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If you have a Bible with you this morning and you’d like to follow along with the sermon text, I invite you to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 12-34.
— Pastor Adriel Reads the Passage —
Let’s pray.
Father, I pray once again for Your help this morning and ask, Lord, that by the power of Your Holy Spirit You would work in our midst. Help us once again, Lord, to receive these words not as the words of men, but as they truly are—Your very Word to us. Help us to grasp once again this morning the reality of the fact that Your Son Jesus is risen from the dead, together with all of the implications of that great truth.
We confess to You, O God, how desperately we need You—how desperately we need Your help and Your presence to enable us, Lord, to set aside all earthly cares and distractions and to fix our eyes upon the truth once again. And so we pray that You’d be with us, that You would help us, Lord. We ask these things in Jesus’ name.
Amen.Well, I’m coming up on—if you can believe it—some of you have been at this church since we planted it—I’m coming up on (I’m actually north of) around 500 sermons. Having preached 500 sermons, I was trying to do the math last night: how many words is that? If I put it all together, I think it would be millions of words. It’s amazing how much work I’ve done—no, but seriously, north of 500 sermons!
And just to be totally honest with you, almost inevitably on Saturday night, as I’m still thinking about the sermon, I almost want to just take my sermon and throw it away. This is something that happens regularly. It’s not because I don’t work on it all week long or because I’m not thinking about it, preparing, and studying. It’s because, almost inevitably, there’s this great sense I feel: how can whatever it is that I’ve put together, whatever it is that I’ve produced, how can it possibly capture the grandeur, the wonder, of what God’s Word is telling us here?
You think about what the Apostle Paul is saying—this is something I feel every week. I feel it especially on Sundays like last Sunday and this Sunday, trying to wrap our minds around this reality that Paul is talking about: that Christ is risen from the dead. The implications of that great truth—the fact that it’s so easy for us, as Christians, as people who are followers of Jesus, to lose sight of this great reality, that death has been conquered.
And that this means something for us—for me and for you—right now, in the present, and also into the future. It means something for the world. How do you grasp that?
You think about the Apostle Paul here in this text, as he pleads with this church—with this group of believers that is beginning to question this great truth, as we all can sometimes. There are some things, if you’re a parent, that you hear your kids say that really make you panic, that make you nervous.
When they’re little—we just got back from camping with some of the boys for a couple of nights—and after camping, you never want to hear your kids say, “My head is itchy,” especially when you’re in tick territory and have been warning them to stay away from the ticks!
Similarly, if your kids say something like, “I was sick, but don’t worry, I cleaned it up already”—you know that’s bad news. Or, depending on where you are, “I have to use the bathroom” can cause you to panic as a parent.
As they get older, there are other things that can cause you to panic—things they say as they’re maturing and forming their own opinions. Words like, “I don’t want to go to church,” or, “I don’t know if I believe in God.” Words that can make a parent’s heart drop.
It’s easy for parents to get frustrated. I think for Christian parents in particular, if there’s one thing we want for our children, it’s for them to know and love Jesus. So when they begin to ask these kinds of questions, there can be a lot of fear. We can become unsettled.
Now of course, those kinds of questions are okay. It’s good to talk through what we believe. They can be opportunities for our faith to be nourished and flourish even further. But if you know that feeling, when a loved one—a child, a friend, a family member—says things that begin to raise flags for you about Jesus (“I don’t know if I believe in Jesus anymore” or “I don’t know if I need to go to church”), and you get anxious or afraid, I think you can understand how the Apostle Paul feels here.
He’s sort of like a dad to the Corinthian church. He helped to plant this church. He was there during their infancy, nourishing them with the milk of God’s Word, encouraging them to grow. And as they are growing in Christ, now they’re beginning to ask questions—questions that no doubt cause Paul to feel nervous and anxious.
They begin to say things like, “There is no resurrection of the dead.” Again, verse 12: “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?”
This is the kind of talk that would make any parent—or any pastor—start to panic. The Corinthians are questioning the fundamental truth of the Christian faith: the fact that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. They are beginning to doubt the bodily resurrection.
And Paul, like any good father, doesn’t want to panic. But he does want to come alongside them and provide some fatherly wisdom and guidance. He wants his children in the faith to understand the implications of their new way of thinking—at least those among them who are saying there is no resurrection.
Now, just a brief note on the structure of this passage: this text is sort of like a sandwich. Verses 12–19 and verses 29–34 are the “bread” of the sandwich—the outside. There, Paul is really emphasizing the present implications of this truth on our lives: how the resurrection should cause us to live now.
Then, the “meat” of the sandwich—verses 20 through 28—is all about the reality of Jesus’ present reign and what that means for the future of the world. Again, this great truth, together with all its implications.
So we’re going to deconstruct the sandwich a little: first, we’ll focus on the outside, and then we’ll look at the middle. But first, the outside—the present implications of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus.
Most scholars agree that for the Corinthians, the issue was not questioning life after death. That was a pretty common assumption in the ancient world; most believed in some kind of life after death. They probably even affirmed that Jesus rose again from the dead. They weren’t denying Jesus’ resurrection. What they were beginning to question was whether or not there would be a future bodily resurrection of believers.
They were saying, “There is no resurrection from the dead.”
Because for many years, Christians—especially evangelical Christians—have often talked about salvation primarily as “going to heaven when I die,” we can sometimes picture salvation or heaven as being about dying and floating up into the clouds, disembodied, to be with God in a state of bliss forever.
But that is not the ultimate Christian hope.
As Christians, we believe that through faith in Christ, when we die, our bodies go into the ground, and our souls go to be in the presence of the Lord. But that is not the ultimate or final state.
We believe that God is going to raise the bodies of every human who has ever lived. Some will be raised to everlasting life, and some will be raised to everlasting destruction.
In other words, there is a restoration—a resurrection—of the physical world. Our bodies are included in this.
Here’s how Jesus Himself—the Son of God—put it in John chapter 5:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself.
And He has given Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man.
Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come out:
those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”
So again, salvation for the Christian isn’t just the hope of heaven when we die. It’s the hope of the restoration of the physical world, ravaged by the effects of the Fall—including our very bodies.
This is what Jesus taught. It’s what the Apostle Paul and all the apostles after him taught. It’s what the Corinthians were beginning to question.
And that’s why Paul is so concerned. That’s why he spends this entire chapter focusing on the resurrection—and why he wants them to understand the implications of their doubts:
If there is no resurrection of the dead, and Jesus did not rise from the dead—what does that mean for us?
In these verses, especially the first part of this text, he’s trying to paint a picture of what a world without the resurrection would look like.
You know, Easter doesn’t really have “Easter movies”—at least I don’t think there are Easter movies the way there are Christmas movies, right? Like, everybody has Christmas movies they like, that they watch every year as a kind of tradition. I don’t think there’s anything like that for Easter.
My favorite Christmas movie—if my kids will let me watch it, because they think it’s boring now—is It’s a Wonderful Life. I cry every single time I watch it, and the kids make fun of me.
If you haven’t seen it yet, it follows the life of George Bailey, who’s generally a good person, but he can’t seem to catch a break. He’d like to travel the world; he’s ambitious and has dreams. But a sense of obligation to serve his family and his community, a place called Bedford Falls, keeps him tied down. He reluctantly takes over his dad’s business, the Building and Loan, so that a greedy man who lives in town—Mr. Potter—doesn’t steal all that his family had worked so hard to build.
A series of unfortunate events leads George to the brink of despair and even suicide. He comes to the conclusion that the world would be better off if he had never existed. It’s at that point that there’s a sort of divine intervention. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that God sends an angel named Clarence to George.
Essentially, Clarence helps George see what the world would have been like if he had never been born. “George, if you weren’t here, here’s what the world would look like.” Bedford Falls—the community he had served sacrificially—would have turned into a place called Pottersville, named after that greedy man. It would be a town rife with alcohol, adult entertainment—a really run-down place.
His little brother Harry would have died young, drowning in a lake early in life—because George wasn’t there to save him. His father’s business would have been taken over by Mr. Potter, and countless families that were helped by the Building and Loan would have been left high and dry. Mr. Gower, the town pharmacist, would have become an alcoholic, crushed by a mistake he had made earlier—prescribing the wrong medicine and causing someone’s death. George had been there to catch that mistake, to save the day, but without him, disaster would have struck.
Without George Bailey, the world would have been a much darker place. That’s Clarence’s point. Thanks to that angel, George is able to see his true worth.
In a similar way, the Apostle Paul, here in 1 Corinthians 15, is like Clarence. He’s trying to help the Corinthians see what the world would be like without the resurrection.
And in short, Paul says: it’s Pottersville. It’s worse than Pottersville.
“My preaching would have been totally in vain. Everything we do as Christians—if Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead, if there is no future resurrection—is worthless. Going to church is worthless. Praying is worthless. Confessing the faith—it doesn’t matter.”
And Paul even says, “I have committed a kind of perjury against God.”
Remember, earlier in this text, Paul testifies that Jesus has risen from the dead. He gives eyewitness testimony and marshals others to the stand to say Jesus Christ is truly risen. He says, “Look, if Jesus didn’t rise, if that didn’t actually happen, then I’ve perjured myself before God. I’ve committed a great crime.”
What’s worse: your sins—if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead—the sins you thought were lifted off you are still attached to you.
Verse 17 says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”
One thing I love about that is the objectivity of our forgiveness. Oftentimes, as Christians, we can struggle with the feeling of, “Am I forgiven? I don’t feel forgiven.” But Paul doesn’t tie the forgiveness of your sins to how you feel. He ties it to something objective in history: whether or not Jesus rose from the dead.
So whether you feel it or not, you are either still in your sins—if Christ did not rise—or your sins have been removed—if he did.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? Because we typically tie the removal of our sins to the death of Jesus. But here, Paul points to the resurrection. We are united to Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit both in His death and in His resurrection.
In His death, Jesus bore the penalty that our sins deserved, and we receive that grace by faith. But He didn’t just die for our sins—He rose again!
The Bible says we too have been raised with Christ, and that means for you, as a believer, sin no longer has dominion over your life.
You will struggle with sin—we all will until the day we die—but death and sin are no longer your masters because, in Christ, you have died to them.
This is why Paul says in Romans 6:11: “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
A world where Jesus did not rise from the dead, Paul says, is a world in which we are still dead in our sins, rather than dead to our sins and alive to God.
Paul then adds: “All those who have died as Christians—if there’s no resurrection—have perished.” (Verse 18.)
In other words, we have no hope beyond the grave. We lose the hope that our loved ones who died in Christ are actually with God, that they will be raised bodily. We lose the hope that our sins are forgiven.
Again, if Jesus didn’t rise, we are in Pottersville—and it’s only going to get worse.
Now, the other side of the sandwich—this bread doesn’t taste very good, right? This is not the kind of sandwich you want.
Paul says in verse 29:
“Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?”
This verse has confused a lot of people. Some of you may not know this, but Mormons—the LDS church—practice something called baptisms for the dead, or proxy baptisms. That’s where someone is baptized on behalf of a dead relative.
You can go to their church and say, “Hey, my grandfather passed away; I’d like someone to be baptized for him.” They often point to this verse and say, “See? In the apostolic church, there were baptisms for the dead.”
There are a couple ways to understand this passage, but let’s assume for a moment that it is talking about living people being baptized for the dead.
Notice how specific Paul’s language is. He doesn’t say we are baptized for the dead. He says they.
“What do they mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead?”
Paul is likely pointing out an erroneous practice to show how even it doesn’t make sense without belief in the resurrection. It’s as if he’s saying: “You guys are even trying to baptize people on behalf of the dead, but you don’t believe the dead rise? You’re confused.”
Then Paul brings it home personally. He appeals to his own life:
“If the dead don’t rise, then man, I have been a complete fool.”
Every day, Paul says, “I die for Christ’s sake.”
One commentator put it like this:
It’s like Paul says, “Each day, I court fatality. I am on the very edge of death day by day. My belief in the resurrection has left me poor, hungry, beaten, and betrayed.”
Paul says, “Do you think I endure these things because I get something out of it? Because it’s fun?”
This is why when people say, “Oh, the apostles invented Christianity to get power, wealth, and control,” it sounds ridiculous.
If you know Paul’s life, you know better.
He spells it out in 2 Corinthians:
“Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night; in hunger and thirst, often without food; in cold and exposure.”
And apart from all that, Paul says, “there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”
Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?
Paul says: “I’ve been whipped, beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, constantly in danger—danger, danger, danger! Sleepless nights, hunger, cold—and on top of all that, I’m constantly worried about you and your spiritual health.”
This is why Paul says in verse 19:
“If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
Think about how pitiful Paul’s life would be if there were no resurrection: shipwrecked, starving, beaten, hated—and for what?
Yet Paul endures it all for the sake of the Gospel—because he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is truly risen.
It’s worth asking: Are we only willing to follow Jesus when it costs us nothing?
There’s a kind of false Christianity out there that turns Jesus into a personal cheerleader. He doesn’t ask anything of you; he’s just there to affirm whatever you want.
In that religion, Jesus is not the sovereign Lord of the cosmos who conquered sin and death. He’s just your heavenly buddy. He’s certainly not worth fighting beasts in Ephesus for!
Paul refers there to a riot that happened in Ephesus, where he endured serious danger. And yet Paul, having encountered the grace, mercy, and love of the risen King, says:
“Jesus, my life is yours. Whatever you want. Wherever you call me—through the lowest valley or up the steepest hill—I will follow you.”
Compared to the burden of sin you have lifted off of me, following you is light.
A few chapters before Paul listed his sufferings, he wrote in 2 Corinthians:
“For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory.”
The Risen Christ and Our Hope of Glory
It’s hard to imagine how Paul could call being beaten with rods, whipped on several occasions, shipwrecked, hungry, and exposed to the elements a “light and momentary affliction,” but he does.
The reason he’s able to is because he knows it’s momentary—and he knows Jesus is truly risen from the dead.
The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ means that no matter what hardship we face on earth, everything, in the end, is going to be okay.
Jesus has unraveled death and hell. He is reigning right now from heaven, as Paul says.
In closing, the “meat” of the sandwich in 1 Corinthians 15:20–28 is this:
Paul says,
“We don’t live in Pottersville. Jesus Christ has been risen from the dead. He is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
He’s using an agricultural metaphor here—a farming metaphor.
The firstfruits are the very first part of the harvest.
What separates the firstfruits from the rest of the harvest is simply an interval of time.
Paul is saying Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection harvest.
The only difference between His resurrection and ours, which is coming, is a matter of time.
Our resurrection is going to be just like the resurrection of the Lord Jesus!
We are going to be glorified.
Our bodies are going to be glorified.
Just as all mankind fell in Adam, because of what Christ has done, we have the hope of resurrection glory.
Ultimately, Jesus is bringing us to a world where:
There is no longer any trace of death and sin,
Every tear is wiped away,
Every injustice is dealt with.
That’s why Paul can call the afflictions of this world “light and momentary.”
Oh, brothers and sisters, to truly grasp with our hearts that Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead—what that means for us—is staggering!
We are no longer in our sins.
We have the hope of everlasting life.
Jesus is in control right now.
It’s that reality that enables us to persevere.
You’ll notice that verse 26 is placed between two quotations from the Book of Psalms.
1 Corinthians 15:25 says:
“Jesus must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.”
That’s a quotation from Psalm 110:1–2, where David says:
“The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’ The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter; rule in the midst of your enemies.”
Paul is proclaiming that Jesus is the fulfillment of Psalm 110—
the King who is reigning now in the midst of His enemies,
and who will ultimately be victorious over all of them.
Then, verse 27 echoes Psalm 8:
“God has put all things in subjection under His feet.”
This takes us back to the early chapters of Genesis, where God gave Adam dominion over all creation.
Paul is saying: Jesus is reigning right now from heaven, and ultimately, He is undoing death itself.
Already, Jesus has gained the victory over the grave.
Because He rose, we know without a doubt: He will not fail in His mission.
Since Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead:
Our sins have been obliterated.
Our hope is sure.
Our future is secure.
Our philosophy as Christians isn’t,
“Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
Rather, it is:
“Let’s die to self every day and live unto Christ.”
May God fortify our hearts and minds, keep us from deception, and help us to cling to this precious doctrine with all our lives.
Let us wake up, as Paul urges, from our spiritual drowsiness.
Let us be vigilant against sin, asking God to make us increasingly aware of it in our lives.
May we be convicted by His Spirit and turn from our sins.
Brothers and sisters,
Let’s bow before the majesty of our risen King, pledging once again our lives in allegiance to Him—with holy reverence and awe.
Let Us Pray
Father in heaven,
Do help us, Lord God, as your people, to grasp these life-changing truths:
That our sins have been removed right now,
That we are alive from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit,
That one day this world—still experiencing the effects of sin and the fall—will be completely and fully restored.
You, O God, are going to raise us up in glory and restore all things,
So that the afflictions of this world are light and momentary compared to the eternal weight of glory that you are providing for us.
Help us, O God, to truly believe these things and to live in accordance with them—
To fix our eyes upon these promises and to hold them fast.
We pray in the mighty name of Jesus,
Amen.
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If you have a Bible with you this morning and you’d like to follow along with the sermon text, I invite you to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. First Corinthians is in the New Testament, one of Paul’s letters—1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1–11.
— Pastor Adriel Reads the Passage —
Let’s pray.
Our gracious Father in heaven, we do pray that the Spirit of the risen Christ would be in our midst this morning—especially through the preaching of Your Word. I ask, Lord God, that You would help us to truly grasp the great wonder and implications of the fact that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.
Lord Jesus, I pray that You would meet with each person here today by the power of Your Holy Spirit. That through Your Word, You would be at work in our lives. Lord, that You would help us to know You. Be with us, bless us, we pray—in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Okay, so if you’re visiting us this morning, our church has been going through this letter—Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians. And so, it’s really God’s providence, actually, that we find ourselves in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 today. That’s where we are as we’ve been going through this book.
A really perfect passage for Easter, as the Apostle Paul is talking here about the reality of the resurrection of Jesus.
The Corinthian church—this group of Christians in the ancient city of Corinth—was wrestling with this question of the resurrection. This question of Easter.
Now, I was not raised in the Christian church or in going to church frequently. And so Easter was always kind of a mystery to me.
I remember as a kid growing up, every Easter our family would go to the park. We’d set up tables at the park—always a big gathering, lots of Mexican family, a huge spread of food on the tables.
I knew each of us was going to get an Easter basket—chocolate bunnies for some reason were always part of the holiday. We would do those confetti-filled eggs that we’d smash on our cousins’ heads. That was always a lot of fun.
And, of course, there was the Easter egg hunt. In my family, one egg in particular—the golden egg—always had a special prize in it. Usually something like a $20 bill or something like that. And of course, for a six-year-old, that’s a lot of money.
So we kids would scour the park for the golden egg while trying to pick up as many of the other eggs as we could. Why we did this, I could not tell you. I didn’t know what Easter was. I wasn’t sure what was going on—what the holiday was all about.
And the reality is, a lot of people actually wonder about that—about the tie, the connection.
There are some people who say, “You know, the Christian church sort of adopted this idea of decorative eggs from pagans—ancient fertility rituals.”
Probably, if you’re wondering about the connection, it’s tied to the fact that during Lent—the season leading up to Easter, a time when many Christian traditions fast—eggs would not be eaten. So you’d have all these eggs that were stored away leading up to Easter. And instead of eating them, they were often decorated and, in some traditions, presented to the church as a kind of offering. That’s where the Easter egg came from—maybe.
And in terms of the Easter egg hunt—before you throw that out and think, “Ah, that’s just silly”—there’s some indication that none other than the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther himself, in Germany, was the first to organize an Easter egg hunt for his congregation.
The women and children would search for the eggs as a kind of nod to the women who found the empty tomb.
So, all that to say: Easter egg hunts have a rich Reformation history!
Now, we’re not going to do one in the service—but who knows, maybe?
It is unfortunate, though, that there is so much confusion about Easter and about what’s celebrated on this day. Because you know, Paul—he’s focused, right? He’s got this laser focus on what Easter is really all about: the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
For him, it is the central tenet of the Christian faith. There is no more important truth than this truth. And it’s integral to what we as Christians call the Gospel.
Easter is an integral part of the Gospel.
So this morning, what I’d like to do is briefly remind you of that Gospel—as Paul says here in verse one. What is it? Where does it come from? And then, highlight a few reasons why you should believe it—why we should embrace the Easter message as God’s people.
Now, Paul is very clear about wanting to do this for the church. Again, he’s writing to a group of Christians, and he says to them—as you can see there in verse one:
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel…”
He’s been writing to them now for 15 chapters, and he gets to this very high point in the book. He’s addressing a great issue, both in these verses and in the verses that follow, with regard to the resurrection. The Corinthians were beginning to have questions about whether or not Jesus actually rose from the dead.
And so Paul says, “Hold on. Let’s take a step back. Let me remind you of the gospel.”
Now, before you say, “Man, again? The gospel again? Don’t we talk about this every Sunday? We should—you know—we can move on from that now,” let’s consider: how do you define the gospel?
Let me just say, there are some things that we oftentimes miss about the gospel. And one thing, actually, that a lot of people aren’t aware of is this: did you know that there’s one prophet in the Old Testament, in particular, who—more than any other prophet in the Bible—is someone many scholars think helps to set the stage for this idea of what the gospel is?
He was writing some 600 years before the Apostle Paul wrote what he wrote here. And he said this:
“Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion!
Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city.
For there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean.
Shake yourself from the dust and arise; be seated, O Jerusalem.
Loose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.”
This is the prophet Isaiah, and he’s writing to the people of God who had been basically crushed—ground to dust—by the nations. They’d been exiled. Their city had been destroyed. And he’s speaking to them, saying:
“It’s time to wake up. To get dressed.
It’s time to shake the dust off yourself.
To remove the shackles of your slavery.
Something very good is about to happen.”
And that’s when he says this—this is Isaiah chapter 52:
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news” (that’s the word gospel),
“Who publishes peace,
Who brings good news of happiness,
Who publishes salvation,
Who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’
The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice;
Together they sing for joy.
Eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion.”
In other words, a messenger is coming. Everybody is going to see the return of the Lord God Almighty to Zion. You guys have been crushed, ground to dust—but God is going to come back. And this is an announcement of good news, of gospel:
“Break forth into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem,
For the Lord has comforted His people;
He has redeemed Jerusalem.
The Lord has bared His holy arm before the eyes of all the nations,
And all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”
This is really the origin of that word—from a biblical perspective: the word gospel. It helps us define what we mean when we use that word today.
So, if you can imagine a group of people—the nation of Israel—in exile, down and out, oppressed, crushed, enslaved, weighed down by the nations and by their own sins (both spiritually and physically), Isaiah the prophet says they’re like a wasteland. Lifeless. The life has been sucked out of them.
And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a messenger comes. And he’s bringing a word that is so good, it’s almost hard to believe—a gospel announcement. That God is about to lift you up from the ashes. That He is on His throne. That He’s going to take care of you.
Isaiah foresees the coming of a messenger of hope.
And from this, I think we can just make one observation about the word gospel—a really simple observation:
The word “gospel” is about hope for the hopeless.
No matter what your situation is—probably, it could not have been as bad as the exiles, crushed in captivity and enslaved. No matter how low you are, or how lost you feel, the message of the gospel—the announcement of the gospel—is meant to give you hope. To lift you up off the ground. To put a song on your lips. To clothe you.
It’s a life-giving, saving message.
And that is why Paul goes on to say:
“If there’s anything in the Christian life that we can’t let go of—that you cannot let go of—it’s this gospel.”
“I preached it to you,” he says to the Corinthian church. “You received it. You accepted it. You’re standing in it.” And then note verse two:
“…by which you are being saved, if you hold fast the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.”
For you this morning—you who are here—it’s not enough to just receive the gospel one time and then move on from it. Paul’s question here for the Corinthians isn’t, “Did you receive the gospel yesterday?” or “Did you receive the gospel ten years ago, when you asked Jesus into your heart or were baptized?”
His question to the church—and to us—is:
Are you clinging to the gospel today?
Are you holding on to the gospel now?
And you know what? He says this gospel—as we cling to it—is able to do something in our lives. It’s powerful.
“…by which you are being saved…”
Paul uses the present passive form of a verb that means to be delivered or rescued. He’s emphasizing that salvation for the Christian is not just a past reality. It’s not just something that happened.
For those who believe, the same gospel that got us into the church is the gospel that keeps us in the church.
For Paul, it’s not just “I got saved through the gospel”—some past event. For Paul, there is a direct correlation between experiencing the present and powerful work of God in your life, and your clinging to the gospel:
”…by which you are being saved.”
So we can say that:
The gospel is the announcement about Jesus—King Jesus, your God reigns—that gives life to the dead and hope to the hopeless.
And the life-giving power of the gospel is not limited to one moment in the past—again, that time when you asked Jesus into your heart or when you were baptized, perhaps many years ago.
The life-giving power of the gospel extends into the very present. That message—that Christ is risen—is powerful. And it is able to transform you right now, today, in this moment… if you are clinging to it.
And so Paul says:
“Don’t let go… unless you believed in vain.”
If there’s anything that should be precious to the church—to each one of us—it’s this message of the gospel.
The call in this passage is not just to receive the gospel, but to hold on to the gospel for dear life… because of the treasure that it is.
Now, what specifically is the content of the proclamation, right? Like, I’ve just basically been talking about what the gospel does — right? It’s this announcement of King Jesus. As a part of the content of the proclamation, it’s able to keep us. It has this saving power in the past and in the present. It gives us hope for the future.
But what specifically is the good news that the Apostle Paul wants to get across here?
He continues in verses 3 and 4:
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”
It really does not get more simple than that, does it?
If we were to summarize the essence of the Christian faith — what is Christianity all about — you might be able to condense it like this. This is the very heartbeat of what we believe: Jesus Christ died, He was buried, and He rose again from the dead. One sentence, basically.
The reason that’s good news for us — that He died — is because He didn’t just die for Himself. It’s clear, as the text says here, that Christ died for us, for our sins.
Given what I just said about the origin of the word “gospel” in the book of Isaiah, you have that announcement in Isaiah 52, where Isaiah foresees this messenger of hope who’s bringing an announcement — good news: “Your God reigns.”
It’s really interesting that here in this passage, as Paul is describing the gospel, he talks about Jesus giving Himself for our sins. Because if you’re familiar with the prophet Isaiah, you know that right after Isaiah 52 is Isaiah 53. And Isaiah 53 is another amazing prophecy about the Messiah who was coming — this suffering servant who would do what?
He would give Himself for our sins.
On the heels of this idea of a gospel announcement in Isaiah 52 is this promise of a King who’s laying down His life:
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, our sins. He was crushed,” Isaiah said, “for our iniquities.”
It’s hard not to think that the Apostle Paul didn’t have those verses in mind when he says, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.” Those are probably the very Scriptures that he’s thinking about — that great prophecy of the suffering servant who is assuming our nature and also taking upon Himself our curse, our sins.
So for Paul, this is good news for us. It’s reality.
In fact, that’s the first reason I think, according to the Apostle Paul, that you should believe it — because it’s God’s word, “in accordance with the Scriptures.” And it’s true.
If you look closely at verses 3 and 4, they read almost like a statement of faith. Many believe that these words did not come from Paul’s own pen. So he’s not just making this up as he’s writing to them — but he’s quoting from something like a very ancient Christian creed. Which, at that time, would still be fairly new because Paul is writing around 55 AD. Christianity is still very fresh, very new.
And Paul is telling us something that he had received, something that was given to him — the transmission of this history, this important truth, this creed.
Earlier in this same letter, the Apostle Paul, when he describes the institution of Holy Communion, said: “I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.”
That language — “I received” and “I delivered it” — is almost like this technical language that has to do with transmitting or passing on this very important historical truth. This creed. This information.
In other words, Paul is not making this up. He’s passing down the very kernel of the Christian faith, which he had received directly from Jesus.
And for Paul — and for us — everything hinges on whether or not this is true.
I’ve spoken to many people (I’m sure you have as well) who, when I share with them about the Christian faith, respond with something like, “I’m so happy for you. I’m happy that you’ve found something that works for you, something that gives you peace.”
And I just want to say to them: I don’t embrace the Christian faith, the gospel, because it “works” for me. The question is not, does the story of Jesus help me to live better? Does it work for me?
The ultimate question is: Is the story of Jesus true? Is the message and proclamation of the resurrection true?
This is what we all have to reckon with.
If it’s just a fairy tale, if Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead, then the Christian faith is built on a lie.
But if it’s true — if the Son of God really did come into the world and die for my sins, if His corpse really was buried in the tomb, and then three days later, miraculously, He rose from the dead — well then everything changes, right?
That means something not just for me. It doesn’t just “work” for me. It means something for the whole world.
It’s not just good news — not just gospel — for me, but for all of us, because it is rooted in an objective reality.
Your faith in the resurrection is not what gives the resurrection meaning.
The reality of the resurrection is what gives you and me meaning, and purpose, and hope.
And that is why Paul says here: Guys, this is of number one importance. There’s nothing more important than this.
How real was the resurrection of Jesus from the dead?
According to Paul here, at least, it’s eyewitness-testimony real. This is one of the things I would say distinguishes the Christian faith from other religions in the world.
All religion is based on a series of teachings or a philosophy — parables that are handed down. You can find general truth in all of them — and some more than others.
Christianity hinges on the reality of this miraculous event in history.
It wasn’t confined to one guy or even to a handful of people. Paul says the risen Christ was seen by hundreds of people.
Jesus rose. Then He appeared to Cephas (that’s Peter), then to the Twelve. Then He appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep (he says in verses 5 and 6).
Paul is, in essence, saying:
“Believe the Christian faith because it’s true. And if you have any questions about it,” he says to this church, “you don’t have to just ask me. Go and ask one of the hundreds of people who saw Christ alive after He rose from the dead.”
This is why he says, “Most of them are still alive — you could go talk to them.”
Now, wouldn’t it be nice if they were still around today, right? Like, oh — to interview those people! That might have been a fine argument for Paul to make back then. But… those witnesses have long since died.
So how can they help us today?
Well, for one, Paul’s point here does underscore the factual nature of the crucifixion.
This message for Paul — and for the Christian faith — isn’t just like, “Jesus rose again in our hearts.” You know, what a beautiful message of pushing back against evil in the world.
No — this is like: Christ actually bodily rose from the dead and conquered sin. That’s an objective reality.
People saw it with their own eyes. You could go talk to those people.
Because Christ is risen, everything changes.
We have hope. Our sins have been done away with. We have the hope of also the resurrection of the dead and the restoration of the whole world.
It’s rooted in something real.
But here’s the other thing I’d say:
We don’t know people today, obviously, who have seen the risen Christ bodily. If they say they have — run! Right? Like, that’s bad news.
But all throughout the world, you will meet men, women, and children who have experienced the power of the risen Christ in their lives.
All of us know people whose lives have been radically transformed by Jesus. Some of us are those people.
People who were once dead, as it were — enslaved to various things — and who all of a sudden, due to some religious experience, changed almost overnight. And you’re like: “Man, that’s just a totally different person.”
People who would say, “I once was lost, but now I’m found. I was in the dust of death, and Jesus picked me up and set me on my feet.”
You don’t need to see the risen Christ in order to experience the power of the risen Christ.
We believe it because it’s true. And the veracity of the message is confirmed by countless people who have experienced the love of Jesus — truly and personally — in their own lives.
All of us in this room are people who have never seen the body of Jesus. And yet, nevertheless, many of us can tell you we’ve experienced the presence of Jesus in our lives.
So the objective reality — that Christ is, in fact, alive — is confirmed by our own subjective experience.
The message of the gospel of Easter isn’t just about raw historical facts. It is true. But it’s about a truth that transforms our lives and the world around us.
And so — we should believe in the resurrection because it’s true.
We should believe it because of the testimony of others, as Paul says here.
And here’s a final reason we see in the text to embrace and believe the resurrection:
Believe it because of its transforming power.
Here’s how Paul put it again, beginning in verse 8:
“Last of all, as to one untimely born, Jesus appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them — though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”
Paul is, of course, reminiscing about his own conversion here.
And the great irony is — Paul was a man who was confronted by the grace of the risen Christ when he was on his way to persecute Christians.
He was en route to kill and imprison Christians. That’s when the resurrected Jesus met him.
And so he says, “I’m not even worthy to be called an apostle.”
Like — why would I be chosen to be sent by Jesus? I’m not worthy to be called an apostle. But by the grace of God, I am what I am.
In other words, by the grace of God, I am an apostle.
The message of the gospel — that Jesus Christ is risen — can meet a man or a woman even if they’re hostile to the truth, angry at God, persecuting His people.
And isn’t this a wonderful thing?
Because we look at the world — we can be discouraged. We can feel like there are a lot of people who are angry at God, who are hostile toward the Lord.
Few were more hostile than the Apostle Paul here.
And yet — when he encountered the power and the presence of the risen Christ — he was transformed. He was changed by the grace of God.
And the risen Christ is still confronting men and women today — with grace, with goodness, with mercy.
The risen Christ today still has the ability — the power — to transform Saul of Tarsus.
The wicked Paul met the risen Christ when he wanted nothing to do with Him. And maybe that’s you this morning. I don’t know.
But the risen Christ wants to meet you — each one of you — by the power of His Spirit.
And as we sink our teeth into this message — into this truth — and embrace it by faith, this truth has the power to transform and to save us this morning.
Whether you’re a believer or still trying to figure things out, the risen Christ wants to meet you with His grace and transform your life as you trust in Him.
He does that as we cling to His gospel — as those who believe, or as we lay hold of it for the very first time if we’ve yet to do so.
Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.
He was buried.
And now He’s alive from the dead.
And truly — He is in our midst by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let’s go to Him in faith. Amen.
Let’s pray.
Gracious God in heaven,
We do pray that you would help us to receive your Word this morning as the very Word of God — and, Lord, to experience the presence of the risen Christ, your grace, Lord Jesus, as we’ve come to you.
Be with us, Lord. Help us again to know and to understand the great implications of this amazing truth — this life-changing truth — that you’ve risen from the dead, Jesus, and that we have hope because of it.
Be with us as we come now to the table.
And bless us, we ask, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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This morning we study through the letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a church in the ancient city of Corinth: 1 Corinthians. We're almost through this book, and I invite you to turn to 1 Corinthians, chapter 14.
I'm going to read the entire chapter as Paul continues his encouragement and exhortation to this church. Here's what he says to them, beginning in verse one:
[~~~~~Pastor Adriel reads the passage~~~~~]
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Oh Lord God, we do pray for Your blessing and Your presence now. We ask that You would open our hearts and minds to receive Your word, that You would encourage us by it and build up Your church. In Jesus' name, Amen
When I was a brand-new Christian, I was not—I wasn't raised, um, going to church on Sunday typically. I was raised sort of nominally Roman Catholic. We would go to Mass once every three to four months. That's kind of how it was until I was in high school, and I started going to church on my own.
When I was a newer Christian, when I first began to follow Jesus, the church that I began attending was a church that believed that God was gifting people today with these gifts that Paul talks about here in 1 Corinthians, chapter 14—the gift of prophecy and the gift of tongues. We've talked about this a little bit over the last few weeks because this is really at the heart of 1 Corinthians 12-14.
Prophecy, in particular, was when the Spirit of God would come upon an individual, and they would be inspired to say something. It was, you know, miraculous. It was God-inspired speech, a revelation. And that's what Paul is talking about here—this gift, this miraculous gift of prophecy. Similarly, the gift of tongues—hopefully, you were listening when I was reading from the book of Acts, in Acts chapter 2—was the ability to speak in languages that you had never learned.
So, it'd be like, all of a sudden, right? You speak English—maybe English is the only language you speak—but all of a sudden, you're able to speak Chinese or Mandarin or, you know, Spanish or whatever it is, fluently. And in this particular language that you've never studied, you're declaring the mighty works of God. The gospel is going out. It was a miracle, right? Typically, you have to study for many years to be able to speak another language. This was a miraculous thing.
The church that I was attending as a newer believer was really into this—was really into these gifts of the Holy Spirit. And during the Sunday service, there were a couple of women who were a part of the church who, in between worship songs, would occasionally give a prophetic word. Some of you have been in churches that were, or are, like this as well.
Typically, the prophetic word sounded something like this: right in between worship songs, someone would stand up—one of these women in the church—and they'd say something like, "I believe the Lord is saying to me that there's someone here today who has been going through a difficult time with a family member, and God just wants you to trust Him, to let go of the anxiety you feel." Or something like, "I sense that there's someone here who has been turning away from the Lord. You're being tempted by something in your life, and God would just say to you, you need to renew your commitment to Me."
Oftentimes, these words of prophecy had scriptures attached to them: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding," or, "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice."
Inevitably, as a newer Christian, I always thought these words of prophecy were for me—right? Like, directed to me. So, no matter what they said, I was like, "I'm totally turning away. I knew it!" You know, "I'm tempted by this, that, the other," and that's sort of how they functioned.
I got to the point, as a newer Christian, where before each service on Sunday, I would ask God to speak to me through one of these prophets—to give me a word. And I would wait with bated breath in the short interval, you know, that five to ten seconds before the next worship song would start. In between worship songs, I would wait with bated breath, wondering, "Is someone going to stand up and say something?"
I became so fixated on these prophetic words that when my mother decided to move us two hours away from where we were living, I was distraught. I depended on these. How would I survive the Christian life without these sure and specific words from the Lord? I quickly looked up the churches in the town where we were moving, and I called them, wanting to know one question. I'll never forget it. The phone rang, and the secretary of the Idlewild Bible Church picked up and said something like, "Good morning, Idlewild Bible Church. How can I help you?"
And I said, "Does your church have prophets?"
After a brief silence, the lady responded, "Excuse me?" To which I said, "Do you believe in prophets?"
"Oh, yes," she replied. "Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel..." She began to go down the list of the biblical prophets, and I interrupted her and said, "No, do you have prophets in your church who give words from God?" And she hung up the phone.
Well, she didn’t really hang up. She said, "I don’t think we do." And I was pretty bummed out. I was devastated. How can you live the Christian life without prophets?
And you’re probably wondering, "How in the world did you ever become a Presbyterian pastor?" Right? Like, you read 1 Corinthians 14, and you consider the description of the worship that’s taking place here that Paul describes, and you think about how that compares with our worship service—what we've been doing here this morning—and there are obvious discrepancies.
In 1 Corinthians 14, you have people taking turns praying out loud—sometimes in tongues, in other languages, sometimes as a prophetic utterance, saying, "Thus saith the Lord." And then you have the elders of the church weighing what is said, judging it, determining, you know, "What’s good? Is this solid? Is this legit?" It’d be sort of like if, in our service, the elders were all here gathered at the front, and one of you said, "I have a word from the Lord," and you stood up and began to share this inspired speech.
And as you were talking, maybe another person said, "Wait a minute, I—I've got a word from the Lord," and they stand up, and you sit down, and they begin to say, "Thus saith the Lord." And then the elders are saying, "Okay, this is legit," or, "I don't know that that was a word from the Lord." You know, we're weighing the things that are said, saying, "Amen," or "I'm not sure about that."
Paul says in verse 29 here, "Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent."
And so, there's something of an elephant in the room. Why does our worship service look so different from what is described here in 1 Corinthians, chapter 14? There are a couple of possible answers. One is that we just aren't faithful to the Bible—worship should look like this, but we're missing the mark. The other is that while this passage describes what worship looked like in some first-century churches, it doesn't prescribe what worship was going to look like throughout all the ages.
In other words, this wasn't supposed to be a standard for the church throughout all ages. And while we can draw applications from this passage for today, God isn't ordinarily giving these miraculous gifts—like tongues and prophecy—as He was in the first century. Now, why might that be the case?
In short, the reason that's often given—you know, "Why isn’t God..." We’ve all asked this question: "Why isn’t God doing miracles like He was?" You know, you read the Bible, and you’re like, "People are being raised from the dead and healed of various diseases." And sure, you know, we hear about miracles happening, but it doesn't seem like it’s happening the way it was happening there in the Gospels.
What gives? Have we just fallen away so much as a church and as Christians?
Well, the reason often given is that the initial spread of the gospel was attended by an influx of miraculous activity—miraculous gifts and phenomena—in order to validate or confirm that this message is true. This is really God at work here.
Is there any biblical evidence for this? Well, the answer is yes. Consider what the author of Hebrews said, for example, in Hebrews 2:1-4:
"Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?"
He's saying that the message—that gospel—that you heard, we need to focus on it, lest we drift away from it. How can we escape if we neglect this great salvation?
Then he continues: "It was declared at first by the Lord." Jesus is the first one who preached the gospel. "And it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will."
Now, note how the author of Hebrews—some people think that St. Paul wrote the book of Hebrews—is writing perhaps a decade or two after 1 Corinthians was written. He ties the initial spread of the gospel to signs and wonders, which served the purpose of bearing witness to the veracity of the message.
This is how miracles in the Bible function—how miracles in the New Testament function—not so much as an end in and of themselves, but as a means of magnifying the message of the gospel, of saying, "This is real. Jesus really did rise from the dead. He really can forgive all of your sins."
Think about Acts 14:3, for example: "So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly the word of the Lord, who bore witness to the word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands."
It's also worth mentioning the Gospel of Mark. In Mark 2, do you remember when Jesus healed the paralytic? Why did He heal the paralytic? In John 2, He told the people that were gathered together, "Look, the reason I did this is so that you might know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins." Miracles are meant to confirm that Jesus Christ can forgive sins.
Of course, someone might ask, "Well, can't they still function that way today?" The answer to that would be yes. God is still able to do miracles whenever He pleases. In our confession of faith, in the section on providence—Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 5, Section 3—we read: "God, in His ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them at His pleasure."
Ordinarily, God works through means—the preaching of the holy gospel, the administration of the sacraments, a doctor, the advice of a friend. But God is free, because He is God, to work miraculously if He pleases—to heal, to providentially guide whenever He wants.
We're not against the idea that God is a miracle-working God. But we have to distinguish between how God ordinarily works in our lives as believers—to build us up and encourage us in our faith—and those extraordinary gifts or experiences that don't make up the ordinary life and diet of the church. They are anomalies.
We are, as a church, an "ordinary means of grace" type of church. What I mean by that is that we believe the primary way God builds us up as Christians—as a church body—isn't through daily supernatural experiences, but through daily bread—every word that comes from the mouth of God.
It's easy to pine after a religious experience, a new revelation, and to neglect or despise the revealed word of God—what He has already given to us and set down for us in Scripture.
To a degree, I fell into that trap as a newer believer. I went to church every Sunday hoping to hear from God—not first and foremost through the preached word, which seemed boring and basic. I wanted something more. Many people feel that way still.
There are many people, and there are many churches, that aren't really interested in the ordinary Christian life. They think real spirituality is like living on a mountaintop—you know, you're just on fire for Jesus 24/7, getting new words from God all the time. But the reality is, growth in the Christian life—growth as a follower of Jesus, sanctification, becoming more and more like Jesus—often does not feel like a continual mountaintop experience.
And I think everybody in this room, if you've been walking with Jesus for any amount of time, could say that. You could say, "Amen" to that.
It feels sometimes like hard work—like being committed to a church of people who are different from you, like hearing and not despising the preaching of the word, like learning to pray every day even when you don't feel like praying, like reading Holy Scripture, believing that God speaks to you through it, like serving others when you would rather serve yourself.
What does it look like? It looks like love. Sure, there are times where we feel more on fire for Jesus than at other moments, but the Christian life is not the constant pursuit of spiritual high. Rather, it is the constant pursuit of love, which often brings us low. And so Paul says again in verse one: "Pursue love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy."
What does it mean to pursue love? I've never really been hunting. I keep saying, "Man, that would be fun." Like, I would love to go hunting one of these days. I imagine it's a lot of work—getting ready, getting the hunting tags, traveling to wherever it is you're going to shoot deer or buffalo or whatever it is that you're hunting. I don't know if there's buffalo. And then there's the actual hunt—tracking the animal, stalking it, shooting it, and finally having the prize that you've worked so hard to win.
The closest we get occasionally as a family is fishing off the Coronado Pier, which is not as exciting. But even there, it is a process in and of itself. There are the poles and the hook, which can be dangerous. Then there's getting the right bait to make sure you catch something, getting everything ready, and getting your line in the water. But it's all worth it in the end. When you get your prize—when you see, for us, our six children reel in their first fish—it's awesome.
Now, it would be really hard to accidentally catch a fish. You have to go through a whole process. It would also be hard to accidentally hunt for an animal, shoot a deer, and in a similar way, you and I don’t ever love by accident. There’s a conscious choice to prepare and to pursue a particular prize. Christians are people who hunt for love.
The reason I'm saying that is because the word that the Apostle Paul uses here when he says "pursue love" is an interesting word. It's the Greek word "dioko," and more often than not in the New Testament, it’s translated as "persecute." To persecute someone is to harass them because of their beliefs—you’re fixated on this individual that you’re upset with or angry at. Paul said before his conversion, "I persecuted the Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women." Paul used to be a persecutor of Christians. He used to hunt Christians. But after Jesus, he became a fisher of men for Christ’s sake and a pursuer, or hunter, of love.
Don’t be a Christian who waits for love to come to you. "Well, if it presents itself to me, if a need presents itself to me, I’d be happy to help. I’d be happy to oblige," we say to ourselves. Instead of waiting, go hunting for love. See love as the great prize of your labor—the good of your brother or sister in Christ. Stalk their well-being. Pursue it, Paul says. If you just sit back and think, "Well, love will come to me sometime," your life will be a lot less full of love than it should be.
Now, here Paul says it's not just love that we should be pursuing, but we should also be after spiritual gifts. He says, "Pursue love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy." The priority of love doesn’t cancel out the need for spiritual gifts, but it should be the guiding principle behind our pursuit of spiritual gifts. Paul says some spiritual gifts are actually more valued than others, ranked higher.
For Paul, what makes some gifts superior to others? It’s whether or not they build up the church—whether or not they are intelligible. As Christians, we should seek to be understandable and upbuilding, edifying others. In other words, we’re a community of love, and when people come to us, our speech should not be impossible to understand.
Now, let me for a moment be critical of my own tradition—a Reformed church, a Reformed Presbyterian church. What are Reformed churches stereotypically known for? Is it love and deeds of mercy? Is it that our sermons are understandable? The Babylon Bee had a parody news article they shared at the beginning of this year with the heading: "Presbyterian Church to Begin Tasing Anyone Who Raises Hands During Worship." This is the stereotype. We are the frozen chosen, known by many for being more intellectual and theological than your average Bible church or evangelical church.
I saw a meme the other day that said, "Can’t afford seminary? Pick a fight with a Calvinist and get lectures for free." The stereotype is that Reformed churches are kind of cold, argumentative, and hard to understand—you need a theological degree, an advanced degree, to follow the sermons, which are mostly like academic lectures. Stereotypes exist for a reason. There’s probably some truth in this caricature, and it’s a shame.
Because here, Paul says, "If there’s anything that a church should be known for, it’s love and intelligibility." That doesn’t mean we water down the truth in any way. It doesn’t mean that everything is immediately understandable to people who don’t go to church. But Paul wants the church to be a place where even non-Christians come in and are convicted of the truth, called to account, so that falling on their faces, they might worship God and say, "He is truly among you" (verse 25).
I once heard Dr. Godfrey, a church historian, give a lecture on the spread of Pentecostalism. If you’re familiar with Pentecostalism, it believes in tongues and prophecy for today. Throughout the world, Pentecostalism is the fastest-growing Christian denomination. Dr. Godfrey was asking the question, "Why is that?" Here we are, confident that we believe the Bible, that our interpretation of the Bible is true, that we embrace the truth about God. Why do other movements, which differ significantly from ours, or even sects that may not even be Christian, grow at a far more rapid rate?
The professor suggested: Maybe it has something to do with the simplicity of the message. Have we so overthought the gospel that we can’t talk about it without making it sound confusing? Have we, in our preaching and teaching, in our conversation, lost something of the simplicity of the message? Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and I am among those He came to rescue.
We may as well be talking in tongues in some of our churches, given the degree of interpretation needed for a person to be able to say "Amen." Rather than being known for being cold, insular, and hard to understand, would that our church was different from the stereotype. Would that people came to North Park Pres, even for the first time in their lives, and encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus in a way that did not minimize, water down, or set aside sound doctrine—but also did not make it hard to understand or unintelligible.
Would that we, as a church and as individuals, would be known as a people who hunt for love.
Sometimes Paul's encouragement to pursue spiritual gifts gets lost in the discussion about whether or not the miraculous gifts are still for today. Are they still being given today? His exhortation here often goes unmentioned in churches like ours that emphasize the ordinary work of God in the life of the church.
Just as people can adopt a passive view of love—"I'll get around to it if there's a need that I see"—we can also adopt a passive view when it comes to spiritual gifts. We can be clueless and say, "I don't know what my spiritual gift is, and I just don't really care." Or we can be resigned and say, "Well, I'm only good at X; I guess that's my spiritual gift." Then we accept the fact that we're just not good at evangelism, mercy, hospitality, generosity, or other gifts.
Here’s what Paul is saying: If there is something you don't have that you know would benefit the church, eagerly desire it. Pursue it. Ask God, by the grace of His Spirit, to fill you with a heart of hospitality, a heart of mercy. What he's talking about here isn't limited to miraculous charismatic gifts like prophecy and tongues. That means we shouldn't look at this passage and conclude, "Paul is exhorting us to desire spiritual gifts like prophecy, but since we think prophecy isn’t ordinarily given in the church today, this passage has no application for me."
No, the reason Paul emphasizes prophecy here is because of its ability to edify and build up. He does the same with the gift of interpretation of tongues. He says, "Look, if tongues are being spoken and someone interprets those unknown languages for the benefit of the rest of the church, then the gift is elevated. Now others are being built up too." It's the principle of intelligibility and edification that Paul is after in this passage.
That means we should be proactive as individuals in saying, "God, equip me to bless others, to build others up, to strengthen the church. Help me, with Your manifold gifts of grace, to clearly communicate the truth of the gospel so that people in the church can be edified and those outside the church might be convicted, have an encounter with Jesus, and come to faith."
Note how Paul is concerned that what we do in worship is geared toward building up the church, but he also wants non-Christians—people who aren’t part of this community—to understand what’s happening and grasp something of the truth of the gospel. There’s been a long-standing debate about what or who the church is for. Is it supposed to be seeker-sensitive? Is the church primarily focused on bringing outsiders in, or is it first and foremost for the building up of believers?
I think Paul gives us an answer here. For Paul, the priority is on building up believers, but not at the exclusion of non-believers. He is sensitive to both, and we should follow his lead. The ministry of the church is for the life of the world because Jesus Christ came into the world to seek and save sinners.
I often criticize my own tradition, so it's only fair that I place myself squarely in it. I've shared this before: A couple of Christmases ago, we were with my family. One of my aunts, along with her husband, was sitting around the table with us. My aunt, who doesn’t typically go to church, asked a question that every Christian hopes to be asked—or at least, I hope they do. She said, "What would you say the message of Christianity is all about? What is the gospel?"
You could not have asked for a better setup. I, being a pastor and seminary-trained, proceeded to speak in tongues. Not literally the gift of tongues, but I thought to myself, "Her husband is a philosophy professor, and she’s a psychologist. I’m going to have to give a real deep and philosophical presentation of the gospel." So I began by talking about the kingdom of God, how Jesus came to usher it in, how it's already here but not yet. I explained the eschatological tension we find in the gospels, how this all came about through the Son’s assumption of humanity via the hypostatic union, and so forth.
And everyone at the table looked at me like I was out of my mind.
They were thinking, "What are you talking about?" My sweet wife, the evangelist that she is, interrupted my lecture with a simple statement: "Isn't it about how Jesus came to save us from our sins?"
And I said, "Yeah, that’s it." She was right. There was something everyone around the table understood: Jesus came to save you. If you know Him, He gives you His Spirit and gifts you, by the grace of His Spirit, to serve Him and the people around you. Paul says we should seek those gifts out, and he calls us to hunt for love—to pursue it.
So let’s give careful thought to how we can do good to one another, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Let’s pray:
Father, we thank You for Your grace and mercy. We pray, Lord, that as a church, even with our love for sound doctrine and Your Word, and our commitment to good theology, that first and foremost, we would be characterized by the Spirit-wrought love that comes through faithfulness to Your Word—for one another and for all people.
God, help us to be a people who don’t create extra barriers for those who don’t yet understand Your grace. Help us to be a community that is understandable and intelligible, making clear the truth of the gospel for one another and for the world. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
