This is Part 4 of a 7-Part sermon series titled “Easter according to Paul” preached at Mt. Gilead UMC in Georgetown, KY. Click here for Part 3.

If you want to listen to the whole worship service, click this first link below.

If you want to listen only to the sermon, click this second link below.

1 Corinthians 15:29-34

What Is the Point?

“Meaningless! Meaningless!…Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). These are the opening lines of the Book of Ecclesiastes, written by “the Teacher, son of David” supposedly King Solomon. And boy did he wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Anybody else here wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? I did when my alarm went off and it said 7:00am but felt like 6:00am. Y’all know what I’m talking about. Y’all are with me.

Well, maybe Solomon wasn’t just having a bad day. Maybe there’s something to his message. Maybe everything is meaningless and pointless. That was Paul’s point in our passage for this morning, pun intended. He was saying to the Corinthians, “What’s the point?” If Christ hasn’t been raised from the dead, why are you doing all of these things? Why are you a Christian? If the dead are not raised and if Christ hasn’t been raised, then why am I dying every day, suffering for the Gospel, fighting wild beasts in Ephesus, and following Jesus? He might say to us, if the dead are not raised, why are you doing the shoeboxes every year? Why are doing Christmas and Easter baskets? Why do you even meet for worship every week. If the dead are not raised and if Christ is not raised, why aren’t we just going out every night and partying the night away, living like there’s no tomorrow? What’s the point?

If the Dead Are Not Raised…

I used to live this way thinking that there was no point in life. So it gives you an excuse to do whatever you want—live and let live—sin however you want. If there’s no point to life, what does it matter? That’s how I thought and lived before I was a Christian. I’m sure that’s how many of you also lived and thought before being a Christian. That’s how many people today still live. And sadly, that’s how some of the Corinthians were still thinking during Paul’s day. If the dead are not raised and Christ has not been raised, then life is meaningless and we can just do as we please.

Well, the Corinthians weren’t just doing this because they hadn’t gotten the world out of them yet. They were doing this, thinking this way, and thus being led into sin, because there were some imposters in their community leading them astray and into sin.

Paul commands them in v. 33, “Do not be misled/deceived/led astray.” Then he quotes a pagan Greek philosopher/poet, “Bad company corrupts good character.” You see, there were some in their community who were not truly following the Lord and were leading others down this path of sin. And that’s why Paul urges them in the next verse, “Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning” (1 Cor 15:34).

You see, the Corinthians, both individually and as a community, had a sinning problem: they were quarreling over church leaders (who was the best), there was a man who was sleeping with his mother-in-law and many in the church were celebrating that, they were eating meat that had been sacrificed in honor and worship to pagans gods, they were completely chaotic and disorganized in their public worship together, and they were fighting about spiritual gifts (which one was the greatest) and some were having ecstatic tongue-speaking experiences in the middle of worship services which interrupted everything. The Corinthians had a sinning problem. And what that means is basically that they were not loving God and they especially were not loving one another. It was within this context that Paul wrote the famous love chapter in 1 Cor 13: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud” (1 Cor 13:4). And you know the rest.

The Corinthians had a sinning problem, the inability to love one another, to put the other first, to think of others more than themselves, to treat others how they would like to be treated. But why? Why couldn’t they love each other? Why couldn’t they just get along? Where had they gone wrong? What was holding them back?

Paul identifies it right here in our passage this morning: the denial of the resurrection of the dead—if the dead are not raised; if Christ has not been raised. That is the issue. “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (1 Cor 15:32). Translation: if the dead are not raised and if Christ has not been raised, then let us just give up caring. “Nothing really matters. Anyone can see. Nothing really matters. Nothing really matters to me” (Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody).

You see, that was the issue. They were denying the resurrection of the dead, and that type of thinking leads to sin. If you don’t believe in a God who raises the dead, how can you die to yourself each moment of each day to serve those around you? Living a life of self-sacrifice, a life of love, requires a faith that believes in a God who vindicates those who suffer for the sake of others, a God who will one day raise us up after having suffered a little while. The Apostle Peter also shares this same sentiment when he says, “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast” (1 Pet 5:10). Jesus himself believed that God his Father would raise him from the dead three days after he would suffer and die for the sins of the whole world. Even Abraham believed in a God who could raise the dead, which is why he was willing to sacrifice Isaac in obedience.

The Point

So what’s the point? Well, the point is that the worst sin that the Corinthians committed was not that they were celebrating the man sleeping with his mother-in-law. On the surface, that seems to be the worst of them all. But in reality, the worst sin that they were committing was denying the resurrection of the dead, because denying the resurrection of the dead means denying Jesus rising from the dead which means that everything else in life is utterly meaningless as the Teacher in Ecclesiastes once wrote. And if everything is utterly meaningless, then so is sin and therefore I can sin all I want and hurt whoever is in my way. It doesn’t matter.

So this morning, I want us to be reminded that the best thing that we can do here to grow us closer to the Lord is to affirm and reaffirm our belief in the resurrection of the dead and the resurrection of Jesus. It is said that wrong thinking leads to wrong doing. And the reverse of that is also true: right thinking leads to right doing. So let us think rightly about who God is this morning. That will lead us to do right as well.

I know that many of you are going through a lot these days. We are too. And our circumstances often try to distort our view of God as our good and loving Father. It is hard in the midst of suffering and pain to really believe that God is the God who raises the dead, who loves us and cares for us, and who will lift and raise us up out of the mess we are in. But those are the times that we need to exercise our faith in our God who raises the dead all the more. There’s a song that I’ve heard here recently that has really touched my heart and soul. It says, “The story isn’t over if the story isn’t good.” That’s the kind of faith we need when we’re down and out, when all hope is fading, and when it seems like God isn’t there. Be assured this morning that God is the God of resurrection. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26). That question was being asked to the Corinthians 2,000 years ago and it’s still being asked of us today. May our answer today and everyday be a resounding yes. Let’s pray.