Please be seated. Well, this morning we'll be finishing up our exhortation series in 1 Corinthians 15. So if you want to turn there with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, you can find that on page 1790. The verses we'll be on, we're going to be starting on verse 35 of 1 Corinthians 15. It's page 1790. And just a little comment, we'll see here as we finish up this chapter that we've been up to this point kind of looking through a lens of a battlefield, of a war, and kind of from a tactical perspective, kind of something from high up. But this morning we're going to see it's going to come down to the ground level, to more of a boots on the ground, and we're going to see really what does this mean for me about the resurrection. Let's look then, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. We're going to be reading 35 through the end of the chapter, through 58. But someone may ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come? How foolish. What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed. perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same. Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another, and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies. But the splendor of the heavenly bodies is of one kind and the splendor of earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another, and the stars another. And star differs from star and splendor. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable. It is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written the first man, Adam became a living being. The last met the last Adam, a life giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural. And after that, the spiritual, the first man was of the dust of the earth. The second man from heaven as was the earthly man. So are those who are of the earth. And as the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash. in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound. The dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Let's come before him one more time in prayer this morning. Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we hear your word this morning, and we hear that it's a word that comes in power, that it comes in truth, that is factual, that all that we say that applies to our life is based off the work that you have done, and here as we look forward, the work that will be fully completed when Christ returns. This is true, we stand by it, we believe it, and we thank you for it, and we pray that you would make it clear to us that how it applies to our lives, that our worship to you would be all the more important to us. We pray this all in Christ's name, amen. Well, as I mentioned just briefly a second ago, the first two sermons, we were looking at kind of a higher up, maybe a bird's eye view, if you're familiar with that term, a tactical view, since we've been looking at this war theme based off some of Paul's language. And now we're going to be moving to the personal level. What does this mean for me? And what we saw up to this point about this letter, the context of this letter, is that it's going to a church that is struggling. Previous to this, Paul, The gospel through Paul reached out to Corinth and looking at that lens of war, they were like prisoners of war. This is the king's land, but the king's land has been overtaken by the enemy. And now the gospel reached out to Corinth and took them back, freed these prisoners of war, but now they're still behind enemy occupied territory. And they began backsliding. And you could see that their understanding of who God was started to slip. And because of that, all of the things that they started to do. And through this backsliding, they became separated from their king behind enemy-occupied territory. They became lone soldiers. So what we saw the last two weeks, particularly, is a warning. Now, this is still part of that warning. But we saw a warning. And Paul said, everything is at risk. They were listening to the propaganda of the enemy. And so Paul was saying to wake up from your stupor, drunken stupor, and follow your king to his final victory. So he painted that picture, what that would look like. Well, as I said, now here comes the question, what does that mean for me? That's what we see here in this next section. And that's why the title of this third exhortation is the death of death three, the victory is for you. In other words, we're not meaningless soldiers, not a disposable army. Chapter 15 here doesn't end in dry doctrine. Of course, none of this has been dry. No part of scripture is dry. We make it that way ourselves. But chapter 15 doesn't end that way. Because ultimately, what our question is that we bring to this text is that we have a real enemy. Yes, the victory has been struck. The victory blow, as it were, has been struck. That time where he is totally destroyed, that is to say death, has not yet come. So here we are on the ground, and now this text addresses us. Where are we right now with our enemy death? I think what's so comforting about this is that our tendency is to face death alone. We may think even about our life at this point that it has become insignificant. We may think about our death that it would be insignificant. Or maybe an accident. Or maybe God is storing up extra wrath for us in our punishment of death. Some unique punishment for us. Or perhaps we don't want to hurt others with our death. Whatever the case is, we're tempted to face death alone. The Corinthians, here, we see we're terrified of death. They believe that it was stronger than God himself. And so that encouragement in this passage comes out that we're not alone in death. In fact, it's part of his plan. and resurrection, we're going to see that, that ultimately it's God's intention for us to go through these things. It's a gate, in fact, which he leads us through. And this question from the Heidelberg Catechism always stuck out to me. It's question answer 42. And I love it because it's like a question that a child would ask, which are the questions that we need in our lives. It says this, question answer 42 of the Heidelberg Catechism. Since Christ has died for us, and here it is, why do we still have to die? Just think about that question. Why do we still have to die? And here's the answer. Our death does not pay for the debt of our sins. That's important for us to recognize. Our death does not pay for the debt of our sins. But here's what I want to draw attention to. Rather, there's two parts to this. It puts an end, that's one part, it puts an end to our sinning. And secondly, it's an entrance into eternal life. So we have an end, and we have an entrance. It's a gate, in other words, a transition. And what we're going to see in this passage is that this is God's intent for us, and we're never alone in this. And what does Paul use here? He transitions here from what was a little bit of military language, surely it was, and now here he uses an illustration of a garden, a gardening illustration. And so we're going to look at that in this theme. Give yourself fully to your gardener's care. And the three points. His care for you will never change. His care for you is bringing you to full blossom. And his care for you produces fruit now. So firstly, we'll look at his care for you will never change. Well, as I mentioned here, we're going to drop down from that tactical view to ground level. And Paul here is addressing actual words that are used in these kind of debates. He's using them. I mean, it's not in today's world where we can quickly communicate to one another. Paul does this often where he's going to pre-address certain arguments. So here it is. He's looking at exact words that are used in these kind of debates. Probably some sort of a Trump argument that when people would start to talk about this, people would say, well, what about this? And then maybe laugh it off, and then no more discussion can happen. And so here it is, the exact words, verse 35. But someone will ask this. How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come? And I think it's helpful for us if we translate it this way, according to the original language, what kind of body will they come out? What kind of body will they come out? And I thought about how can I describe what he's saying here, and the quickest way is really to say, this is zombie language, what kind of body will they come out of the ground? That's what he's saying. It's a ridiculous argument, but see, we have to understand that they had no understanding of what Christ had accomplished in his death and resurrection. They had no understanding, which makes sense. That's why they're so easily just getting rid of the resurrection here. Ultimately, they thought that our bodies were going to come back in this age, in this life that we live right now. And I think it would be helpful for us to look at worldly religions, false religions, because they say they think the same types of things, that this age we're in is an eternal age. So we think about reincarnation, for example, it's the same idea. It's a cyclical life that we come back when in this age, in other words, we're stuck here, this age of our enemies, it's all we have. What kind of hope is there in that? Well, there's none. But we too have to be careful ourselves in our understanding of heaven. And I'm going to ask this question to you, and maybe you've thought about it, maybe not, but is heaven just like Eden? Is it just like the Garden of Eden? Is it going back to the Garden of Eden exactly as it was? As I thought about this as I've gotten older, I'm sure many of you have thought about this as well, but there was an enemy in the Garden of Eden, wasn't there? The serpent was there in the garden. And what have we learned from here that Paul is telling us? A mystery that he's revealing to us, right? Christ is going to conquer and destroy all of his enemies. It's not going to be Eden. There will be no enemies. That is to say that God's plan is always moving forward. He always has a plan. And that's different from any of the false world religions, where it's cyclical. See, Christian religion, the true religion, the truth, is that everything is moving according to a plan. It's a timeline moving forward. It's not cyclical, like every other world religion has. That's what they were used to back then as well. So that's why Paul is saying here, that's why he responds, how foolish. As he said before, they have no knowledge of God. Some people that are teaching this and proclaiming this and arguing this in the church, he said they have no knowledge of God. How foolish, verse 36. What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And then this is the gardening illustration. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed. And then he talks about variety, perhaps of wheat or of something else. And this variety is very important. We'll talk about that. But what Paul is saying is what we bury in the ground, and we've seen this at our loved one's funeral, that body is just a seed. And when Paul says that the seed dies, he's saying that the seed will never look like that again. What comes out is going to be different. And actually, our second point is to look at that. What exactly is going to come out? We'll see that in just a minute. But see, what's important here is where does the growth come from? Where does the body come from? And that's verse 38. This is really the heart of this first point and of what Paul is saying. Verse 38, but God gives it a body as he has determined. And to each kind of seed, he gives its own body. The gardener has it determined. He has determined it. He has a plan. For example, as some of you garden, if you came up to me this afternoon and you had maybe five or six seeds in your hands and you showed me the seeds and you said, what will these grow up into? Well, I have no experience in that. I would have no idea what those things are. But see, the gardener would, you would know. And not only would you know what those things are going to be, you were going to plant them accordingly, according to your plan. That's what we're looking at here. God gives it a body as he has determined. And that's what I want to really put before you. It's the plan that we have, that God has for us in our death and resurrection. This is the question again that Paul says, they'll ask, with what kind of body will they come? Well, reincarnationists would say, well, they would say it's random, right? We're stuck here in this age. It's whatever you deserve is actually what they say. And if you're really good, you'll be a cow, which, I mean, this is the amount of blindness you have to have to believe that a cow is a blessing. We know it's false. A materialist, which is most of America, that is to say that it's only matter. There's nothing spiritual. We're the same as a mic. I'm the same as this thing right here is what they're saying. There's nothing else to me. What they're saying, you're just going to vanish and become nothing. What kind of body will they come? Nothing. As a Christian, what should we answer? Paul is saying, what our gardener has determined for us. What kind of body will we have? What our gardener has determined for us from the very beginning. In other words, as I've been saying, this passage of death, this gate, this ending and beginning means that we're not alone. In fact, nothing changes. Our gardener never stops attending us. As a baby, he watched us. Through our adult years, we've seen that. And there will come a day, maybe it will be tonight, maybe in 10 years, maybe in 70 years for some of us, there's going to be a time where we close our eyes. And the next moment, we open them and we're going to see our gardener face to face. In his timing, the body, our body, that is a seed, is going to perish. And we're going to move on to the next stage that he has planned for us. But there will be nothing changed about his care for us. Let me ask you this. In your life, in your experience, what have you learned about your gardener's care for you already up to this point? How much has he cared for you, how unique And detailed are his plans for you. We learn that even 10, 15 years later. We see how things lead to other things. And we see his love in those things. He perfectly fits us for his plans. Well, Paul points to God's creation here to press this idea. How do we know that God has plans for us in the next life? He looks at creation. He says, look at the way God's designed everything. He has a plan for everything. At verse 39, he says, look, all flesh is not the same. He's saying there's a purpose for these things. Men have one kind of flesh. Animals have another, because we're talking about the body here. Birds, another. And fish, another. There's a purpose given to every body in God's plan to live in a certain sphere, as it were, the ocean, the air, whatever it may be. And he continues this argument here at verse 40. There are also heavenly bodies. And there are earthly bodies, things here on the earth. He's talking about heavenly bodies. He's talking about the stars. talk about that a little bit as we continue here. But the splendor of the heavenly body is of one kind and the splendor of the earthly body is another. Verse 41, the sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another, and the stars another. And then he even says stars differ from star and splendor. We have a north star, we have brighter stars. So what is Paul saying here? That your body is going to be buried as a seed And God will transform it. Your body, he's going to transform your body, because he says that what is sown, your body, is going to come to life. So it's not a separate body. It's your body. And then at the resurrection, when Christ comes again, there will be a time where we don't have our body. When Christ comes again at that time, that body is going to be outfitted for his new purposes. That is the new age. And that's what Paul is talking about here. And we have to really wrestle with this. It's a little bit hard to understand the two ages, this age and the next age. The next age being the fullness of time, God's plan for all things. But for now, your gardener's care for you, I want to say, not even for one second will lapse. As I said, we'll close our eyes one day and immediately open them to see our father, our gardener. So especially in death, he will be with you, growing you. So trust him. Well, secondly then, his care for you is bringing you to full blossom. And really, we see this at verse 42. Paul tells us what he's going to be speaking about here. He says, the resurrection from the dead. That's how he begins it. He's really now speaking what is going to happen to this plant. What is this plant, our body, going to look like? And I want to be careful about how I speak about this, because it can become a little bit difficult. But it has a lot to do with the environment in which that plant will be planted. It has to do with this age and the next age, and that will help us to understand what Paul is saying. In other words, the future plant, that is our future resurrected bodies, will be part of their new environment. There's a connection between our future bodies and where we will live, and that's key. And I think, I debated how best to explain this, but I think verse 48 might show that. the connection between our bodies and where they will be. Because verse 48, Paul says, as was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth. And as is the heavenly man, so are those who are of heaven, the environment. My goal is to point out this, that we die, and our bodies go into the ground as a seed. And that seed grows into a great tree, some sort of final perfected form. But what's important to know, but I want to note here, is that our body, this future body, is fitted for that new sphere of life. For example, he uses the example of fish, for example. They have scales. For what? They can breathe water. They can swim. Their body is designed for that. A bird has feathers. It can fly. And for you and for me, a man and a woman, for eternity, our bodies will be fitted to dwell with God forever, where there are no enemies. And that's what we're hearing about here. We're hearing about our body, yes, but we're also hearing about the full coming of the kingdom. Where are we going to live? When it said God is all in all, what does that mean exactly? We're hearing about both of those things. So here's the thing. I think this is really important. The body that we have today, we can all attest to this, right now is dying. Our bodies are dying. Now our souls have been renewed. We've been born again. We've been given new life. John 3, we hear that. is still dying because our bodies are part of this sphere, this environment, this age. So I want to read a couple of verses here to you. This is what Paul is saying. Verse 42, Paul says, of the earth. He's saying our body is of the earth, this age. Look at verse 44. He says our bodies here are natural bodies. He also says this at verse 46. Natural bodies of this age. And at verse 47, they are from the first man of the dust of the earth. Verse 47, of the dust of the earth. And now there's a contrast here, which Paul does often in his theology as he teaches us. But he says that our new bodies via death and resurrection, verse 42, Our bodies will be spiritual bodies. And that's not to say that our bodies will be ghosts, will be floating spirits. Although there will be a time where we won't have our physical bodies before Christ comes again. But in that day, once Christ comes and our bodies are resurrected, we're not going to be ghosts. We're going to have our bodies, physical bodies back. And so our whole being, including our bodies, What he's saying here, by spiritual bodies, is that we will be empowered by the spirit. Now, that may seem like a stretch from the language, but Paul often uses this language here, in the original language. What he's saying is that these are bodies that are going to be empowered by something. So when he says the natural body, he's saying it's bodies empowered by this age, and bodies that are going to be spiritual are bodies that are empowered by the spiritual, that is, by God himself. So the environment is key. So verse 48, as was the earthly man, Adam, so are those of the earth. And as is in the heavenly man, speaking about Christ, so are those who will be of heaven or who are of heaven. So I'm going to go back to that question about Eden. Part of the heart behind that is this question, do we understand that we need to be more than just reformed? We are reformed, but here we're talking about recreated back to where we are now. We need more than just to be restored or reformed from the ground. There's a comparison here, and see, it would be basically impossible to understand this comparison unless we understood what Paul's talking about, these two ages. It happens in verse 45. He talks about Adam and Christ, the first man, And the second man, the first man, he says, became a living being. He's talking about his essence, how he was powered, his relationship with God. Adam walked with God. But there was a time where Adam was not next to God in the sense that Satan came and tempted Adam away. And we're not going back to that possibility. It's the way that in this age, even though we're fallen now, in the garden they weren't yet, but this age will be different. It says the last Adam, Jesus, became a life-giving spirit, which is to say that Christ himself is fully empowered by the Holy Spirit, and now he pours out his spirit, he already has, and he gives the Holy Spirit to all who are his, that God will be all in all. That's what it means, that everything will be restored back through Christ. that God is the center of the environment. When we think of heaven, we know that there will be no sun. That's to say that if we think about the sun and how it powers everything, right, and this planet, well, there will be no sun because God is the center. He's empowering everything. And so what's so important about our environment is what it teaches us about the one who built it or who will finish building it. In Hebrews chapter 3, the writer of Hebrews uses the argument that which receives more glory, which should be given more glory. If you go to a house and it's beautiful and everything's perfectly made, do you glory in the house more than you glory in the person who built it? Don't you glory more in the person who built the house than the house itself? It's pointing us, all of this is pointing us to the fact that there will be no sun, that everything will be all in all in God. So we must understand that Christ is reconciling not just our bodies, but all things. And so when the people of the false religions say that it's a cyclical, we're here, we're stuck in what we have with all of our enemies, see, all of it has to be reconciled. Yes, our bodies will be adapted, will be fit, will be matured, if you want to put it that way, into these great trees and these great plants, but ultimately we're being fit for his kingdom. And Paul says we must be, right at verse 50. That's why he's saying we must be. He's saying, at verse 50, I declare to you brothers that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep or die, Our bodies won't all die, but we will all be changed. In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. Again, 53, for the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. Must be clothed for our new home. So what is our clothing? And that's why I want to take you back to verse 42, because if we just read verse 42, we would understand it one way. But see, we have to understand it as clothing for our new environment, for our new home. Verse 42, the two ages. The body that is sown is perishable, right? This age. Can't we say everything around us is perishable? But it is raised what? Imperishable. The home where God empowers all things, and he fits us for that. It is sown in dishonor. from this age. It is raised in glory for the home that's awaiting us. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body, that which empowers all of it. So our gardener's care is bringing us to full blossom. But that means that he plants us by streams of living water to be empowered by God himself perfectly. Will an oak tree live in the desert? Will a cactus that's beautiful in bloom live in the tundra? This is the truth of what Paul is saying. This is the doctrine. But the application is that God is fitting you for your home in heaven. It can be difficult sometimes when we think about heaven because we don't understand really what that means. What is heaven? It can be alien to us. But see, God is fitting it for you. When Christ says he's preparing our rooms, he's preparing our mansions, it's personalized to us. It's our home. And he's going to be fitting us for it, to walk with him, never to sin, to love him with our whole being, to love others with all of our being, because we're totally empowered by him in all things. So it's not just like Adam, who walked with him, and one day the serpent approached him. but it's going to be greater than that. What does Christ say for us in John 14 or 15 about the vine? That we have to abide in him and he will abide in us in all things. That's what it means to be fully abiding in him and have him fully abiding in us. So brothers and sisters, God's care for you never changes and his care and intention is to bring you home to him where there's no enemy that will ever take you away from him. So trust in him. Or thirdly, and quickly now, the last point, his care for you produces fruit now. And as we wrap up here, really all of chapter 15, what Paul tells us is the truth of the resurrection. He really goes over the gospel again in verse 54, which is how he started chapter 15, with the gospel. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? And this is the fullness of the kingdom that we're looking at here, that we've covered up to this point, which is why Christ tells us to pray thy kingdom come. But for right now, this tonight or this week, where we live is that the war is finishing up. As we look here at verse 56, we see the enemy, the enemy that is wounded, a death wound, and yet this week we will have to fight this enemy, not alone of course. And this enemy has weapons, well it has a weapon and a power, two things that Paul brings out. In verse 56 we see those two things. So his weapon, says, verse 56, the sting of death, what's his weapon? Sin. Sin, the weapon by which we all die. And sin, that weapon in which there will not be in his kingdom when it's fully come. That's the first thing he says about our enemy. The second thing is the power source. We've been talking about the power source. Paul talks about that through really all of his letters, that death has a power source. by that which propels it forward. Food, if you want to look at it that way. Just like we spoke about earlier, the natural body is powered by natural things. The spiritual body will be powered by the spirit. Verse 56, it says, and the power of sin is the law. And this is where it can get really difficult to understand. But that is to say this, that the law is used to point out sin, our sins, and convict us of our sins. In other words, it made us more guilty in our sins. The law was not in and of itself meant to be salvific for us. It was not meant to save us apart from God. But see, the Jews at that time had forgotten this. They thought that in the law itself was life apart from God. But see, in the law is where God's grace is found. And so this is the war. This is the enemy. This is its power source. This is its weapons. And then Paul tells us what the outcome of this war is, which is what he's been painting for us the whole time. Verse 57, and he begins it with praise, but thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And here it is, verse 58, therefore, the conclusion. I think this is the conclusion of the book, his whole letter, in many ways. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. And so I'll ask you, if we look at verse 1, how did Paul open this chapter? If you want to look at verse 1, how did Paul open this section? He says, verse 1. Now, brothers, because you're going to see a mirror of these two things. Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel, which is what he just preached about to us, what we just read, the gospel, the victory in Christ. I want to remind you of that. I preached it to you, which you received. And what did they do with it? On which you have taken your stand. And now here, what does he say at the end? Stand. Stand on it. Stand firm on the gospel. And so what is this all about? Yes, it's a beautiful chapter on the resurrection, handed to us by the Holy Spirit so that we can have encouragement in the resurrection, absolutely. But more than that, it's about the gospel as a whole. The Corinth, the Corinthians, were allowing an attack on the gospel. Why was everything so bad? Because they didn't embrace the gospel. That's what it came down to. They were beginning to let go of it. And so everything comes back to this, and everything comes back to us. And that warning, which this is a warning, comes to us. Have we forgotten the gospel in our lives? We could look at this as church problems. We had the synod recently, or our local church. What issues do we have here? Not that I'm accusing us of anything, but we could paste them over, we could say, This is how it should be. This is how it is. But see, we have to take it back. We take this warning, just like the Corinthians needed. Have we forgotten the gospel? What about our personal problems, right? Individually, in your life. You have to ask yourself what you're doing, why you're doing it. Have you forgotten the gospel? Do you feel like you're drowning? Where are you looking to stand? He's talking about standing on the gospel. We have to remember, ultimately, this is a warning. Verse 58, he said, let nothing move you. Move you. From what? Away from the gospel. Nothing. I thought about asking this. Is there something in your life right now that's moving you away? But I think this is much more appropriate. What is something in your life right now that is moving you away from the gospel? What is it? Think about it. We waste time in a million different ways. but not with this. We can't waste our time looking and listening to Paul's warning. What is moving you away from the gospel? He says, let nothing move you away from the gospel. And that's the verse where verse 58 comes in, in this context. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord, in these last couple words, is not in vain, where everything around us is vanity. This is a warning to save your life, Listen to the warning, otherwise your life may be all in vain. I noticed how many times Paul talks about that in this chapter. Verse 1, vanity. He says, unless you believed in vain, right, it would all be wasted. Verse 9, his grace is not in vain. Verse 14, our preaching, otherwise our preaching has been in vain. Verse 17, your faith will become futile. Verse 32a, what would I gain that he would lose everything? Verse 32b, eat and drink for tomorrow we die. It's all worthless, he's saying, if not for the resurrection. Verse 34, he says, wake up from your drunkenness. Drunkenness, a waste of all these things. Vanity. And so here it is. It's what the gospel brings. And we need to listen to his warning. Verse 58, always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. And so the gospel, just in closing, which secures all these end things, which secures the final victory in Christ, which we've been looking at through this chapter, the gospel secures all of that, but it also gives us something, the only thing worth fighting for now, to live for it now. Everything without it would be in vain, right? Verse 42, all of these comparisons, perishable, imperishable, right? Perishable, dishonor, weakness, these are the things of this age that in themselves are vanity. But they have all been redeemed in Christ, so we have a reason to live in him, our work is not in vain. So what do we do now? Well, because of the gospel, how we live matters, everyday matters, all of the small things that we do matter. And what is the gospel? It has to be sated. And I think about this often. It's one of my favorite verses in scripture. It's John chapter 12, where Christ describes the gospel to Gentiles that were coming to seek him. And he says, it's a seed. We think about the seed that dies. He said, it's a seed that dies. His body must go into the ground so that it can bear much fruit, the cross and the resurrection of Christ. And he challenges us. He commands us to do the same thing. even to die to him, but with the encouragement of knowing that our lives, our death, is never in vain, and it's always in the care of our gardener. Amen. Let's pray. Father and our God, we come before you this morning hour, and we give you thanks again for your word that directs us. It's a pathway for us in this life. It's a rest for us from the busyness, from the distractions of the world, from the discouragement. And it's a light that, it's a beacon that draws us to you and reminds us, why are we here? Why are we here? But it's by your plan. that you are always the same, and we look forward to that day even, we can say, where our eyes close and they open immediately, and we can see you face to face. What a glorious day. We pray again all these things in Christ's name, amen. Well, let's sing hymn number 471, Jerusalem the Golden. Let's sing about Christ's kingdom. 471, Jerusalem the Golden.