can conquer sin.
Eating kale cannot conquer sin.
Exercising cannot conquer sin.
Marrying the right person
cannot conquer sin.
A wonderful and fulfilling job
cannot conquer sin.
There's nothing
that's in our power
that's able
to conquer sin
because death
and sin
are tied together.
Death
is a result of sin.
Death is a result
of our rebellion
against God.
The emphasis here
in this passage
is on physical death,
but of course,
death affects us
spiritually as well.
It affects us
as we experience
broken relationships
with others.
It affects us
as we worship ourselves
rather than God.
It affects us
as we pursue pleasure
even when it hurts
and violates other people.
Death is at work
when we have frustration
and disappointment
rather than peace
and intimacy.
Death's at work
when we have futility
in our work.
It doesn't always
have purpose
and power.
Death is at work
when we use our power
to push other people down
rather than to lift them up.
Death's at work
when we use our anger
to punish other people
rather than to move
towards reconciliation.
Death is at work.
It has power.
We are not able
to defeat it
because it's the product
of sin.
Only Jesus
can defeat death
because only Jesus
is able to defeat sin.
And so that's the hope
that Paul presents
for us here.
On the one hand,
there's a sting, right?
On the other hand,
we'll be able
to taunt death
about that.
And we'll taunt death
about that
not because of anything
that we can do,
have done,
or will do.
But as Paul tells us here,
we are going to taunt death
because of the victory
of Jesus Christ.
That's what he tells us
in verses 56 and 57.
The sting of death is sin
and the power of sin
is the law.
But thanks be to God
who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the victory
that Jesus showed
when he rose from the dead.
And it's the victory
he gives to anyone
and everyone
who repents of their sins
and has faith in him.
Jesus has defeated death.
Those who are in him
will defeat death as well.
And so that's the victory
that Paul offers us.
It's a victory
that's through Jesus
and his conquering of death.
Our hope
as we face death
is in Jesus.
Paul then goes on
to tell us
that that doesn't just
affect our hope
but it affects
our action.
He tells us in verse 58
that if we need to be
steadfast,
immovable,
always abounding
in the work of the Lord
because we know
that in the Lord
our labor is not in vain.
Why is our labor
in the Lord not in vain?
Well, it's because
God is not demolishing
this world
but renewing it
and restoring it.
And so what we do now
matters for the future.
As it says here,
if we do it in the Lord,
if God is restoring the world,
then the work that we do
towards that end matters.
And so we have hope
in the face of death
as we look to the future
and we have hope
in our work
even now.
We have hope
as we have jobs
that we're pushing for
what the Old Testament
calls shalom,
this full-bodied flourishing
of the world.
As we do work
that's towards that end,
that's in the Lord
and his purposes
for this world
that we know
that it matters.
as we're parents
and we raise children
who have a vision
for God in this world
that they have faith
in him
and they're looking
for God's goodness
and his love
to be made known
in this universe,
we know that our work
in that is not in vain.
As we enjoy
the creation
that God has given us,
we give tremendous glory
and honor to him
that points to
an even greater glory
and honor
that we'll be able
to give him
once he returns.
And so we work
and we live
and we play
knowing that those things
are not in vain
as and when
they give glory
and honor to God.
Paul then
gives us tremendous
encouragement
for the future
and for now.
We are not just people
who are looking
to escape this world
but we're people
who love this world
and love it so much
that we long for God
to renew it
and restore it
and we work now
towards that hope,
in that hope.
That victory then,
Jesus' victory
is something
that gives us
hope for the future
and it gives us
encouragement
and energy now.
It's what allows us
to be steadfast
and immovable.
What is our hope
in the face of death?
It's our hope
in Jesus
that he's coming back,
that he's making
all things right
and that we can look
and work towards that
and for that
even now.
It's a hope
that we have
because Jesus
rose from the dead.
And so that's the hope
that we celebrate
at Easter.
It's not a pie
in the sky hope.
hope.
It's not a sweet,
sentimental hope,
but it's a real
time and space hope
because we believe
what we're celebrating
now
is that Jesus
actually died
and he actually
rose from the dead.
And when he did
those things,
he defeated death
and he defeated it
for us.
and so no matter
what happens,
we can have joy
in Christ
knowing that,
moving forward
together,
knowing that his death
has accomplished
that for us
and we can have
faith and trust
in it because
of his resurrection.
In his book,
The Lion,
The Witch,
and the Wardrobe,
I mentioned the Narnia
series last week,
C.S. Lewis,
tells the story
of four children
who are sent
to a professor's house
during World War II
and they find
a wardrobe
that serves
as an entrance
into another world.
It's a world
called Narnia.
But Edmund,
one of the brothers,
betrays his siblings
and so it's determined
that because of that,
because of his sin,
he needs to die.
However,
there's a great lion
and this great lion
is named Aslan
and Aslan decides
that instead of allowing
Edmund to die,
he's going to die
in Edmund's place
and the great lion
kills him.
Susan and Lucy,
Edmund's sisters,
visit the place
where Aslan was killed.
But they don't find
Aslan's dead body.
Instead,
they find Aslan himself,
not dead,
but alive.
And confused,
Susan asks Aslan,
she says,
what does all this mean?
Aslan responds
and says,
it means
that though the witch
knew the deep magic,
there is a magic deeper still
which she did not know.
Her knowledge goes back
only to the dawn of time.
But if she could have looked
a little further back
into the stillness
and darkness
before time dawned,
she would have read there
a different incantation.
She would have known
that when a willing victim
who had committed
no treachery
was killed
in a traitor's stead,
the table would crack
and death itself
would start working backwards.
Brothers and sisters,
Jesus was a willing victim
who had committed
no treachery
and he died
in our stead.
And so at that moment
and even now,
for everyone
who has trust
and faith in him,
death itself
is working backwards.
What is our hope
in the face of death?
Our hope is in Jesus.
And if we are in Jesus,
then we are able
to say this
as we face death
in this world
in the present
and as we look forward
to it in the future.
O death,
where is your victory?
O death,
where is your sting?
Please pray with me.
Our Father in heaven,
we confess to you
that we face
many difficult
and challenging things
in this world
and perhaps nothing
more difficult
and challenging
than death itself.
And so we thank you
that you have given us
a hope beyond death.
You've given us
a hope in Jesus
who has defeated death
for us
and so promises
that it will not sting us.
We pray that you would work
that confidence
and that hope
deep into our hearts
and we pray for those
who do not have faith in you
that you would use
this passage now
to draw them
even at this moment
to confess
that they are sinners
in need of your mercy
and that you are their Lord
and their Savior.
It's because Jesus
is our Lord
and our Savior
that we ask these things.
We don't ask them
in our own merit
or behavior
but we ask them
in his mighty name,
the mighty name of Jesus.
Amen.