MPC
19th August 2018.August 19 - 1 Corinthians 15:51-58 - "Not in Vain"
MPC
19th August 2018.
Peter Kutuzov
Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but life has got so many things that are hard to get a hold of:
Now, if you’ve missed the last two weeks in Ecclesiastes the Teacher has been grappling with how to live in a world like this. And the perspective that he provides, everything is vapour. A breath on a cold winter’s morning. Visible for a moment, but soon gone. And if you try to grasp it and control it, you’ll soon find that you’re simply chasing wind.
Each week has begun with a poem about the rhythms of life. In chapter 1 it was how the cycles of the world are impervious to our best attempts to change them. Because it doesn’t matter what you do this afternoon, the sun will set tonight. And rise again tomorrow.
And in chapter 3: how the seasons of life come and go as they will.
A time to be born, a time to die. A time for war, a time for peace.
And nothing that you can do to change when those occur. They’re just the seasons of life. They happen to you. Being the mere puffs of smoke that we are. Here today, gone tomorrow. Says the poetry of the Teacher of Ecclesiastes.
Now, the Teacher is no fan of this. He’s not an emo teenager who’s just discovered nihilist philosophy for the first time and has gone out and bought Target out of black clothes. He wants to face these seemingly harsh realities, so that they don’t seem so harsh. If we face these truths, says the Teacher, we’ll have a shot at coping well with life, and its seasons. Pretending doesn’t help, he says. We need to face facts.
Roger and Margaret Crane do fantastic work as travelling padres for the Presbyterian Inland Mission, but when I met them on Kingscliff beach mission, they’d just come out of a very different season.
As a young couple they were super-excited to have children. And they soon they have two beautiful baby boys. But over the first year of their life, it becomes clear that this season isn’t going to be what they expect it to be. Their two boys were both born with a rare genetic disease called Batten’s disease.
And so the next 30 years take on a completely different complexion, as they became 24-hour, full-time carers for their two boys, who they love dearly. Their pride and joy.
Roger and Margaret HAD been looking forward to teaching their boys to play football, dance and read the bible. And so the next 30 years become a very different season than what they’d predicted. And in some ways what they’d hoped.
When we think that we’re able to determine the course and seasons of our lives, we’re mistaken, says the Teacher. Everything in this world is a little broken. A little crooked. Since the garden of Eden, where humanity broke its relationship with God, the cracks have been showing everywhere. And we humans, try though we might, and have mini-successes where we do, cannot UN-DO that. This is what the teacher is getting at when he says, “What is crooked cannot be straightened.” It’s here that the Teacher’s philosophy becomes completely practical. He says that the way to live life is to receive it as a temporary gift, instead of grasping for permanent gain.
Embrace the moments of life as they come, he says, knowing that God is in control. Ride the cycles of time.
So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?
the teacher says in Ecclesiastes 3:22.
Live in the moment that you’re in, says the teacher. Embrace your work that your hand has to do today. Take that bit of homework and own it. Nail it.
Don’t let worry about what mark you’ll get stop you from embracing the task and making something awesome from it. Live in the moment after church where you’re standing around awkwardly, unsure of who to talk to. It’s a season of awkwardness. Embrace it.
Bring something beautiful into that moment for the people you’re with. Just as God makes everything beautiful in its time. BE the mum of a toddler, and embrace that.
There’s a beauty in his philosophy of life. And it finds echoes in the teachings of Jesus in the sermon on the mount.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
And even in Jesus’ little brother James who says, “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” ... so wait to see what season your good God gives you next.
It’s a philosophy that produces a certain kind of person. They might get into their work a little more than they otherwise would. Maybe they cherish their relationships a little more while they have them. They can be a little bit more resilient against losing everything, because they always knew that it was never theirs to HAVE, it was always a gift for a time. They might become a bit more of an ‘enjoy the journey’ person and less of a ‘strive for the destination’ person.
Makes sense in turmoil of Israel Now this makes sense for the times it was written. In the mess of sin and death that characterised Israel’s kings, Israel was constantly the meat in the sandwich of Euro-African-Asian politics.
And it felt like there was little they could do. Once top of the pile, next year bottom of the heap. Riding the waves of ancient-near-eastern politics. You can understand that time producing a philosophy like this. ...and its limits
I wonder if some of you sense the limitations of the Teacher’s take on life. I mean, it’s not exactly an ideal, is it? It’s just how to make the best of a bad situation. The Teacher isn’t saying, “This is a great and glorious way to live!” he keeps saying, “There’s nothing better than” this way of life, given our circumstances under the sun.
It’s the kind of philosophy that means if you grow up on the North Shore of Sydney, might lead you to support Manly rugby league football club. I mean, it’s a terrible thing to have to choose, but you have to embrace your lot in life, don’t you? And so it’s a beautiful take on life, for sure, but to the person with eternity in their heart, it seems like there should be more. There MUST be something better than supporting Manly.
But the teacher doesn’t have those answers. They say that if your philosophy has nothing to say to the grave, then it’s not worth much. And the teacher has some coping strategies, but he doesn’t have answers. In the face of real things like death; significant hurt; loss of relationship.
Which makes him great as someone to just sit and be with people in their sadness, which is hugely powerful, but he’s got nothing specific to give them hope. Because ... we’re all like grass, like a mist, and will be gone soon.
Now Paul is very aware of this as he writes to the Corinthians, and he’s littered chapter 15 of his letter to them with words, concepts and phrases that reference it.
Because he wants them to know that the situation has changed. That the limits of that ancient philosophy have been lifted. In a hugely powerful way.
Now if you’re new to Christian things, just letting you know that what we’re about to talk about here is the very centre of our faith. If you look down to the little number 56 in the portion of the bible we read, you’ll see Paul applying the news that Christians love to talk about. The idea that Jesus of Nazareth was not just a man, but God himself entering into our reality... to fix the crookedness caused by our bad thoughts, words and behaviour.
He says in that sentence that the sting of death is sin. So if sin and evil is dealt with, paid for, then death becomes stingless. Death is the punishment for a crime that’s no longer on the table. The consequence of a wrong that’s been righted. And that’s what the Bible says Jesus did on the cross, dying for all the sins of anyone who will come and ask him. Which means, death has no sting. Now that would be an insulting thing to say to anyone who’s been touched by tragedy unless you had some proof. Some hard evidence. And that evidence is what Paul writes a few paragraphs earlier in his letter.
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, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also.
He says, look! It worked! We have proof! If you don’t believe me go ask any one of the 514 people I mentioned. If a single one of them says, “Nah, it wasn’t like that. I didn’t see what Paul says I saw.” then I’m making up rubbish. But if all of us talked to a man who’s been raised from the dead. Then something must have happened to take away death’s sting.
If this is true. If Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, the world changes. Death, the consequence for sin, that frustrating enemy that was the limit on the philosophy of the Teacher, has been neutered. What the teacher very deliberately said was impossible, has been achieved by the one who does the impossible. What was crooked, has been made straight. Somehow, death will no longer have the final say in our world.
Now, if you’re someone who follows Jesus, I wonder if you ever wonder about whether choosing to do the right thing is really worth it. What’s the payoff for godliness?
Ever stop and think about evaluate whether it was worth it? It’s a question Paul asks in this chapter.
Wild beasts in Ephesus: euphemism for sexual temptation See, resurrection means two things for the Christian. Firstly, it means that death is no longer the end for your friends who don’t know Jesus either. You have the opportunity to share with them Jesus, the one who can change their eternity. Life after death is not just wishful thinking, it’s the destination of everyone who trusts in Jesus.
Secondly, it means that while we live now, we are already doing something of eternal value. We are being the humans that we were created to be. As you say no to sin, and yes to obeying God, you are
I don’t know about you but sometimes I fear that the people I talk to think that my job is a waste of time and money. If I say to them that I’m a secular youth worker, I feel that I’d get more respect in the society. You see, nothing that a Christian does, in honour of what Jesus has done, is a waste. It doesn’t matter how much it might look that way.
When you visit someone who is ill, or recovering from illness, and you’re just there with them, and you don’t know if they know you’re there. Or maybe you don’t know if they recognise you. Or maybe they definitely don’t. And it kills you inside when they look at you as if you’re a stranger. That is no waste. For you are honouring the king of the world. And that’s your job.
It’s the humans we were created to be: the image of God to the world, and as you serve him by loving your fellow man. By doing good. You are doing something of eternal value.
The Christian has the best of both worlds: We serve Jesus, just to enjoy serving Jesus. Just living life, enjoying the tasks and relationships that God has given us to serve in. Even when they’re really hard, we embrace them. But Christians also have the hope that because HIS work in death and resurrection WILL change the world forever, that our work will last into eternity.
If you’re a Christian here today then you can be all about embracing the journey, whatever curves is throws at you. And also confident that nothing that you do for Jesus is in vain. And so if you trust in Jesus here today, hear God saying to you through Paul:
my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.
This is a letter that Roger and Margaret sent to Melissa and me in 2006. not long after their boys — who both trusted in Jesus as their king — had died. I hope you don’t mind me reading just a paragraph to you.
Will we ever fully adjust to life without the boys? We believe the answer is no. The pain of the loss may diminish over time but you just never know when or where the memories, the loneliness, and the tears, will surface yet again.At the end of year Bush Dance for the local school, (at which school Marg still does six RE lessons each Monday), I observed one of our Kids’ Club members having a great time dancing with her Dad. You could say that the next few minutes were not easy! This having been said, we know where the boys are, and we know we will see them again, and we thank and praise God that nothing, but nothing, will ever change that!