Let me read, starting in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 12. Paul writes, now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you're still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, then it is coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when it says all things are put in subjection, it is plain that he is accepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subjected to Him, who put all things in subjection under Him, that God may be all and all. 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 protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus, our Lord. I die every day. What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with the beasts 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." And then verse 58. Where Paul 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. So let's pray. God, I ask that you would humble each of us under your word. We want God to know you and we want our lives to honor you. And so we have to admit and be willing to acknowledge that, God, our lives in many ways often don't. Sometimes we are even ignorant of our own sin. And so would your word and your Holy Spirit reveal in us where we need repentance. God, I may we fly to Christ where we find full forgiveness again and again. God, help us today to discern what is true. In Jesus' name we ask, amen. So what you expect will inform how you live. That means that hope is something that's wired into us. You know this in very small ways, right? With children, if we say to the kids, You know, there's going to be ice cream if you're well-behaved. Well, what they expect is going to inform how they behave, right? Kids, you'll shape up. You'll try really hard to be well-behaved because hopefully there's ice cream. That's what you expect. That's small, right? Really small. Think of that in much bigger terms. What you expect about the future, about life and death and eternity, will inform how you live. So in Christianity, we call this eschatology, which is a really big word that means the study of last things. And last week, I just spelled out really briefly for you five things that Christians believe about the end that are clear in scripture. We disagree about a lot of details. These things are where we all find unity. Number one, Jesus is coming back. Number two, there will be a future resurrection of all people. Number three, There will be a final judgment of all people. And number four, there will be a real heaven and a real hell. And then catch this, because number five is describing how we should live in light of our expectations. Number five, because of these things, we should be people of holiness and hope. That's how the Bible presents this to us. What we believe about the future informs how we live today. So in many ways as we study in 1 Corinthians 15 the resurrection of the dead, we're learning about what's going to happen in the future so that we would know how we ought to live today. That's why every week we read 1 Corinthians 15 58, because this is a very much a summary of how our eschatology, what we believe about the end, informs how we live, right? Therefore, beloved brothers, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. So that's the main thrust of these many weeks we're going to take through 1 Corinthians 15. How does our hope in the future resurrection inform the way we live? Today I want to look at that in sort of the reverse order, the opposite direction. What does how you live right now say about what you believe about the future? Like, does your life match what you say you believe? Now, that is a very confrontational question, right? Actions speak louder than words. Does your life match what you say you believe? And yes, this is a pretty confrontational passage of scripture. And we should welcome that confrontation, right? The goal is never as Christians, if God confronts us in his word, the goal is never to walk away feeling bad about our lives. Now you might feel bad about your life, but the goal is not to feel bad, but to change. So if God in His Word confronts you, if you feel that you're exposed as we study this passage, don't lose heart. Remember that the same God that confronts you is a God who can help you, who can change you. He confronts us for our good. So we're going to look at how this doctrine of resurrection should cause our lives to actually be meaningful. We'll pick it up in verse 29. That's where we're going to look, but before we get there, I'm just gonna remind you of the argument, because this is a really big, long argument that we've spread out over a few weeks. So in verse 1 of chapter 15, Paul reminds them of the gospel, Jesus' death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins, and the promise of eternal life. And remember, these were Christians, so why was Paul reminding Christians of our foundational message, the gospel? And the reason was that some of them were saying things that were contrary to the gospel. So again, look in verse 12, what we've already read. If Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? So Paul's confronting a contradiction. So here are people saying they believe in Jesus who died and rose, but they're denying that there is an eternal resurrection of all people. That's a contradiction. The Bible is really clear. We did this a few weeks ago. We looked and threw out that in the future, there is a day when all people will be raised from the dead and given new bodies that we will live in forever. This is why we Christians hope in the resurrection, not only Jesus's resurrection, but that Jesus's resurrection promises our future resurrection. So Paul's saying to deny the resurrection, which is what some people are doing, is a contradiction with the gospel. That's why verse 16, Paul says, if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you're still in your sins. That's bad news. Bad news. So there's this great turn, this is what we looked at last week, this turn in verse 20. But, in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. It's like, this is good news. Here's the truth. And since Jesus has been raised from the dead, that means your faith is meaningful. It has substance. It means your sins are forgiven. It means you'll be raised with Christ in the last day. It means that God will accomplish his purposes. His kingdom will be established. His enemies will be defeated. And the last enemy to be destroyed will be death. Because all people will be raised. And then God will be all in all. So that's sort of this glorious climax of hope and excitement. Then, as Paul does, and this is just the mastery of his letter writing, he sort of takes from that high point and then he drops the hammer, verse 29, and confronts us. If that's what we believe about the future, do our lives line up? Does your life match your belief? That's the problem in Corinth. They are walking contradictions in more ways than one. They have diverged from the truth. They are Christians who have fallen into doctrinal error, and you know this can happen. Christians can fall into doctrinal error. We can believe the wrong things, sometimes terribly wrong things. And this is why Paul's confronting, because this is really serious business. When our beliefs diverge from the truth, our lives become dysfunctional. And not just in kind of an annoying way, but in ways that actually affect us and other people for eternity. So in many ways, starting in verse 29, Paul's just trying to wake them up. He even uses that word, we use that phrase, wake up from your drunken stupor. That can hurt. That can hurt, right? When you find yourself confronted by God's word, it can be painful. But we ought to seek to be corrected by God's word so that when we get our beliefs right, our lives will follow. This is why having hope in something that is true will often produce a life that is righteous and good and meaningful. Like, not to make false promises that just by believing in Jesus, your life will all go well. But there is a consistent pattern that we can follow in the lives of Christians. That when you believe the right things about God, that will change the way that you live. When your life is aligned to God, you will find joys and peace that you were not finding otherwise. So this is really what Paul's after. So verse 29, Paul starts with confronting a contradiction in their actions. He 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? Big question. What is baptism on behalf of the dead? I'm not going to answer that, not yet. because I don't want you to miss the point. I know our curious minds want to go there. But just, all you need to see right now is the point. Paul is calling out a contradiction. Some of you are saying that people are not raised from the dead, but then you're being baptized on behalf of the dead. These two things do not go together. This does not work. Their actions betray their words. Paul's pointing out an inconsistency. He says nothing about baptism for the dead being right or wrong or what they're doing. It's not his concern. His concern is that they say something with their mouths, and then they do something completely different with their actions. And he's saying something's wrong here. Either what you're saying or what you're doing is a contradiction. Right? So, that's the point. The point is that Paul's simply saying, you guys show by your actions that you believe in a resurrection of the dead. Now, to the question. Okay? What were they doing? What was baptism on behalf of the dead? And here's the truth. We don't know. No one knows. Scholars who have devoted many pages of paper to this don't know. We have no real historical evidence of what was going on. There was no Christian practice that followed from Corinth and has continued to this day. We don't know what they were doing. It seems likely that they were somehow baptizing individuals with hope that it would benefit people who had already died. That seems probably the most logical. Which, of course, again, that's nowhere taught in scripture and nowhere practiced in Christianity. We actually do have quite a bit of teaching in the scripture about Christian baptism. Christian baptism is an act of obedience to God. It demonstrates your faith in Jesus, who died and was raised. And over and over and over again, if you trace it in the book of Acts, where we see many Christian baptisms, people get baptized because they believe. They don't get baptized for somebody else. They get baptized, in a sense, for themselves. And so, Paul isn't writing to comment on what they were doing. He's simply pointing out a contradiction. Now, does that mean that we should just be baptized on behalf of the dead? No. Does that mean that we should try to figure out what the practice was and try to replicate it? No. We know what Christian baptism is. People are baptized because their faith in Christ, not on behalf of someone else. Now, it's worth saying because we live in a community where there are more Latter-day Saints than there are Evangelical Christians, at least by the last time they counted, that sort of thing. And the LDS people practice baptism on behalf of the dead. It's actually a very important part of their faith because In the LDS doctrine, they believe that baptism is essential to achieve the higher heavens in the afterlife. So this is one very practical difference between evangelical Christians, we are, and Latter-day Saints. So, you know, sometimes there's some confusion. Are Christians and Latter-day Saints the same thing? And there are some very practical differences. This is one of them. We don't baptize on behalf of the dead. But remember what we've already established. What you do reveals a lot about what you believe. And so this practical difference in what we do shows that there is a real difference between what evangelical Christians and what Latter-day Saints believe. about the end. And so you can use this sort of situation when you're speaking with Latter-day Saints, perhaps they come to your door, or you have friends that you work with, to ask, why do you practice baptism of the dead? We Christians don't practice that. What's the difference? And that can give you an opportunity to speak to them about the true gospel. So back to the point, because the point of the text is not that we figure out what baptism of the dead is. The point is that they were being contradictory in their actions, and Paul just points out their foolishness. Right? So, the truth is we don't really know what they were doing. Okay, but you can't baptize people on behalf of the dead and say there is no resurrection of the dead. That's foolishness. That's one area that Paul confronts. Then Paul challenges us with his example. Look at verse 30. Why are we in danger every hour? Now, hear the logic. Paul's saying, if the dead are not raised, why are we in danger every hour? Speaking of himself and probably his companions and their travels. He says, I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. I die every day. What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with the beasts at Ephesus? Now, I recommend, if you're not familiar with it, that you read the life of the Apostle Paul in the book of Acts. It starts about in the middle of the book of Acts. And what you'll read about this man is he traveled all over the Roman Empire, facing constant danger to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, you can even read a whole list of all his beatings and imprisonments and shipwrecks and enemies. It's a list that goes on and on and on. When he speaks of the beasts in Ephesus, Ephesus being one of the major metropolitan areas that Paul visited and spent a lot of time with, he's probably referring to his opponents, to teachers or leaders or even politicians who were trying to silence his method. His message, sorry. And he's calling them beasts. And the picture is that Paul is a man of constant conflict and risk. And here's the question he asks. Why would I risk my life again and again if there is no resurrection of the dead? What a foolish reason to die. If this whole thing about Jesus isn't true, why would Paul give up everything and risk everything to spread this message? This is why he says, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day. It's like a father who looks at his children and says, I taught you better than this. Stop denying there's a resurrection. You know better. Just look at the way I'm living, Paul says. Look at the way I'm living. I risk my life. Why? Because Paul's hope is not set in this life. His hope is set on the resurrection of the dead. And then in sort of a with sort of a righteous sarcasm, Paul says, you know what? If you're going to deny the resurrection of the dead, you might as well just give up your Christian faith and live it up. Because this is the only life you're going to get. That's verse 32. If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. You know people who live like that, right? People who just live for the day and for constant indulgence, careless living, immoral living, that's meaningless. Right? For the dead are not raised, let's just eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. I think this echoes the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. If you've never read Ecclesiastes, it's worth a read. Sit down and read it in one sitting, take you maybe an hour. It's worth a read. Ecclesiastes basically observes this. If life on earth is all you have, then life on earth is vain. Meaningless. Right? Because we all just die. Go ahead, work, save up your money, guess what? You're gonna die. Leave it to somebody who doesn't care. Build big cities, guess what? You're gonna die. Nobody's gonna care who you were. And that's the message of Ecclesiastes. If life on earth is all you get, it's meaningless. But in the book of Ecclesiastes, he also observes, if there is a God, then he is wired into us hope, hope that we would live forever. And so the only way to enjoy life on earth, which often does seem meaningless, is to have hope in eternity. So Paul's saying, listen, if Christ has not been raised, you might as well go and waste your energies and times on things that will just satisfy you for this day, because this day is all you get. Moreover, having that sort of careless attitude about life is not just meaningless, it's actually offensive to God. Paul is not quoting the book of Ecclesiastes here, he's actually quoting the book of Isaiah. Though I think he's echoing Ecclesiastes. He's quoting the book of Isaiah. From Isaiah 22, 13. And if you were to go back and read that, it's a depiction, it's sort of a poetic depiction of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. Babylonians surrounded Jerusalem in the 580s BC, and they laid up siege. And here's the picture. The picture is, you know, the enemy army knocking on the doors, about to conquer your city, and the people, instead of praying, or even instead of fighting, they are feasting. Fools are feasting while their city is under attack. And God's offended by that. In many ways, we should take this as a warning then, don't be fools. If you think that this life is all that you get, you will be wrong forever. Now, at this point, I think Paul's ended his argument. So put it together. Paul's simply saying, stop saying there's no resurrection from the dead. It's wrong. It's foolish. And really, it leads to a meaningless life. And it's not just meaningless, it's actually harmful. If you look down at the very end of verse 34, After all this confrontation, Paul says, for some have no knowledge of God, I say this to your shame. See, the impact of people denying the resurrection was that people both in the church and outside of the church had no knowledge of God. And this can happen to us too. We can get so caught up in some false or even just secondary or just errant teaching that we stop actually telling people about the one true God. And that's a shameful thing. It's a shameful thing. So don't deny the resurrection. But if there is a resurrection, then that means that hope in the resurrection is not only wise, and it's not only right, it's also helpful. Hope in the resurrection actually changes our lives for the better. And that's what we want to get to. We want to see how hope in the resurrection wakes us up to a meaningful life. And that's what we'll look at in verses 33 and 34. But I will warn you, this will require you to do some self-examination. Which is not usually pleasant. Okay, Paul's gonna do some self-examination with three commands. Let me read them in verses 33 and 34. He says, 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. So, ask this serious question. What does the way that you live say about what you believe? Now, you have a couple of options here. You could say, man, I don't really want to do that. You could check out for the next 15 minutes, benefit none from this. Or you could even maybe in self-righteousness say, you know what, I've got good beliefs. That's all I need to worry about. I'm not asking you whether or not you've got your beliefs all in a row. I'm asking you about your life. Or you could in humility say, I'm going to ask me, I'm going to really look at my life. And I'm going to really challenge that against my beliefs. Because here's the truth. If you say out of one side of your mouth that Jesus is Lord, You profess to be a Christian, but you live a life that is in rebellion to God. That's a contradiction. All signs point to the fact that you're not a Christian. People who say that they're Christians and then live as if Jesus never died, never rose, never reigns, isn't king, are people who perhaps are like drunk people who say that they're sober. It's sort of like everybody else can tell, right? And you look foolish. Not only that, like you could stand condemned. And so if you're willing to humble yourself before God and to confess, listen, the way I live does not match what I say I believe about Jesus, then you need to repent of your sins and come to faith in Jesus. The good news is he doesn't turn us away. He forgives fully and finally and freely and forever. But if you come to Jesus in faith, He will change you. Which means all of those things in your life that are in contradiction to Christ are going to start to get changed, and that's hard. But it's good. It's good. This, in a way, we could connect this even back to baptism. Right, where Paul confronts this whole business of baptism of the dead, but like the image in Christian baptism is that you were buried with Christ, dead to sin, and then raised to walk in newness of life. So if what you say doesn't match what you do, you need to repent. And trust God that he will start teaching you how to live. Now I say that knowing that most of you say with your mouths that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and even though your lives are not perfect by any means, you want your life to match what you say you believe. This is what we find ourselves as Christians. We say, yes, I know that I sin, I know I deal with temptation, but I don't want to. I want to fight it. I want to grow. So if you care that your life matches your belief, how is it that these verses apply to us? Well, you ought to still examine your life. One of the graces of God is that he loves us, he forgives us, he gives us a promise of eternal life, and then he slowly changes us. God is good to discipline us, to convict us. Remember, Paul was writing to Christians who had drifted. who had diverged, who had stumbled, and we can do that too. And so the way that we as Christians grow in the midst of that and change from that is if we regularly expose ourselves to the Word of God. We regularly submit ourselves to God and ask Him to show us our inconsistencies and our contradictions. And so this is where you do self-examination. Let God's Word and God's Spirit show you any inconsistencies in your life so that you can learn to live the way that is true. And so we'll just do this hard self-examination with verses 33 and 34. Let's look at each command in turn. First, here's the first command. Do not be deceived. Do not be deceived. And then he quotes, bad company ruins good morals. You realize you swim in a stream of lies. First, Satan is the father of lies. He's called the deceiver. So there's an unseen spiritual realm that works to deceive you. And then, of course, you know that people lie to you. And I'm not just talking about politicians or marketing agencies. People lie to you. Your family lies to you. Your friends lie to you. Your neighbors lie to you. One thing that seems to prove true over and over and over is that people lie. And you're, of course, not immune. You're a people person. You lie to yourself. Perhaps more than anybody else lies to you. You are swimming in a stream of lies. And it's not just lies. You can also be deceived because of your ignorance. I mean, we just have to live this way. You have to accept many things to be true without studying them or thinking about them. And not only do we have to live that way, we often choose to live that way. We just, as I think of it, we just go with the flow. And you might look at all that and say, how can you possibly not be deceived? How can you possibly not be deceived? Paul gives us a great proverb, bad company ruins good morals. Now he's probably quoting from some ancient Greek play, but whatever he's quoting from, it's a pretty universal truth, right? Bad company ruins good morals. We become like the people we are with. If you want to change, change your friends. This is a true fact. We all remember how that worked when we were younger, it still works as adults. If you want to change, change your friends. So, and it's not just friendship. The Corinthian Christians were probably denying resurrection because of a popular philosophy of their day that said the human body's meaningless, right? So what good would a resurrection be? So they're sort of letting the culture deceive them into thinking the body's meaningless. It's the culture that's seeping in and changing their minds. And so Christians, we should take this as a wake-up call to be deliberate about the company that you keep, both your friendships and who you are listening to. Now, don't take that to mean you should isolate yourself. That's actually the worst thing you should do because you lie to yourself more than anyone else. Rather, you should surround yourself with people who are focused on the truth. And truth comes from one source, from God's word. So be deliberate about the company that you keep. Some of you probably need to put more effort into this than others. Right? Because you maybe spend a substantial part of your life in a place where lies are perpetuated and embraced, whether that's school or work or even the family that you live in. Some of you are going to have to make an extra effort in your Christian life to build friendships that are centered on the Bible, lest you be ruined by lies. And that's really true for all of us. We avoid deception by repeated exposure to the truth. So yes, this is why I say, Christians, make daily Bible reading a habit of your life, absolutely. But more than that, make Bible readers your good company. Like just as bad company ruins good morals, so good company strengthens right beliefs and helps us in right ways of living. If the company you keep is encouraging you to hope in the resurrection, then they will also be the ones who teach you how to have a good and meaningful life. So don't be deceived. Spot the lies of the world around you and surround yourself with people of the truth. Second command, verse 34, wake up from your drunken stupor as is right. Now Paul's speaking metaphorically here. We might even translate that or just substitute that with sober up. Now if you're using alcohol sinfully and drunkenness is a sin, and you need help, repent. We can help you, okay? We can help you. But, think through the metaphor. I think that this is describing the way that we are affected by the world around us without even realizing it. We imbibe the culture, and without knowing it, we get drunk. That's what Paul's getting at. So think about this. You just, you know, take a sip of the love of money, which kind of leads to a sip of greed, and then a sip of indulgent luxury, and then a sip of unjust gain. You say, well, after all, everybody's doing it. It's just our world we live in. And then of course, because it's the world we live in, you'll also sip a little anger. And then you'll sip some quarreling and you'll sip some hatred. And then you'll sip some divisiveness. And now that you're all wound up, you've got to sip some entertainment. Calm you down. So you know, you just, whatever it is, you turn it on. You watch it, you participate. Gossip. Sip. Blasphemy. Sip. Violence. Sip. Nudity. Sip. And then we start to care less about what's going on around the people around us. You know what, I'll just tolerate the sexual immorality. Sip. I'll just ignore real injustices in the world, sip. I'll excuse pride, sip. I'm just gonna go with the flow, sip. I mean, how long can you go on like this before you're drunk? You get the metaphor? How many sips? You live in a world full of lies. If you will imbibe it without thinking, you're going to be drunk on the lies of this world. You have to be diligent. You have to be diligent. You have to live in this world. You must be diligent to make sure that this world does not live in you. It is so easy just to drink it all in and not realize that you're getting drunk. So how do you sober up? How do you wake up from your drunken stupor? Well, first you have to put down the bottle, right? Let's roll with the metaphor. You've got to put it down. Sobriety, both literally and metaphorically, starts with disconnection. So in this sense, turn off your TVs, put down your phones, shut off the social media, read fewer blogs. Even if you're consuming all sorts of good content, it's influencing you more than you know. And rest. I'm not saying that you can't use these things in moderation. Right, you can. But using something in moderation means occasionally stopping, resting, disconnecting. And Christians, you don't have to invent some clever way to disconnect from the culture and from the world. God gave us a way on the seventh day of creation, right? Six days you shall labor. On the seventh you should rest. Like, there's freedom in this as Christians, right? We don't observe Saturday as the only Sabbath. But if you don't have regular rhythms of work and rest, and not just rest from labor, but rest from the world around you, well, you're probably getting drunk. Sober up. You've got to put down the world. You've got to shut off the stream at some point. Okay, moreover, sometimes to sober up, it takes a slap in the face. Now, I know this is true because many of you say this to me, but how many of you feel like that you have suddenly woken up in a different world? I mean, I've kind of felt this a little bit more over the last couple years. Maybe it's just because I've moved into my 30s, I'm starting to see things a little bit differently. But like you sort of wake up and you go, what happened to the world that I live in? Right? Good. You feel that. It's easy to point at others and say, that's what's gone wrong with everyone else. And the question we should ask ourselves is, well, where was I? probably imbibing more than you are willing to admit, probably sipping a little bit too much. If you feel like the world right now has slacked you in the face, that's a wake-up call to you to change your life. Stop just floating through the world. You have hope in the resurrection. This world is not all you get. wake up to a life that lasts forever. And so then verse 34, wake up from your drunken stupor as is right, and here's the third command, do not go on sinning. I think the primary reason that Christians drift from the truth is that we just tolerate sin in our lives. And you guys all know stories of people who professed faith in Jesus, and over the course of days or months or weeks or years, suddenly ended up at a spot where they deny Their faith in Christ. How does that happen? I think the primary reason is that we tolerate sin. We just think it's okay for us to rebel against God. And you say, well, I haven't apostatized, I haven't denied Christ. My question to you is, are you tolerating sin? If you're tolerating sin, you're on that path. Now, I know that all of you sin. And I know that I sin often. Temptations and sin are a reality of this flesh in a sin-cursed world. The question isn't whether or not sin is a problem. The question is whether or not you're fighting it. Or are you tolerating it? We all want a life that has hope in the resurrection. We want lives of joy in knowing God. We want peace in trusting God's promises. We want purpose in making Jesus known. We want to live a life and build lasting legacies of families and communities that are submitted to King Jesus. I want that and you want that. But if you are tolerating sin in your life, you will never have it. It doesn't matter how good your theology is. It doesn't matter how much you read your Bible or how much you come to church. It doesn't matter that you read all the good books and all the right blogs. It doesn't matter that you can subscribe to the right confessions. If you tolerate sin in your life, you're destroying your life. So stop. Paul says, do not go on sinning. How do you do that? It starts with confession before God. Take some serious time to go through your life in the presence of God. Tell him everything he already knows. Confess and then rest in his pardon. We confess our sins to God to remember that he's the one that forgives. He's the one that cleanses us. Jesus died for you, but you can be forgiven and made new. And then from confessing your sin and trusting in Christ, you must also forsake your sin. Jesus says, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it's better for you to lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Now, I understand the logic. Jesus knows that our hands are not the problem. But he is telling us something very practical about fighting sin. You have to be willing to cut things off. Right? So if you're a drunk, you have to get rid of alcohol out of your house. You have to flush away drugs. If you're angry, you're going to have to cut off the politics and the scoffing. If you're watching pornography, you've got to get a flip phone and get rid of your internet. Right? If you gossip with your friend, stop talking to that friend. If you're greedy, start practicing radical generosity. And we could just keep going on and on and on. The way that you kill sin in your life is you kill it. Don't put it in the corner and tell it to be good. You have to forsake sin in order to stop sinning. And here's the good news, Christians. The reason that you can fight and kill sin isn't because you have the strength. It's because God has given you the Holy Spirit who has the power to kill sin in you. And so with confessing and forsaking, you're going to need to be strengthened with hope. If you're going to be a person who is serious about not being deceived, about waking up from a drunken stupor, about killing sin in your life, you are going to need to be strengthened by something. And God has given us something to be strengthened by, and that is hope. It's hope in the resurrection. It's hope that God will finally defeat sin and death. It's hope that this life is not the end. It's hope that someday you will wake up and never be tempted again. And so while you're here, You're going to need help to hope. And that's why God gives us the church. He gives us other Christians who are also fighting sin and temptation, who are also trying to navigate a world of lies, who are also trying to not become drunk on the culture. You need people in your life who will remind you of the power of the Holy Spirit and the promise of pardon in the gospel and the hope in the resurrection of the dead. And that's why you've got to go to other Christians for help and for encouragement. And you've got to be that to them. God has shown us mercy and forgiven us and washed us clean in Jesus. And then to help us get from here to the resurrection of the dead, he gives us other Christians. And it's here really that we find the meaningful life. Our lives take on their greatest meaning when they are oriented towards eternal life. How can that be? You know, there's that old saying, right, so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good, which is just a silly saying. As a matter of fact, God presents it totally differently in Scripture. To be a person who has your mind set on the resurrection of the dead is to be the most earthly good. How is that? Well, I'm just gonna follow Paul's logic here. If he corrects them that their denial of the resurrection leads to this life of deceit and drunkenness and sin, and therefore, in verse 34, people have no knowledge of God, It must be that when we hope in the resurrection, when we expose and do not follow the lies of the world and we're not deceived, when we're not drunk on the culture, when we're not tolerant of our own sin, then our lives will have the ultimate meaning and good because other people will know God. If wrong belief leads to a meaningless life, then right belief must lead to a meaningful life. God has saved you and given you the hope of the resurrection so that you can tell other people about God. So that they can have hope in the resurrection too. After Jesus rose from the dead, he told his disciples that we would be his witnesses. Witnesses. Well, if we're witnesses, what is it that we're testifying to? We're testifying to Jesus' death and resurrection on the cross. that He offers forgiveness of sins and hope of eternal life to all who believe in Him. If we deny what is true, if we imbibe the world, if we deceive ourselves, if we go on sinning, we are concealing the very truth that God has entrusted to us to give to the world. And so, brothers and sisters, constantly examine your life to ask, Does the way I live match what I say I believe? And where you see that it doesn't, run to Christ to be corrected, to be restored, to be renewed. God is not a God who is keeping track of all your wrongs so that he can punish you for each and every little one of them. God has kept track of all your wrongs so that he can punish Christ on the cross for every single one of them. He now calls you to live in this world worthy of that sacrifice. Which means when we find out that we're deceived, we stop being deceived. When we realize that we've drunk ourselves on the culture a little too much, we sober up. When you realize that you've been tolerant of your sin, you repent. And when we expect that someday God will raise us from the dead and sin will be no more, we'll be eager to kill sin on earth. When you expect that someday God will deliver you from a sin-cursed world to live in a world of righteousness and peace, then you will try to live more for that world and less for this one. And if you expect that someday God will finally defeat death and the devil and establish truth forever, then we will live as people who want to know truth. What we expect informs how we live. We need to wake up to the resurrection. That's the good life. In 1 John 3, we get this wonderful picture of hope. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Let's pray. God, help us by your spirit to be pure, to be made pure. Now, we hope in Christ, and we confess our sins. We confess our sins together every single Sunday because we want to be the first to acknowledge, God, that we are not perfect people. Matter of fact, we still live in a sinful flesh, and oftentimes without even knowing it, We deceive ourselves, we fall into sin. And so God, we just ask that by your spirit you would convict us and show us where we're wrong so that we can repent and be restored and know your forgiveness. God, I pray that you would make us a holy people because we are a hopeful people. I ask this in Christ's name, amen.