What Are You Living For?

In this sermon, Pastor Jeffrey Johnson emphasizes the centrality of the resurrection to the Christian faith and life, rooted in 1 Corinthians 15:29-34. He explains that without the resurrection, Christianity loses its meaning, rendering faith, suffering, and obedience futile. The resurrection not only guarantees our future bodily transformation but also underpins every aspect of our spiritual journey, beginning with baptism and extending to daily self-denial and service.

Pastor Johnson highlights three key points:

1. Baptism's Symbolism: Baptism represents death to the old self and resurrection to new life in Christ. Without the hope of rising with Christ, the act of baptism becomes meaningless.
2. Suffering for Christ: The Christian life involves daily dying to self and enduring hardships for the sake of Christ and others. These sacrifices, Paul says, would be pointless without the resurrection's promise of eternal life.
3. Obedience and Eternal Perspective: A life of holiness and sacrifice is only logical if there is a future resurrection. Christians are called to live not for temporary pleasures but for eternal glory, giving all to Christ as an act of worship.

Pastor Johnson concludes with a challenge: to embrace suffering, relinquish earthly attachments, and live fully for Christ, knowing that the promise of resurrection secures eternal joy and unimaginable riches in the new heaven and earth. The sermon reminds believers that their hope is not in this fading world but in the everlasting life found in Jesus.

Transcript

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All right, starting at verse 29. Now I'm gonna try to preach this verse 29 and we'll see how difficult it is. Verse 29 says, "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?"Why are we in danger every hour?"I'll protest, brothers, by my pride in you,"which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord."I die every day." Can you say that about yourself? And before we read on, can you say that about yourself?"I die every day." Verse 32."What do I gain if, humanly speaking,"I fought with beast at Ephesus?"If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink"for tomorrow we die."Do not be deceived, bad company ruins good morals."Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right,"and do not go on sinning."For some have no knowledge of God."I say this to your shame." What we see in this passage, the big theme of this paragraph, is without the resurrection, the Christian life is meaningless. Now, it's already explained to us in the first part of chapter 15, that the gospel falls apart without the resurrection of the dead. The theological foundation of our faith is destroyed if we do not maintain the future bodily resurrection of the dead. If there's no future resurrection of the dead, that means Christ in the past did not raise from the dead. And if he did not raise from the dead, then there's no hope, there's no forgiveness of sins, there's no salvation. All of Christianity is built upon and rest upon the fact that Christ rose from the dead, which secures not just our regeneration, which is being spiritually resurrected from the dead, but it also guarantees and secures our physical future bodily resurrection from the dead. That is a central cardinal truth of the gospel, but it's not only true on the regards of the foundation of our faith. We see here that the very essence of the Christian life, how you experience Christianity, is all wrapped up in the fact that there's gonna be a future resurrection. If there's no future resurrection of your body, if the graves do not come busting open with the dead bodies coming out of them one day, then the whole Christian life is meaningless. Everything about the Christian life is meaningless. Your baptism, which is your initiation into the Christian faith, you come into the Christian faith by your faith in Jesus Christ, and that is symbolized in your death to your old man and your resurrection to your new man, and that is seen in your baptism. That is meaningless. It has no meaning if there's no future resurrection. Your suffering, your dying to yourself, is meaningless without the resurrection. All your Christian service and obedience means nothing. You might as well eat, live, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow you're gonna die, and after death there's nothing. If there's no resurrection, then all that we're doing as Christians comes to nothing. So the very Christian life, according to this text, is based upon the hope of the resurrection. If we have no hope of the resurrection, then why are we living the Christian life today? You see, the Christian life is built upon dying every day to ourselves. The essence of Christian life is picking up our cross and following the Lord Jesus Christ. We have to die to self, die to this world, die to sin, die to our aspirations, die to our pride. It's always a picking up our cross. It's an instrument of crucifixion. We have to mortify our flesh. We have to put to death the sinful activities within us. We must put off the old man, which is another way of saying, we gotta die to our old former ways. We gotta die to self and forsake all. And unless we love God above our mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, even our own life, we can't be a follower of Christ. And Jesus put it this way, unless the kernel of the seed dies, it does not produce fruit. Unless there's death, there's no resurrection. Unless there's death, there's no life. There's no Christianity without death. Christ had to die to produce life for us. And if we're gonna be a Christian follower, we must die. The old man has to be crucified. And that old man has to continuously be put off every day. Jesus says, whoever does not pick up his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. So we live a life of mortification. We live a life of suffering. The Bible says it's been granted to you on the behalf of Christ to suffer for his namesake. First Peter tells you, you have been called to suffering. The Bible says he who wants to live a godly life shall be persecuted. So this life today, until we get to glory, until the resurrection takes place, or until we die, until the resurrection and Christ comes back, it's gonna be a life of hardships, a life of denying ourselves and suffering for the name of Christ. To live, we must die. To gain everything, we must lose everything. Remember what Jesus said to the rich young ruler, what must I do to inherit eternal life? You're gonna sell everything you have. Every one of you that I'm speaking to myself, you can't have anything you don't give to God and be a Christian. There's not one little compartment to your life that you can say, that's mine. That's mine. You're gonna have this, this, and this, and this, and this, and this, but I'm holding onto this. This keeps people from being saved. I've talked to a lot of unconverted people, I've witnessed a lot of unconverted people, and they don't mind giving this and this and this away. They don't care about these things of their life, but there's one little area, one little sin, and one little idol in their life that they say, that's mine. And typically, you know what is in man that man doesn't wanna give up is self-control. Who here would say, I'm ready for Jesus to tell me what to do, and I'll go anywhere he tells me to go, I'll do anything he says for me to do. If he wants me to die tomorrow for his namesake, sign me up, where's the cross? Where's the cross? I'll go. And you say, well, I'll be a missionary, and you think, I'll do this great thing for the Lord, but what if God says, I don't want you to be a missionary to some great place, and you're gonna have a lot of conversions. What I want you to do is die to yourself in your marriage. Wait a minute, that's not glorious. There's no fanfare. I'm not gonna have some biography written about me, how I died to my marriage, or died to my children, or died to my career. I died to that aspiration. I'm not gonna get, no one's gonna know about that. Yeah, that's what it means to die. It's giving up on living for yourself. But if you want to gain life, eternity, Christ, righteousness, eternal life, heaven, the new earth, riches untold, then you've gotta give up that which you cannot keep. You've gotta give up the things you have now. And you've gotta continuously lay them on the altar. Every day, you have to die to yourself, as Paul says. Every day, I die to myself. Every day, I'm putting off my will. I wanted to do this, but Lord says, no, you don't do that, you go here. You find contentment in the cards that God deals you. He said, this is the allotment that God wants me to live. He wants me to live this life for his glory. And I wanna be holy, consecrated to Christ. I want all my life to belong to him. I want all my wealth to belong to him. I want all that I do to belong to him. I want everything I have to be laid on the altar. I wanna sacrifice everything, and I wish I had more to sacrifice. This is the heart of Christianity is that if I had 2,000 worlds, I would give them all. And I wish I had another world to give him that world too. I don't have enough to give him for what he has given me. But in giving all that you have, which you don't have nothing, because everything you have, you're gonna lose. You have nothing to give God, because all that you have is tainted with sin. All that you have is your sin and defilement. You have nothing that which is being taken away from you through death, through corruption. All your wealth is gonna be destroyed one day. All that your aspirations are gonna be forgotten. Your name is gonna be forgotten in two generations. You're gonna lose everything you have. So might as well lose it today so that you may gain that which you can never lose. And you know, one of the things I think that's a problem, and I always want young seminary students to have low expectations of the ministry because everybody wants to be the next John Piper. Everybody wants to be a George Whitfield. Everybody wants this great aspirations. It's like, no, you gotta be willing to be a backwoods pastor to a small church and have no fanfare, no appreciation. You have to be willing to dig ditches. And that's so true. You're so true. That's dying to yourself. You gotta die to yourself. But it's also true, I think what's wrong with us is we don't aspire to great things. We aspire to the things of this world. We aspire for silly things that will not last. We aspire to get a little bit of wealth. I mean, how many of you here today have just thought, in fact, you just have a little bit more money, just a little bit more. You're not wanting to be filthy rich. I mean, you're not trying to be a billionaire, but if you could just have a little bit more cushion, you would be just a little bit happier. And you thought that thought probably this week, just a little bit more. And God says, you got too much as it is. Why don't you take what you have and give it away? It's like, I can't give it away because I'm clinging to it. Well, Christianity is about dying to self that we might be resurrected. There's no resurrection without death. Remember that. There's no new life without first dying of the old life. There's no riches without departing of the garbage that we have. There's no glory without enduring shame. There's no being first until we seek to be last. This is the essence of Christianity. This is the heart of the Christian life. And in this text, we have three points, three points that shows us that the whole Christian life is based upon death and resurrection. And if there's no resurrection, then every aspect of the Christian life of dying is meaningless. The first meaningless act, if there's no resurrection is the baptism. Baptism means nothing if there's no resurrection. You don't take a body and throw it into the water and immerse it in the water if you didn't want to bring it back up out of the water. You don't just take a half-baptism approach or you take someone and just dump them and leave them. But the glorious moment, the climax is the coming up. The climax is when Jesus came out of the grave. But there's no coming out of the grave. There's no glorious moment without that death. Every movie, good movie, it's always, always predictable. The ones you're pulling for about 10 minutes before the movie's over, it looks like it's all hopeless. It gets terribly bad at the end. And they do that on purpose because they want you to leave the theaters or leave the movie going, whoa, that was awesome because they want to see this impossible situation resurrected. That's what we have with Christ Jesus. And brothers and sisters, that's what you have coming to your life. You're gonna come out of the grave victorious as a champion. You're gonna inherit the victory of Christ Jesus when you overcome death itself. You see, baptism is the implication of that. Look what it 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 the behalf? What he says, otherwise, why do people, why do people baptize? I mean, before we try to explain what this verse means, one of the main points he's making is why do we do baptism if there's not a resurrection? If there's not coming up out of the water, we wouldn't do this. We wouldn't just put people in the grave, immerse them, bury them if we didn't have that moment we pulled them up. So what does this mean when Paul says being baptized on behalf of the dead? Well, I'll tell you the truth, I don't know. I don't know for sure. Some say this is some type of vicarious baptism. The Mormons use this verse to justify baptizing people who are already dead. Maybe the thief on the cross, he wasn't baptized, so someone has to stand in his place to be baptized on his behalf. So some form of vicarious baptism for people who didn't get the chance to be baptized. Some say that this was going on in the church of Corinth and Paul's not necessarily approving of this practice, vicarious baptism, but he's just alerting them that this is what they're doing. I don't think that's the meaning. Some say that the word baptism is just used metaphorically as a reference to martyrdom. Like all the early martyrs, why would they willfully and willingly go to the cross or go to the stake? Why would they be willing to be crucified upside down as Peter was, or to be stoned to death, or to fight beast, an ephedis? Why would people be willing to be martyred if there's no resurrection? Some say the word baptism is referring to some type of ceremonial washing of dead bodies, anointing dead bodies and preparing them for the resurrection. Christ's body was anointed by the Marys, Mary Magdalene and Mary Martha. They anointed, and some would say that was a baptism of his body, and why would you anoint a dead body and prepare a dead body if you didn't think there was gonna be a resurrection from the grave? You bury dead bodies, anticipation that there's gonna be a resurrection and prepare the body for that. Some say the word, the preposition here for should be over, like they were doing baptism over graveyards. That seems the least likely. I tend to think that the meaning of this verse is the word baptism is referring to a burial, and the dead are referring to those who die to self. So why are you ministers burying or baptizing professors who say they have died to themselves? What do you do with dead bodies? You don't leave them out. There's only one proper thing to do with a dead body, bury it. What do you do with your old man? Now that you come to know the Lord, and you forsaken your sins, and the old man has passed away, what do you do with that old corpse? What do you do with the old man? The old man has to be buried. And you gotta bury the old man. That's the only thing you can do with dead bodies. And so baptism is a symbolism of the old man dying. And you gotta bury that. And what's glorious about baptism is when the old man is buried into Christ or buried into the ground, that old man stays in the ground. But a new man, a resurrected man, comes up in its place. You see, Romans six speaks of this in verse three."Do you not know that as many of us as one can do as we're baptized into Christ Jesus, we're baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him through baptism into death." So this is what it refers to. Baptists like this old man is dead. How did it die? Christ died on our behalf, and his death is our death. Knowing this, verse six says,"That our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with." Colossians two, 12, "We were buried with him in baptism." You see, baptism is a public profession that we're no longer who we used to be. It's a public profession that I'm no longer my own boss. I'm no longer a slave to sin. The word baptism in the Greek means immerse, to be buried. Therefore we were buried with him through baptism, Paul says in Romans. This talks about death and judgment and punishment. When Jesus was going to the cross, he says, "I'm gonna be baptized." And Peter says, "Hey, I want that baptism." The disciples says, "We'll be baptized with you." He says, "Can you be baptized?" Jesus says, "Can you suffer what I'm about to be suffered with? What I'm about to endure? Can you do that?" You see, baptism is a curse upon the old man and the wages of sin is death. And so it's taking sin and it's burying it. But why do we do that? So that we can come up out of the waters. So that we can come out a new man.( Romans 6, 4) That we have been buried with him through baptism to death. But just as Christ was raised from the death by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life. For we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certain we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. Now, if we die with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ have been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also consider yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. The point I think he's making, regardless of what the wording of this text actually means or doesn't mean. In the end, he's saying this, baptism is meaningless without the resurrection. And this is the beginning of the Christian experience. But not only is the beginning of our Christian life meaningless without the resurrection, all our sufferings that we experience on behalf of Christ becomes meaningless without the resurrection. We see that in verses 30 to 32. You see, if there's no resurrection, why would we suffer for his sake? Verse 30, Paul says, "We are in danger every hour." The apostle Paul's had a comfortable life as a Pharisee. He was being promoted and elevated in his position. And then once he died to himself, the first thing that God wanted to tell Paul or Saul, he says, "Go tell Saul the great things he must suffer for my name's sake." You wanna follow the Lord Jesus Christ, prepare yourself for suffering, aim yourself to suffer. If you wanna live a godly life, you're gonna be persecuted. You're gonna suffer for his name's sake. It's been granted to us, Flippin's willing tells us, to not only believe but also to suffer for his name's sake. Peter tells us, as I've already said, Peter says it's appointed to you, not just to have ailments that everybody has, even unbelievers have, not just to have the aches and pains and difficulties that human race has, but because you're a Christian, it is pointed to you to endure affliction and suffering. This was the Christian life. But this doesn't make sense if there's not a resurrection. Paul says, "I'm in danger every hour." You know, we can go to 2 Corinthians 11 where he gives a whole list of all the sufferings he endured on the behalf of Christ. He says, "Are they servants of Christ? I'm a better one. I'm talking like a madman, far greater labors, far more imprisonments, countless beatings, often near death, five times I've received by the hands of the Jews, 40 lashes, less one, three times I was beaten with rods once I was stolen, three times I was shipwrecked, a night in the day I was adrift at sea, on frequent journeys and dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and toll and hardship through many a sleepless night and hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure." All this because he was a Christian, all this because he was a minister of the gospel, all this for the name of Jesus Christ, all this because he's trying to serve and minister to others. He was self-sacrificing his time, his labors, his health, and he was burning both ends of the stick, if you would, the candle at both ends, and he was putting himself in an early grave, if you would. Why was he doing that? We see in verse 31, his suffering was for the sake of the Corinthians. Verse 31 says, "I protest brothers by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. I die every day." In other words, you're saying,"You Corinthians, you're my most, you would I take pride in, is on your behalf that I'm die every day. It's on your behalf that I'm suffering, and I'm glad to do it for your sake." It's worth it to see Christ formed in you is worth the suffering that I'm enduring. Mothers and fathers, it'd be a lot easier if you didn't have to pray for your kids, and weep tears for your kids. It'd be much easier if you didn't have to wake up and come to church and be consistent in your prayer life, and read the Bible. You could just be, it's just easier to be lazy. And then you wouldn't have to have all the looks at your place of work, and people look down on you, and shun you in various ways, feel like you don't really fit in. I mean, if you could just join with them, and forget about Christianity, life could be much easier for you. Paul told the Colossians in Colossians 1.24,"I am suffering for you. I'm doing this on your behalf." All of us, if we want to live a godly life, according to 2 Timothy 3.12, we will be persecuted. We will be hated by all nations. We'll go like sheep before wolves, and they're gonna hate us, and take us to court, and despise us, and use us, and mock us. And it's not fun to be mocked. It's not fun to be, to try to do something good, and it be turned against you. But such suffering that you and I endure, such dying to yourself, as Paul says, "I die every day," becomes meaningless, we see in verse 32, without the resurrection. He says, "What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus?" I mean, here I am, I am fighting animals. I was put in the arena, and they let lions out on me. And the only way I'm leaving, I'm gonna have to fight these things. I might die. He didn't know if he's gonna live or die, and what about all the stonings, near-death experiences that he went through? Why do all that? Humanly speaking, he says, "What do I gain by all this?" If all there is, is this life, and this body is not resurrected, then we don't have any hope. He earlier said, "If this is all we have, we above all people are to be most pitied." We're giving our life to empty calls. I mean, your grandma is gonna say to you, or your relative is gonna say to you,"Don't go on the mission field, don't give everything. You need to diversify. If that doesn't work out, you can do this." You don't put all your eggs in one basket. Give Christ in a little bit, don't give them all. That's the message of Satan. But if there's no resurrection, that message is right. Would it be most pitied? I mean, I think of Elon Musk trying to get to Mars, like you're living for the wrong reason. You have the wrong escape plan. You have the wrong solution to the problem, and you're gonna give your whole life to try to solve something that's not gonna solve the problem. Mars is gonna be destroyed too. This whole universe is gonna be destroyed. There's no escaping the wrath of God. Who's to be pitied? Those who are living for this world. That's who to be pitied, why? Because there is a resurrection. There is a life after this life. This life is not the end. That's the point. We're not living for this world. We're not living for this present evil age. We're not living for creature comforts. We're not living for the American dream. That's not our hope. And you who are getting discouraged because your life is not turning out the way you want it to turn out. You wish you had a little bit more and you're kind of complaining to God. Why? He's giving you heaven. He's giving you eternal life. He didn't want you to inherit this world that's fading away. He wants you to inherit a world that doesn't have an end. He wants you to have a new heaven, a new earth and everything in the earth is gonna be yours. All things will belong to you because you've been made joint heirs with Christ. Everything is a gift to you. You are filthy, filthy, filthy rich. You've been given all things. And we already have the first fruits of it and now with the Holy Spirit within, that's the first fruits. That's more glorious than what we've given up. Just to know Jesus and experience Jesus and give me what Jesus is worth more than all this world and the creature comforts and wealth and prosperity and faith. Have that, have that. You can have that, but give me Jesus. And I can have them now. It won't happen to be resurrected to have that now. But I get that now and I get the world to come. Why am I complaining about the little things I don't have that I can't keep? If I was wise, we'll see this, I'm jumping ahead because my emotions are getting the best of me. I'm jumping ahead to my application at the end. But if we were smart, we would give everything we have but we'd see how big we could write the check. We wouldn't be given stingily. We wouldn't be going, oh, you can have just a little bit. I need the rest for my vacation. I need the rest for this. I need Bob a little bit better clothes. I need to really lay up more treasures on earth. I need more shoes. I need, we would be foolish to think we need to invest in this world. Why would we suffer if there's not a resurrection? Paul put it this way in Philippians 3.8. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ and to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him in the power of his resurrection and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. And by any means possible, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. I do everything in hopes of that glorious day when it comes back, when I come out of the grave with all things been given to me with a new body that is perfectly glorified. And I've been brought into the presence of God and all my tears are wiped away and enter into the joy of the Lord. That's what I'm aiming for. And therefore I count all that I have as rubbish. You can, I die every day to this. I do not put my hopes on this. In fact, I sacrifice all these things. I suffer with Christ. I endure with Christ. I go down with Christ so I can come up with Christ. Some of you may be thinking God doesn't care about me. You had a little pity party for yourself and I'm not getting onto you 'cause I do this every day. I do this more than I'd like to admit. To have these little pity parties, little gloomy spells, which you excuse to allow yourself to feel a little bit like you're getting the short end of the stick. Someone said something about you and it hurt your feelings and you're dealing with that and you're dealing with this feeling of bitterness or discontentment. Remember when Peter looked to the Lord and he says, Lord, we have forsaken all for you. You know, I've given up all for you. Look what I've given to you, what I've sacrificed for you. I love what Jesus said back to them. All that you've given up will be repaid to you, not only in this life and I think it's the first fruits. What he gives us in this life is better than what we've lost. Knowing Jesus Christ is far more easily valuable. To be known of him, to have communion with him is more valuable than anything else that we have ever had. But he says, not only that I've given it to you in this life, but also in the age to come. You see, we suffer all things, endure all things for the hope of the resurrection. Paul put it this way, 2 Corinthians 4.17, for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us eternal glory that far outweighs them all. I really believe this and I know it's gonna be hard for you to hear this. When we get to heaven, we're gonna think, I wish I suffered just a little bit more.'Cause when we get to heaven, we're gonna look at our sufferings that we thought were big when we're going through it. We're gonna go, oh, that was light. In comparison, that was light. And it was just momentary and it was so short-lived. It felt like it was forever. I mean, it just seemed like it went on and on and on and on. Some of you are in the longevity of a hardship and it's just like, when will this end? When will this pain go away? It just won't go away, won't go away. But even if that pain and sorrow last to the end of your days, and you go to the grave with it, the moment Christ comes back and you come out of the grave, you're gonna go, well, that wasn't long at all. And to think that that suffering produced in you a far more greater eternal weight of glory is unimaginable. That's what Paul says in Romans 8, 18,"I consider that our present sufferings"are not worth comparing with the glory"that will be revealed in us." Peter put it this way,"In all this you greatly rejoice,"though now for a little while"you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials."These have come to you to prove the genuineness"of your faith of a greater worth than gold,"which perishes even though it's refined with fire,"may result in praise, glory, and honor"when Jesus Christ is revealed." He goes on to say in chapter four, verse 12,"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal"that has come on you to test you"as though something strange were happening to you."But rejoice in as much as you participate"in the sufferings of Christ,"so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed." If there's not that day of glory, that day of resurrection, then Paul's saying the Christian life of suffering makes no sense. The third point, our obedience is meaningless without the resurrection. We see this in verse 32."If the dead are not raised,"let us eat, drink, for tomorrow we die." I mean, if there's no resurrection, and if this world just continues on as it is, and there's no second coming, and this is just it, if this is it, go for it. Is this the best you got materialistically speaking? Go endorse yourself, get as much as you can. I was talking to Eric Irons yesterday. It's like, do you think it's possible if any man in America says,"I wanna be a billionaire, or half a billionaire,"half $500 million." Do you think it's possible for us if you're young enough you need to put that caveat on in there? Some of your old man's too late. But if you're young enough, if that was your sole intent to become where you had a half a billion dollars in the bank, you think it's possible? I mean, if you're willing to sacrifice your wife, your family, he told me a story, Eric Irons told me a story about the coach of the Dallas Cowboys, Jimmy Johnson, I think his name's, that's something bigger. Okay, this has blew my mind. Jimmy Johnson got, when he first got the position of the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, he come home once he got the job, he come home and told his wife,"I want you to know that the marriage is over."I'm gonna give up the rest of my life."This is my life's dream."I've done everything I could in my life"to be the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys."And now that I've arrived, I won't have time for you."I'm gonna designate and give my rest of my energy,"all my energy, it went to national championships." He did that for a perishable crown. A perishable crown, what a waste. But if there's no resurrection, why don't we just go for it? Why don't we just eat, drink? I mean, the young people know this phrase, YOLO. Why don't we just go for it? But he says,"It's because we lack knowledge in the resurrection"that is affecting the way we behave."The reason we sin more than we should sin"is because we don't have our eye on the resurrection."And by the resurrection, I'm called by the eternal age"and everything that comes after that."We have our eyes on this present evil age,"on this present life."We're really trying to live our best life now"and we want out what we can out today." But it goes on to say in verse 33,"Do not be deceived, bad company ruins good morals."Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right,"and do not go on sinning." What's going on here? People come into Corinth, they were teaching, a false teaching that the resurrection is not gonna happen. There's no resurrection. They were influenced by some form of agnosticism that crept into Greek society at that time. Everything physical and bodily and material is evil and God's not worried about the body. So they were denying their resurrection, but it was undermining the Christian faith. But it also undermined the fact that we are going to inherit a new body and a new heavens and a new earth. And I'm gonna tell you something about heaven. It's not just an airy space, a airy place that you cannot touch. It's gonna be a new heaven and a new earth. It's gonna be physical, it's gonna be tangible. You're gonna have a body, you're gonna walk around on it. It's gonna be without sin. It's gonna be perfectly glorified. There's not gonna be any tears. There's not gonna be sadness. Christ is gonna be with us forever on this new earth. It's gonna be tangible. It's gonna be real. It's gonna be materialistic. It's gonna be glorious. That's what we're living for. That's what we're aiming for. But if we're denying the resurrection and the material blessings to come, it's gonna lead to simple behavior today. And this is why Peter in 2 Peter chapter three says, in light of his approaching coming where he destroys this world and all the world's gonna be dissolved with fire, this should help shape how we behave. Knowing that the world's coming to an end, live like that. Live like that. Live like your house is gonna be destroyed. Live like your cars are not gonna be eternal. Live like your money is gonna have to be taken from you one day. You brought nothing with you. You're not gonna take it away with you. And therefore, do with it wisely. Take filthy manna, Jesus says, and turn it into eternal blessings. Best thing we can do is take our life, our substance, our material blessings, everything we have, and give it to the altar and put it into investments that will pay eternal dividends for us. This world is not our home. And we best just keep looking and put our eyes on the age to come. We should live for eternity. Obey Christ in all things, we should follow the advice of Jim Elliot. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Some of you may be called to a mission field and you're gonna have to give up a lot of things. You're gonna have to sacrifice your jobs, your careers. You're gonna have to look like you're silly to some of your friends and your family. That's foolish. And sometimes we don't do stuff because we're afraid of the perception of seeming foolish. We don't wanna attempt the Lord. We use that one. I don't wanna attempt the Lord as an excuse to not be sacrificially servants of the Lord in all areas of our life. We want Christ and the American dream. And I'm not saying if God gives you the American dream and God blesses you and the Lord's definitely given me a lot of blessings that I enjoy. But maybe you're not called to the mission field as I've already said, maybe you're called to a difficult marriage. What would God have you do? Run from it? No. To honor him by dying to yourself in it. Maybe you have difficult relations and family members. What are you to do? Seek what's best for you? No, you die to yourself. All this suffering came for Paul was doing this for the sake of the Corinthians and the Colossians and the ones he's ministered to. You see, the ministry and serving Christ through serving his peoples can be difficult. It includes rejection and people gossiping about you or misquoting you and saying things that's not all altogether accurate. Then you hear about it. It hurts. I can testify. It hurts. When your motives are twisted. Some of you feel deep loneliness and I'm almost done. Some of you may be experiencing some major loss. But let me ask you, if you're a pastor and you're in my position, what do you tell the old men and old women? How do you comfort the old people in your church? Who's got cancer? And even if they can survive a little longer, you know, they're 95. What do you expect? You think they're gonna live another 20 years? What word of comfort do you have? Real comfort. I mean, a real word of comfort to someone who's losing everything. I mean, you have some superficial, keep your chin up. You excited about the football game? Ready for your next vacation? Well, how do you comfort those who are dying? And if we stop and let the clutter go, dissipate a little bit and the distractions go away, you're all dying. It doesn't matter if you're 95 or you're 25, it's just a vapor. This world is coming to an end and your life is coming to an end. But is this hopeless? Is this gloomy? No, no, you need to die so you can be resurrected. The aim is not this life. The aim is in the life to come. The aim is for Christ to return. And this is why John said at the end of Revelation, oh Lord, oh Lamb of God, come, oh Lord, come indeed, come quickly. Come, rescue us from this evil age. Rescue me from my aches and pains. Rescue me from the indwelling sin in my life. Rescue me from this world. You can have it, you can have everything in it. All of it's rubbish. I give it all, I don't want it. I'm losing it. Take it, take it, take it. I'll take Jesus because in Jesus, listen brothers and sisters, in Christ there's everything. Outside of Christ there's nothing. And God has given you riches untold. He's given you all the spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. You are rich, you have eternal life. You're never gonna, you're not gonna lose. I promise you on the authority of God's word, you're either gonna see Christ come back and your body's gonna be transformed and twinkling of an eye, or you're gonna go to the grave and your soul will be present with the Lord, but when he returns, you will return with the Lord to receive your resurrected body and be brought into the eternal joy of the Lord with his whole earth. Whatever this earth's gonna look like is given to you. Let's pray. Lord is based on his resurrection that we live the Christian life. We are baptized because we have hope of the resurrection. We suffer because we have hope of the resurrection and we obey you and don't live for this world because of your promise of the resurrection, amen.[BLANK_AUDIO]