I want to thank our dear sister for playing the violin this morning. You've encouraged and inspired me to pick mine up and start practicing. I hope you'll be encouraged and inspired tenfold as we read the text for this morning. I want to be preaching from verses 12 through 20, but I want to take it up in verse 1 of chapter 15. God's Word. Paul writes here, Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preach to you, which also you receive, and which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. for I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that He was buried and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve after that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time most of whom remain until now but some have died Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit 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 did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise if, in fact, 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 worthless. You are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hope in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. May God add His blessing to the reading of His Word. Please take your seats and join with me in prayer as we prepare for the preaching of God's Word. Father in Heaven, we come before you this morning as sinners in need of redemption and we thank you that you have provided that redemption through the risen Savior Jesus Christ. God, I pray that the gospel which is proclaimed in this very chapter would encourage us, would equip us, would edify us. God, that you would help us to grow and to mature and have a greater depth of understanding of the impact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ God, I pray that if there's anyone here that doesn't know the veracity of Scripture, doesn't understand, cannot accept the truth proclaimed here by the Apostle Paul, Lord, we pray that Your Spirit would awaken them, that You would bring life to their dead souls, that You would cause today to be the day of salvation for those people. Lord, for those of us that do believe, that have received the truth, that have been changed, I pray that You would bless the saints of Nosset Baptist Church, that you would encourage them, that you would rekindle a joy and a passion for the reality of the gospel, that you might continue to do your mighty work through the saints here in this local assembly of believers, that your name would be glorified, that the truth would continue to be proclaimed loudly and clearly. God, I pray that you would use me. I pray that you would forgive me. God, I pray that you would put your hand over my mouth, that you would safeguard your saints from any error that might spill out from my lips. And I pray that your word would be proclaimed and that we would all be sanctified, that we would all be brought to conformity into the image of Christ. God, we pray that you would help us to worship you for who you are, what you have done, and what you promise to do. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. To give you a little bit of introduction, some of you I've met this morning. Welcome visitors, as I'm a visitor with you. For those of you that aren't visitors, and I haven't met, I don't know if you are or are not a visitor. So make sure you let me know later, because I don't know who's visiting and who's a regular attender. But my name is Louis Monsino. As already noted on the previous pastor, note that previous pastor of Cape Cod Bible Church in Hawich, the Lord has graciously chosen in his providence to move me on. The sheep are not without a shepherd. Jim Stewart, if you know him, he is back. God sovereignly brought the previous pastor back, which is really unheard of. for the Lord to move a man away and then to bring him back and for the flock to embrace him. And the Lord is continuing to do wonderful works there. Praise the Lord for your faithful prayers for us. I know many of you, Steve has informed, your pastors informed you of what the situation was and I want to thank the Lord for your prayers and for your encouragement. I want to thank the Lord also and express my gratitude for the privilege of being with you. I know sometimes folks have a tendency to try to console me when the crowds are small. when I'm about to preach, but God has prepared me. I've been at a small church for six years, the Cape Cod Bible Church. We're not much larger than you, so I feel like I'm right at home. So don't worry about that, but I'm going to preach like there's a thousand people here. So don't be alarmed, that's just kind of the way I am, that's how the Lord has wired me. But I am truly thankful for the Lord and for the elders of Knotts Baptist Church for entrusting me and allowing me to step behind this sacred desk and to do what I know your pastor does faithfully week after week and to exposit the text of Scripture for you to feed your souls and to equip you, specifically saints here, for the work of ministry. This is to equip you, to edify you, to strengthen you so that you would continue to live your life of the glory of God. And I want to encourage you that God has done that for us at Cape Cod Bible Church. Even for me, particularly, God has in His faithfulness chosen to protect us, to provide for us, and to cause us to persevere for His glory and His praise. And I want to try to encourage you this morning to do just that, to be encouraged that you would live a life of holiness, sanctified for His glory, for His praise, for His fame, that you would be encouraged, beloved, friend, visitor, that you would be encouraged to make the gospel of Jesus Christ known. You've got to speak. You've got to be the sounding board. You've got to be the alarm that's echoing through your community that Jesus Christ is Lord, and more specifically, that He rose again from the dead. Is it true? Amen? It is true. He rose again from the dead. Now, you've got to think with me for a moment. That's a shocking statement for the world to accept, right? When we go to the cemetery, afterwards, And we can see what happens, right? You could scream and yell and stomp, and no one's going to get up, but Jesus did. And He didn't do it with anyone's help. He did it on His own. He rose again from the dead. So we have a message to proclaim, and I want to encourage you that even though Resurrection Sunday is a week behind us, more literally, there's roughly, I did the calculation last night, there's roughly 103,000 Resurrection Sundays behind us. But there's no reason to not preach the veracity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Inevitably, year after year, the truth of the resurrection has been bombarded by skeptics, cynics, and doubters who have attacked the veracity and necessity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That has happened since day one, beloved. This is not new. And if you've taken any time to look at Time Magazine, People Magazine, World News & Report Magazine, whatever magazine that you see in the checkout counter, you'll see inevitably someone attacking or doubting the veracity of the resurrection. Now, this morning, I've decided to take a backdoor approach to the topic of the Resurrection. I'm going to look at the Resurrection from the negative point of view, and it's not because I'm trying to be crafty before you. I'm not trying to be innovative. I don't do that. I just want to do what the text does. So, I'm going to just follow Paul's argument, the way Paul lays it out, and to show you the necessity and veracity and truthfulness of the Resurrection. Because even though it's attacked, it's true nonetheless. And seeing it's attacked, Back in 2008, I happened to stumble upon a very interesting Newsweek article written by Justin Martin titled, Happy Crossmas, subtitled, Why Easter Stubbornly Resists the Commercialism that Swallowed Christmas. Now you can argue the thought that's expressed in that. It's debatable, I understand that. It's not an infallible text like the Word of God. It's Newsweek, right? Newsweek is known to be wrong, but this article caught my attention. And when you think about it, the Christmas story, it's not as gory as Easter. Now, the actual story itself, the Christmas story is not as gory. You have a starry night, a warm little manger, a sweet little young couple looking for a place to hide out, and a cute little baby, right? What's so threatening about that? Not much at all. It makes for a wonderful hallmark card, right? No one's scared to send a picture of the Nativity scene to friends and family. Easter? The story of Easter? You have an angry mob, you have an innocent man who's beaten to a bloody pulp, He's bloodied, he's bruised, he's nailed to a cross in public, public crucifixion. That makes for a scene that nobody wants to see. I don't want you to send me a card with that on it. I'm all set. I don't want to see someone beaten and bruised and bloodied. That is gory, that is distasteful, it's not something I want to lay my eyes on. It's true and it's necessary, but we can understand why the world shuns the story of Easter to the side, but embraces Christmas. So the real meaning and story of Christmas is swallowed up, or at least combined with commercialism. The real meaning and story of Easter must be completely ignored and rejected. The true meaning and story of Christ's death and resurrection has been completely replaced by what? A fuzzy little bunny and chocolate candies. What the link is, I have no idea. Who came up with that? I would debunk it and say that's a doctrine from the devil and his demons, right? So, sugarcoat the Easter story with a fuzzy bunny and candy. You have to do something to remove the truth from Easter in its entirety to make it palatable for our society. Well, without rehearsing the whole article, the writer did make one stunning point. I want to read that for you. This is the Newsweek article dated 2008 by Martin. He writes this. Listen to this brief quote. Even agnostics and atheists who don't accept Christ's divinity can accept the general outlines of the Christmas story with little danger to their worldview. But Easter demands a response. It's hard for a non-Christian believer to say, yes, I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, died, was buried, and rose from the dead. That's not something you can believe without some serious ramifications. If you believe that Jesus rose from the dead, this has profound implications for your spiritual and religious life. Really, for your whole life. If you believe the story, then you believe that Jesus is God, or at least God's Son. What he says about the world and the way we live in that world then has even a real claim on you. Easter is an event that demands a yes or a no. There is no whatever." Did you catch that? It's anything. You can't say, I believe in a once alive, dead, resurrected Savior without having that affect your life. You can't. You can't just say whatever. Whatever. Take it or leave it. He rose again. He didn't rise again. To each his own. Whatever you want to believe. That's not how it works. You can't work that way. Because assuming the writer isn't a Christian, I'd say this, if anything, that article hit the nail on the head. Hit the nail on the head. You have to respond to the claim of Jesus rising again from the dead. It's either yes or no. It's either He did or He didn't. You can't be indifferent, and you can't say that He did and have it not affect your life. A real response to the resurrection is inevitable. It's inevitable. It has to affect, listen, It has to affect you publicly and privately. It has to affect your life, both your religious life and your work life. It has to affect you spiritually and socially. It has to affect all of your life if you say that you really believe that Jesus Christ, who was murdered, rose again physically from the dead. Because it's true, as I've heard it said in the past, all of Christianity hangs on one single thread. And that, of course, is the resurrection. Because no matter how good Jesus was in his moral acts, no matter how sinless he was, no matter how profound his teaching was, if Jesus did not rise again from the dead, he would not be worth following. He wouldn't be worth listening to. He wouldn't be worth proclaiming. And you? who waste your morning, Sunday after Sunday, who waste time evangelizing, who waste time proclaiming the false news of Jesus Christ, you are but fools. That's what the text says. You, of all men in the world, are to be most pitied. You are to be most pitied, if he has not risen from the dead. Now obviously we can praise God that our faith is not based on rationalism, it's not based on intellectualism, and it's not based on humanism. Our faith is based upon the inerrancy, infallibility, authority, and inspiration of Scripture. It's based on the veracity of the text, the holy text that we have written by the prophets of the Old Testament, the apostles, and prophets of the New Testament. It's based upon the veracity of eyewitnesses who were used by God and gave up their lives for the truth of the Gospel. They gave their lives for the truthfulness, beloved, specifically of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And as church history tells us, some of our brethren were fed to the lions because they would not deny the resurrection. Some of our brethren had their skin peeled off their body because they would not deny the resurrection. Some of them had their bodies boiled. Some were torn and set aflame. all in order to testify that Christ had indeed risen from the dead. And now, if you believe in the truth of the gospel, you know that God will give you the same grace. He will give you the same grace to walk in the paths of our brothers of old. He will. To be empowered, to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, for context's sake here, or I should say, for clarity's sake, I want to make a distinction, if you'll let me just for a moment here, a distinction between resurrection and resuscitation, because resurrection is not a new topic for genuine Christian believers. You understand, I think you understand what I mean by resurrection, and I want to be clear that I'm communicating with clarity, so I want to make a distinction. Resurrection contains the idea of one rising from the dead with a glorified body. It's not just rising from the dead. It's rising from the dead with a glorified body. That is what our Savior did. That is what Jesus did. He rose again, never to die again. Understand that? He rose again, never to die again. unlike those that were revived or resuscitated in the Scriptures. Though they were actually dead, I'm not denying that they weren't actually dead, they were dead, their rising from the dead was different than Christ's rising from the dead. They rose again from the dead to die again. And there's no indication in Scriptures that the three people mentioned, at least in the Gospels, didn't die. Right? You've heard of the young boy in Luke 7, 15. The young boy, his mother and father were weeping. Jesus went to his house and rose him from the dead. There was a little girl who had died. Excuse me, the young boy, his mom was weeping. The little girl who had died in Luke 8, 55. The text tells us that her spirit returned and she arose immediately. So the text is clear that she was really dead. The young boy I just mentioned in Luke 7.15, the text says, and the dead man sat up and began to speak. So there's no confusion here. They were both dead people. And Jesus rose them from the dead. Lazarus himself, the text tells us in John 11.44, he who had died came forth. John makes it very clear that they did die, but their rising from the dead was very different than Christ rising from the dead. Because again, these all eventually aged and died again. Their bodies experienced likeness twice. And there's nothing in the text of Scripture for us to believe otherwise. The resurrection of Jesus, on the other hand, was altogether different. His resurrection involved having a glorified body that would never decay, that would never age, and would never die again. You say, preacher, does it really matter? This emphasis on a physical resurrection, that Jesus was resurrected, does it really matter? As one retired Methodist preacher on Cape Cod wrote in his My View column in the Cape Cod Times, he noted that there's been people throughout history who have not believed in a physical resurrection and it hasn't affected their faith at all. Biblically speaking, I would say that is true. I'd say it hasn't effected faith at all. Anyone that doesn't believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ isn't a Christian. They haven't been changed. There's no regeneration that takes place in their life. So it really doesn't matter to those people that Jesus rose again, physically or spiritually, whatever suits your fancy, whatever you choose to believe in, whatever you think is right. No, no, no. That's biblically erroneous. You cannot have Christ not physically rising up from the dead and be a Christian. It's an impossibility. It's like putting two negatives together in a sentence. It's an impossibility. You shouldn't do that. Excuse me for doing that. But biblically speaking, as we'll see, belief in or denial of the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ is the difference between, listen, heaven or hell. Big difference. Heaven or hell. It's the difference between forgiveness and condemnation. Very big difference. It's a big difference standing before a God in your sinfulness and guilt, or standing before a God with imputed righteousness given to you by Jesus Christ, the resurrected Savior. There's a vast difference between the two thoughts. There's a difference between eternal life and eternal damnation. Because Jesus' resurrection was physical. I want to be absolutely clear. Jesus' resurrection from the dead was a physical resurrection, not merely spiritual, in the sense that he was not risen as a ghost, or an emanation, or some sort of spirit-type being. No, not at all. He was in a glorified state that maintained a form of material matter. And as I told the three Mormons that came to the door the other night, unless I am convinced in my conscience by Scripture alone, I will not believe a word that you have to say. I'm assuming that the Saints here at Baptist Church, you're not going to be convinced unless your consciences are convicted by the text of Scripture. So if you would put your bulletin in 1 Corinthians 15. and travel with me, just for a moment, to the Gospels, because I want you to see what the Bible says and how the Bible testifies of the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is not a whatever response, remember? You can't just say whatever. It matters whether it's physical or ghostly resurrection. If you would turn with me to Matthew 28. We're going to go to Matthew 28 and we're going to jump to Luke 24 and then John But just to take you through a couple of scriptures that speak of the veracity the truthfulness that Jesus physically rose again from the dead I want you to be convinced in your conscience by scripture Matthew 28 9 What does the text tell us after Jesus rose again from the dead? Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were present at the tomb verse 9 and behold Jesus met them and greeted them and they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him They took hold of feet! Whose feet? Jesus' feet! Can you grab the feet of a ghost? No, you can't. Can you grab the feet of the resurrected Jesus Christ? Yes. Why? Because physically, He rose again from the dead. He could be held. Turn with me. Luke chapter 24. We're going to be in Luke to look at a couple of points here. But Luke 24, verse 15. The text tells us that after Jesus rose again from the dead, the resurrected Christ, in his glorified body, traveled with two disciples to Emmaus. Luke 24, verse 15, and it came about that while they, the two disciples, were conversing and discussing, Jesus himself approached and began traveling with them, and their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. You say, well, why couldn't they recognize him? Well, remember, the last time anyone saw Jesus, he was literally a bloody pulp. He was a bloody pulp, his face beaten to the point of not being recognized. The beard ripped off of his face. A thorn of crowns shoved, and I don't mean little rose-type crowns, we're talking big two-inch thorns shoved into his scalp. Beaten skin ripped off his back, nails were crossed. All of a sudden, Jesus is in his glorified state, and they don't recognize him. But what do we know? Jesus could travel with them. He could walk with them. If you glance down to verse 30, and it came about that when Jesus had reclined at the table with them, he took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, he began giving it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. Only Jesus can open the eyes of the spiritually blind and reveal himself, and that's what he does. He does it, As He arrives and spends time with His disciples, through breaking bread and passing it out, He was able to hold and handle tangible bread. And He passed it out. As a side note, just to throw the two's, this is not in the notes, so forgive me here just for a moment. As a side note, those that talk about demons possessing rooms, Okay? Demons, fallen angels, haunting houses. It's not true. It's not true. Demons don't have the power to knock books off your shelves. The thump in the night is not the devil coming for you. Okay. Granted, it may be in one sense, in a spiritual sense, but not in the sense that he's making the floor crack and slamming doors and knocking books off the shelf. If you do your homework into the text of Scripture, there is no place, there is no evidence at all that demons can inhabit the air, so to speak, and cause physical, material things to move and go bump and drop. Anytime a demon presents himself, it's either in one of two places. Humans? Fallen, depraved humans? Or animals? Okay, it's the only one of two places. Other than that, where do they live? It's a place called the Abyss. It's where the demons who met Jesus in the swine said, please don't send us to the Abyss. Side track. But just to put you at ease tonight, when you hear bump in the night, don't get scared. It's something else. It's just something else. I don't know what it is, but it's something else. But Jesus, on the other hand, He could handle physical material items. Look at verse 39 of Luke 24. 24 verse 39. I love this. I love that Jesus notes this and argues for the veracity of his physical resurrection. What does he say to his disciples? See my hands and my feet that it is I myself. Touch me and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. Jesus declared it and he even offered himself to be handled by his disciples. You say, well did they actually do that? Well turn with me. John 20. John 20, eight days after Jesus rose again from the dead, the second time He appeared to all of His disciples, at least all of the twelve specifically, because you know, Thomas wasn't there for the first appearance, but he was there for the second appearance. John 20 verse 27 tells us that the resurrected Jesus appeared to his disciples, and he said to Thomas specifically, reach here your finger and see my hand, and reach here your hand and put it into my side, and do not be a believing, but believing. He says, come on Thomas, you said you wouldn't believe unless you touched me. You said you wouldn't believe unless you put your hand on my side. Here's your opportunity. And what was Thomas' response? Did he say, that's right Jesus, get over here. Let me see those palms. Pick up those heels, show me. And that's not what he did. His response is, my Lord and my God, I understand now. You're the risen Savior. You're my Lord, my Master, my King, and you are God, a very God. You're not one of many gods, you are God. And he worshipped Jesus, and what does Jesus do? He accepts his worship! He doesn't say, Thomas, you're wrong! He accepts it. Why? Because Jesus is worthy of our worship. He is the resurrected Savior. The love of the Gospels clearly gives evidence that Christ's resurrection from the dead was physical and real because He could be heard, He could be held, He could be seen, He could be handled, He could even cook and eat. Did Jesus rise physically from the dead? Yes, He did. You could ask, well, how long did Jesus Himself show Himself after His resurrection? Do you remember? This is where I get the idea of stretching out Easter. Because the hope of the resurrection stretched more than for just one Sunday. How long did Jesus appear? Acts 1-3 tells us that Jesus also presented himself alive after his suffering by many convincing proofs appearing to them over a period of 40 days. The resurrected Jesus, according to Acts 1-3, appeared for over 40 days. And as we read in 1 Corinthians 1-12, Jesus appeared to over 500 at one time. He appeared to the apostles. He made it clear. He physically rose again from the dead. Yet, men of all ages, of all times, still refuse to believe in Christ's person and work, even denying the undisputed, undeniable, unarguable facts of the gospel. These are facts! These are historic realities that are to be believed in. Christianity is not a blind leaf of faith. By no means is it not. Jesus is worthy of your love and devotion because He is the historical figure that literally died and literally rose again from the dead. And he declared and demonstrated the veracity and truthfulness of the gospel. The good news that he is a savior who can save others. Visitors, friends, beloved saints here at Nasa Baptist Church, understand this, Jesus is worthy of your faith and faithfulness, your love and your loyalty. Why? Because He is God. He has atoned for your sins and He has risen from the dead to provide you with His salvation. So if you would, with that lengthy introduction, thank you so much for putting up with that, with me, I should say. If you turn back to 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Corinthians 15, I want you to see Paul's argumentation stems from. Where it stems from, and specifically, it's been argued, why is Paul arguing this fashion? I think he's trying to show the Corinthians the folly and foolishness of denying the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, we don't have time to go through the entire context of 1 Corinthians. There were major issues in this church. One here that's addressed in 1 Corinthians 15 is the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, some have questioned whether the saints of Corinth, the church in Corinth, were disbelieving or putting to the side, or denying the gospel of Jesus Christ, specifically the resurrection of Christ, I don't think that's true. And if you look at the context, look at verse 1 and 2 of chapter 15, Paul reminds them, "...now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received..." This is what they received! This is what they actively responded to! in which you also stand. This is the foundation for their living, for their doctrine, for their practice. Verse 2, by which also you are saved. This changed them spiritually. And he says here, with a qualifying statement, if you hold fast to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. I don't think he's telling them that they believed in vain. He's noting, if you deny this truth, then you believed in vain. I think what he's getting at here is that Christians in Corinth were trying to be accommodating. Accommodating to a society that scoffed at the idea of a physically resurrected Savior. They thought that was absolute foolishness. And you can go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, right? The Gospels of the unbelieving is ridiculous. Why? Because the Jews are looking for a miracle, the Greeks are looking for wisdom, but we preach Christ in Him, what? Crucified, right? So where is this coming from? Well, I think it was coming from a desire, very dangerous for a small church, now hear me here, for a desire for a small church to grow, to have a more significant impact in society. So what were they possibly doing? I think they were lowering the doctrinal barriers and walls that segregated true believers from non-believers in order to grow the church. What makes me think that? A tolerance for false doctrine could have come from the Sadducees. The Sadducees, who were a liberal Jewish sect at the time, clearly denied the resurrection according to Acts 23 verse 8. Acts 23 verse 8 says, the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angels, nor They didn't believe that there were angelic beings, they didn't believe that man had a soul, and they denied the resurrection from the dead. It might have been from the influence of the Sadducees, or it could have been as an influence from what's known as pre-gnosticism, or dualism. The idea that the flesh, anything material, is bad, inherently evil, and the spirit of a man is good, and they couldn't reconcile in their own heretical doctrine that Jesus, who is supposed to be good, could physically rise again from the dead and inherit a physical body, if indeed physical matter is evil. So they said that he was just an emanation, he was just a ghost. He didn't really rise again from the dead, he spiritually rose again from the dead. And Paul argues, you can't amalgamate the two, you can't blur the two. You can't blur the two if you embrace this then you debunk the truth of the gospel. Then you make void the truth of the gospel. Because obviously you cannot be a genuine Christian if you do not believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. Well, with that, there's one One other thing I want to note before we're going to get to the text here in just a moment, we're going to go into overdrive. You just wait and see, okay? But one specific grammatical note I want you to note in the text, between verses 12 through 19, you are going to see six conditional clauses. What do I mean by that? Well, specifically, they're known as six first-class conditional phrases. They're the if clauses. If this, then this. If this, then that. Paul's going to use that in his argumentation, and I want you to see that he's arguing from the negative. He's arguing from the heretic point of view for the sake of argument, and he's going to argue in a way that is going to say that their accusations or their false doctrine is true. If Jesus didn't rise, then these are the ramifications. This is how bad this doctrine really is. Look at the text with me one more time. Now, if Christ is preached that He has not been raised from the dead, how do some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But, if there is no resurrection of the dead, assumed to be true for the sake of argument, not even Christ has been raised! And if Christ has not been raised, assumed to be true, then our preaching is vain. Your faith also is vain. Moreover, verse 15, we are found, excuse me, we are even found to be false witnesses of God because we witness against God that He raised Christ. who He did not raise, if in fact 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 worthless, you are still in your sins, then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. So where is Paul going with his argumentation? Well, as we focus here on the Apostle Paul's defense, I'd like us to consider seven reasons. If you're taking notes, you can write this down. Seven reasons why Christians should be most pitied if there was no resurrection. Seven reasons why we who believe in a resurrected Christ should be most pitied. We should be considered absolutely pitiful and pathetic if our Lord did not rise from the dead. And Paul's reason number one is this. Christians should be most pitied because our Lord is forever dead. In the text. I want you to see the outline is coming right from the text. He is forever dead if he did not resurrect from the dead. And here Paul begins with a positive and negative statement and articulating his argument by conceding the obvious. If believers aren't raised, then Christ isn't raised. And if Christ isn't raised, then He is what? He's dead. He is dead. There is no Christianity. There is no Lord. There is no Master. There is no Savior. There is no King of Kings. Why? Because He's dead. Look at verse 12 again. Now, if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you, He doesn't say how do some of you, He says those among you, those in your midst, those allowed to partake with you, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised. Now again, positively, we know that the belief in the resurrection was well known and believed by the Corinthian saints. They believed this doctrine, they accepted this doctrine, they had responded to this doctrine. And as we already alluded, this is exactly what Paul preached in his gospel, 1 Corinthians 2. I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. They believed it. They understood that Jesus died as their substitute. They understood that Jesus took the penalty of sin on His body and nailed it once for all to the cross. He took the certificate of debt we owe God, and He did away with it. They believed it. They received it. They understood it. Their lives were changed by it. But negatively here, Paul lays the groundwork for the irrational argument by showing the connection between Christ's resurrection and the believer's resurrection. And the foundation to the believer's resurrection is based on and built upon Christ rising from the dead. You cannot have one without the other. Because if rising from the dead is considered null and void, then Christ hasn't risen from the dead and remains deceased in his grave to this day. The only conclusion we can have is someone stole the body. And I love the transparency of the scriptures, because that's exactly what Matthew records at the end of his gospel, right? That the Pharisees stole the soldiers and paid them off and said, tell everyone someone stole the body! Why would he include that in his gospel if it were true? Obviously, he would do everything he could to cover it up, but he doesn't. Everything's transparent. Paul is transparent, even in his letter to the Corinthians. He argues from the negative side, and he helps them to see that they are worshiping a dead Savior, if indeed Christ did not rise again from the dead. Again, the resurrection of Christ and his believers stands or falls together. You cannot separate the two. 1 Corinthians 6.14, Paul says it this way, Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through his power. God raised the Lord, then the hope is we will be raised as well. That's the hope we have. Let me put it this way. There are two things in life that are inevitable. What are they? Those of you that are scurrying to get your taxes done. Right? You know what it is, right? Death in taxes, they're inevitable. It would be bad enough, listen, it would be bad enough if you were going to die when you thought you'd live, right? It's bad enough when you hear of people tragically, suddenly, bluffing death. How much worse would it be to pay your taxes to a non-existent government? Absolute foolishness! That would be crazy! Why would you send someone that doesn't exist a check? That would be horrendous. Beloved Christians, according to the text, should be most pitied if the one we believe in, if the one we give our allegiance to, if the one we seek to love, if the one we seek to obey above anyone and everyone else is forever dead. We should be most pitied. We would be deplorable people. Let me put it vividly. If you've ever been to a hospital to go and minister to those that are sick or hurting, that have physical deformities, your heart aches for those people, right? You look and you just, you pray for them and, oh Lord, grant them mercy, grant them comfort. People should look at you with more pity than they would them, is what Paul is saying. They should look at you with more pity than they would a burn victim. They should look at you with more pity than they would look at the scum of the earth. They should look at you with more pity because you believe and a dead Savior if indeed He did not rise again from the dead. People should shake their heads in shame when they look at us if Christ has not risen from the dead. Why? Because our Lord is forever dead. Number two, let me give you the second reason. Why should Christians be most pitied? Number two, our message is complete foolishness. It's complete foolishness. We have nothing to proclaim. We have nothing to tell. We have no good story. At all. We are believing complete foolishness. And here, Paul continues his negative argumentation by elaborating on the message they're proclaiming. Without a resurrection, their message is nonsense. It's irrational. Look at verse 14. Look at the text. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is what? Vain. It is vain. Now here, when he mentions preaching, Specifically, I don't think he means the act of what I'm doing. This is preaching. This is heralding. This is what is to be done. It's to speak with a loud voice so no one disregards you. It's to be persuasive and to help people to see the truth by God's grace. But that's not what Paul is referring to here when he says preaching. What he means by preaching here, specifically, this is referring to the message preached. This is referring to the content of the message. Paul is basically saying, quote, what we are proclaiming is meaningless. It's foolishness. There is no content to our message if there is no resurrection of our Savior. As one brother put it, quote, apart from the resurrection, Jesus could not have conquered sin or death or hell. And those three great evils would forever be man's conquerors, end quote. And if that were true for us, if we were not champions in Christ, if we were not more than conquerors in Christ, our message is complete foolishness. Not only are you foolish for coming to church on Sunday, but I would be foolish for choosing this as a profession. I should dare say be looked at as doubly foolish, because this is what I do week after week after week. if Jesus did not rise again from the dead. Let me put it this way. Preaching a vain gospel would be like rearranging the furniture on the Titanic. You get that? With the Titanic sinking, why bother touching the furniture? Why would you do that? It's going to go down. I'm going to die. And if he isn't raised, then I'm not going to raise and I'm wasting my time. Without the resurrection, our message is complete foolishness. It's a waste of both our time and those that hear the gospel message. And this, beloved, this would eliminate preaching, teaching, instructing, exhorting, rebuking, admonishing, reproving, correcting with the message of the gospel. We shouldn't ever bother to open this book again. Because remember, the text of scripture is not a cafeteria. You don't get to walk up with your doctoral tray and say, I'll take a little bit of this, and I'll take a little bit of this, but the resurrection you can keep. You can't do that! Not with the holy text of scripture. It's all or nothing with God. I love that about God, don't you? It's all or nothing. It's all truth, or you don't take one bit of it. All or nothing. Why? Because our message would be complete foolishness if Jesus did not rise again from the dead. Let me give you number three. Number three here. Christians should be most pitied Why? Because our faith is absolute folly if Christ did not physically rise again from the dead. Our faith is absolute folly. Whatever amount of faith or trust or belief we have in Christ's personal work on the cross, if He wasn't raised from the dead, our faith is folly. It is ridiculous. It provides us with no benefit at all. And look at what the text says. Look at verse 14. And if Christ has not been raised, Not only is preaching vain, but your faith also is vain. It's vain. Faith in a dead Savior is faith in someone who cannot love you, he cannot comfort you, he cannot help you, he cannot heal you, he cannot be with you, and worst of all, he cannot save you. He cannot save you if he couldn't save himself. Isn't that what they said to him on the cross? Right? Matthew 27 verse 42? They scoffed at him, the priests, the Pharisees, they came up to him while he was hanging on the cross, dying for our sins, and they mocked him, and what did he say? He saved others? He cannot save himself! And you know what's awesome about that passage? Is the irony in the text! That is true! He couldn't save himself! Why? He was busy saving us! He couldn't! He couldn't save himself because he was busy saving us! But, the adverse is also true. He could rise himself from the dead. And that's exactly what he did three days later. Now, I don't know if you've ever thought about it, but that text here is very potent. It's powerful. It's an apologetic that helps people to see why Jesus had to physically rise again from the dead. But according to the Apostle Paul in our text here, the ramification of exercising trust in a Christ who has not been raised is absolute folly. If the dead do not rise, Christ did not rise, and we will not rise. Any faith we have in Jesus Christ would be vain. You say, well pastor, can you tell me what does vain mean? What does the word mean biblically? This is what it means. to have a message that is vain, or to preach something that is vain, or to believe in vain, it refers to that which is empty! Your faith is empty! It is fruitless! It is void to effect! It has no purpose! Imagine with me. Alright, let me give you a little word picture to try to help illustrate this. Imagine, if you will, a young couple. They're starting up their new life. Some of you, you have to go back many years to think about this. You're going back, you're starting up your new life as a young couple. You inherit a precious diamond. I did inherit a precious diamond. It's pretty neat. I wasn't expecting it. I don't wear it because it's a little too big for my hand. But I inherited a precious diamond. And if you took that diamond and put it in a safety deposit box, And we're hoping everything on that diamond. But you didn't put one penny away. You didn't save any of your cash because you were hoping to cash that diamond in one day. Then the day comes to cash it in. And it's it's it's you think it's something worth around $20,000 to find out it's cubic zirconia and it's worth about 20 bucks. How disappointing. What a shame. That's exactly, that's exactly what our lives would be if Jesus did not rise again from the dead. We're hoping in everything, we're hoping to cash in on the truth and veracity of the resurrection, but if it's a hoax, if it's fake, if it's fraud, if it's vain, we have nothing. To quote adversely the hymn writer, we would be having a faith built on nothing less than vain promises and emptiness. It would be absolute tragedy if Christ did not rise again from the dead. If Christ did not rise again from the dead, we should be most pitied. Why? Our Lord is forever dead. The message is complete foolishness. Faith is absolute folly. Number four. Number four goes right to God. It attacks the character and nature of God. God would be a fraud. I apologize for the rhyme. It wasn't intended. I needed a word that began with a letter F, and fraud rhymes with God, so then you won't forget it. But here I want you to see Paul's argument in verse 15. Paul continues to present his case by expounding on the depth of his disturbing heresy. Not only is the person and work of Christ debunked, but the very person, nature, and character of God is violated, and he's shown to be a liar. He's shown to be a fraud. He's shown to be a deceiver. Christ did not rise again from the dead. Look at verse 15. Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God because we witnessed against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. I love the way one brother summarizes it. He summarizes Paul's argument saying this, quote, it can mean, Paul's argument can mean this, objectively, that Paul and his co-workers were giving a false report of what God had done in Christ, and subjectively, it could signify that they were sent forth by God himself to preach and to practice deceit, end quote. God is the liar. Subjectively, the apostles are liars because they were sent out by God to preach a false message. You can take it either way. I think both would be true by default. If Paul, the apostles, and the hundreds of eyewitnesses testified to that which did not occur, then obviously they all would be found out to be liars. They would have had to be considered willing, conscious, purposeful liars, all in collaboration with one another, in order to have so many various testimonies be found consistent and in harmony with each other. What a scheme that they pulled off! The greatest scheme that ever affected history, right? If indeed Jesus didn't rise again from the dead. And obviously, this would have made God a fraud. He would have been a liar. And if what God said about the resurrection wasn't true, then why should we believe anything he communicated through his prophets? We should throw this book away and never open another page of it. We shouldn't memorize it. We shouldn't proclaim it. And last of all, you shouldn't believe it. Because if you can't believe the resurrection, you can't believe any of it. And seeing as though Jesus claimed to be God, right? Did he claim to be God? Numerous times he claimed to be God. He claimed equality with God. His life was characterized by the testimony that Jesus is indeed God. He is the Great I Am. If he did not rise from the dead, he himself would have been a liar, which would have debunked him from being God. For God cannot do what? I love it. There's two things that God can't do. One, He cannot and will not lead you into temptation, right? He won't tempt you beyond what you're able, 1 Corinthians 10, 13. And number two, God cannot lie. He cannot lie without violating His own character and nature. And again, the beginning of 1 Corinthians notes that this is according to the Scriptures. This is based upon the character of God which has been revealed by God through the sacred Scriptures. Well, let me give you number five here. The Lord is forever dead, our message is complete foolishness, faith is absolute folly, God is a fraud, and our nature is nonetheless fallen. What you think happened to you didn't really happen to you. There was no spiritual regeneration that you experienced in your life at all if Jesus did not rise again from the dead. Look at verses 16 and 17. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is Worthless? You are still in your sins. And here Paul revisits the devastating reality of our faith in Christ if Christ has not been raised and he brings out the fact that sin still has its hold on us and our perilous state has not changed at all. Paul points out here that all believers are no better off spiritually than unbelievers. We're damned, waiting to experience the doom state that death will bring in God's time. We are not new creations in Christ. We have not been raised with Christ, and Christ has not justified us, according to Romans 4.25. According to 1 Peter 1.3, you have not been caused to be born again. God did not do an efficacious work in your life if Jesus has not been raised. And you are still fallen. You are in your fallen state. Quickly here, point number six. Point number six is in verse 18. Paul argues our forefathers in the faith have all been utterly forsaken. All are utterly forsaken. then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. All our hope of all our loved ones who had faith in Christ in the past, since they're dead, they've perished. They're doomed. They're damned. They're experiencing eternal death for all eternity. And any comfort, any hope, any consolation concerning those that have died in the faith is utterly gone. If Christ has not been raised, then all have perished beyond the grave. You know Hebrews chapter 11? We normally refer to Hebrews chapter 11 as the Hall of Faith. It should be labeled the Hall of Fools. It should be labeled the Hall of Fools because they all hoped in faith. As one brother put it here, they would have been mocked, scorched, imprisoned, stoned, afflicted, ill-treated, and put to death completely in vain. All believers of all ages would have believed for nothing, lived for nothing, and died for nothing. It would have been better for Noah to have died in the flood than to build the ark. It would have been better for Abraham to choose the best land instead of giving Lot the better land. It would have been better for Moses to live in Egypt and enjoy its wealth and prosperity than to be in poverty with the Israelites. It would have been better for James, Peter, and John to have remained fishermen and followed Jesus. Well, let me give you the last point here. The last point, Christians should be most pitied why our only life has been futile. The one life you've been given to live has been futile. It's been an utter waste of time. And Paul concludes his argument with one final verse, the futility of life for all men who trusted in a Lord and Savior who could not deliver if indeed he did not rise again from the dead. Look at verse 19, if we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. Here, Paul says that a Christ hasn't been raised from the dead, and we've hoped in Him this only life we've been given, that we've wasted this life and should be considered pathetic, pitiful people. The we here includes both the writer and the recipient. The Christian life would have been a mockery. It would be a tragedy, a charade, a tragic joke if Jesus did not rise again from the dead. And to quote Paul here, In verse 32 of chapter 15, if the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. You should be living your life as complete hedonists. You understand that? You should be living your life, sowing your wild oats, doing everything you can, with radical effort, to please every lustful desire you could ever imagine or think. You should do, as Romans 1 says, be inventors of evil. if, indeed, the dead are not raised. But the dead are raised. Why? Because Jesus rose again from the dead. That's the hope we have. And the reality is, that affects us to one degree or another. I think that's part of why, in one sense, as Paul argues in Romans, those that don't have the law live like those that have the law. Romans 2.14. Why? It's written in their conscience. There is a restrainer in this world that holds us back, and it's part of God's gracious work in the Holy Spirit, but I think it's part of the reason why those that don't believe, quote-unquote, believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, don't live as absolute hedonists. Why? Because there is in their heart, I think, eternity, right? Ecclesiastes tells us that. Eternity is in the heart of man. And there's a reality that Jesus will raise everyone, John 5, 28, 29, He will raise the dead to condemnation, He will raise the unbeliever to condemnation, the believer to salvation, right? Well, everyone's going to live forever. Everyone is going to live forever. Jesus will raise everybody. It's just a matter of if He will save you or if you will die in your sins. And Paul's argument here Paul's argument is clear. As one brother put it, Paul makes morality turn on the hope of immortality. End quote. He makes moral living turn on the hope of immortality, living forever with Christ. And the good news, beloved, is you don't have to live like a hedonist. You don't. Why? Because Christ rose again from the dead. Look at verse 20. He leaves us on a wonderful thought, a wonderful note. Verse 20, but now, in contrast to all those if statements, all those if clauses that were assumed to be true and weren't, but now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruit of those who are asleep, for since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. Beloved, Christ has raised from the dead. Our Christ is living. Our message of the gospel is true. Our faith is sure. Our God is not a liar. Our God has graciously provided new natures for all who believe. Our forefathers are in heaven and living your life for Christ is not futile but glorifying to God. It is right and it is promising of eternal rewards. Don't be discouraged by the response or lack of response. live for His glory. Why? He rose again from the dead to give you hope that life is now worth the living. Why? Because He lives. Because He lives. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for the hope that you provide for us through the resurrection of Christ. Father, we thank you for Paul's argumentation, helping us to see how bad, how wrong, how erroneous, how damning it is to deny the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. God, help us, as the beloved brethren, to be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that our toil is not in vain in the Lord, because He has risen from the dead. In Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. At this time, I was asked by your pastor to share little bit of God's glory and grace in my life with you to encourage you. I don't know if I could encourage you any more than I've already encouraged you with the text of Scripture, but I'll try just to, I guess, testify of God's resurrecting grace in my life. As I've noted, I was the former, excuse me, I am the former pastor of Cape Cod Bible Church, in Hawatch. I was the pastor there from January of 06 to February of 2012. I passed the five-year mark of where most pastors are at churches. I didn't leave because I wanted to leave. I didn't leave because the church kicked me out. What have you heard? I'm going to dispel all rumors here this morning. That's not what happened at Hibcaw Bible Church. In God's grace and in God's sovereignty, because He is sovereign over the growth of His church. Amen? Jesus said in Matthew 16, I will build my church, and it's up to Him. I'm just to be found, what? Faithful. Stewards are to be found faithful. And in my conscience, I did my best to be found faithful. But in God's sovereignty, God decided to shrink Cape Cod Bible Church. And I'm sure you've probably experienced some of the financial pinch that money brings sometimes. Well, that's what happened. We got in a little bit of a financial pinch. More than a little bit. It was significant enough that I started to panic. I don't know how else to put it. I was looking at the books, and we're trying to figure out a budget, and just saying, oh, Lord, this just isn't going to work. Not to toot my own horn by any means, but I had to just kind of think through and say, you know, I could stay on as pastor, and I could deplete the church of its savings, and I figured out the math. the amount of money that we were losing and how much we were saving. And in case you don't know, we're trying to construct the remainder of the building. Our building has two floors and we're trying to finish the basement. I could deplete the church of its finances and take all the savings for myself, which I don't necessarily think would have been totally wrong, but in trying to be a good steward and realizing that we had about five months left that we would end up depleting. And then looking at how God provided for us. If it was no other elder, we probably would have sold the building. We had talked about doing that. The deacons actually had suggested that in the past, that we would sell the building, take the proceeds, and try to do something somewhere else in a different location. But, there was a new variable in the mix, and God solemnly brought the previous pastor back, Jim Stewart. And Jim and his wife Jan are back on the Cape, taking care of Jan's mom, who is elderly, and she needs help at the home. in her home, home, not the home, they weren't sending her elsewhere, but they were hoping to do that for the remainder of her days. And their expenses are a lot different than mine. I'm married with three little ones who eat a lot, and their children are all grown and out of the house, so their expenses are a lot different. And then looking at So to speak, the writing on the wall, it was the Lord provide a shepherd who's qualified, who's willing, who's able to tend the sheep for far less than I could financially. I thought, you know, the right thing to do and the advice, the wisdom and counsel I got from others, including your pastor, was to pass the baton. Just pass the baton. Let Brother Jim do it. have the church remain in its spot, have a presence in the community, keep preaching the gospel, and pray that the Lord blesses the ministry, and that there is biblical success in that location. Nonetheless, it was heartbreaking for me. I kind of freaked the deacons out a little bit, weeping, telling them I think I'm going to have to resign. I don't think they were really ready for it. I don't think they actually ever saw me weep before, but they were very kind and gracious with me and understood. trying to help me think through it. And that same week, I told you I'm married with three little ones, right? You know what our economy is at. I'm on like, you know, monster.com. I'm looking for jobs. What can I do to work? I'm a minister. I'm not a laborer. I don't have a career to fall back on, so to speak. I have an accounting background, but I haven't done accounting in 12 years. What guy is going to hire, what CPA is going to hire me? I might be able to shred some papers and take out the trash, but that's about all. And I started just praying and fretting. And I'll be honest, pastors fall into anxiety at times. And I was anxious, and I had to work very hard and be anxious for nothing, but trust the Lord. And I just started going back in my life and, hey, God was faithful here, and God was faithful there, and God provided here, and God provided there. Don't lose hope. God will provide. Just stay faithful. And that same week, and I don't mean to say this is God's going to do this for all of you, but the same week, in God's graciousness, He provided me with a full-time employment. The blessing is I get to drive an hour and a half to work every day. Before it took me one and a half minutes to get to work. Now it takes me an hour and a half to get to work. So I wake up now at five in the morning and I drive all the way to Taunton over the bridge. If you don't know where that is, it's way over the bridge. But God's provided me with a great job. I'm working for a Christian brother and helping him to be successful in his business ventures to the glory of God. So I have work now. My kids are eating food. and not biscuits, dog biscuits. You know, we're not looking for grubs in the backyard. Praise the Lord. Right? Could be worse. Could be worse. Even as poor people in the U.S., we're still pretty rich here. And the Lord's been doing a lot of great things. And one other thing, if you could be praying for us specifically. I've had to do some soul searching. You know, why does God want me out of the ministry? Does God want me out of the ministry? I've been trying to be faithful as a pastor. preach, and teach, and shepherd His saints, and to love God's people, and do the work of an evangelist, and just be faithful, and all of a sudden, God took me out. I was like, and it was kind of ironic, in a sense. I had preached probably three or four years ago about my commitment to the Church, and I said, if God wants me to leave, He's going to have to rip me out of here, let me speak with my proper accent, He's going to have to rip me out of here with my nails scratching across the top of my pulpit. And that's exactly what he did. My nails, I was holding on and I had to let go. But, on the flip side of that, we have a solid Bible expositor at Cape Cod Bible Church, and we're praying right now that the Lord will allow a church plant to take place in Taunton. Looking at the demographics of Taunton, I don't know if you're familiar with the city, it's probably, it's probably like 70,000 people, and there's very, very few good churches. If there are good churches there, they're not on the map. I've tried to look for them, and I haven't been able to find them there yet. I mean, there are a lot of church buildings, but you know what I mean, there's not a whole lot of gospel preaching going on, it's a very social event right now. So we're hoping, I have a free facility provided again, I have actually a reception hall that has been quote-unquote, given to me, so to speak, that if I wanted to try to plant a church, it already has the sound equipment, has lighting, and he's not going to charge me rent. So I'm going, Lord, is this it? Is this what you want me to do? You know, are we going to do a church plant? And if you can be praying for me, for my wife, continue to pray for us. Pray for Cape Cod Bible Church as they transition with a new pastor. I do send my greetings. I know we do pray for you on Wednesday nights. There are churches praying for you, and we're one of them. I didn't want to forget to tell you that, but pray for Cape Cod Bible Church and pray for us. I'm a non-denominational pastor, so I don't have affiliation with Conservative Baptists or General Baptists or anything like that, but what I do have affiliation with is other non-denominational churches. So I've been talking to some churches, like-minded brothers, some specifically guys that I had gone to the same seminary with, and asked them to provide some leadership and oversight for me. some self-proclaimed guru trying to start a church. I don't want to do that. I want to have some ties with some sound churches that can vouch for my character, my integrity, etc. So, Lord willing, in the next couple of months, we're going to try to do a church plant. We're going to start off with a little Bible study. Two or three, right? And see what the Lord does. If He chooses to bless numerically, that's up to Him. The hope that we have is that he will always bless spiritually. As we sit under the word, as we are sanctified by the word, as it's preached, we hear it, we obey it, he'll mature us. So hopefully we'll continue on that road of maturation. But with that, I want to just encourage you to be faithful, to be faithful. As the end, if you didn't catch that, when I prayed 1 Corinthians 15.58. Be encouraged to be steadfast, immovable, stand firm, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Why? Because it doesn't matter how small your building is or how small your church is. The work of the Lord is never done in vain when it's done in the Lord. Amen? Amen. It's never done in vain. So hang in there, be faithful, and continue to honor Him in all things.