Victory In Jesus (2)
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Transcript
Doxology:
This is my Bible. It is God’s Holy Word. It is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path, and I will hide its words within my heart that I might not sin against God! Amen!!!
Open Bibles To: 1 Corinthians 15:50-58
Context
Context
To lay the foundation of this text, we must back up to the first verses of this chapter.
1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand,
2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
Paul starts this chapter by exclaiming the Gospel of His Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to these people. He proclaims the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
He then moves on to what we know in the theological realm as an apology. This is not to say that he was telling them sorry, but rather quite the contrary. He took a stand. To give an apology literally means to speak in defense, or speak on behalf, of something in the literary world.
In other words, Paul began to defend the Christian faith. More specifically, he began to defend the teaching of the resurrection. See, there were some in Paul’s day, that did not believe people would be resurrected after death. They did not believe in Jesus’ resurrection. They believed many things, but they did not believe in that.
Does that sound familiar to you. Not only were those who stood in opposition to the teaching of the resurrection, there were many more who were just simply not sure. They heard the teachings of Christ, even believed that He was something special, but to go as far as to believe that they would one day be resurrected from the dead was a stretch. Does that not sound exactly like where we are today.
There are so many who stand in direct opposition of the Church and its entire message. There are so many more who want to believe, but to go that far is too much for them. They have not been able to cross that threshold from believing in what is physical to believing in what God has said.
For that reason, there were many trying to tear the church down from the outside, but there were many more dangerously close to tearing it down from within. There were heretics outside of the church, but there were hypocrites within.
In verse 19, Paul makes a bold claim:
19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
Paul says that the entire Christian faith hinges on this one thing, whether or not Christ got out of that grave.
If He did not defeat sin, death, and the grave, then mankind has no hope. If He could not do it, no one ever will. Furthermore, if He did not come out of that grave and all hope is lost, then everything that we are doing is pointless.
14 And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.
17 And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!
If Christ did not defeat sin, then we never will. We are doomed to suffer the wrath of Almighty God and we will ever perish.
If Christ was not victorious, then every sacrifice, every shred of effort, and every ounce of hope is all in vain.
But he keeps going. In verse 20 he turns the corner and makes a very bold claim:
20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Paul states that Christ did rise from the grave. He was victorious.
He then, through the rest of this chapter, begins to explain what that means for us, culminating in the verses we read as we started the message. Christ won the victory, and all of those who place their faith in Him, will win the victory as well.
That is the title of the message today: Victory in Jesus!!!
Content
Content
Victory Over Sin and Death
Victory Over Sin and Death
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
There is something that plagues all people on this earth, and it is sin. It is something we all struggle with.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
There is not a single person who has not sinned before God, and there is not a single person who has not felt the weight of that sin in their life.
We all know full well what it is like to battle sin.
As children of God, the last thing we want to do is sin against our God. God is good to us. God has blessed us. God loves us. We don’t want to sin against Him. We want to please our Heavenly Father. We want Him to be pleased with us.
We try to stay faithful to Him by seeking His face on a regular basis. We read His Word to learn of Him. We talk to Him through prayer so that we might build our relationship with Him. We choose to separate ourselves from sinful things in this life so that we might walk in faith and be close to Him.
Despite our best efforts, we cannot do it perfectly. Though we put much effort into living faithfully, we still fall from time to time. We still fail God and come short of His glory.
God has decreed that the punishment of that sin in our life is death.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That is why we all must face death someday. Every single person in this room has sinned against God, and for that reason, every single person in this room will one day die.
But because of a man named Jesus, that is not where the story ends.
Notice that the end of verse 56 says that the strength of sin is the law. The law of God is God’s standard of living. It is what determines whether something is sinful or not.
The law is God’s rules and regulations for life.
Though not a single person in this room has ever been able to live up to that law, there was one who walked the face of this earth some 2000 years ago that did.
Jesus lived a perfect life. He never sinned against God. Because He was able to do just that. He was also never deserving of death. Even though He did not deserve to die, He decided to go to the cross of Calvary on our behalf anyway. He died in our place.
This is what the scriptures mean when it says that Jesus was the propitiation for our sin. That word propitiation means that Jesus was a substitutionary sacrifice for all of mankind. He hung where we were meant to hang. He suffered the death that we were deserving of. He paid a debt He did not owe, because we owed a debt that we could not pay.
1 My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
Because of what Christ has done, a new way has been made. Instead of trying to live up to this impossible task of living a perfect life, now we place our faith in the one that did. When we do place our faith in Jesus a process called imputation takes place.
The Bible says in the book of Romans, “Blessed is the man to whom sin is not imputed.”
That word impute means to charge to someone’s account.
In other words, we are blessed when the sin of our life is not charged to our account.
When I place my faith in Jesus, the process of imputation takes place. What this means is that the penalty of my sin is now charged to the account of Christ.
It is like i went to the grocery store and bought $500.00 dollars worth of groceries and when I got to the register, I said, “please charge that to Bro. Terry’s account.” I just charged my groceries to his account.
When I place my faith in Jesus, my sin is now imputed to Christ.
But that is not all. Imputation is not a one-way street. Not only is my sin imputed to Christ, but His righteousness is imputed to me. That means that His righteousness is placed on my account.
This means that when we stand before the throne of God, God sill not see our sin, he will see the righteousness of Christ instead. We will stand spotless before a Holy God, not because we are perfect, but because the one whom we place our faith in was.
This is why Jesus says:
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Jesus was the only one to accomplish the law of God. Jesus is the only one who was able to overcome the sting of sin and stand victorious before the throne of God in His own merit. It is in Jesus and Him alone that we can do the same.
16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
54 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.”
We have victory in Jesus!
Victory over sin, death, grave.
Ain’t no grave gonna hold my body down.
Ain’t no grave gonna hold my body down.
When I hear that trumpet sound, I’m gonna get up out of that ground
Cause there ain’t no grave gonna hold my body down.
Why is it important that we are resurrected? Why does it matter so much?
Salvation does mean that we can claim the victory in this life. Christ taught that He came so that we:
Would have life. Not just any life, but a more abundant life.
That our joy might be full.
That we might experience a peace that goes beyond understanding.
That we might love with a love that goes deeper than the surface. That we might love with the love of God.
Salvation does not stop there though. It goes beyond this life into eternity. It is called eternal salvation for a reason. It goes beyond the grave. Christ is one day coming back to reign supreme on this rock, and when He does, all of those who have given their lives to Him will stand with Him in eternity.
It is a victory over sin and death, but it is also victory over the separation that they both cause.
Victory Over the Separation They Both Cause
Victory Over the Separation They Both Cause
Naturally speaking, there is a great gap between man and God.
God is omnipotent, which means that He is all powerful, and mankind is weak.
God is omnipresent, which means He is everywhere at all times, but man is limited to being right here, right now. We can only be in one place at a time.
God is omniscient, which means He knows everything, but man is very limited in knowledge and wisdom. There is so much that we do not know.
Do you see the gap? It is huge. It is too big for us to cross.
This is why in the OT, God spoke to a man. It was a man He chose to be the spokesperson for His people. God would have grace on that individual and allow them to come into His presence, and then he would take the message of God back to the people. It was normally the high priest whom God used to do this.
When Jesus came, He came to bridge the gap between man and God. He made a way to come into the presence of Almighty God for all men.
1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,
2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;
3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
4 having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
See, there is a natural gap that exists between man and God, but Satan seeks to enlarge that gap as much as possible.
See, sin and death are both tools in Satan’s toolbox. He uses them to cause an even further separation between us and God that already exists naturally.
Sin causes us to pull away from God. It causes a separation between us and God.
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear.
2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.
It does this, because everything sinful is in direct contradiction to the will of God. Every time we sin, it pulls us away from the spirit of God and towards the world.
In Psalm 51, David said that his sin made him feel dirty, shameful, and distant from God. This is the natural reaction for any Child of God when they realize their sin.
As we have already stated, no Child of God desires to be outside the will of God. We want to please our Heavenly Father and we want Him to be pleased with us. So when we do sin, it causes a spiritual disgust within us that leaves us unhappy with ourselves.
Death is the ultimate tool that the devil uses to cause separation from God. If the devil can kill you before you repent of your sin and turn to God, then you will be eternally condemned.
That is why death is such a tragedy for those who do not know Christ. For those who are lost and undone, death means judgment and complete separation, but for those who do know God, it is simply the transition from life on earth to eternal life in heaven with God.
Every child of God longs to be with Him in eternity.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
1 O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water.
Every Christian longs for the day when we will be allowed to bow at the feet of Jesus and express our love to Him. It is not something that is dreaded, but rather something that we long for. We are excited for it.
35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.
Praise be to God!
In this world, we are faced with trials and temptations that constantly pull us away from God. Almost everything in this life causes us to lose focus on eternity. But there is coming a day when there will be no more sin, no more heartache, no more pain, no more suffering, no more diseases, no mores surgeries, and no more death!
Furthermore, we will stand in the presence of God Almighty and be in awe of His glory and majesty. The thing we have longed for our entire lives will finally come to pass.
That is what all of this is about. That is why we fight. That is why we sacrifice. That is why we spend time with God here, so that we might be prepared when we stand face to face with Him in Glory.
When death comes unto us, the culmination of everything that we have worked for, everything we have sacrificed for, everything we have labored for, everything we have suffered for, will all be worth it.
We will stand victorious over sin and death. We stand victorious over the schemes of Satan.
We will stand victorious in Jesus Christ!!!
57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Commitment
Commitment
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Our victory is steadfast and it is sure because our victory is in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior!!!
As we come to a close, these words come to my heart this afternoon:
It’ll be worth it after all Child, it’ll be worth it after all!
After all of these trials, we’ll hear Jesus call!
It’ll be worth it after all Child, it’ll be worth after all!
After all of this climbing, it’ll be worth it after all!
Let these words be ingrained within your heart. Know that know matter what happens on this earth, we will stand victorious in Christ. All of the suffering, all of the persecution cannot even begin to compare to what glory shall be received by those who have remained faithful in Christ. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Let Him be your guide.
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.