Please be seated. Turn in your copy of the scriptures to First Corinthians chapter 15. Today, we will finish this chapter with the last verse, verse 58. Some of you, perhaps when you are asked, what is your life verse? This could be it. If you don’t have one, maybe it’s a good one. I don’t know that you need one, but lots of folks have a verse they like to keep in their mind and heart. And certainly you could do no wrong picking this verse. Remember that the Corinthians are a big mess. Uh, lots of controversy, lots of moral issues, lots of cultural issues have threatened to undo this little congregation.
And Paul, uh, spent 18 months there, but also has been writing letters across the water from Ephesus, uh, to help encourage them in the way. And so when we read first Corinthians 1558, uh, we want to keep in mind the, the heart of the apostle Paul, that the Corinthians not fall apart. but also that the Corinthians continue on in the faith that he delivered to them.
And so perhaps we’ll take encouragement today to walk this way. Let’s do ask for God’s help and blessing before we read God’s word. Lord, this is the day that you have made, the day you’ve set apart for rest and for worship. We come weary, we come sin sick and sore, and we come having breathed in too much of this world, too much of this culture, and we need to be put back right. And so like the psalmist in the 73rd, we confess to you that we are upset by seeing the unrighteous flourish and the wicked flourish, but the righteous having such difficulty. And so now, as we come into your house and hear from your word, especially in the reading and preaching of your word, may our eyes see clearly and our hearts be settled in all your goodness. We ask this in the name of Christ, our savior, amen.
1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 58. Therefore, my beloved brothers, Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. The Corinthian church is all over the place in their thinking, all over the place in their beliefs and all over the place in their behavior. And the Apostle Paul is making a strong attempt to get them to come all together in unity and be all in one place with their convictions and their beliefs in the Christian faith, especially in the fact the truths, the realities and the blessings that come from knowing that Jesus was raised from the dead. And so shall we be at the last day. We want to think of this passage ourselves. I’ve got six C’s and we want to make sure that we are not all over the place, but all in one place with our thinking, our believing and our behavior.
The first thing we want to think about today is the culture, the culture of the Corinthians, but also our culture. Remember that the term had been coined to Corinthianize, or to be so immoral, you are no different than the Corinthian people. Paul dealt with a generation. He dealt with a people in a Roman culture that were not only denying key doctrines of the Christian faith, but they were doing things that ought not to be mentioned among believers. And as Christians living in the modern day, we live in a culture that likes to Corinthianize.
We’ve just had the summer denominational meetings and we’ve heard, I suppose if you’re thinking a la Jay Gresham H and they cease to be churches, but we are listening to rulings coming out of church denominations that this behavior is okay. This behavior does not keep someone from ministering the gospel. And on and on, we have heard the church capitulate into the culture and the danger at Corinth. I suppose the danger in our day is if we deny key Christian doctrines, there are some Christian doctrines, especially the resurrection, that if we deny them, as the culture does, and perhaps the culture has infiltrated the church a bit. We cease to be Christian at all. And so we want to keep in mind with this passage where Paul is charging the Christian church to be steadfast and immovable, to be careful in the culture that we live in.
It’s a fast moving culture. It’s moving under our feet. It’s moving all around us. It is always thinking, always changing, always speaking, always demanding our allegiance. And it was true for the Corinthians. It’s true for believers today. There is a lot of ground shifting underneath us and all around us. And we need to recognize it. We need to affirm that it is so. We need to remember that Jesus in his great high priestly prayer told us as believers in his praying that we would be living in this world, not taken out of it. but we have God, our heavenly father watching over us and our great savior then and now from his position as priest in heaven is praying that we would be kept safe in this world. It’s not so for the Corinthian church. We could be in danger of it in our era. And so we recognize the culture and what it offers and how deadly it is to believers.
The second thing we want to think about is the danger of capitulation. It’s one thing to recognize the culture. It’s another to let it in your door. It’s another to recognize the culture, but it’s something else to let it in and let it begin to rule and reign.
And this happens in the church of Jesus Christ. We think of the last 150 or so years. in church history and how the rise of secular humanism has set itself up over and against the Bible. For the last 150 or so years, you have seen the challenge of the church to allow human thinking to judge the Bible instead of the other way around. And we want to remember that the church in every age must hold fast to the teachings of Jesus. Remember when Jesus’ half-brother Jude wrote his little bitty letter that’s in the back of the New Testament.
He wrote to those believers who had lots of trouble in their culture, but lots of trouble in the church. And he writes to them, telling them to contend for the faith, fight for the faith, defend the faith, maintain the faith. Don’t let it get watered down. Don’t let culture shift it or change it.
It is very easy for the church to capitulate. And in our context, you’ll hear people from time to time say, well, the gospel is true, but we need to we need to package it in such a way that people will hear it and receive it. And, you know, our brains hopefully will say that’s the Holy Spirit’s job. We just say it. We just live it. We just proclaim it. Let the Holy Spirit do his work.
But we’ve seen the culture and the ground shift under us in our generation, but also the church as well. Let’s change church and defang the wrath of God. Let’s change church and be a kinder, gentler church. Let’s change church and win friends and influence people. And so we don’t say biblical things.
If we’re not careful, we capitulate. We fall into the trap of the culture. There’s great pressure, great pressure to give in, but we want to hold fast to what God has taught us. And so the culture we live in is important to recognize. The danger of capitulation or giving into the culture That’s before us. But I really want to press on you the confidence we should have. We should be comfortable in our skin. We should be happy with the church that God has given us.
I’m sure over the last couple thousand years of church history that there have been people all along the way, all along the routes of church history that have said, you know, let’s let’s be innovative in some way, shape or form. I’m sure that it’s happened. But I would venture to guess and maybe figure there’s some truth in it, that it’s really been the last 50, 75 years where the church has so radically repackaged itself, thinking if we’re going to grow, if we’re going to present Jesus, if we’re going to have success, we better do this, this or this. And I think the challenge for us is to be confident that the church, that the ministry, that the faith once for all handed down to the saints, uh, is what Jesus Christ himself has given us. Uh, you remember, uh, reading the life and ministry of Jesus. He, he went about in the midst of people proclaiming good news. He went about in the midst of the people, helping them and healing them.
And, you know, there wasn’t the early service that was contemporary. And there wasn’t the later service that was traditional. There wasn’t a kinder, gentler way. If you actually think about it and remember your gospel readings, most of the time Jesus was making people mad. People went away angry from his gospel message. People went away sad because they were going to have to sell all they had and give it away to the poor. People went away seeking a way to destroy him.
And so we need to be confident. in our ministry, which is probably definitely counter-cultural. It’s different from the whole world because it is of heaven, but we need to have confidence that what God has given us in the preaching of the word and in prayer and in ministry and fellowship, that it will run its course and do its work. And so we want to have confidence in those things. The next thing our passage shows us, Paul’s address to the Corinthians is my beloved brothers. He’s, he’s speaking to the church. So we think about culture and we think about the danger of capitulation.
We, we, we think of the confidence we should have in the ministry God has given to us, but we need to remember we are the church, my beloved brothers. Uh, the Corinthians had a big mess. The Corinthians were giving in to all kinds of immorality. They were giving in to all kinds of cultural pressures, not only from the Roman culture, but the Roman government, even the Jewish folks who did not like Paul and his ministry. They were facing all those issues.
And he reminds them, even though I’ve taken you to the woodshed, I love you as beloved brothers. I love you as the people of God. And so the church, We remember are those called out of the world, those called out of the world to live and serve God. Remember Abraham, Abraham was in Ur of the Chaldeans and God said to Abraham, up and leave your country, leave your kindred, go to a land that I will show you. And so the people of God have always been those who have been called out of paganism, called out of a life of ungodliness and called to live together in covenant community.
Sometimes the world and the culture and our own flesh kick in and we perhaps do not look like the church. What does the world say? I’m not coming to church. Look like a bunch of hypocrites. And, you know, we always say there’s room for one more. The struggle, though, for the church is to be reminded who we are. We are called out of the world. We are to be different, to look different, to think differently, to be counter cultural.
I think it’s very compassionate and kind here for the apostle to say to the Corinthians after 15 chapters of fussing. Of course, we know there have been other letters to the Corinthian church to simply say to them, my beloved brothers, my fellow believers in Jesus Christ. And so as we consider culture, the danger of capitulation, the confidence we should have, we remember that we are the church. We now come to the husk or the kernel of this passage, which are the commands that the apostle Paul gives.
And he gives two charges to them. Be steadfast and immovable. Be firmly planted where you are. And secondly, always abound in the work of the Lord. The culture is a danger to them. The temptation for capitulation is there for the Corinthians. It is there for us. We can forget who we are, the church. We can forget the confidence that we ought to have in the means of grace that God has given us to be the church. And so these two commands ought to give us great courage and great comfort.
Be steadfast, sort of comma, immovable. Be firm, be steadfast, be immovable. Be firm in your faith. The be steadfast. We’ve heard a lot today in our songs and in our scriptures about the steadfast love of the Lord. You read Jeremiah, you read Lamentations, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. God is always there. God is always seated on his throne. He never leaves us, never forsakes us. And so what Paul is asking the Corinthians, what he’s asking us, the church to do is to Be firm in our faith to be firm in our belief in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore our future resurrection.
This passage begins with a therefore. It’s one of those places in Paul’s letters that happens in other New Testament writings where all the theology from all the early chapters of that book. All the things that are indicative, all the things that are true always lead to our marching orders. They always lead to the imperative.
The resurrection is true, Paul is saying. So don’t move. The resurrection is true. Sit tight. The resurrection is true. Keep abounding in the work. of the Lord. And so, brothers and sisters, if I should say, shouldn’t say if I should say since the resurrection is true, therefore we are able to be steadfast and immovable.
If the ground is shifting under us, if the culture is shifting all around us, they’re saying there is no such thing as Jesus. That supernatural business in the Bible is a bunch of bunk. There is no resurrection from the dead. We should just eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. All those things that are being tempted and put, we’re being tempted to believe and are being put before our eyes, be a gospel denier.
Paul is saying, no, no, no, be steadfast, be immovable, sit tight, be firm in your faith, settled in what you believe, and remember the resurrection is true, therefore keep working, keep laboring in the work of the Lord, be busy in kingdom work. So the be steadfast and be immovable is a strong command. We should not be wishy washy. We should not be tossed about by every wind and wave of doctrine, but we should be firm in our faith.
That’s why it’s so wonderful to be a part of a church that holds fast to its creeds and it holds fast to its confessions. A couple Weeks ago, there was a conversation somewhere around the church about looking at a church website and it says, here’s what we believe. And it was like one, two, three, four, five good things, true things, biblical things. And then you come to a church that’s confessional and we’ve got, what, 34 chapters in our confession of faith, and it’s distilled a little bit in our larger catechism and still more in our shorter catechism and still even more for the minds of children. But we need weighty, robust, thinking and believing, steadfast, immovable hearts and minds. But also we need to be busy working in kingdom work. Our passage tells us always abounding in the work of the Lord. What should you always be doing? You should always be working in the work of the Lord. Always abounding is a 24 hour deal.
Can you sleep in grocery shop and eat and watch a movie? Of course you can. But you get the idea of what the apostle is saying. You live and you exist for people to come to know Jesus as you do and for people to worship and long for Jesus’ second coming as you do. And so as you believe in the resurrection, as you believe in the truth of the gospel, Stay busy proclaiming it.
Now, it’s not just for ministers, it’s not just for theologians, it’s for all of us. God gifts us and graces us. and equips us by the work of the Holy Spirit, by the work of the church and the ministry of the word to hold true what Paul tells Timothy. All scripture is breathed out by God and is useful for teaching and rebuking and for correction and for training in righteousness so that everyone, every man, every woman of God, every child of God is equipped to do the work that God has given us. We’re trained in righteousness so that we can do the work of the Lord and we’re to never quit. We’re to Without weariness, proclaim God wherever he puts us.
And if we’re not steadfast, and if we are movable, what will we say? We’ll start making up stuff like the world does. We’ll start saying goofy things like the culture does. We’ll adopt the weird things that believers say. You know, that God helps those who help themselves. When he closes the door, he opens a window and all that kind of business. We want to know the Bible and know our God and speak the Bible and speak our God and do it tirelessly. We want to find ourselves at the end of our lives worn out for the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so we have these commands, be steadfast, be immovable, always abounding, always busy in the work. of the Lord.
When I was in school, we had a old teacher. Uh, he was a retired missionary and he was in his nineties when he taught us and he ended every class, every class. This was his benediction. Some of you think I’m going to say the one that I’ve been saying lately, go and keep on sinning because I need a job. It’s not that one. Uh, this guy would say every, every, every time we left class, give them both barrels. The gospel is a double barrel blaster and we need to give it all we got. Now, how do we do that? How do we live in this culture? How do we keep from capitulating? How do we have the confidence? How do we be comfortable in our skin?
The once and for all faith delivered to the saints is a good thing. We don’t need to change it. Don’t need to contextualize it, as some people like to call it. We’re the church. We got these church commands. How can we have certainty? That’s our final thing to consider. How can we have certainty? In life, not to be wishy washy and shifty and shaky, how can we be confident and work tirelessly for the gospel? Well, there’s knowledge. And that knowledge is this, that in the Lord, your labor in God is not in vain. Every ounce of energy that you expend for the sake of the gospel will not be in vain. You may not see results in this lifetime. And I think that’s where we get into capitulating. Oh, it’s not working. The gospel is not working. I preached and nobody got saved. Who was the missionary that went on the mission field?
And it was something like seven years before he saw fruit. Sometimes the elders will sit around at a elder meeting and we’ll think about the last decade or so of ministry here. And we’ll say, isn’t it amazing what God did in 10, 11 years through the ministry of the word. But boy, you remember, you know, those early years, the struggles, it seemed like nothing was going on.
Labor is never in vain. The gospel works, Jesus saves, our doctrine leads us to worship. True faith, true repentance, true obedience will bear fruit. And so we can have certainty knowing that our labor is not in vain. Paul has just gone on and on with the Corinthians for a whole chapter about the resurrection. And when we are raised up at that last day and we stand before the judgment seat, then we will know Then we will see, then we will get a glimpse of the impact we may have had. You may labor and you may work and you may sweat and you may toil. And you may think God is up to nothing in the ministry that he’s given me, but your labor is never in vain.
And that’s why we can press on in steadfastness. That’s why we don’t need to innovate or capitulate. That’s how we always abound in the work of the Lord. It will bear fruit. It will bring forth a harvest. And so the certainty that we can have comes from the knowledge that we have that at the last day. Our work for the Lord will be weighed in the balance and it will not be found wanting, but God will say, well done, good and faithful servant. And so we can give God our all.
So when you’re in the midst of sweating it out and maybe you think, oh, nobody else is volunteering at church like me. You know, we get that martyr complex, you know, does anybody else love the Lord like I do? Uh, you, you know how it goes, the, the, the 20% or doing 80% of the work or whatever the math is. You know, we get a little bit Eeyore-ish. We just keep on, we just press on. There’s an idea in the wording of the Apostle Paul, I think here and in other places, where he says the Christian worker and maybe it’s the Christian minister, maybe it’s the other apostles. But I think it does trickle down to the everyday believer who’s given everyday gospel work to do.
We’re like Adam. in the beginning, we are put in a garden to work it. We’re put in that garden to keep it. We’re given a sentry post and we are to guard it. We are to be the watchman on a particular stretch of the wall and we are to be that watchman and to to call out when there’s an enemy and to warn of the intruders of the culture and whatever else. And we’re to be at that sentry post steadfast and immovable.
Maybe you’ve watched a little British culture and, you know, there’s palace guards or they call beef eaters. So what they’re called ones with big fuzzy hats. Yeah. It looked like they’re a giant microphone or something. They don’t move. They don’t budge. They stand at their place. And you’ve seen the videos. You might goes up and tries to tell them a joke or, you know, get them whatever. They are steadfast. They are immovable. They are always abounding in the work of the King or the work of the crown. And that’s the idea that I think Paul is giving to us as believers. We are to be steadfast, immovable and always abound in the work of the Lord. There’s, you know, guys like to watch shoot them up shows.
And so I have this one I’ve been watching about the Navy SEALs and, you know, they’re rescuing all the people from an embassy in Sudan. And out at the gates of this embassy, where the vehicles go in and out and the gates shut, there are sentries or guards on that outer wall. And there’s an uprising in the country in this particular show I watched. And the uprisers are coming to the American embassy and chanting at them to get out, leave. From Benghazi and other news stories in the past, if our military doesn’t rescue our people when that embassy is overrun, It’s great trouble.
And on that show, there were these two guards outside the gate, and they stood there resolutely. Now, I had to think, these guys are actors. They know the end of their story, right? It’s a Hollywood set. They get to go home. They get a paycheck for doing this. But what they represented is someone given a place, given a post, and they did not move.
Now, think about your own Christian walk, your own Christian life. Sometimes we say, well, I’ve completed my task. I’ve run my race. I’ve been there, done that and got the T-shirt. I’ve taught Sunday school. I’ve kept up the building. I’ve done my thing.
And maybe this will upset the apple cart a little bit, but I hope you’ll at least think, you know, we live in a world where if we save enough money, we can stop working. Right. That’s a good thing. You get sometimes a little too old to work or you’re just worn out and weary. You want to do something else with your time. It’s not the case for believers.
Till our last day, till our dying breath, we are called to pray. We are called to evangelize. We are called to make disciples. We are called to be part of the worshiping community as best we’re able. And so we want to be steadfast and immovable in this culture.
But we want to, with God’s strength and God’s confidence, always abound in the work of the Lord and know with great confidence that our labor, as painful as sometimes it may be, it is never, ever in vain. Let’s ask for God’s help and blessing. Our Father, we pray that the calluses on our hands, Heartaches that we have from life and ministry and all the other difficulties that we perhaps have faced would flee from us as we consider what we will witness in heaven when we see who is there because perhaps we spoke to them or encouraged them or gave them the hope in Jesus. Lord, it can be a discouraging world to live in. We may see no fruit, but this is the gospel call. These are our marching orders to keep at it and to keep our feet, our faith firmly fixed. And so help them bless us as we all desire to live for you in this way, we pray in the name of Jesus, amen.