The Rhetorical Taunt

Transcript

Good morning, family. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Thomas. I serve as one of the pastors here, and I’d love to get to meet you, so you can find me in the back of the service, or the back of the sanctuary at the end of the service, so come and say hello if we’ve not met. If you’d be so kind as to turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 15, chapter 15 verses 50 through 58, and if you don’t have a Bible with you this morning, there’s one underneath the seat in front of you. You can find our text on page 904. Paul writes,

I tell you this, brothers and sisters, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed

— 1 Corinthians 15

(ESV)

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In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain

— 1 Corinthians 15

(ESV)

. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, we do thank you for your word. We pray now that you would give us the help of the Holy Spirit to have eyes to see and ears to hear what you have intended for us this morning. We pray that the Holy Spirit would help to bend our hearts under the authority of your word. And we pray that your spirit would grant us the joy that your word brings to us, the joy that one day we will be changed, and most importantly, we will be with you for all of eternity. We pray these things in Christ’s name, amen. The word death is perhaps the greatest and most powerful word in the human dictionary. It’s the only word that can level any room at any given moment, leaving everyone emotionally wrecked. Because of its leveling power and its sobering sense of finality, this one little word is

always the loudest and clearest word spoken. We hate when we hear this word, because it brings to our mind and stirs up our hearts in a way that is very uncomfortable. In fact, last week, as Sean preached to us about death, I could see and feel the various responses in our congregation, which would include my own family. And that’s because the mere mention of the word death causes a kind of kaleidoscope of complicated emotions, fear, uncertainty, regret, mourning, grief, all at the same time. And this is precisely why, friends, our culture has come up with literally hundreds of words, hundreds of euphemisms for the word death. We use words like passed away, departed, or loss of life, because we think that if we avoid using the word death, it will somehow soften its sting. But even more painful than the sting of the word death is the sting of death itself.

The Requisite for Change

You see, it’s the reality that sits behind the word that gives it its power. In many ways, death is humanity’s greatest enemy, because in the end, it takes from us our very humanity. But for the Christian, for those who have trusted in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, there is glorious hope in the face of death’s sting. A hope that addresses both the fear of death and the end of humanity, which can be very confusing to a culture who is consumed by deferring death and preserving humanity. And what makes the Christian’s hope so glorious is that in the end, death will finally be destroyed and humanity is perfectly remade. And this is precisely what we’ll see in our text this morning, with the climax of Paul’s teaching on the bodily resurrection and Christ’s victory over death. Throughout this chapter, Paul has reminded the Corinthian Christians and us of the gospel.

That Christ, the son of God, died for our sins, was buried, and that he was raised from the grave. Paul explained that when Christ was raised, he appeared to over 500 people, giving us verifiable proof that he is, in fact, raised from the grave. Then Paul moved to the implications and the realities of the resurrection, showing us that when Christ returns, death will itself be destroyed. And what this means for us, as followers of Jesus, is that death is defeated for us, and that we too will be raised with glorified bodies, just like Christ. We will have sinless, never-ending bodies, suitable for a sinless, never-ending world. Think about the brokenness of your body. Think about the brokenness of our world. As I was making my way to church this morning, driving down Halsey, passing 122nd, I could see the brokenness of our world. Literally, over 50 people slumped over from fentanyl use like living zombies.

It was a sobering reality that our world is completely broken. Family, there is hope because God will renovate this broken world. He will rework both our bodies and this broken world. And family, this reality should induce in us hope-filled worship. In fact, Paul’s aim and intention in this passage, in this glorious crescendo, is to move our hearts to hope, praise, and thankfulness for Christ’s victory over sin and death, for our vicarious victory over sin and death because of Christ’s work, and for how He will change these bodies, destined for death, into immortal bodies suitable for a new heaven and new earth. Now, for some of you, this morning you might be thinking, wow, Thomas, we have to listen to another sermon on the resurrection of believers. Hasn’t four sermons been enough? My response to that is four weeks is not even close to enough. As Christians, we should constantly have before our eyes the reality of the resurrection,

not just the resurrection of Jesus, but the resurrection of the saints. Christians do not talk enough about life after death, which is why so many Christians are afraid of death. So my aim this morning is to herald once again the beauty and reality of the resurrection of believers so that the fear of death, just like the sting of death, might be destroyed in our hearts and provide us hope. To help us along this morning, I’ve taken this text and I’ve broken it into three sections. So in verses 50 to 53, we’ll look at the requisite for change. In verses 54 to 57, we’ll look at the reason for celebration. And then in verse 58, we’ll look at the response of the church. So let’s begin in verse 50 with the requisite for change. Paul writes, I tell you this, brothers and sisters, now just hold there for a second.

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Paul begins this portion of text with this kind of introductory statement. It might not seem crucial to the context itself, but this introduction sets for us the tone and urgency of what Paul is about to communicate. When he says, I tell you this, he’s essentially saying, listen up, brothers and sisters, pay attention to this, because what I’m about to explain to you is incredibly significant for believers, which is why he addresses them as brothers and sisters, the believers, the children of God. And after grabbing their attention with this intro, he begins to open up his argument. He says, listen, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Now this phrase, flesh and blood, it’s a common Jewish expression used for describing a human being in the New Testament. Whenever you see these words together, it’s always referring to human life as we know

it now, in our mortal condition. What Paul is getting at here is that believers, brothers and sisters, cannot inherit the kingdom of God the way we are right now, in these perishable mortal bodies. It’s impossible. The bodies we have now, these living, fragile, mortal bodies that are subject to all kinds of decay, are not fit for the world to come. They won’t work the way they’re supposed to work in God’s new, renovated world. Nor could you enter the new world with a decomposed, dead body. Neither is fit for what God has prepared. Paul’s language here reminds me of what Paul said earlier in this letter. In 1 Corinthians 2.9, he said, No eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor the heart of man imagine what God has prepared for those who love Him. Continuing Paul’s motif here, it might be reasonable to presume that no body, no human

body as it is, has the capacity for what God has prepared for those who love Him. So Paul is saying, if we have any hope for eternal life, any hope for participating in God’s glorious coming kingdom, the kingdom He has established for those who love Him, something about us must change. And that change has everything to do with our current physical bodies. Because of sin’s effect on us, which includes our physical bodies, they are incompatible with the eternal world to come. So let’s just imagine for a second that Elon Musk somehow gets us to Mars. That’s assuming we’ve been to the moon already, but that’s a whole other topic. I’m just kidding. Kind of. If we were somehow to get to Mars, we could not live there without spacesuits and technology because our bodies were not made to live in that kind of environment.

And in an infinitely greater way, our bodies would not survive the world that God will remake for us, the world that is fit for eternity. Our bodies need to be remade and transformed for eternity. We talked about this two weeks ago. Christ is the model. Christ died. Christ was buried. Christ was raised with a glorified, transformed body. And if Christ is the first fruit, then we too must experience this kind of glorified transformation. Now, Paul, anticipating the obvious question from these Corinthians, preemptively addresses what he assumes they might ask. Paul assumes that in light of what he just said about our bodies needing to be transformed, that they might ask something like this. If we must die to be raised in a glorified body like Christ did, well then what happens to those who are still alive when Christ returns? Those who have not experienced a physical death and have been buried?

Do they have to die first? Will they be missing out on this new transformed body because they never died? So Paul just kind of jumps ahead of them in verse 51 and says, behold, I tell you a mystery. Paul is about to break this whole thing down for them, preemptively. But before we unpack this, I think it’s important to understand what Paul means when he says mystery. A mystery in scripture is a divine truth that has been hidden or concealed. Now, there are some things, some spiritual things in this world that are not a mystery. Take for example, the existence of God. The Bible tells us that the existence of God is evidence throughout creation. Psalm 19.1, the heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim his handiwork. So the glory and the fingerprints of God is not a mystery to mankind. You also have the law of God, though a bit more complicated, not a mystery.

The Bible tells us in Romans 2.15 that the law is written on the hearts of all people and that their consciences accuse them of their law breaking. So God made these plain. The problem is that man suppresses that which is evident in creation and that which is written on our human hearts. Now, there are some things that are mysteries, but that are revealed at the right time to the right people. Like the mystery that Paul mentions in Colossians chapter 1, verse 26 and 27. The mystery which was hidden for ages but now revealed is Christ in you, the hope of glory. So what Paul says in verse 51 is that I’m about to tell you a mystery, what God has revealed to me about this change that will take place to those of you who are the children of God. And he says in the second half of verse 51 and verse 52, he begins to explain the mystery.

He says, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed. Paul, revealing this mystery to the church, begins by saying, we shall not all sleep. Which is a euphemism for death. And what he’s saying is that not every believer will die, but every believer will be changed. So we need not worry about the dead, because they are not missing out on anything. The dead too will be changed. Paul unpacks a similar mystery in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 15, he says, we tell you that those who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. He uses the same euphemism here.

In other words, whether you are alive when Christ returns, or buried in the ground, everyone who trusts in Jesus will be transformed. And listen, this transformation, Paul says, will happen in an instant. It won’t be this kind of gradual mutation into a different kind of body. It won’t be a slow, drawn out process like a caterpillar in a cocoon waiting to become a butterfly. Paul says it will happen in a moment. And just how quick is this moment? Paul says it’s in the twinkling of an eye, which is actually faster than a blink. Neuroscientists say that the average blink takes about 300 to 400 milliseconds. But the twinkling of an eye, that’s even quicker. Probably too hard to quantify. So imagine how fast that is. In that moment, faster than you can blink or glance, we will be changed. That’s pretty fast. But also, Paul references the last trumpet here, which is an instrument used in a lot

of the Old Testament as a sound of victory or as a battle cry. The last trumpet that Paul refers to here is the sound that signals the arrival of the Lord who is coming to defeat death and raise his people to eternal life. And it happens instantaneously at the sound of this trumpet. So the truth is, we won’t even really have enough time to understand what’s going on. We’ll just kind of hear the very front end of the trumpet sound, and we will be changed. Just think about that sound for a second. A trumpet that is so loud that it’s not only heard all around the world at the same time, but it’s loud enough to wake the dead and signal the beginning of immortality for God’s people. That is an incredible sound. Now just to put this in perspective, as humans, we can stand at the gravesites of our loved

ones all day long and scream at the top of our lungs, rise up! But no matter how loudly we call out to them, they won’t respond. Because dead people don’t respond to the words of mere men, no matter how loud or persuasive they might be. But at the sound of this trumpet, all the dead in Christ will rise. Now just to be clear, it’s not the source of the sound that rises people. It’s only the signal. The power that will rise the dead rests entirely with God. And listen, you need to understand this reality when it comes to our evangelism. It’s almost the exact same way. Dead people cannot hear or respond to the gospel words that men and women declare, no matter how loud or persuasive or powerful they might be. Unless God causes for them to hear and respond, they cannot respond. But the sound of this trumpet, Paul says, will be so loud and so powerful that not only

will the living hear it, but even the dead will hear it, respond, and be raised. Paul’s reference to this trumpet as a signal for victory over death is exactly what we see in 1 Thessalonians 4, 16 and 17. Paul says, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. What Paul says here is that not only will we be transformed at the trumpet sound, but we will be transported into the sky to meet the Lord in the air. And this, interestingly, should give us some perspective on the kind of body that we will

be given. The kind of body that can be transported and sustained in the air. Listen, I don’t think this is metaphorical here. That’s the kind of body that will be given, and most importantly, the kind of body that can be with the Lord. The message Paul is making here is clear. Christ will win the final battle with death instantaneously and effortlessly, and everything we understand about our bodies will be changed, and we will be with the Lord. Paul emphasizes the necessity of this change in verse 53. He says, for this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. It’s an interesting phrase Paul uses here, to put on. It kind of gives us this image of taking off old clothes and putting on new clothes. So Christ will remove our perishable bodies and clothe us with imperishable ones, taking

the old mortality and putting on the new immortality. And listen, our bodies will be the same in essence, but remade in a new imperishable form. Again, this emphasizes the continuity that we talked about two weeks ago. Our bodies will still be ours. We will be seen and known, but these bodies will be transformed for eternity. And Paul says that this must happen. Twice, he says this must happen. There is no other way. There are no other options. To inherit God’s new world, a transformed body is the prerequisite. Then Paul moves us from what must take place to what will take place. And here is where we see the reason for celebration, beginning in verse 54. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your victory?

The Reason for Celebration

Oh, death, where is your sting? When the final change occurs with our physical bodies, when we are made immortal creatures, then death will be defeated. Paul says that death will be swallowed up in victory. And that’s a really interesting phrase, to say that death will be swallowed up. It means that it will be completely consumed. Think of a snake that swallows up its prey. Once the snake has choked the life out of its prey, it is then completely swallowed up into non-existence. Family, this is what Christ will do with death. He will swallow it up into non-existence, to kill it and devour it as if it never even existed in the first place. It’s one thing to defeat death, but to remove it from existence is something that is altogether powerful and something that only God could do. And Paul, caught up in worship at what God will do with death, uses this biblical language

to kind of mock death with this rhetorical taunt. And here’s probably how Paul intended to recite this rhetorical taunt. Oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? Christ has swallowed it up into nothingness. Paul recites this taunt, which is an adaptation of the prophet Hosea, in chapter 13, verse 14. Oh death, where are your plagues? Oh sheol, where is your sting? Paul modifies this Old Testament passage to emphasize the final death of humanity’s greatest enemy, which for us, who have been so strangled by the fear of death, this should cause us to worship. The giant that could never be defeated has been destroyed. And this taunt, it ought to show you how Paul views death in general. Paul doesn’t view it the same way that Plato or Philo viewed death, that death was, you know, this sort of happy release into a disembodied realm, or that death is the final escape from

the prison of the body. No, Paul calls it an enemy, a force that has wreaked havoc on humans, an enemy that has reigned throughout the ages, bringing fear and terror to God’s people, separating families, stripping us from our loved ones, taunting us with its unknown attacks, humiliating us with its power by placing us in the grave. Here Paul says in this song of taunt, no more. Death is done. Death is rendered impotent in the light of Christ’s victory. Christ has absorbed the venom of death’s sting, and victory’s sin over death now extends to God’s people, those who are alive and those who have gone to be with the Lord. So Paul begins to sing this song of celebration, which is not only full of worship, but it’s also deeply theological. He starts by saying, the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

Now, sin, death, and the law are concepts we hear about all the time, but they can sometimes be confusing to fully understand. So let me just try to simplify what Paul is communicating through his song structure. Essentially, Paul is paraphrasing this profound reality. Death, which entered the world through Adam, gained its hold over humanity through sin. In other words, when Adam sinned, death entered into the world and spread to all humanity. And the reason sin brings death is because death is the moral and just response to sin. The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. The reason the consequence of sin is so severe is because the one we sin against is so holy. So if any human sins, even in the smallest way, against a holy and righteous God, that person deserves a death sentence. And the Bible tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

So all deserve death because all sin. Now the law, God’s perfect moral standard, which is good and beautiful, also exposes our sin. It actually brings an awareness of our sin. So though we try to suppress it, it reveals to us that we sin. This is why even non-Christians know the difference between what is right and what is wrong. The law, which is written on our hearts, shows us that God’s standard is too high for any of us to meet on our own. And it condemns us where we stand. It reveals our insufficiency to keep the law. And death comes to give us what we rightly deserve for failing to keep the law perfectly. But here is the hope of the gospel. That through Jesus Christ, we can be saved from our sins. And the law that once condemned us and the sin that once killed us can no longer have

power over us because Christ fulfilled the law perfectly on our behalf. He absorbed our sin and took the death we deserved on the cross and defeated death by raising from the grave so that we too might one day defeat death by trusting in his finished work. When he returns, he will destroy death once and for all, rendering it completely powerless because we will live forever. Death, friend, is coming for everyone. Can I ask you this morning, have you trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins? The thing that will keep you from eternal life? Christ is the only one who can save you from the judgment that we all deserve because of our sins. It doesn’t matter how good of a person you claim to be or how perfect you think you are lining up to God’s law. You can’t live up to it. You need a savior to save you from your sins.

And you can have this savior this morning by trusting and believing that he is who he says he is, the son of God who came to rescue the world as a ransom. The Bible says if you turn from your sins and trust in Jesus, you will be saved. And if you have questions about what it means to follow Jesus, ask any Christian in this room and they would love to talk to you about what it means to follow Jesus. Any member of this church would love to talk to you. Family, the sting of sin and death, the sting of death is sin and the power is law. This is how Paul closes, listen to how he closes this song of celebration in verse 57. He says in this beautiful doxology, he says, the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul says, thanks be to God because we did nothing, but we inherited everything. This is why Paul sings this song of celebration. And to be clear, Paul does not celebrate the Christian’s victory over death. He celebrates Christ’s victory over death. Brothers and sisters, our victory in every way is a vicarious one. Jesus did it all. He paid it all. He absorbed it all. He won it all. He did everything so every thanks should belong to God. Paul exalts Christ for what he has done. And in light of all that Christ has won for us, Paul now moves from Christ to us. Because our victory is a vicarious victory through Christ, Paul turns to how we as the church should respond. And here’s the thing, family. The Christian life is one that is constantly marked by responding to what Christ has done for us. So we don’t do things to kind of earn God’s favor or love.

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The Response of the Church

We respond to God’s favor and love. And Paul shows us a bit of this in verse 58 with the response of the church. Paul writes, therefore, in light of all I’ve just said, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Now throughout this chapter that deals almost exclusively with the resurrection, Paul has said some really hard and challenging things to the Corinthians. He’s been correcting all of their presuppositions and all of their foolish philosophy. But he closes this chapter with a very affectionate tone. He says, my beloved brothers and sisters. So again, as Paul has been doing throughout this letter, he moves from rebuke and correction to a pastoral exhortation. And this exhortation comes in three parts. Just look at how Paul exhorts them. He actually brings them back to the beginning of the chapter.

He ends where he began. In the last verse of chapter 15, it’s actually a mirror to the two first verses in chapter 15. He said, now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the gospel I preach to you in which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. Paul begins in verse 58 by calling them to be steadfast and immovable. He’s again saying, you need to stand firm in all that you’ve heard from me. He’s reminding them of the gospel again. The gospel you received, the gospel in which you now stand, and the gospel by which you are being saved. He is urging them, don’t deviate from what you’ve heard concerning this gospel. Don’t add to it. Don’t take away from it. And definitely don’t be taken captive by the foolish philosophies of the culture.

The reason he’s reminding them is because the consequences of drifting from the gospel has eternal implications. And Paul here is pleading with them, don’t do it. Remind yourself of the gospel so that you can stand firm in it. And this is a good word for every Christian. In order to stand firm in the gospel, to be steadfast and immovable, we must be reminded of the gospel. And this, family, is why we strive so hard to prioritize the gospel in almost every facet of our liturgy. So that you can be reminded. We need to be reminded lest we forget and fall away. A while back, my wife showed me an Instagram reel of a young woman influencer who was kind of sharing her deconversion story. She was once a professing Christian who was raised in a Christian home, and she even attended a Christian school, but now she has completely abandoned the faith.

In her reel, she was responding to people who had asked her about her deconversion experience. And basically, the way that she described it was this kind of gradual drifting away from the faith. She didn’t just stop believing, she stopped feeling the need to go to church. She stopped feeling the need to define sin as sin. And as I listened to her story, I realized that this deconversion, like so many others that we hear about in our culture today, it started with this very subtle drift. A slow but deliberate severing of belief in the gospel. It wasn’t a sudden rejection, but an intentional forgetfulness of what she had once believed and stood upon. Paul, way ahead of the deconstructionist movement, offers us this warning. Hold fast, stand firm, intentionally remember the gospel so that you won’t slowly drift away from the faith. This is what Paul means by being steadfast and immovable.

And then Paul encourages them to be always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Now, what does Paul mean by abounding in the work of the Lord? What kind of work is he referring to? Well, Paul means giving yourself fully to the church. What Paul means is the work of ministry in the church. Remember, Paul isn’t talking to pastors only. He’s actually talking to members of the church. When he says always abounding, he’s saying constantly give yourself to your brothers and sisters in the church. Sacrifice for them. Encourage them with the word. Build them up with the word. Fight to preserve unity in the church. Show radical benevolence and creatively meet the unique needs of the church. Pray for the sick, visit those who are in the hospital, care for the elderly among us, provide meals for those who need it, serve in ministries, give your time and money and

resources to the church. This is what it means to always abound in the work of the Lord. Brothers and sisters, your labor, the way you give yourself, will not be wasted. Notice the phrase, not in vain. Paul uses it here in verse 58 just like he did in verse 2. In verse 2 he said, hold fast to the gospel unless you believed in vain. Paul connects your actions to your profession. If you’ve been serving God and caring for God’s people in the church, then your work is not in vain. If what you profess is genuine, then you will work it out in the context of the local church. James 2.18 says, but someone will say, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works. Paul is saying, give yourself to the people of God because you believe that Christ gave

himself to make people his people. Galatians 6.10 says, so then, when we have the opportunity, let us do good. That means let us do good to everyone and especially those who are in the household of God. Listen, I get so tired of hearing Christians say, you know, I’d just rather focus all of my attention and energy outside the church. That’s really where we should be focusing all of our attention. And listen, I understand the sentiment, but to serve this world while neglecting the household of God is to redefine God’s stated priority. Do good to everyone, but especially, that means most importantly, the household of faith, the church. Family, we must abound in building up the church because we believe that Christ died for her. He has laid down his life for his bride, the church, and we should care for her. That means caring for the people in it.

And the whole goal, listen, just in case you get confused, the whole goal of evangelism, doing work outside of the church, just so you understand this, that work of evangelism is to lead lost people to Jesus so that they might become a part of the church. God saves his church. Paul’s preaching was not in vain and his work for the church was not in vain. And because of the resurrection, you can know that all of your efforts to build up the church are not in vain. Listen, the promise of our future should in every way fuel our faithfulness in the present. Brothers and sisters, our future is secure. Death will be destroyed and in a very real sense, we can already live in victory over death. So we don’t fear death the way the world does because we know it’s only a matter of time

before we are changed. When Christ will renovate this world and change us into imperishable beings. Our future inheritance won for us by Christ’s life, death, and resurrection gives us both confidence in this life after death and the motivation to labor with all that we have for the life that is to come. Family, can I ask you this morning, are you living in light of eternity? Are you future focused with your gifts, with your resources, with your time and with your energy? Are you focusing on people who are eternally lost, telling them about their only hope for eternal life? Or are you striving for the accomplishments that won’t last beyond your eulogy? Are you working only for the comforts of this life? If so, you need to ask yourself why. We have eternity ahead of us with glorified bodies fit to be with a glorified Lord.

God’s Sovereignty Over Death

So family, we should live like that. We should live like that really is our reality. Now, I just want to close with one thought and I want to be clear here. This isn’t something that is explicitly mentioned in our text this morning, but it’s definitely relevant to the topic. And I think it has a pretty strong implication for us. A few weeks ago, I was sent a sermon from a very popular former pastor here in Portland. This former pastor now has a ministry that is growing in influence, not just in our city, but really all over the place. The main theme of his sermon was about meticulous providence, which is a theological term for describing God’s ultimate control over everything. And in his sermon, this former pastor mentioned something which is very concerning. He said that while God is in control of most things, He’s not ultimately in control of

all things. And he particularly mentions that God isn’t necessarily in control of natural disasters or death. What’s even more interesting is that he actually used a portion of Scripture that we looked at a few weeks ago, specifically 1 Corinthians 15, verse 26, where Paul writes that the last enemy to be destroyed is death. He uses that section of Scripture as kind of a proof text for his claim. His argument was that because death is described as an enemy of God, then it means that God cannot be sovereign over it. And although I cannot speak to his motives, I suspect his aim was to somehow soften people’s perception of God, making God seem less involved in what is often one of the hardest realities of life, death. But I want to be clear, lest any of you hear this kind of teaching in Portland or in Vancouver,

this way of thinking is not only biblically wrong, it is dangerously harmful. While the Lord is not responsible for the evil that causes death, He is still completely in control of it all. Psalm 39, verse 4 says, Oh Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days? Let me know how fleeting I am. This verse isn’t just saying that we should be aware of the day of our death, it’s saying that God is sovereign over it, that He is the one who appoints it. We see this in Hebrews chapter 9, verse 27, where He says that it is appointed for man to die once and then the judgment. That word appointed, it actually means to decree it. If God exercises absolute control over all things, which we know He does according to Hebrews 1, 3, where it says that Christ upholds the universe by the power of His word, then

nothing, absolutely nothing, can hinder or disrupt God’s sovereign plan, including death. God’s eternal decree sustains all things. Every breath, every moment, every trip and fall, every broken bone, every season of life, all things are held together by the power of His will. And in the same way, by His eternal decree, He determines when our mortal bodies will be clothed in immortality. It’s absolutely crucial to understand this truth because if you believe that God is not ultimately in control of death, then the fear of death and the sting of death will still have its power over you. You will find yourself wrestling with anxiety and stress, wondering if there’s something outside of God’s control that might take your life, something that might take you away from this life before God has intended to. The idea that death can take us before it’s too soon causes distrust in the goodness of

God. Family, listen, God is sovereign, and His sovereignty, specifically over death, gives us peace and assurance that He will preserve our lives by His own strength until the day that He has determined to call us home and that we will not die one moment sooner than He has destined us to. That is a comforting reality. We can rest in that security, and though it is difficult to understand, especially when we suddenly lose loved ones or we feel like death came too soon for our loved ones, though we can’t understand it, on this side of eternity, God is infinitely wiser than we are, and we can trust Him. God is good, and everything He does is good. He is working all things together for our good. This, family, includes the pain and reality of death. We can trust Him, even with broken hearts, even with confusion.

We can trust Him that He is good. And here’s the truth. To be with God is far better than anything this world has to offer. To be with God ultimately is our final destination. So we can rest in the certainty that God is working all things together for our good. This idea that death has its own agency, that it’s powerful enough to kind of supersede the mighty hand of God is foolish, and it is not in alignment with God’s Word. God exercises absolute and comprehensive authority over everything in this world, so we don’t have to worry. We don’t have to worry because we know that even in death, God is still in control. He’s not surprised by it, and though He’s not responsible for it, He has in every way ordained it, and because He is faithful and good, we can trust Him in life and in death.

So family, until the day that God calls us home, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing, trusting, having confidence in the fact that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Amen? Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, we thank You for the glorious hope of heaven, for the reality that we will be with You for all of eternity, for the fact that You have conquered death, showing us that when You rose from the grave, death can be defeated, and that You will ultimately put it to rest, annihilating it, swallowing it up in victory. And we pray, O Lord and God, that You would give us eyes that are future-focused so that we might not be afraid of death, but taunt death. Lord, help us to see it for what it really is, under Your sovereign control, and nothing

to be feared. And Father, we pray that You would help us to have appetites for a new and better world with better bodies and a better environment, one that is sinless, without pain, without suffering, without separation. We pray, O Lord and God, that would fuel our worship, that it would fuel our expectations, and that it would fuel the way we serve one another in the here and now. The Church is really the greatest expression of what heaven will be like, so help us to be preoccupied with the things of this Church until Your Church is made one and we are with You forever. We pray these things in Christ’s name, amen.