Sa aren't you thankful that we are changed because of Christ? Amen. That's really what we've been talking about for the past couple of weeks. Because of the resurrection of. Of Jesus and because of our eventual calling up to be with him, our resurrection from the dead.
He will change us. He is changing us. He has changed us and he will change us. He will transform us again and again and again. The Lord is in the transformation business.
And those truths that we've been learning help us to be what Paul calls steadfast and immovable. These truths that we've been studying, this idea that we are changed are being changed and will be changed in Christ. Give us something so strong, something so firm to face to face whatever life throws at us, to be steadfast and immovable. We have hope beyond hope in Christ, that no matter what comes, no matter what trials we face, no matter the storms of life, no matter what this world throws at us, no matter what relationships throw at us, no matter what our jobs throw at us, no matter what shifting sand is in our lives, we can be steadfast, firmly planted, unable to be moved because of Christ and his resurrection. Oh God, let it be for my life.
Let that be true for me, Lord. Be steadfast and immovable. Not because of me, Lord, but because of my trust in you, O Lord, in Jesus name. In this passage, Paul gives us three things that Jesus does for us to help us be steadfast and immovable. God, speak to our hearts today.
Let us pray together the prayer on the screen as we get ready to receive the word of the Lord. Lord, help us to be humble enough to hear your word and help us to respond to you in joy as we apply your word to our lives. Amen. Would you stand, if you're able, and read with me? First Corinthians 15, verse 50 through 58.
Just a few verses to see what Paul is saying here that can be true for our lives. Steadfast and immovable. Speak, Lord. What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption. Listen.
I am telling you a mystery. We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this corruptible body must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body must be clothed with immortality. When this corruptible body is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place.
Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where death is your victory, where death 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. Amen.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord's work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.
Three things we see in this passage about this change, about this incorruptibility, about this steadfast and immovable idea is that the Lord, the Lord Jesus clothes us with new clothes. He gives us new clothing. That's the first point. Jesus clothes us with new clothes. Paul describes what life will be like in the moment of resurrection.
At Jesus return. He says, we're called up to meet him in the twinkling of an eye. And to do that, we will need to be changed. And that's what he's talking about, this transformation yet to come in our hearts, in our lives. We talked about that last week, about how our bodies will be changed at the resurrection.
Now, I want to just go back to what I said. I only heard one person give me a little bit of grief on it. They were messing with me. I said last week, who knows? We might be able to fly.
Do you remember that? I said we. We might be able to fly.
I'm not the only one who thinks that, by the way. So I've been reading C.S. lewis, the Chronicles of Narnia, and I've been reading through it. This is one of those things that's debatable. People will debate how you should read it.
All right, this time I read it from book one all the way to book seven. Okay? Some will say that you shouldn't do that. All right? Some would say you should start with the Chronicles of Narnia, the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, which is the first book he wrote.
But I love the Magician's Nephew. It's one of my favorites. And he wrote that afterwards. But it. Anyway, this is not the point.
I'm really on a tangent here. I read the Last Battle, which is book seven, recently, and what book seven is doing. What C.S. lewis is doing in that book is he is giving a picture of his own imagination, which, you know, a guy who wrote the lion with the Witch and the Wardrobe has a vivid imagination, right? But he gives his idea of what his imagination came up with for what heaven looks like.
Essentially, that's what the book culminates with is the last battle ends. Aslan wins and they're all called up to go further in and further up, further up and further in. And it's just this picture. And I just want you to know in that book they swim up a waterfall. So I'm like, we might fly.
Just me and CS Lewis. We got this going. It is in my notes. It really has nothing to do with today, but I just want you to know I'm not the only one that thinks, who knows what we can do? Who knows what we'll be able to do.
They were able to run without tiring in the last battle. And that would be awesome because I start running and I get tired real quick. Paul, in the passage let's get back to the scripture, Paul here switches to use this idea of using clothing to explain why our old corruptible clothing must be changed into new incorruptible clothes. Now this is not the first time the scripture nor Paul uses the idea of clothing to convey something non physical necessarily being put on you or I gives us this idea, this picture. Think about it.
Paul tells us in Ephesians to put on the full armor of God, right? That's. That is, he gives the imagery of putting on the armor. We are told throughout Scripture that the old has been taken off of us. The old clothing, the old way, the old man, the old woman, and a new creation, a new clothing has been put on us.
Paul constantly uses this idea of clothing to help us to understand what the Lord does in our lives spiritually and in this case, in actuality, he takes away our corruptability, our mortality. It is the old that is taken off while the new is placed on us. The resurrection. Because of Christ's resurrection and his power, there are things that you and I already have that have been put on us, not just figuratively, but spiritually, in our lives. The Bible tells us that we are clothed with righteousness.
And I love the picture of that because, see, I couldn't go out and shop for righteousness. That is human. It takes God Almighty taking off my righteousness and putting on his. You and I are righteous not because we did anything to deserve it, earn it, or make it available to ourselves. Christ has robed us in righteousness.
He has taken off the old and replaced it with the new.
In revelation, it tells us that in the heavens, in the kingdom of God, when it is to come, that we will be robed in sparkling white arraignment that we will be wearing incorruptible clothing. White, pure. The same as that that Christ himself wears. You didn't earn that. I didn't earn that.
Nothing that we could do could get that clothing for ourselves.
It'd be like me walking in to some store on Rodeo Drive or something, you know, and saying, hey, I want the most expensive watch that you have here. You know, they're like, it tells me, whatever the price it is, who knows? And I would say, do you have a layaway plan? You know, like, for the rest of my life? There is no layaway plan.
And some of you are like, what does that even mean? Right? Some of these folks have no idea what a layaway. You just charge it now. But used to.
I remember this. You could lay away. My parents, I think every year our Christmas gifts were on layaway. We had to go. Once I was old enough to know what was happening, we.
We went and got those. I remember that. So layaway. There's no layaway plan in heaven. You can't do anything to eventually garner enough in your account to be able to purchase the white, glistening righteous robes that Christ offers.
There's nothing you and I could do to do what Paul is saying here either. We must die to ourselves and be changed by him to receive these new clothes. He tells us two things in this passage, that we are clothed with two things. So if you have these, these will be sub points. The first point, Jesus clothes us with new clothes.
The two sub points. Number one, incorruptibility. What does that mean? If you look at the Greek, it helps us to understand that it's the inability to be destroyed. The inability to.
To be destroyed.
We will get indestructible clothing. Our new bodies will be clothed in indestructibility. That might be why we could fly, who knows? Or swim up waterfalls or run without tiring. You see, sin.
We live in a world where sin still reigns, even in us. Paul tells us in Romans 7 Very clearly, we're still battling with our flesh, still battling with our sinful tendencies, even as Christians. So sin still reigns. And sin's ultimate job is to destroy us. And Paul says the law only helps it to eventually destroy us.
It gives way to the destruction it has in our lives. And you know this. You know this intuitively. You know that sin destroys. You know that pride breaks down.
You know that sin interrupts our lives in so many different ways. You've seen people struggling with different sinful tendencies, and you've seen the Destruction it's had in their lives. You possibly have seen that even in your own life. The tendencies that we have to constantly fight in our own lives. And Paul says, I got to put those things to me to death every day in my life.
You and I have to be killing sin or it would be killing us. Sin destroys. And we've seen the effects of that. We've seen relationships harmed because sin has been allowed to reign in the life of those that it's harming. Sin destroys, pride destroys.
And this body, because of sin's inevitability, because of sin's pervasiveness, we live in a sin sick world and we are becoming, these bodies are becoming more and more destroyed, but not the resurrection. No longer will we be destructible, we will be incorruptible. So incorruptibility means the inability to be destroyed. The second thing that Jesus clothes us with in the resurrection is immortality. Puts away.
He puts away our mortality, our mortal lives, he puts away this mortal body, but he clothes it with immortality. And you may think that you know what that means, but let me just give you a little bit more insight to help you understand what it means in the Greek. And that is that it is the inability to be dead, to be immortal is the inability to be dead, unable to die. When our bodies are raised in Christ, we will never die again. Let that blow your mind for just a moment.
We will be immortal, never able to die again. So we're clothed with new clothes. The second thing Jesus does is he removes the sting of death and sin. He removes the sting, he takes out the barbs. With this new clothing, we're able to resonate with Isaiah's prophecy and Hosea's prophecy that Paul is quoting here.
You'll see in your text. You'll see those are either bolded or indented. And what it means is that Paul is pulling out of the Old Testament prophecies of Isaiah and Hosea in this statement that he's saying, this is what we were looking for. This is what was going to happen all along. They knew it, they've been prophesying and it will be true in Christ with this new clothing.
And that is death has no victory over you at all. It has no power in your life. Death has no sting any longer. The barbs of this old corruptible death destined bodies have been removed by Jesus in the resurrection. Death for Christians is of no consequence.
Jesus death and subsequent resurrection are our eternal hope. You can face the inevitability of passing from this life and because of your dependence on Jesus, it doesn't have to hurt you. Friend. Are you fearful of what awaits you at the end of your life? If the uncertainty has you concerned, that's normal.
But it need not be so you can trust in Jesus. Death and resurrection over your life. He defeated death and sin and hell and the grave. And he defeated it for you, and he defeated it from me. So that we can know where we will be in the life to come.
So that we don't have to hope so, but that we can know. So we can know what awaits us in the end. Oh, friend, run to Jesus. Run to Jesus. Run to his life and resurrection.
Run to the hope that we have in Him. You don't have to worry about this old world any longer. You don't have to worry about death or sin or hell or the grave. Run to Jesus. Let go of this old world.
There's life unimaginable at the end of the road. And Jesus has purchased it for you. So you can go further up and further in to Christ and further up and further in to the life he placed available to you and I. The eternal hope we can have, we can have in Him. Place your hope in Jesus today.
You don't have to wait till tomorrow. Please don't wait till tomorrow. Don't think, oh, I'll get that right later. I have more time. You know not what awaits you at the rest of this day, much less the rest of this life.
That's why scripture says today is the day of salvation. Come to to him today, if you haven't already. The third thing we see here is Jesus helps us to excel in his work. I love the purpose found in this last point. Paul says we can be steadfast and immovable.
Do you know what steadfast means in the Greek?
It means that you can't be budged, moved or whatever. But it has this idea of sedentary. And so the picture that I got in my mind as I'm studying, I'm thinking about what is steadfast. I just have in my mind that somehow because of Christ working in my life, I have the ability to be concreted into the ground and unable to be moved. We had a team that built a ramp for a young man who's been battling cancer.
We built it Friday and Saturday. We dug holes, we put some posts in there, put concrete all around it and put water until that concrete solidified. You can move that stuff around. Of course you didn't want to because it all had to be square so that everything would be safe when we are steadfast. But you know what?
Saturday morning, it was dry. You couldn't budge it. You couldn't budget. And you and I, when we are in Christ and we put our hope in him, it's like we're concreted into the ground. Nothing can move us.
And Paul, it's a little redundant. It's two different words. But he says, be steadfast and immovable. That idea of immovable, it's a little redundant. It's kind of like, you know, you and I saying two different words that mean the exact same thing for emphasis, but it really means that you are unable to be moved at all.
And so Paul says that we can be steadfast and immovable when all of life comes crashing in on us, we're strong.
We can't be moved. But what I'm fearful of, sometimes as Christians, we take that to mean that we should shy away from the world, go into hiding, if you will. That's not what it means. Paul says, hey, because of the Resurrection, be steadfast and immovable. In the midst of the world.
You got work to do. He says, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord's work. You see what we're supposed to do? We're not supposed to go into some cave and hide away, away from the world and get out of, you know, dodge and just. We just, you know, just let me live my life in private.
Let me not, you know, just. I'll live my life. You live your life and you live your truth, and I'll live my truth. That's a lie from the depths of hell. You and I, as Christians, are meant to go into the midst of the world and be planted firmly in Christ so that we're immovable.
But we got work to do. We have work to do to share the truth of the Resurrection with the rest of the world that's dying and going to an eternal hell, separated from Christ. And he doesn't want that. That's why we live and breathe. And in his resurrection, we have work to do.
And we are steadfast and immovable. We're not budging. We're not going to the left, we're not going to the right. We're staying strong in Christ, but we're staying strong in the face of all the things that are facing us, to share the beauty of the hope that people can have in Christ and Him alone.
If Jesus came in today, it's not going to happen, but let's just say it Were. And he was going to write a report card on you and me, evaluating our work, would he say that we were excelling? Or would your card read like my card? Needs improvement. Needs improvement.
Friends, we have the resurrected life only found in Christ Jesus.
And we have a transformation awaiting us, unimaginable. But we have Christ now, today, in the midst of a world that desperately needs to hear that message. And we have work to do. We have work to do to share the love of Christ with those who are dying, perishing. So would you be steadfast and immovable today, excelling in the Lord's work, sharing with whom you may share with, you know what you may think, gosh, how do I do that?
How do I. I don't know what to do there. I don't know what to say. Let me say you don't have to have a seminary degree. I promise you, you don't.
You don't have to have a theological education. You don't have to have a certain number of Bible verses memorized.
Everybody in this room has been impacted by Jesus. Everyone has the ability to pray. You can pray for someone. God can do more through your prayers.
He works. Prayer changes things. The Lord can use your prayers so you can pray. Everybody can pray. Everybody can invite someone.
81% of people are likely to receive an invitation and come to church if someone would just ask them. 81%, that's pretty good odds. So you can invite someone and you can tell your story. You don't have to know all the theology, you don't have to know every single Bible verse, but you know what the Lord's done for you. You can share that.
Everyone can pray, everyone can invite, and everyone can tell their story. So let's pray and ask God to help us, help us to excel and be steadfast in the move. Would you pray with me? And our worship team and deacons are going to come as we prepare to take the Lord's supper. God, help us to be steadfast and immovable, always excelling in the Lord's work.
Paul says there's nothing that can hinder it.
So God, would you help us, Lord, to see what we can do, to invite, to pray, to tell a story, but at the same time, God, would you help us, Lord, to live out of that hope, out of that resurrected life in Christ and be steadfast and immovable when all the things of life come our way? God, Lord, would you help us to share? Lord, I pray if anybody's here today and needs to trust you as Savior, Lord, they'd do that today. They'd come to Jesus who has eternal life, and they'd receive it today. God, Lord, we need you to work and move in these next moments.
Lord, would you do that? Pray this in Jesus name. Amen. We're going to come to the Lord's table today, as we do once a month. And I just want to say there's a cup, there's a couple cups here, got a piece of bread, got some juice, some grape juice.
And if we're not careful, this will just be some kind of symbol for us. This has power. This has power, number one. We shouldn't take it lightly. We shouldn't take it in an unworthy manner.
Paul tells us we've learned this earlier in Our study of First Corinthians 1 Corinthians 11. To not receive this in an unworthy manner. I'd pray, I'd ask you to, in just a moment, to prayerfully consider what sin may be in your life. It's unconfessed. What unresolved relationships may be in your life, anything that could be causing you to receive these elements in an unworthy manner.
There's power in these symbols because the bread represents the body of Christ. It was offered up on the cross for you and me.
The. The incorruptible Christ made himself corruptible, able to die. The immortal Christ laid aside heaven for a period of time to come and put on a mortal body.
And he died. To all of that. He really died, but he really rose again.
And what was temporarily mortal, temporarily corruptible. The body of Christ was raised to incorruptibility again and immortality again. And that bread represents that in your life. And so when you and I take a visit that we are acknowledging in a spiritual way, I am identified with Christ's death and his resurrection. When we drink the cup, we are identifying with the blood that Jesus spilled on the cross.
We're identifying with his death, his love, his covenant for you and I. And that his covenant was sealed and completed not just with his death, but with his resurrection. You see, it all intertwines. There's power in it for you today. Be careful taking it in an unworthy way.
There's power in a different way as well, so be very cautious. But in just a moment, we'll pass these out, we'll receive them, and we'll identify ourselves with what Christ has done. And I pray that it is impactful for your life today.