A Final Transformation

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

I think all of us have been someplace a couple times in our lives, at least, where we could not go in just the way we were. Just come as you are, didn’t apply in those circumstances. I remember the first time I ever had to actually get dressed up.

I was in more than just, you know, nice pants and a nice shirt to go to church. But first time I ever had to dress up like putting on a coat and tie, I was in high school. And we did this thing that was a, if you’re familiar with model UN, people do that, they go pretend to be all the countries.

I wasn’t interested in that, but we did a mock state government. And I served in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. When you’re a political nerd like I was growing up, that’s the kind of thing you do.

We had a great time. And I had gotten chosen to be the House chaplain, which also meant I got to speak at a prayer breakfast that Governor Keating hosted at the Governor’s Mansion, which I was just thrilled about doing. The problem was, you cannot go on the floor of the Oklahoma House of Representatives without a jacket and tie.

And could not go into the Governor’s Mansion, at least with this invitation, without a jacket and tie. I didn’t have either of those things. I could not go just as I was.

My dad gave me one of his old work ties, and mom took me to, I don’t think it was a thrift store, but maybe just a step above that, and found the cheapest jacket she could buy for me. And she bought that, and that’s what I had to wear if I wanted to go into either of those places. I still have that tie.

She got her money’s worth out of the jacket because I quit growing right after that. That’s the jacket I wore Sunday before last. So that worked out well. What is that, 20 plus years now?

Jackets held up. There’s all kinds of places. Even if you’re listening to that thinking, oh, that sounds boring as all get out.

We’ve all been places we wanted to go that we could not just go in the way we were. If you wanted to go to prom, there were rules about what you could and could not wear to prom. Had to wear a jacket and tie there too.

There were rules about what I could wear if I wanted to get into my wedding. I’ll let you think about that for just a second there are rules if you want to go to a job interview now I mean they may not throw you out but my dad has drilled into me there are certain things you wear and don’t wear at a job interview we’ve all been places I mean at the bottom line we’ve all walked into a mcdonald’s and they say no shoes no shirt no service right we’ve all we’ve all been someplace where there are some limits on come as you are and there may have to be a change in for us to get in. I say that this morning not to talk about dress codes here, because unfortunately I’ve been in churches where if you’re not dressed a certain way, that it’s a problem for people.

I don’t say that to bring up anything to do with our dress, but to say the idea is not foreign to us, that something might have to change. We might have to change something ourselves even, if we want to go certain places. The Apostle Paul talks about that idea as we come to the end of 1 Corinthians 15.

Now, in our case, it’s not a change that we can make, but he talks about the necessity of a change being made before we can go where we want to go. If this is your first Sunday with us, we’re glad you’re here. We’ve been studying our way piece by piece through 1 Corinthians for I don’t even know how long at this point.

and we’ve now come to the end of chapter 15. Paul has spent all of chapter 15 dealing with the Corinthians belief that Jesus rose from the dead. They accepted that fact and yet they seem to have had a difficult time wrapping their minds around the fact that they that meant they were going to be raised too.

Some of them were struggling with the idea of there being a life after death. Many of them seem to have bought into their Greek philosophies that said you just you die and that’s it which is incompatible with the Christian message because Christianity teaches that there is a life after this. And Paul makes the case at the end of chapter 15 that to get where you want to go, there’s got to be a transformation, a final transformation.

And so this morning we’re going to be in 1 Corinthians 15, starting in verse 50. If you haven’t turned there with me already, would you please do so? And once you find it, stand with me, if you would, as we read from God’s Word together.

If you can’t find 1 Corinthians 15 or don’t have your Bible, it’ll be on the screen for you as well. Let’s start in verse 50. Paul says, Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that it is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 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 Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

And you may be seated. We read this, and from the very beginning of what he says there in verse 50, we get the impression, we get the understanding that our transformation is an inevitable part of the gospel message. What that means is that the gospel message is not a message that’s here just so our sins can be forgiven, and we go on as we were before.

The intention of the gospel, God’s intention in saving us, was to redeem for Himself a people who would praise Him and glorify Him. His plan in salvation was to forgive us of our sins and give us a relationship with Him, but not to leave us in the sins He found us in. His intention was after that salvation, as a result of that salvation, to take us through what is called sanctification, where we are gradually, over the rest of our natural lives, transformed to be more like Jesus Christ. This is taught all throughout the New Testament.

This is where we see the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians, that because of our salvation, we will start to see more and more of these behaviors as the Spirit begins to crowd out the fleshly behaviors, and we are changed. We are transformed gradually in this sanctification process. And this leads all the way up to the moment of our death, the moment when we stand before Jesus, and eventually this future glorification that He talks about, where we are changed, where what He’s been discussing all throughout chapter 15 takes place, where the mortal, fleshly body becomes an immortal, spiritual, glorified body, where the perishable, this body that we live in that even now is passing away, becomes something imperishable.

The gospel message does not stop at the moment of our forgiveness. The implications of the gospel carry us all the way through to our eternal life with our Father. And he tells us in verse 50 that we cannot inherit the kingdom of God just as we are.

He says this in verse 50, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither does the perishable inherit the imperishable. You and I are flesh and blood. When he talks about flesh and blood here, he’s talking about us in our natural state, us just as we are.

And there’s this message that we as believers put out, that people are supposed to come just as they are, and that’s true. You can come just as you are to the cross. You can come just as you are to Jesus Christ, but understand this, he has no intention of leaving you the way he found you.

It’s not just the Apostle Paul that says this. Jesus said this back in John chapter 3 when he told Nicodemus, you must be born again. There’s a change that has to take place in order for us to inherit the kingdom of God.

There’s, as I said, there’s the justification that takes place where our sins are forgiven, that has to take place. There’s the sanctification where He begins to change us, and that’s evidence of the forgiveness of God, that’s evidence of the work of the Spirit in us. And then this future glorification has to take place where this flesh, this sinful body, is transformed into something different and something altogether better.

It’s a sobering idea to realize sometimes that we can’t just come into the kingdom however we are and expect God to be okay with it. We can come to Jesus just as we are, but to make it into the kingdom of heaven, we need him to transform us into something that brings him glory. And again, I want to be very clear, that’s not something we earn or deserve.

That’s not something we do on our own. That’s something that entirely is the work of God within us. But it’s important to understand.

It’s important to understand because many people, many people put their trust for eternity in the fact that they’ve said some words, the fact that somebody prayed over them, the fact that they participated in some religious ritual, the idea that they went to church or their grandparents went to church or something. They’re putting their trust in something and thinking they’re going to make it, but they’ve never been born again. And if that’s you, ladies and gentlemen, understand we come to Jesus just as we are.

But if we’ve truly trusted in Jesus, we’re not going to leave the same way because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Neither does the perishable inherit the imperishable. We can’t receive the imperishable, this new body that He promises.

We can’t receive this eternal body until we let go of this one. And that’s part of what they struggled with was the reality that they were trusting for eternal life, those who believed in and yet they’re seeing believers die around them. That happens if you’re around long enough.

If you’re part of a church long enough, you see people pass on. And for them, this was a new experience, wondering what’s happening to these people. And Paul is trying to reassure this church that this is not something to view as tragic because we have to let go of this perishable body.

It’s easy to get those two confused.

we have to let go of this perishable body in order to gain the imperishable one and he says in verses 51 and 52 that believers living and dead are going to experience this final transformation that has to take place behold I tell you a mystery we will not all sleep but we will all be changed I love that verse I first encountered it embroidered on something in in the nursery at church we will not all sleep but we will all be changed that’s not what Paul was talking about though he says I tell you a mystery that doesn’t mean this is a secret this means it’s something that God has waited until now to reveal it’s something that God has waited until now to explain so it’s something they wouldn’t have known previously but Paul says it’s a message from God it’s a mystery we will not all sleep when he says sleep he’s usually talking about death he says not every believer will die but we will all be changed.

There will be some who are there and people, again, it’s one of those things Christians argue about and can argue about without being argumentative. And some of us are right and some of us are wrong and it really doesn’t change the gospel, but they’ll argue about the timing of this. Is it talking about the rapture?

Is it talking about the second coming? I don’t know. It depends on what day you ask me, how I understand this.

There are a lot of things that I don’t understand about the timing, about the order of things. But I do understand that Jesus will come back and there will be believers who are alive at that time. There will be believers who have already died at that time.

And all of us are going through the transformation. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, he said, it’s going to be that fast for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed. He said, those who have already died, they’re going to be raised never to die again.

And those of us who are still here, we’re just going to go through a transformation alive. He said, living dead, it doesn’t change any, it doesn’t prevent God from transforming anybody and taking us into the kingdom. And this was God’s plan all along was to transform us.

That’s why he says in verse 53, the perishable must put on imperishable. And this mortal must put on immortality. This wasn’t an afterthought.

This was God’s plan all along to save us and transform us and to take us to be with Him. Our transformation is the inevitable result of the gospel. If we’ve trusted in Christ and we’ve been born again, He who began that good work in us is faithful to see it completed, and He will transform us.

But something else they needed to understand, because they were watching people die. Again, this fledgling Christian congregation, they’d never dealt with this before. They’re watching people die and saying, What’s happening here?

How do we deal with this? Paul wanted them to understand that the gospel transforms the ultimate defeat into the ultimate victory. Even as believers, sometimes we look at death as a defeat.

I can’t imagine any believer who’s ever been through that moment of death on the other side thinking that that was a moment of defeat. When the scriptures say that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, it’s hard to imagine feeling anything but the ultimate victory when looking into the eyes of the one who died for us. so he says in verse 54 when this perishable will have put on the imperishable and this mortal will have put on immortality then will come about the saying that is written death is swallowed up in victory and this really talks about a a total defeat for death talking about something being swallowed up my sister posted a a photo of a uh of a fish that she caught in her pond on facebook the other day.

And she held it up, she held the fish with its mouth open to the camera, and she said, you see that dark spot? That’s the tail of the fish it just ate. For a second, that big fish thought he had won.

I’m sorry, the little fish. The little fish, I guess, is what had eaten her lure. The little fish for a second thought he had won, and then he was swallowed up by something else.

Death comes for all of us if the Lord delays His coming long enough. But death is not an ultimate defeat because death ultimately is swallowed up by something bigger, and that’s victory. Death will be swallowed up in victory.

There’s nothing but victory left for the believer who has passed on and goes on to be with the Lord. Now, that doesn’t mean that most of us are eager for it to be today. You know, we tend to think that the Lord has left us here to do certain things, and we’re not ready to be finished until He’s ready for us to be finished.

It’s not like we have a death wish. but it also means it’s not something to be feared and not something to be railed against because he says when we when we die and he’s quoting here from the old testament talking about isaiah he says oh death where is your victory death where is your sting that even even death that looks like it wins a hundred percent of the time has no victory has no sting where it can’t hurt us anymore he says the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law and there are things that in our death we are unable to be hurt by ever again. We’re subject to these three things before the transformation that takes place.

We’re subject to death, we’re subject to sin, and we’re subject to the law, all of which he lists right here in verse 56. Once we’ve died, that’s it. I don’t mean we stop existing.

I mean we can’t die again. If we’ve trusted in Jesus Christ, we don’t die a second time. As a matter of fact, I grew up with my pastor saying at funerals, he’d look down at the casket and the body of a believer and say, she’s more alive than she’s ever been.

And it struck me odd the first few times I heard it, but he’s right. The way the Bible talks about death is a separation. That’s why it describes our spiritual state as death.

We’re separated from God. In death, We’re separated from our loved ones. At that moment of transformation, you and I are never separated again.

From God, from the others who are transformed, there’s never again another separation. We spend the rest of eternity with the God who created us for a relationship with Him. We spend the rest of eternity living out the purpose that He created us for.

Getting to do exactly what we were made to do. After this transformation, sin can never hurt us again either. Because this fleshly body has been transformed into something different.

And again, Paul doesn’t call it a mystery for no reason. There’s a lot about it I don’t understand. But I know somehow this fleshly body is no longer there being tempted.

No longer there to lead the spirit astray. As the Bible says, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And without this, there’s no longer sin to come between us and God.

There’s no longer sin to bring about death. And the law is spoken of in a negative sense here. Not that God’s law is a bad thing, but the law is the reminder for us of sin and its consequences.

Paul talks about, throughout his letters, talks about the law being the thing that reveals sin to us. The law is the standard that points out all the ways we fall short. If you could look at the law as like one of those signs in a theme park that says you must be this tall to ride this ride, I always hated when I wasn’t that tall to ride that ride.

The law says you must be this holy to come in, and the bar is infinitely high. And the law just shows us how far we’ve fallen short of God’s glory. That law never again reminds us that we’ve fallen short because God has made all things new in eternity.

We will never again be under the curse of these things. And that leads us to recognize that what should be a sad experience actually becomes one of the most glorious experiences in all of eternity. That moment when we step away from this to be embraced by our Lord.

Again, I don’t tell you these things because this is not, hey, let’s all embrace death today. But he was writing to people who were wondering about what happens next. You know, so-and-so, their time came, what happens when my time comes?

And wanting to reassure them that this is all part of God’s plan and ends up for our good. But it’s not just about feeling better. If we look at the last two verses of this chapter, it’s about what we do with this information now.

You see, the assurance we have of victory enables us to persevere. The assurance that we have of this future with our Lord sometimes may be the only thing we have to hold on to. The only thing we have compelling us to press forward when we feel like it’s too hard, we’ve been beaten down too many times, it’s too much of a struggle.

he tells them on the basis of everything he said up to this point, he says, 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 Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. When he says steadfast, steadfast and immovable sound like similar words to me. So I did a little bit of a dive into the Greek to see what the difference was between them.

Steadfast seems to be pointing to the fact that you know where you stand with God. You ever had to deal with somebody that you never were quite sure where you stood with them, and so you never knew quite how to act or how to react, feel like you’re walking on eggshells. That’s not a happy experience.

We don’t have to do that with God. Even when we walk through the shadow of death, we don’t have to worry about where we stand with God. As believers, Jesus Christ has purchased our salvation.

The Holy Spirit is there with us day in and day out as a down payment. We are assured of the future that we have with him. So he says you can be steadfast. You know where you stand with God and you don’t have to worry about it.

You’re on solid ground with God. And to be immovable points to not wavering in our faith. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation where you’re not sure what to believe.

And you think you’ve made up your mind this way, and then some new information comes along, and well, maybe it’s this. This happens to me all the time when we’re trying to figure out which child did what. And they all keep coming with new information.

They think, well, maybe it was you. No, well, maybe. I don’t know.

And I get paralyzed by all this information, thinking any decision I make is going to be wrong. We don’t have to waver in our faith. He said, I want you to walk forward with the assurance of knowing where you’re going so that you can be immovable.

Not that you’re stuck in one place, but we are planted firmly in the truth that God has revealed and what God has shown us, what God has proven to be true. And that goes back to what he talked about at the beginning of the chapter, the certainty of the resurrection. That everything else is rooted in that.

If Jesus Christ died on the cross, was buried, and three days later rose again just as the scriptures foretold and just as he predicted, then all of the rest of this follows. And even on the days when I wake up and I don’t feel it, I can plant my feet firmly on that fact and move forward. Because of that, we can abound in the work of God.

We’re able to give God our all. We’re able to serve Him faithfully. We’re able to move forward in obedience because we don’t have to constantly look back over our shoulders and worry about where do I stand with God?

Is He going to remember me? Is He going to forget me? Am I His?

Am I not? We don’t have to worry about that. We also don’t have to waver between all these opinions and wonder about our faith.

We can move forward and serve him faithfully in obedience. And he says, knowing, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. We can do all of this knowing that what we do here and what we struggle through here and what we sacrifice here, it matters to God.

And he remembers it. And not only will he repay us, he will repay us more abundantly than what we’ve given. And by the way, if what you heard in there was giving money.

That’s not what I’m talking about. Talking about the sacrifices and the struggles that we go through here on earth will be more than made up for by the glory in His presence. And the key to all of this is there in verse 57.

This victory is ours through Jesus Christ. Solely and completely because of what Jesus Christ did. We will receive the glorified bodies that I’m really looking forward to. We will receive those because of what Jesus Christ did.

Eternity in the presence of our Father will receive that because of what Jesus Christ did. Forgiveness of sins, we’ve already received that because of what Jesus Christ did. This ultimate victory we’ll receive because of what Jesus Christ did.

The assurance that we have now is because of what Jesus Christ did. Jesus Christ came to earth, God in the flesh, a perfect sinless man. And he went to the cross bearing responsibility for my sins and for yours.

And he shed his blood and died in our place as the one and only payment for sins that would be acceptable to a holy God. He died for us, paid for our sins in full. That’s what he meant when he said it is finished just before he died.

He was taken off of that cross. He was buried. And three days later, he rose again from the dead, just like he said he would.

And when he did so, he has promised us eternal life, forgiveness of sins, a clean slate with God, a relationship with the father, all of these things that we’ve talked about. He’s promised those to us. If we will simply acknowledge Him as the one who paid for our sins, if we’ll believe that He paid for our sins in full, and we’ll ask for that forgiveness, if we’ll seek that forgiveness and trust in Christ as the only one who could provide it, then we’ll have it.

Powered by atecplugins.com