1 Corinthians 15, starting in verse 1. Now, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 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, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he 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. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed. So now turn over to the end of the chapter in verse 58. which simply says, therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Would you pray with me, please? Gracious God, thank you so much for that wonderful promise that in the Lord, our labor is not in vain. God, help us to remember that when living a Christian life, doing all things for your sake and your glory gets very hard, help us remember that it's not in vain. God, when we labor and it seems mundane and repetitive and seems to go nowhere, would you remind us that our labor is not in vain? God, when we succeed, when we see fruit, when we see our lives filled with joy and the peace that comes from you, would you remind us that our labor is not in vain? God, we need your help in this, and so help us from your word to hear this truth, to be encouraged by it. We ask in Christ's name, amen. Amen. I knew an old evangelist, his name was Jerry, who used to like to ask the question, he would say, what are you doing for Jesus Christ's sake? It's kind of a provocative way to ask the question, right? Because he was looking to Christians and saying, what are you doing for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ? It should demand some self-reflection and response from all of us. And if you think about it, we all do many things. Like even the laziest person does something. They lay and sleep and drool. And I mean, you've done many things already today and you will do many more and you will do many more things tomorrow. The question that this really searches is what are you doing and why are you doing it? So if we put this in subjection to our Lord Jesus Christ, we would say that the aim of the Christian life is that we would do all things for Jesus Christ's sake. We would do all things for the glory of Jesus under his command and by his power and with his people. So all things from the most mundane things like eating and sleeping to your engagement in the marketplace, and in the public square, and of course in our worship, our aim is that we would do all things for the sake of Jesus Christ. I'm going to call that our Christian labor. So don't just think of Christian labor as the things that, the special things that Christians do, right? Those ministry sorts of things, which are good. But all of your life, all of your life lived for the sake of Jesus Christ, your Christian labor. This is the sort of word that we see in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, or 15 verse 10. when Paul says, I worked harder than any of them. He's talking about his labor, his toil, and of course what we read in verse 58. Verse 58 is really the goal and the climax of the whole chapter. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. So that's what really drives how we take this chapter of scripture and work it out in our lives. This whole last verse, verse 58, which I would summarize like this. Christians hold fast to Jesus and work hard for Jesus. Right? Be steadfast and movable. Hold fast. Always abounding in the work of the Lord. Work hard. This is what the Christian life is. So as we work through this chapter, which is gonna take us a number of weeks to work through, it's 58 verses long, we're gonna find reason again and again and again to ask, am I holding fast to Christ? And am I working hard for Christ? Or as my evangelist friend would ask, what are you doing for Jesus Christ's sake? Now last week, I opened this whole chapter with an exposition of the gospel, verses 1 through 5. And that, verses 1 through 5, is really what compels us, the gospel, to hold fast to Christ. To cling to Christ, to endure with Christ. Today, I want to help you connect how the gospel compels you to work hard for the sake of Christ. So, in order to get there, though, I think we need to zoom out a little bit and look at the whole chapter, because this is a very strange argument. I hope you spend time every week maybe going back and just reading 1 Corinthians 15, so that you can remember and wonder and see what's happened. And if you're like me, when you read this chapter, you're going to follow this great, beautiful exposition of the doctrines of resurrection, what we believe about the resurrection of the dead, and it's wonderful, and then all of a sudden, verse 58 seems to come out of nowhere. Right, believe the resurrection, Jesus rose, you will rise, therefore be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. So, I'm in my mind saying, what's the connection between resurrection and being steadfast and immovable and working hard? always abounding in the work of the Lord. What's that connection? Well, let me help you tease that out. Remember that chapter 15 is the culmination of a long letter. So Paul has done many things in 1 Corinthians. He's corrected, he's encouraged, he's instructed, and now he gets to the end, and it's as if he's saying, above all, like in all, the main thing is that you would hold fast to Christ and that you would work hard for Christ. This is Paul keeping the main thing, the main thing. Everything else is important, right? He needs to address issues like lawsuits and idolatry and adultery and church discipline. There's all sorts of things he needs to talk about. Worship, he says at the end of the day, there's one thing that must be the main thing and that is the gospel. And we need that reminder, too. We need the reminder to keep the main thing, the main thing. There are many ups and downs of the Christian life. There are many pressing issues that you will have to deal with and address. We all have things that matter the most to us. And yet, the one thing that we all hold to, that we all put supremely, is the gospel. That God, in his mercy and love, sent his son Jesus to this earth to die on the cross for our sins so that we would be forgiven, to rise from the dead and declare victory over sin and death so that by faith in Jesus, we are forgiven and given eternal life. At the end of the day, that's what matters most. Hold fast to Christ and then go work hard for Christ. Here's how he makes the argument. Here's your little summary of the whole chapter. So verses one through four establish the gospel as a foundation. that which we receive, in which we stand, by which we are being saved. Then he puts special emphasis on the appearances of Jesus. All right, we just read it a second ago. We'll focus quite a bit there. And I ask, why? Why, when talking about the gospel, does Paul mention the cross, mention the resurrection, and then spend multiple sentences explaining the appearances of Jesus? Here's what I suspect he's doing. He's concerned for us as Christians with this question. What's next? Great, you've believed the gospel. Wonderful, God has granted you eternal life. What's next? How does your faith in Jesus Christ change your life? You will look to the cross and see that as the path for your sin being removed. Now Paul looks to the resurrection and shows us this is the path for living as a Christian. So very much the template we have for living Christian lives is to follow Jesus through death and into resurrection. Now, if you're not a Christian, don't bypass the beginning. You can't live as someone who is not a Christian with hope in the resurrection from the dead. You have to start with Jesus on the cross. If you're not a Christian, you need to repent of your sin and put your faith in Jesus Christ. That's where you receive salvation. It's from there that you ask then, what's next? Well, what's next is that he rose from the dead. And so if Jesus has paid for all of your sin on the cross, then now you should say, how do I live? And you look to the resurrection. It's life in Jesus. It's life in Jesus. We follow him through death and into resurrection. And this is what Paul's starting to lay out for us. Okay, you've believed the gospel, here's how you live. By the resurrection. So then in verses 5 through 11, he shows how the resurrection of Jesus is what sets for Paul, writing this letter, a trajectory for working hard. That's gonna be our focus of the sermon today, so we'll just leave that there. Verses 12 through 19, Paul pulls back and examines the importance of resurrection, namely the resurrection of Jesus. He sort of does this by posing a question. What if, what if Jesus didn't rise from the dead? Right, because if you are going to live a life for Jesus, he had better have died and rose again. You must believe that. Then in verses 20 through 28, He shifts more positively and sort of gives us the implications of the resurrection, the doctrines of the resurrection, we would call that the teachings, the information about the resurrection, which leads him then to correct some things that the Corinthian church were doing. You know how this works, that oftentimes in order to get some things right, you have to be willing to correct things that you have done wrong. This is exactly what Paul does in verses 29 through 34, correcting their vanity. And then in verses 35 through 37, there's a big turn. And this is the significant turn where he says, Christians, just as Jesus was raised from the dead, you also will be raised from the dead to live with him. Now here's the connection. Because you will be raised from the dead to live with Christ forever, you must live as people who will live forever. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Therefore, be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." That's the big picture. He's saying, because you will be raised with Christ, live your lives here on earth as people who have hope and resurrection. We'll see how that fleshes out, specifically by looking at Paul's example. So if you look over to verses 5 through 11, we're going to see how Paul's example gives us a way to live, namely how grace from God in the gospel and how hope in a future resurrection compels us to work hard for the sake of Jesus. And that's where we're going. Hope from God in the gospel. Sorry, grace from God in the gospel. Hope in the future resurrection. That's what's going to compel us and motivate us to work hard for the sake of Jesus Christ. So, pick it up again in verse 3. In verse 3, Paul says, "...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, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. And then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles." There's a lot of information there, and more than we're gonna flip around and find in the Bible, but I gave you in the little note sheet in the bulletin all the references to the appearances of Jesus after his resurrection. So there's lots of them in the New Testament. I'm just gonna review what's here. Paul mentions in verse five that first Jesus appeared to Cephas. And Cephas is another name for Jesus' apostle Peter, who was the leader of the disciples. And this could refer to many times. Jesus actually appeared to Peter many times. Interestingly, there's a little mention in the Gospel of Luke in chapter 24, verse 24, that says, that mentions that it's as if Jesus had appeared to Peter individually sort of at the beginning, and I think that's a right progression. So he's appeared to Peter. We do have clear accounts of Jesus appearing to, according to verse 5 of chapter 15, the Twelve. And the 12 is referring to Jesus' disciples, the 12 disciples. Of course, you say, well, wait a second, didn't Judas betray Jesus and kill himself? Yes, he did. Paul doesn't say the 11, but that's okay. He's sort of just using the title for this group, the 12. Maybe there was Matthias there who was the one who took Judas' place. But Jesus appeared to the disciples on numerous occasions. Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20. You can read it over and over and over again. He shows up and appears to the disciples. So when did Jesus then appear, according to 1 Corinthians 15, to 500 brothers at one time? Not just like 500 people walking around and meeting them individually, but 500 people at one time. That's a pretty big crowd. Well, we don't know. I don't know which of the appearances of Jesus that's referring to. Interestingly, when you look in the Bible, we're never really told how many people are there. Sometimes we're told it's just the disciples, but there's these appearances of Jesus where we don't really know how many people were there, but clearly at some point, he appeared to more than 500 people at one time. We know that in Acts chapter 1, there was at least over a hundred. So maybe that was it. But the point isn't necessarily narrowing when this happened. It's looking at the point. The point is this. If you don't believe that Jesus rose from the dead, you are denying the abundant eyewitness evidence that it happened. So Paul's writing 1 Corinthians like 20 or 30 years after Jesus rose from the dead. And it's just, he's trying to make this really clear point. If you don't believe Jesus rose from the dead, go to Jerusalem. There's like 500 people there. You can ask them. They all saw it. And it only takes like two or three people to condemn you in court. 500 people are going to attest that something really did happen. That stands for us today. Even though we're 2,000 years removed, we have an abundance of eyewitness evidence in the scriptures and in history that Jesus did, in fact, rise from the dead. It really happened, and that's the point. So then Paul says that Jesus appeared to James, and this is in 1 Corinthians 15, Verse seven, then he appeared to James and to the apostles, and James was Jesus' brother. This probably happened in Acts chapter one, right before Jesus ascended into heaven, he appeared to many, and likely in that group was Jesus' brother, James. And then the other apostles, the other witnesses, the other messenger, messengers. So why does Paul go to such great lengths to put an emphasis on the appearances of Jesus. Now there is the sense, which he's definitely doing this to show that it's a historical fact. But there's more going on here. He's writing to Christians who already believe this. Paul puts an emphasis on the appearance of Jesus so that we would be confident in our hope. We'd be confident in our hope. Christians, you are following Jesus who is alive today. He was crucified, he died on a cross, he was buried, he was put in a tomb, he rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and he lives today. Now, do you believe that? I hope you do. If you don't believe that, you're not a Christian. For Christians, what Paul is doing is he's begging the question. If you believe that Jesus is alive, are you living like he's alive? Are you confident in your hope? You might ask, well, what does that look like? What would it look like to live a life as if Jesus is alive? It would change how we see everything that we do. You realize that everything you will do on earth has significance because you are not just living to die. You are living to live forever. So everything you do in this earth is not in vain. Maybe you ask questions. I like to ask searching questions of myself. Why might I give my time to prayer? Why would you sacrifice some of your earthly pleasures in order to send missionaries around the world? Why would you turn off screens in your house to teach your children the scriptures or your grandchildren the scriptures? Why would you clean up your house and invite some friends over for a good meal? Why would you give time to a Christian organization that's making a difference in our community? Why would you go door to door in a neighborhood telling people the gospel? Why would you do any of that? Only if you believe that that work is not in vain. We do this sort of thing because people live forever. And what we do on earth will have an eternal impact. Now you can extend that to every labor, not just those Christian things, because really all things are Christian things. The hard work that you do with your hands, the way you run your business, the way you discipline your children, the way you take your land and you make it productive, the way you create music and enjoy literature. When we do all things for Christ's sake, the effect is eternal, because we are people who are eternal. I hope in some way that motivates you to work hard. Don't just sit around waiting to die. With what you have, even if it's very little, work hard. It doesn't matter how old you are, or how healthy you are, or how skilled or not skilled you think you are. If you have trusted in Jesus, you will live forever. So while you're here, work hard at things that last forever. You remember Jesus said, don't lay up your treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy. Lay up your treasure in heaven where moth and rust cannot destroy. Work hard for things that last forever. Paul lays out the appearances of Christ to remind us that this life is not the end of our story. Therefore, we ought to work with all of our might. And yet, not by our might, but by God's grace. We have no better example of working hard by the grace of God than the Apostle Paul. So let's just look at verse eight now. Last of all, Paul says, last of all, Jesus appeared as to one untimely born, right? This is, sorry, verse eight. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he 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. So the resurrected Jesus appeared to Paul in a most unusual way. You can read all about it in the book of Acts in chapter 9. Paul was on his way to a town called Damascus where he was going to arrest and throw Christians into prison with the hope that they would be put to death. But... In Acts chapter 9 we read in verse 3, "...suddenly a light shone around him, and falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do." And as they say, the rest is history. Paul, on his way to persecute Christians, gets converted to be a Christian. It's a really impressive story, but in chapter 15, Paul is not impressed with himself. Right? Instead, what he does is he highlights his unworthiness. He says in verse 8, he is one who is untimely born. Now, I'm not sure what he means by that, but I know it's negative. It's as if he's saying, listen, I was not born to follow Jesus. I was born to persecute Christians. And yet, here I am, Paul says. Paul says he shouldn't be an apostle. He's unworthy to be called an apostle. Unworthy to be called an apostle. Why? Because he persecuted Christians. An apostle was a special chosen messenger of God who witnessed the resurrection of Christ, who was supposed to be the first witnesses and to testify to it. And Paul's saying, I shouldn't be me. But, verse 10, by the grace of God, I am what I am. Now you might look at the appearances of Jesus in verses five through nine, five through eight, and say, I don't know that I can relate to that, right? I wasn't there when Jesus rose from the dead. I didn't see him with my eyes. I wasn't one of the 12. I'm not Peter. I'm not James. I didn't see a great light like Paul. But verses 9 through 10 are what bring us all into the conversation. Not a one of us is worthy of knowing the resurrected son of God. And yet by grace, I am what I am. You are what you are. By God's grace, we know him and love him. I hope you are often amazed that God loves you because you know how unlovable you are. You know how unworthy you are, and I am. We have lists of sins that are long and ugly. We could all say with confidence, I am not worthy to be loved by God and known by God. And yet, this is grace. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This is grace that our Lord Jesus Christ, though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor so that you by His poverty might be made rich. We can all say I'm unworthy to be called a Christian, and yet by the grace of God, I am what I am. Right? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. You don't need to see Jesus with your eyes to know his grace. You simply need to see the depth of your sin and to receive his mercy that forgives every last bit of it. That's what grace is. That's when you truly know Christ. And that's where we relate to Paul, right? Because we're well aware of our unworthiness, and yet because we are saved by grace, that changes the trajectory of our lives. So what effect does God's grace have on you? Listen to Paul's example in verse 10. 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. It's the same for you. God's grace towards saving you is not in vain. It has purpose. And certainly some of the purpose for why God saves us is so that we would worship Him. That we would be thankful. This is why we gather each Lord's Day to rehearse again and again the Gospel. So that we would be thankful people. And how can you not be? I mean, we just sang that great hymn, long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night, that's hopeless. But, says thine eye, diffuse the quickening ray, Jesus looked to you. He looked at you with mercy to give you life, and then what happens? I woke, the dungeon flamed with light, my chains fell off, my heart was free. That's why we're grateful, that's why we praise Him, He set us free from sin and death. We want to feel it in our hearts, we want to praise Him with our lips, but the verse isn't done yet. I rose, went forth, and followed Thee. The grace that saves us is the grace that compels us to work hard following Christ. That's what Paul did. Grace received, grace with purpose, grace motivated him, verse 10, to work harder than anyone else. At what? At doing all things for the sake of Christ. Not the least of which was his labor at telling people the gospel. So that they would too receive God's grace. Now don't misunderstand what Paul's saying here. Christian labor is not a competition. Right? When he says, I worked harder than any of them. He's not trying to elevate himself or boast. He's not saying that, listen, I'm better than Peter, I'm better than James. That's not how Paul's talking. I think rather he's just saying something like, because of God's immense grace towards me, I will give every last drop of my blood and sweat and tears for the sake of Jesus. This is how Paul usually frames the Christian life. Be like one who will be the only one to win the race. It's not a competition, but he's saying, go with this sort of zeal. Be steadfast, be immovable, abound in the work of the Lord. Give it your all as a Christian till the day you die. Because when you die, you will experience grace in all of its fullness forever. Does God's grace motivate you to live all of your life for his sake? If it doesn't, I just don't think you're that amazed by grace. You need to wake up. Stop living such bland and joyless lives. Like if you're not amazed at his grace, you just need to look. He died for you and rose from the dead. He loves you, he still lives. His spirit fills you and he has work for us to do. And he's given us everything we need to do it. Like, this is where Paul goes again in verse 10. Now, it's a really risky thing to talk about working hard for Jesus' sake. Because there's a danger that you might go try to do all sorts of good things in Jesus' name, but without Jesus' help. There's a danger that you might think that somehow, by your good works, you can earn God's favor. There's also a danger that you might throw up your hands and say, I can't do any of it, and totally give up on living a Christian life. Paul says, that's not how it works. We work hard for Jesus' sake because it's really God, in His grace, who's working in us and through us. Paul says, grace that is with me. This is why Jesus can say that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. You probably love that verse. If you've never read Matthew 28, or sorry, 11, 28 through 30, you'll love it. Jesus says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And we hear that, we go, yes, I need that. Like, I'm trying so hard to fix my life, to put everything together, and all I end up with is sin and more sin, and it's a mess. I need to come to Jesus and find rest. Yes, this is good, that is true. But grace from God is not just to make you comfortable for the rest of your life. Jesus says in verse 29, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Jesus doesn't save you to nothing. He saves you to his yoke and his burden. And it's light because he gives us everything we need to bear it. We call that grace. If you're going to seriously look at your life and take strides to do everything for the sake of Jesus Christ, you are going to quickly find out how difficult it is. And that's when you look to the resurrected Christ and remember that his grace is living and abundant and with you. I hope when you read scriptures like this or you hear sermons like this, you really start to think about how you're going to live differently. You might think, well, it's about time that I start praying with my wife. Husbands, yes, do that. Or you say, I'm going to take a risk and tell one of my friends the gospel. Go do it. Be bold. Or you say, you know what, now that I'm retired, I'm going to go spend time with younger Christians, encouraging them and helping them. Yeah, go do that. Or you say, I'm going to go run for city council so that I can help our cities actually submit to Christ. Go do all those things, but you know what happens when you start thinking that way? You start thinking that way on Sunday morning, and by the time you walk out those back doors, you've got 20 reasons why you can't do it. You get cold feet. Right, that's where you need to look up and remember God saved you by his grace when you didn't deserve it, and he helps you with everything you need to do the work that he calls you to. When we trust Christ then, we can get to work because even if it's exhausting, even if it's hard, even if it costs us greatly, you will find that when you do all things for Christ's sake, it is refreshing and joy-giving and life-giving. It isn't that Jesus calls you to ease that makes his yoke easy and his burden light. It's that Jesus calls you to difficulty and he carries the burden. At the end of the day, It's a light yoke and an easy burden because our labor for Christ's sake resounds to Christ's glory. The whole thing about Christian labor is that it's not about how much you do or even how well you do it. It's that you do it for Jesus' sake. This is where Paul ends in 1 Corinthians 15 11, or ends this section. Whether it was I or they, so we preached. And so you believe. I think he's kind of pulling back from that comment to how I worked harder than any of them. He's just passionately saying like, I gave it my all. Now he's saying, hang on, just to be clear, it's not about me. It's not about my labor. It's about my work. It's about the work of God, that when the gospel is preached and people believe, they're saved by his grace. So whether it was Paul or Cephas or you, we work hard so that God gets all the glory. You can almost hear Paul saying, as he said so many times in the book of 1 Corinthians, follow me as I follow Christ. He's just laying out an example for us. You have received grace from God in the gospel. You have confident hope in the future resurrection, which means God has given your life purpose. So work hard for his glory and by his grace, Years ago, that same evangelist who liked to ask that question, what are you doing for Jesus Christ's sake? He told me one day over coffee, and it was just a casual conversation. We didn't even have Bibles with us. We were just talking. He said, you know, I'm really captivated right now by 2 Corinthians 5.14. And I thought, I've read that verse, but I have no idea what it says. So when I got home, I looked it up. And from that moment on, 2 Corinthians 5.14 and 15 has been, for me, a scripture that says, I want that. I want this badly in my life. I want it to define my life. You could call it a life verse, and here it is. For the love of Christ controls me. The love of Christ controls me. Because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died. And here it is, and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for his sake. But for him who for their sake died and was raised. That's what love is. Love from God is that Jesus died and rose for your sake. Love for God is that you say, I will no longer live for me, but for you. To be controlled by his love is to be compelled to live for him. By his grace, with great hope in the resurrection, hold fast to Jesus, work hard for his sake. He'll give you everything you need. Let's pray. God, I pray that you would help us to see in our lives The places where we are living for ourselves and not for you. Because I know my brothers and sisters here, they love you and they want to live their lives for you. And sometimes we're just blind to it. Sometimes we're blind to the ways in which we are lazy. We're blind to the ways in which we just live for our own selfish indulgence. We're even blind to our sin. So God, would you just open our eyes? Help us to see our lives and how we can further and further subject them to Christ and live for his glory? And God, while we do that, would you just keep us grounded by your grace? That we wouldn't labor for our glory, we wouldn't labor as if we were trying to earn something from you, but we would come to Christ, we would find rest for our souls, and then we would take on His yoke, His burden, we would labor for His sake, by His grace, that we would truly find rest in Him. And we ask this in Christ's name, amen.