Always Abounding

Series on I Corinthians

VII Manner of the Resurrection

D Exhortation of the Resurrection, Text: 15:50-58

Title: Always Abounding

Introduction

In Romans 5:20, the apostle Paul sums up our salvation with these words, Where sin increased, grace increased all the more. in other words the grace of God through Jesus Christ is greater than all our sin. Here in today’s Scripture Paul is really enjoying the gospel promise. He breaks out into a magnificent song of victory and concludes by reminding us that we are to always abound in the work of the Lord. The New International Version says, “Give yourselves fully,” but it is the same word as in Romans 5:20, Where sin abounded grace did much more abound. What is the secret of abounding in the work of the Lord? Well, it’s not secret. If we understand the gospel promise we will give ourselves fully to the Lord’s work. This is not for missionaries, preachers, and super spiritual people. This is plain ordinary Christianity. Everyone who believes must see that giving ourselves fully to the Lord’s work is the only option. We shall consider two things: our corruption and our change, or first, abounding sin, and second, grace which superabounds. These truths are spread throughout this text in verses 50-58, 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.

I Corruption-Abounding Sin

The Apostle speaks of the resurrection of the body as transforming corruption into incorruption. Without the resurrection we cannot inherit the kingdom of God because the body we now have is flesh and blood. As we have noted, Paul is not suggesting that the body we shall have will be immaterial. Jesus himself after his resurrection was mistaken for a spirit by his disciples. He said, Touch me for a spirit has not flesh and bones as i have. His body is solid but it is not like our present bodies in that it is not flesh and blood. Jesus refers to his resurrection body as “flesh and bone.” These bodies have been corrupted by sin. so we need to understand three things: the source, the sting and the strength of corruption.

A The Source of Corruption

The source of our corruption is the flesh and blood body we have. The Bible does not say the body is bad and the spirit is good. It says that sin is transmitted by natural birth. Therefore this present bodily existence is always one of corruption. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, there is none righteous no not one, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” If you share in this nature, you share in the corruption, and O how great that corruption is. And, it becomes the worse because the majority of our culture is constantly beaming us a message that we are essentially good. Yes, we are deceived like the french philosopher Rousseau. He declared, “No man can come to the throne of God and say, ‘I’m a better man than Rousseau.’” When he knew death was close at hand, he boasted, “Ah, how happy a thing it is to die, when one has no reason for remorse or self-reproach.” Then he prayed, “Eternal Being, the soul that I am going to give Thee back is as pure at this moment as it was when it proceeded from Thee; render it a partaker of Thy felicity!” This is an amazing statement. Rousseau was not a Christian. In his writings he advocated adultery and suicide, and for more than 20 years he lived in licentiousness. Most of his children were born out of wedlock and sent to a foundling home. He was mean, treacherous, hypocritical, and blasphemous. Our corruption is so great that this body of flesh and blood must die or be totally transformed before it is fit for the kingdom, and so Paul speaks of the sting of our corruption.

B The Sting of Corruption

The sting of our corruption is death. “The soul that sins it will die, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of god is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” What death teaches us is the radical and universal nature of sin. No one escapes its clutches. No man, regardless of how good he is in this life, by anybody’s standard, lives. All die: the young and the innocent as well as the old and incorrigible, the high and the low, the stingy miser and the generous philanthropist, they all die. We stand at the grave of loved ones and friends and we say, Why? They were so good. In his book “The Meaning of the Cross,” Billy Graham recalls walking down the boardwalk in Atlantic City with Cliff Barrows and their wives after an evangelistic service. He wrote, “A man was auctioning diamonds and other jewelry. We decided to go in. When we got married, I had given my wife a diamond that was so small, you couldn’t see it with a microscope. So I decided to get her a better diamond. I had $65 in my pocket. I eventually bid and bought the diamond. The next day, I went to a jeweler with my 2 carat diamond, and I said, Can you look at this diamond and tell me how much it is worth? He looked at it through his glass, and said, Oh, maybe $35 or $40. What?? I said. This is two carats! Look at it, he said and gave the glass to me. I looked at it, and even I could see it was full of defects. And that’s the way God looks at us. We go to church and pray. We are good, moral people. But He looks at us through His own righteousness, and He sees in all of us the defects and sin, and he says the soul that sins it shall die.”

C The Strength of Corruption

Paul also reminds us of the strength of our corruption. Paul is not saying that the law gives us the strength to sin. That comes from our own wicked hearts, and our own fallen humanity. He is saying that the power of sin to destroy and the power of sin to kill comes from God’s holy, just and good laws. Sin carries with it the power of the grave because it is condemned by the law of God. God rules this world and we refuse to follow his rules, and we must pay the penalty. In our society we have a problem with crime. Is it because our legislatures don’t make enough laws? Is it because the criminals are not apprehended? Actually the reason is that we are lax and unwilling to punish. God is not. the power of sin is in the law. A wealthy contractor built the Tombs prison in New York. Some time later he was found guilty of forgery and sentenced to several years in the prison he had built! As he was escorted into a cell of his own making, the contractor said, “I never dreamed when I built this prison that I would be an inmate one day.” That is the power of the law. The same man was innocent one day and guilty the next. What we fail to see is that God’s law is not like men’s. Society’s laws apply to some sins, but God’s laws apply to every sin. James says, For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. Some sins are more serious in temporal consequences than others, but because God gave all the stipulations of the law, none of them is insignificant.

II Change–Super-abounding Grace

Thus we come to the change which is necessary, the resurrection of the body. this is a work of God’s grace. this is the reason we can stand firm in spite of our corruption. Briefly there are also three things Paul says about the victory of grace. God not only forgives the sins of those who trust in Christ, he takes away all of the effects with resurrection life. This transformation is sudden and it is also sweeping and selective.

A Sudden

In the twinkling of an eye. Blink and you missed it. Now you may follow the Lord Jesus all of your life, but you need to know that it will be a struggle with sin and frequent failure and a need to repent, everyday up to the last day. So you spend 60-70 years or more in this struggle and in the end you’re still not ready to enter the eternal kingdom, but in a millisecond Jesus will come and you will be resurrected or transformed and you will be fit. That’s the super-abundant grace of God. As the poet writes, “There’s a man in yonder glory I have loved for many years, He has cleared my guilty conscience and has banished all my fears. He is coming in a moment in the twinkling of an eye, No time will be allotted you to utter one good-bye. No time to kiss the husband or embrace the loving wife, Even if united in the bonds of holy life. Are you ready, Christian, ready, for shout and trump and voice? Will His coming make you tremble or cause you to rejoice? Are you walking with Him daily, and taking Him your care, Do you live so close to heaven that a breath would waft you there?” This sudden transformation which is the free gift of grace is also sweeping.

B Sweeping

Paul makes a point of the fact that we shall all be changed. That is, those who have already died and those who are alive at the coming of Christ. The dead are raised and the living are metamorphosed into their resurrection bodies. The word “all” is important. It suggests that no matter how successful or unsuccessful we are in serving Christ none can be ready for glory without this gracious change, and none who truly believe in Christ will miss it. It is after all the grace of God that calls us from spiritual death to a life of faith and it is the grace of God that will call us from physical death to a life of glory. Ah, the sweet mystery of abundant grace which is almost too much to comprehend. But, someone has written, “Jesus wasn’t afraid of giving the prodigal son a kiss instead of a lecture, a party instead of probation; and he proved that by bringing in the elder brother at the end of the story and having him raise pretty much the same objections you do. He’s angry about the party. He complains that his father is lowering standards and ignoring virtue—that music, dancing, and a fatted calf are, in effect, just so many permissions to break the law. And to that, Jesus has the father say only one thing: “Cut that out! We’re not playing good boys and bad boys any more. Your brother was dead and he’s alive again. The name of the game from now on is resurrection, not bookkeeping.“

C Selective

This change is also selective. The Bible teaches that there will be a general resurrection of all men. Jesus clearly teaches this in John 5:28 and 29, Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out-those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. Here in I Corinthians 15 Paul is only speaking of believers. For them the resurrection is glorious. For unbelievers it is dreadful. For one it is salvation for the other condemnation. In 1960 John F. Kennedy often closed his speeches with the story of Colonel Davenport, the Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives. One day in 1789, the sky of Hartford darkened ominously, and some of the representatives, glancing out the windows, feared the end was at hand. Quelling a clamor for immediate adjournment, Davenport rose and said, “The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. Therefore, I wish that candles be brought.” Rather than fearing what is to come, we are to be faithful till Christ returns. Instead of fearing the dark, we’re to be lights as we watch and wait. So we need to link this promise to the opening of the chapter. This is the gospel. Have we taken our stand in it? Read again 15:1-4, Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

Conclusion

So in conclusion we will not be abundant in service unless we understand abounding sin and the more abounding grace. We will not be abundant in service because we have some vague idea about the soul surviving after our body dies. Our society spends its energy reducing bodily misery and pain and is less able to cope with the misery and pain that remains. We labor to increase the pleasure of the body and raise the expectations so high that no one is ever contented. There’s probably nothing as important to us as our bodies. It is the hope of the bodily resurrection which impels us to service. John says it too in I John 3:2,3, Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure. For the Christian everything is always OK in the end. If it’s not, it’s not the end.