Death Swallowed Up By Victory - Christopher G. Brenyo

Ascension Presbyterian Church Longwood

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1 Corinthians 15, this is

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God's holy and infallible word. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption.

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Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.

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For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed for this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality.

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So when this corruptible has put on incorruption and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.

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Oh, death, where is your sting? Oh, Hades, where is your victory?

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The sting of death is sin and the strength of the sin of sin is the law.

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But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the

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Lord, knowing that your labor is not vain in the Lord. Please pray with me.

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Lord, we thank you for. Your victory. Which has secured our victory, when the

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Lord, when the world looks at death and mourns and is hopeless, help us to see the victory that is ours through your atoning work for us in your resurrection.

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The Lord, I pray that we would long to put off the corruptible, the imperfect that we might put on the pure and the perfect and the incorruptible, or we want to trade mortality for immortality, which change our sinfulness to righteousness.

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And Lord, you've done it. You've accomplished it all through your victory on the cross and subsequent resurrection.

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And in this we give thanks. Oh, Lord, I pray that as a result of this doctrine, we would be steadfast.

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We would be immovable and that we would always abound in your work. We ask these things in Jesus name.

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Amen. Please be seated. The title of the message today is

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Death is Swallowed Up in Victory, and that is taken there from the last part of first verse fifty four.

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And I have a brief five point outline for you to take notes. And as always,

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I may not follow that strictly, but these are the basic five points that I'd like to convey today.

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First, a little bit of review from last week. First point is flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

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Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Secondly, the great change,

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Colin, the corruptible must put on in corruption, the great change, corruptible must put on in corruption.

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Third, death is swallowed up in victory. Death is swallowed up in victory.

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Fourth, give thanksgiving to God. He has given us the victory in Christ.

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And fifth, we have the imperative of the section be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the

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Lord's work. So this doctrine of the resurrection should yield faithful service and those who have been touched by it.

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So it would be one thing for us to esteem the resurrection of Christ in an intellectual and theoretical sense on the one hand and fail to act in faith on the other.

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It would be an impossible inconsistency for us to say that we hold to the doctrine of the resurrection and aren't moved to service and to act in service and labor for the

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Lord. That's from verse 58, the main thesis of our message today, very simply, is

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Christ's resurrections affects victorious change in us.

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Christ's resurrection affects a victorious change in us and we must be steadfast in our life of service to the

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Lord. A dramatic transformation has occurred.

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Let's look again at verse 50. Paul again, speaking warmly, affectionately to the saints at Corinth, the church is littered with incredible sin, bad doctrine, false teaching, and yet we see

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Paul's perfect love for those dear saints, a desire to see them mature and grow up in the faith.

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We see Paul not giving up on them. You see Paul laboring to instruct them and he has great hope for their doctrinal orthodoxy in the future, for their overcoming of these sins that have plagued the church and that they would be equipped ultimately to defend the church against the false teachers who have come in and taught things like the denial of the resurrection.

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There's something we can learn first off as Christians that we are to be affectionate toward one another.

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We are brethren. We have one father.

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We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We have one great hope in Christ.

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We have joy in Christ. And that truth objectively knits us together as the people of God.

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And it should affect us subjectively where we in turn love

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Christ and love his people. It would seem that Paul really loved the brethren.

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So the first question I have for you, is your life characterized by a deep and abiding love for the people of God?

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Paul said brethren, and I believe he meant it. He called them his brothers, his family in Christ, and I believe he loved them with that covenantal and familial love that should be characteristic of every

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Christian. Do you love the brethren? Well, he starts with that great little phrase, this is what

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I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit corruption.

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Let's turn to John's Gospel, chapter three, John, chapter three, grow tired of going to chapter three, maybe because of the cliche usage of John 316.

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But it certainly is the word of God and certainly is true. But we're focusing on the first half of the chapter,

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John three, the interaction with Nicodemus gives us some insight in to what's necessary in the new birth.

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John three, one, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the

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Jews, this man came to Jesus by night and said to him,

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Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one could do these signs that you do unless God is with him.

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And Jesus answered and said to him, most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

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Now, what's foundational to this idea is the necessity of a spiritual life.

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We learned a few words ago of that connection between the first Adam and us in our need of the second

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Adam and our need of the second Adam causes us to understand that we in our present state can have no standing in God.

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We need a better representative in Christ. So here we see that the natural may come first, but the natural left to its own devices only leads to death in Adam.

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But we believe we have life in Christ. So Jesus says to Nicodemus, most assuredly,

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I say to you, unless one is born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

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Verse four, I remembered something because I always thought this was a strange question that Nicodemus like a literalistic tendency and Nicodemus.

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And I remember I don't remember which children it was. My wife has so many kids. I can't remember. But I remember one of my children, they're about three or four years old.

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This is going back to the late bigs, early middle. So somewhere in the middle,

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Caleb, Abby Jameson, let's say. And one of them, I talked about being born again, preaching and something related to it at home, talking about the new birth.

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And they said literally, how could I get back in my mommy's tummy?

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How can a person do that and be born again? And you can see the very natural tendency to think about it in a very physical sense.

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There's impossibility. Nicodemus is an aged man. His mother isn't probably even alive at the time of this encounter.

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How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?

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And here it is, most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

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That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit, the spirit.

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Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again. And we've been studying the

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Holy Spirit in our prayer meetings on Thursday evenings. And so we get an example of the connection here with that study.

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The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes.

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So is everyone who is born of the spirit. And of course,

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Nicodemus asks the question, how can these things be? And of course, that leads to a greater discussion about the gospel that whoever believes in him would not perish, but have everlasting life.

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So we see that we are a very earthy people. This morning,

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I did a little observation in my family and I noticed that every person in my family began to take care of their personal needs and wants.

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When I woke up in the morning. They were thinking about themselves, doesn't seem it wasn't very simple, they were going to the bathroom, they were getting breakfast for themselves, they were caring for themselves.

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We live here on this earth at this moment in these bodies.

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We have a natural tendency to focus on the physical and the material and the natural in our own lives.

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We acknowledge that to be true. There is a burden of the natural in us tonight at the end of the day, you're going to be tired.

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Well, some of us will get to go to bed. But you go to sleep earlier for a little bit, but for the most of us, we're going to come to the end of our day.

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We're going to be tired and we're going to have to go to sleep and we have to get up and get a drink of water in the morning.

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We have to eat again and all of those things. And we are very much tied to this natural part of us.

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But Paul's wanting us in our text. And John, no doubt, wants us and his to see the need for the spiritual.

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Let's go back to our text in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 50.

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Again, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

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It's very important to notice that Jesus used the language kingdom of God in his discourse with Nicodemus.

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The kingdom of God at its essence is a spiritual kingdom. There may be natural and physical things that flow out of that, but it is inherently a spiritual kingdom.

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The scripture has dozens of references for it being a spiritual kingdom.

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So it begs the question, can the flesh and natural flesh and blood inherit the kingdom?

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Of course not. It says it cannot. The corrupt cannot inherit in corruption.

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Behold, I tell you a mystery. This is a new doctrine that Paul is articulating in the life of the church.

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We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. He says effectively when

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Christ comes, there's two classes of people, those who have died in Christ in this example, those who are asleep and those who are alive when

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Christ comes at the second advent at his coming. What becomes of them?

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Well, they're transformed and this is a new doctrine. You remember Sadducees and Pharisees debated the doctrine of the resurrection even before the appearing of Christ and his earthly ministry.

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But now Paul takes it a step further. And if we had time, we could go to first Thessalonians four and see some of his discussion of it there.

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Of course, some of you have been exposed to dispensational premillennial theology.

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And of course, this is where the doctrine of the rapture is taken from this language. But there is something that will happen when the

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Lord returns. There are going to be a lot of believers on the earth and he's going to transform them from their natural state, their corrupted state into an incorruptible state that they might be fit for heaven.

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They are going to have a resurrection of sorts after the pattern of Enoch and Elijah.

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There's something's going to happen. They're going to be conveyed from this life and this body and their sinfulness, and they're going to be made able to enter the courts of heaven.

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As we talked about last week, as spiritually redeemed and ultimately physically redeemed people, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

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Now, this idea of coming back to life with all the scientific advancements,

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I know there are guys that are freezing themselves when they die in hopes that some cure will be found for their life.

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But I'm going to tell you, there's going to be no cure for dying except the resurrection.

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The hopes that people are placing in a future cure of their disease and they're packed in some crypto thing or they're frozen or something, their hope is a natural hope.

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So the kind of hope you and I have, you and I have hope that God is going to take these bodies of sin and death and flesh and he's going to transform them like his body was transformed in the resurrection.

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This is at the heart of his argument. We've been talking about for weeks and weeks and weeks. Don't miss it. We will be transformed because of what

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Christ has done. Your beloved grandparents who are rotting in the tomb, who are left as skeletons today, they were believers in Christ.

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They will have newly formed, glorified, redeemed bodies in heaven at the last day.

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It's a tremendous source of hope for Christian people. The world doesn't have that.

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The trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible.

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The last apocalyptic trumpet sounds, the final judgment and the dead will be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed.

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Now, you and I living as post postmodern people in an old world full of technology, not a lot of things impress us anymore.

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You should be utterly spellbound and captivated by the notion that our

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God can take rotting bones and make them alive, that our

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God could take sinners like us and make us alive, that God can take those who are his enemies and unfit to stand in his presence to have perfect fellowship and communion with him forever and ever.

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That should captivate you. If that doesn't get to you, you may be dead in your sins, you may not know

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Christ in his gospel, if that doesn't do something for you to think what he has done for us.

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There's a great change that's happened. The corruptible must put on incorruption, a sort of a second

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Corinthians, just a couple of pages to the right. Second Corinthians chapter five, I actually think this hope and this confidence is what allowed the martyrs to confidently go and face the lions.

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And frankly, our age and our time, we are devoid of that level of courage on a grand scale.

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There are certainly individuals who have that courage. But I wonder if us, those numbered here today,

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I wondered if we were put into that situation, if we would have the courage to face the lions, we have the courage to face the cross or a firing squad for Jesus.

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I think the people who have the future hope are able to. Second Corinthians five, one, for we know that if our earthly house, this tent is destroyed, we have a building from God.

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A house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Now, listen to what

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Paul says, for in this we groan, we talk about this on Thursday night.

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There is a guttural from the bowels wailing longingly to be clothed with our habitation, which is from heaven.

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Do you have that desire? Answer it honestly, quickly. No, we do not have that desire today, but we must have a much forward or forward looking future, forward looking faith.

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We must desire to be clothed with our habitation, which is from heaven. One of the reasons we don't have this desire is we're not as holy as we ought to be.

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We like our sins. We cherish them. We nurture them.

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We kind of like them when you get to hating your sin.

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That's the time you'll get to the place where you earnestly desiring to be clothed in your habitation from heaven, it says in verse three, if indeed having been clothed, we shall not be found naked.

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We need a covering. We have the corruptible. We have moth eaten garments soiled entirely.

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We need to be clothed in fine linen. We need the purple robe. We need all of those things.

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We need to be washed. We need a transformation to take place. We're burdened.

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We want to be further clothed. That mortality may be swallowed up by life.

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Verse five says, Now he who has prepared us for this very thing is God who has given the spirit as a guarantee.

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So we're always confident knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the

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Lord for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident.

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Yes. Well, please, rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the

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Lord, you and I need death to be swallowed up in victory.

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Last evening, my wife got some notification that someone she cared about, an older lady died, and she let out a little moan of pain.

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Oh, no. This is Macaulay died, that pain, that natural response is what we'd expect to feel.

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Death is ugly. Death is painful because of sin. Sin is very ugly.

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Sin is so ugly it gives a spiritual death and physical death that we have need of spiritual life and a new future physical life.

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Thanks be to God. We have it in Christ. We have spiritual life in Christ and his gospel.

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We have future physical redeemed life in his resurrection.

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Christ is writing all the wrongs in this great work of redemption, calling the people to himself.

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Let's go back to the first Corinthians 15, as beautiful, as handsome, as strong, as fit as you are, you're filled with corruption and you must put on in corruption.

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You are filled with mortality, the capacity to die.

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And that must be replaced with an immortality. Verse 54, so when this corruptible has put on in corruption and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.

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Something interesting about the word victory is quoted from the

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Hebrew and the New Testaments quoted from Septuagint, the Greek translation of the

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Old Testament. And part of the idea of victory here is a comprehensive defeat in such a way that they could never live to fight again.

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Sometimes we say, oh, we're going to have a big victory. Well, we play two out of three games of horse.

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You win the first game. I'm in the second. And this isn't the kind of victory we're talking about.

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We're talking about a thorough, comprehensive, absolute drubbing of death in Christ.

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Death will be death no more. There will be no capacity for death to overtake the living again and cause them to die.

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Death in Christ, in the resurrection, is swallowed up in that kind of victory.

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So he says, quoting Hosea 13, oh, death, where is your sting?

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Oh, Hades, where is your victory? There's something else interesting here.

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In verse fifty five, this language of stinging, I read several commentators and I think there may be some merit to this, that this language harkens back to Genesis three.

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You know, the serpent was eager to bring corruption into the world. And in part,

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I think in his delusion, he thought, when I get them to be corrupted, then

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I will appeal to the justice of God and his word, his law to destroy them.

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God's justice and his law are over those who don't believe in him.

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But in Christ, the thing apparently Satan didn't anticipate, misread, misunderstood in Christ is the victory, the pains, the punishments, the censures of God's law do not rest upon his people because they've rested on Christ.

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The serpent bites and he stings and he kills the

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Christ says, oh, death in the resurrection, oh, death, where is your sting?

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Oh, Hades, and that word we often associate with hell, probably better grave.

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It's probably a better understanding of Hades in some senses. There may be other good words for hell,

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Sheol, Gehenna, might be better terms. But, oh, grave, where is your victory?

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Think about it. And this world's point of view, think about one of your famous celebrities.

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I saw at the end of the year, CNN or somebody says all of their stars that we lost, all these famous people died.

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They're all unbelievers, basically. Their memory will be with us, but they're planted in the ground and they're dead and they're gone.

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That's it. The light has been turned out. But what does the resurrection say for those who are in Christ?

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The resurrection says the grave doesn't have the victory. Christ has the victory in the resurrection.

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Those bodies of just men made perfect are going to be raised from the dead.

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How can the grave, how can the place of the dead say that they hold the victory?

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Let's continue on in verse 56. The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is in the law.

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Do you know that the law of God makes sin more sinful?

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The law of God shines a bright light on our actions and our impurity and our faith and reveals the will of God and shows how we fall short of that standard.

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The strength of sin is in the law and it could be said it's punishments, the just punishments of God for violations of his law.

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But how does Paul respond to the idea of the strength of sin is the law?

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He says, thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our

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Lord Jesus Christ. Some Sundays we pray through the

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Ten Commandments and the prayers of the people and often wonder as we're praying through that how much conviction folks are feeling about their falling short of the law of God.

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If you know something of God and his holiness and something of his standard of perfect righteousness, if you know something about your heart condition and your failures to believe and to exercise faith and to obey him, to live a righteous life, your heart should leap for joy in your chest when you hear, thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our

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Lord Jesus Christ. I have news for you. You would never have the victory on your own.

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You need Christ. You need his gospel, you need his grace, you need the love that the father has in drawing you to himself.

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You stand no chance. But now look at you.

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Seated boldly entering into the holy of holies, the place that she priests went in with a chain tied around his foot because his potential unrighteousness would strike him dead so they could pull him out.

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You, on the basis of faith in Christ, can walk into the holy of holies. Thanks be to God.

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The only response we utter. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory.

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Oh, now what? We're talking about the resurrection for many weeks and concludes this first.

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He wants the Corinthians and us to have an orthodox view of the resurrection of Christ and the bodily resurrection of the saints.

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But secondarily, he's wanting it to do something in us as it relates to our faith and our living now.

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Verse 58 says, therefore, we could say children. That word means because these things are true that have been said before in these previous verses.

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Now, because of that, you should do this. OK, therefore, my beloved brethren, you hear that loving language, that loving familial language of all be steadfast, be immovable, always abounding in the work of the

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Lord. Knowing that your labor is not in vain,

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I should have used this illustration with Tim was here, my future son in law.

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I'll give you it's probably not the easiest thing to come and talk to me about.

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It's not an easy task for the young man. And when he first asked to get to know her better and proceed on the course,

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I know some guys clean their guns, funny things like that.

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I just told him that I would kill him if he ever heard my daughter.

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And I hope it's not true that I would simply do that, but I actually meant it.

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I was immovable in my love for my daughter and wanting to protect her.

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I told him that I'm not afraid of going to jail. I'm not afraid of any kind of pain that could be offered in connection to this matter.

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And so there was a level of strength that I had that was kind of hard to go against.

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I wanted him to know that I really love my daughter and you better be a godly man, do the right thing.

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And of course, we believe he is would that little picture, that little kind of funny moment.

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Should we be like that for Christ? What are you going to do, kill me?

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I'll be raised from the dead. You're going to send me to go and be with my savior.

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I'm not afraid of death. You're going to hurt me. You're going to ruin my reputation. We're just, we're doing far worse than you think

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I am. Shouldn't we have that kind of holy boldness and courage in every area of our lives that we're really willing to stand and to take it, whatever it might be dished out to us.

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I believe this is what Paul is calling the Corinthians to. You have that strength and that courage because Christ has died that you cannot be moved.

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Abound in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor could never be in vain.

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We give ourselves to many worldly employments and pleasures and recreations.

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I'm excited about the flag football game tomorrow night, but it's going to be of zero consequence in heaven.

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But there are some things that could happen today and tomorrow in service to the Lord that will be of eternal value.

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So the question is, how much time and energy are you devoting to worldly matters?

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Okay, which won't pass from corruptible to incorruptible.

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We all have to ask that question. I'm a minister of the gospel and I give too much attention to things that are corruptible.

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Application will close first because of this incredible doctrine.

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You and I need to persevere in faith and hope and joy and thanksgiving.

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We also need to hold sound doctrine. We need to be going back to the scriptures daily to test and see if these things are true.

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We'd be a people of the Bible using that as our interpretive lens to look at the world around us.

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Second, it's time to live victoriously. It's time to live as children of the king.

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Christ has one. You belong to him. Therefore, you should walk and that boasting can only be in Christ.

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There should be a sense where your head tilts a little bit higher toward heaven.

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Your shoulders are a little bit more back. Your back's a little straighter. Your walk is a little bit more purposeful.

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You are a child of the king. You've been redeemed. Live victoriously.

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Finally, hope you die very tired, very worn out in your faithful labor and service to the

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Lord. Give yourself to that daily. How can I serve the

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Lord today here in this circumstance? How can I get up earlier to read my

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Bible? How can I stay up later praying when necessary? Give yourself entirely to the work of the

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Lord. Let your life be poured out like a drink offering, as Paul said elsewhere. Let it be all the way poured out for him.

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Because that eternal life, the resurrected life is a lot longer than this one.

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Friends, Christ's resurrection has affected a glorious and victorious change in us.

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Death has been swallowed up in victory. Therefore, we must be steadfast in our life of service to the

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Lord. Please pray with me. Lord, we confess that we are an earthy people.

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We have need for great instruction of the power and spirit of the spiritual world.

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We need to see how we and this physical, natural life need to serve you for your kingdom purposes.

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And I pray that you would give us an appropriate longing to be with you forever in heaven.

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Lord, we know that we are to be here all of our days to the last breath, doing your will, serving you, working for you for the advance of your gospel and kingdom.

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Oh, Lord, help us to be energized in that pursuit. Help us delight in the prospect of serving the living

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God. Help us to rejoice and give thanks for the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf.

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You know, Lord, I pray that you would not allow us to look to the left or to the right, but our gaze would be fixed on Christ, that we'd be steadfast and immovable, ready and eager to do the work you have sent us to do.