Victorious Christian Living
May 18, 2025
Preached by Ron Smith
Scripture Reading
1 Corinthians 15:50-58
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 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 shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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.
I remember as a child my parents would take us to see the 4th of July fireworks. One of the times we went was the first time I heard the term “grand finale.” I was intrigued. What was that? My dad responded something to the effect, you’ll know it when you see it. And sure enough, when it happened, I was blown away. Every year after that I would always try to anticipate the grand finale. “Is this it?” No, not yet. In my opinion that anticipation made the whole show even better.
Well, I think we could say that we find Paul’s grand finale of 1 Corinthians in chapter 15. What a glorious chapter it has been. What makes it even more sweet is that he has shown that the resurrection is no mere intellectual ascent. It impacts the way we live our lives. The power of Christ’s resurrection and the hope of the resurrection to come has ramifications for our daily life.
We see this so clearly in the very last verse. Look with me again:
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.
I find this verse encouraging because if truth be told, I admit that sometimes I find myself asking a question like, “is it worth it? Is what I am doing even making a difference?” There have been times when doing the work of the Lord has made me weary. That is partly because my wife and I were church planting in Italy and quite frankly the ground is pretty hard. People had an apathy towards the gospel. They didn’t care anything about it. Weren’t hostile, they just didn’t care. We had friends that seemingly made no steps towards Jesus. Lots of time spent with new believers who walked away from the Lord.
You don’t have to have been a missionary to feel the weariness, to wonder if it is worth it. I am sure that some of you have felt the discouragement of not seeing the progress in ministry that you had hoped. Maybe you have faithfully shared the gospel with a family member or friend for years, for no result. Or maybe you get weary from being the only one standing for Christ. You are bombarded day in day out by our culture, friends, family, colleagues, with subtle or not so subtle attacks on the gospel. It can be tiring. It can be easy to grow weary.
But this grand finale reenergizes us, it reinvigorates us, restores our resolve. It causes us to reorient our gaze on the certainty of the resurrection to come because of the victory we have in Christ. Because we know it’s true, we can be steadfast, as we abound in the work of the Lord.
So, here is where we are going today. Paul says at the end of verse 58, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. I want to start off asking, “how do we know that?” To answer that question, we will look at the context of this verse – both the larger context of the entire chapter as well as the immediate context of the verses we read this morning. And then we will focus on verse 58 and see how Paul wants the truth of the resurrection to impact our life right here, right now.
Larger Context of 1 Corinthians 15
How do we know that our labor is not in vain? What does Paul assume that we know? When we consider the larger context, we can trace throughout the entire chapter that we know that we stand in the gospel, that Christ died for our sins, was buried, was raised on the third day, and then appeared to more than 500 people.
We know that our faith is not in vain, that our life is not pitiful, that Christ has indeed been raised, that Christ is the firstfruits. We know that Christ reigns and is destroying every rule and authority and power. We know that God will raise us up imperishable to bear the image of Christ. We know that Christ has become a life-giving spirit.
Because of all of that we know that our labor is not in vain. That’s the larger context of what Paul wants us to know. In building up to verse 58 he has gone line by line, phrase by phrase giving them, giving us incredible rock-solid truths to grasp hold of. Therefore, be steadfast; abound in the work of the Lord.
Immediate context: The future transformation
In the immediate context, verses 50-57, I want to point out a couple things that Paul wants us to know. The first we already saw last week, so we will go quickly through it, but Paul tells us that we know that there will be a future transformation that will take place in us. Look with me again at verses 50-53.
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 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 shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
Our bodies will be changed. Transformed. Indeed, they must be changed. The kingdom of God cannot be inherited by flesh and blood, these bodies. We can’t stand in the presence of God in these clothes.
What we see here is that this transformation will take place when Christ returns. He says the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised. Why is the trumpet sounding? Because the King is returning! We this very clearly in 1 Thess 4:16:
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
The Lord Jesus is going to descend, there is going to be a trumpet, and there is going to be the resurrection of the dead. At that moment, in that split-second moment, a change in our bodies will take place. And here in 1 Cor 15, Paul says that the instantaneous moment is as fast or faster than the twinkling of an eye or rapid glance. As quick as you can give a glance at something, we will be changed.
Pastor Benjamin already alerted us last week to what this change entails. The perishable will put on the imperishable. The bodies we have now are subject to decay like rotting food, like that Tupperware container that you forgot about and that you regret opening to see what is in there. But at the trumpet, we will be changed to imperishable. And Paul adds that these mortal bodies will put on immortality. We will live forever.
But notice this idea of putting on. It’s not that we cease to be who we are, but rather there is a clothing with new clothes that takes place. Again, as Pastor Benjamin noted last week, the only example we have of this is what is said about Jesus in the Gospels after his resurrection. He was recognizable, he maintained his scars, he ate fish, and the Gospels seem to indicate that he could walk through walls.
We know that our physical bodies will be changed by putting on the imperishable and immortality. This applies to all believers – those who have died, and those who are still alive when the trumpet blows.
Immediate context: The future promise of victory
The second thing I want to point out in the verses leading up to 58, is that we know that our labor is not in vain because there is a future promise of victory.
Look at verses 54-57.
When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
When this change takes place, and we are standing on the other side of death, the victory will be complete. Death will be swallowed up in victory. A couple of examples of this image come to my mind. One concerns WWII. Have you ever seen one of those timelapses of the allied forces troop advancement? Everything looks bleak in the beginning. The Nazis keep expanding, but after D-Day, everything changes. The Allied troops begin to take back lost ground from all sides. And slowly they surround Germany until the Nazis disappear from the map. They are swallowed up.
The other image is a Biblical image. When the children of Israel were coming out of Egypt the Lord brought them through the Red Sea on dry ground. The Egyptian army went in to pursue them. But then what happened? The sea swallowed them up. Just like that, death will be swallowed up in victory.
The irony is that death seems to be the one doing the swallowing up right now. Like a black hole pulling everything into its powerful gravitational forces to be destroyed. But it is not ultimately victorious over the Christian.
Death will be swallowed up in victory! Death will cease to exist. It will no longer be the great fear that plagues us. So, Paul taunts death. “O death, where is your victory? O death where is your sting?”
Then he explains what he means in verse 56. The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. Death is tied to sin. We might think that doing whatever we want, not having oppressive religious rules from an old book telling us what to do, means we are truly free. But the reality is that when we live our lives going against what God commands, we actually bind ourselves to death. The wages of sin is death. All that “freedom” doing what we thought was best, wasted.
Paul says the power of sin is the law. It is the law that makes us aware of sin; it points its finger at us and condemns us telling us that we are guilty. It does nothing to help us. It cannot save us. It brings wrath (Rm 4:15). Not a ticket, not a fine. The penalty is the very wrath of God. Make no mistake, if you are engaged in doing the things that are opposed to God, that is no freedom. You are merely storing up for yourself the very wrath of God. Breaking God’s law carries serious consequences.
But there is one who has kept the law perfectly. There is one who has paid for all of our sins that we called freedom. And through him, Paul says, God gives us the victory. It is the victory over sin. We can experience true freedom because Jesus sets us free from the bondage of sin. It is the victory over the law. Jesus perfectly kept the law and then takes away our rap sheet and gives us his.
This victory is over sin and over the law, and it is victory over death, which is the main aspect of the victory that Paul has in mind here.
The victory over death is perhaps a little more difficult for us to grasp. Victory over death. How? We are surrounded by death. The sting of death hurts. Many of you know that; have experienced that. Losing a loved one is painful business. But notice that back up in verse 51 Paul describes death as sleep. Think about this description of death. Describing death as sleep for the Christian is a more accurate way of thinking about death. Death is not final; it is temporary. It is as if those who have died in Christ are merely sleeping. They will be raised and their bodies changed. That is the hope we have in the face of death. In the grips of the pain of losing a loved one, the Christian’s body is merely asleep. The spirit is in heaven in the presence of the Lord while the body awaits the resurrection. Be encouraged by that. Find comfort in that fact that death will be destroyed – guaranteed!
We are just waiting for the final buzzer. If you are into sports, you have probably seen a game where it is a blowout. One team dominates the other. For all intents and purposes the game is over about halfway through. But the game must be finished. The winning team can’t take the W until the final buzzer. That’s kind of what it is like for us now. We have the victory, but are waiting for that day when we will be changed and the last enemy, death, will be swallowed up in victory.
I think what Jesus says about death and life are instructive. When he was talking to Martha just before raising her brother Lazarus from the dead. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26). Death is still happening for now. And Jesus promises that the one who believes in him will live. “Though he die, yet shall he live.” And then he asks a question that he is asking you today, “Do you believe this?” How do you respond? Do you believe in Jesus? Do you believe that he is the resurrection and the life?
Well, if you do, Paul’s point is that God gives you the victory. Those who believe in Jesus are victorious! Dear Christian, we are victorious!
But can I ask you a sincere question, do you always feel victorious? I don’t. Yeah, right now in this moment as we read these verses together there is a surge of hope, a strong feeling of victory. But there are days when I feel more like a failure. There are days when I feel more defeated than anything.
The conclusion, vs 58
Let’s circle back around to the last verse of 1 Cor 15. A whole chapter talking about nothing but the resurrection. And now, here is Paul’s conclusion.
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.
This ending nicely bookends the chapter along with verse 1. He began this whole discussion wanting to remind them of the gospel that he preached to them, that they had received, in which they were standing, and by which they were being saved if they held fast to it. He didn’t want them to have believed in vain. So, they needed to be steadfast, immovable. They couldn’t let go of the gospel. What they had believed in was true.
They couldn’t let others come along and try to convince them that it wasn’t true; that Jesus was not really raised from the dead. That our resurrection will not happen. That is an attack that can come from both the outside and from within. The world will deny the resurrection. The world will think we are crazy for believing such foolishness. But we must be steadfast.
And sometimes even those from “within” our own ranks will begin to deny the resurrection and other key components of the gospel. Perhaps this is even more disturbing and troubling for us. But we must remain steadfast. We can’t allow ourselves to be moved.
Some of you will remember the atheist Christopher Hitchens. He died a while back. But he was always on the attack of gospel. However, one time he was being interviewed by a liberal Christian pastor that he actually kind of defended it. The pastor asked him if he made any distinction between Christians who hold to the traditional view of faith and ones like herself who deny the atonement, miracles, and the bodily resurrection. His response was noteworthy. “I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”[1] He got it.
Be steadfast, immovable. As we are attacked for our beliefs from all sides it can be discouraging. It can make us want to give up. Be steadfast. Be anchored in the truth of the gospel.
Then Paul adds that he wanted the Corinthians to abound in the work of the Lord. To be rich in the work of the Lord. To overflow in the work of the Lord. Whatever job you have, whatever hobby you engage in, whatever you do in the day, abound in the work of the Lord. Be involved in those things that will carry the kingdom of God forward and build the church.
And finally, he gives us the foundation of being steadfast and abounding in the work of the Lord – “knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
Earlier in the chapter he made the point that if the resurrection was not true, his preaching was in vain, and their faith was in vain. Useless. No meaning. Empty. Devoid of all purpose. But now, after having reminded them of the resurrection for 57 verses, they can know with certainty that what they believe and all their labor for the Lord is not in vain.
That word labor captures the difficulties of life. It indicates distress, hardship, toil. You know this. Life is hard. We are battered day in and day out. Sometimes we feel strong. We find it easy to rejoice in the midst of it all. Perhaps life is like gentle seas. The waves are still there, but no big deal. But sometimes. Sometimes the sea rages. The waves crash against us. It is a labor to continue on. But we must be immovable like a lighthouse on the edge of the roughest of seas that continues to stand no matter what comes. That’s victorious Christian living.
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.
I want to close by praying Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians over us. Notice how he ties it to the resurrection. Ephesians 1:15-23
Father of glory, would you give us the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of you, having the eyes of our hearts enlightened, that we may know what is the hope to which you has called us, what are the riches of your glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of your power toward us who believe, according to the working of your great might that you worked in Christ when you raised him from the dead and seated him at your right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And you put all things under Jesus’ feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
[1] http://www.pdxmonthly.com/articles/2009/12/17/christopher-hitchens
Sermon Discussion Questions
How has 1 Corinthians 15 encouraged you? What else would you want to include in the list of things we know from the chapter (page 2 above)?
What do you do when you feel discouraged and weary when doing the work of the Lord?
What is victorious Christian living according to these verses?
How might you talk to someone who doesn’t think the resurrection is true?
Why is the knowledge that it is God who gives us the victory through Jesus helpful to us as we seek to be steadfast and abound in the work of the Lord? (Not based on anything you do, but on God who graciously gives)