Introduction:
- He won the greatest Prize . (1 Cor 15:50-53)
1 Thessalonians 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.
Why I Believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture:
- It's the most Straightforward understanding of the biblical language.
- We never see the church in the Tribulation in Revelation.
- God has a track record of Removing His people before He judges the wicked.
- He defeated the greatest Enemy . (1 Cor 15:54-57)
- He gives us the greatest Purpose . (1 Cor 15:58)
Revelation 21:8 - But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:48-00:52
Open up your Bibles with me please to 1 Corinthians 15.
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1 Corinthians 15, we're concluding our series today called "Because Jesus was Raised." And the title of today's message is "We Labor in Victory." So the word of the day is victory. So in thinking about victory I googled what's the greatest victory of all time? Then I realized that was a really dumb way to google that. Like greatest victory like in what category? So I'm like I better get more specific. So I just I googled what's the greatest US military victory of all time.
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History buffs, people that know much more about this than I do would say either the Battle of Yorktown, 1781, right?
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Any fans of that one?
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I'm not history buffs either.
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All right, how about Operation Overlord, 1944?
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They said those are two of the greatest US military victories of all time.
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So I'm like, well, I can tell how that's going to go over in this room, and I was right.
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So greatest sports victories of all time. Do you know what it is? Do you know?
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Yes! Yes, Darla, thank you. A miracle on ice, 1980, US versus Soviets, greatest victory of all time. Do you know what was right behind it? I guess it's subjective.
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Anybody have a guess? 60 Pirates. Oh yeah, so I keep forgetting that the Pirates did used to win.
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So far was that removed from our mind that baseball wasn't even on the list.
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It was boxing. It was Ali versus Foreman, Rumble in the Jungle, 1974.
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But then I was thinking, you know what, people aren't going to care about just sharing things that I Googled, so I was thinking, what's the greatest victory that I had of all time that I could share with them, and then I realized I don't have a lot.
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But I have one kind of.
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And it was many, many years ago.
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I played a lot of tennis.
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Anybody else play tennis here?
03:28-03:29
Anybody play tennis?
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Raise, okay, just a few of you.
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Okay, I used to play tennis, and I remember this one guy in particular challenged me to tennis.
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Like, yeah, that sounds like fun.
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I'll play some tennis with you.
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But he was totally trash talking me, like, weeks leading up to it.
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Like, he's like, "I'm going to destroy you.
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"I'm going to embarrass you.
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"I'm going to humiliate you." And look, I don't mind losing.
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I just don't like having my nose rubbed in it, you know what I'm talking about?
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But this guy was just, he's like, "Oh, I'm gonna destroy you." So I showed up that day, and look, I was never like great, but I could keep up with people who were, okay? So we showed up that day, and I'm like, "All right, here we go." And the game started, and I was just all, "Watcha! Whatcha!" What was that girl that used to scream when she played tennis, what was her name?
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Monica, okay, thank you.
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Yeah, Monica Salas.
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I was totally Monica Salas.
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I was like, "Watch out!" And I was destroying this guy.
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I mean, he never got a point in.
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And I was wondering if he ever saw a tennis racket before that day.
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I was annihilating him to the point that I started to feel bad for him.
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And I had this moment of pity, and I was like, "Look, I don't like having my nose rubbed in it, and I shouldn't be doing that to him." So I started to let up.
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And I realized even my letting up wasn't doing it.
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So I decided to let up even more.
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It got to the point, church, where I was playing against him the way you might teach your four-year-old how to play tennis, that he would hit it, And I'd be like, "Dink," trying to just get it over the net.
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And I'm like, "Oh, please, please just hit it.
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"I don't want to completely destroy you here." Well, when you back off that much playing tennis, you start to make your own mistakes, right?
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And your own mistakes are points for the other guy.
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So guess what he started doing?
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He got points because I was backing off.
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He starts the trash talking again.
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He's like, "Oh yeah, that's what I thought." And I'm like, "All right, chump change, it is on."
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(yells)
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I annihilated him.
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And then I did rub his nose in it.
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And I'm like, "Champ." That's really the only victory story that I got.
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(audience laughs)
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But I'm keeping it.
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So, something I don't have to Google for sure is the greatest victory all time, any category for all of eternity.
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And you probably know what it is.
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It is the day that Jesus Christ walked out of the grave.
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And that's what we're talking about in 1 Corinthians 15, it's resurrection.
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And to the Corinthian church, It was such a crazy idea to think that this body was going to die and then come back as a new body.
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They thought that was crazy.
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And the truth is church, there's a lot of people in churches today that don't think about the idea of resurrection.
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We think, yes, salvation, yeah, and go to heaven.
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Yeah, but this idea that you are going to get a new, eternal, indestructible, glorified, perfect body.
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That's what we're talking about here.
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And last week we saw what's the resurrected body like?
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And this week we're going to learn when do I get it?
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When do I get my glorified resurrected body?
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And the answer is at Jesus' return.
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The dead first and then the living.
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And on that day, for us, that's going to be the day of the greatest victory.
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You're gonna see that in the text today.
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So on your outline, if you're taking notes, which I always encourage, why Jesus' victory is the greatest victory.
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Why is Jesus' victory the greatest?
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I just wanna show you, first write this down.
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Jesus' victory is the greatest victory because he won the greatest prize.
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Look at verse 15.
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First Corinthians 15, he says, "I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable." In other words, he's saying, "Look, we're heading into eternity and God designs special bodies for eternity.
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earth, we talked about this last week, you have a body on earth that is suited for the earth.
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The body you're in right now is perfectly suited to live on this planet.
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This body ain't gonna work in heaven.
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You need a body that's suited for heaven.
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We need spiritual equipment for eternal life there, so we have to be changed.
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Again, we covered that last week.
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We saw that we're like a seed, right?
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Your body's like a seed.
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And when you die, we're going to bury you into the ground and the day is going to come when you rise up like a real seed, like a regular seed, you're going to rise up as something different, something new.
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But here's the question we're gonna be looking at.
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Okay, I got it.
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Die, buried, raised, got it.
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But Jesus is coming back, right?
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So what about the people that are alive when Jesus comes back?
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What about all you seeds that aren't going to be put in the ground, but will be here when Jesus returns?
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Well, look at verse 51, that's where he goes.
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He says, "Behold, I tell you a mystery.
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We shall not all sleep, we shall all be changed.
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Now stop there.
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When we hear the word mystery, we think of like a movie mystery, like a whodunit, like we got to try to figure it out and follow the clues.
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And when the Bible talks about mystery, that's not what that means at all.
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When the Bible talks about a mystery, it's something that was not revealed before, but now is being revealed.
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You know, the fancy systematic theology term we could use here is progressive revelation.
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What's that mean?
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Here's what progressive revelation is.
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God has been revealing his plan over the course of time.
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That when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, it wasn't like, you know, they ate the fruit they weren't supposed to.
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And then immediately Jesus showed up, crucified, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and came back like that week.
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God revealed His plan of salvation over the course of time.
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And because that's the nature of God's revelation, there are obviously some things that we are learning.
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And now that God's word is complete, we have it.
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But in Paul's day, he goes, "I'm gonna tell you a mystery.
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"This is something that has never before been revealed." Like, what is it?
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He says, "We will not all sleep." That's a euphemism for dying.
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We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed.
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When Christ returns, believers alive at the time will not die, but will have their bodies transformed into that body that we discussed last week, and then it is off to heaven.
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So, like, when Christ returns and I'm still alive, I'm gonna get the body and go to heaven.
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Can you describe the process of this body turning into the glorified body?
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What's that process like?
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And it's not a process.
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It's instant.
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Look at verse 52 and 53.
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He says, "In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
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For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
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For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality." Understand that this is going to happen faster than I can tell you.
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He says, first of all, he says, "in a moment." The Greek word for "moment" is "atomos." That's where we get the word "atom." And in the Greek, "atomos" was used to describe something that can't be divided.
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It's something that's so small that you couldn't possibly cut it in half because it's too small to even divide.
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Atomos.
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It's the shortest possible time.
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And then he describes it as the twinkling of an eye.
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Like, well, what does that mean?
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Like the twinkling of an eye.
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One person I read this week said, this gets really scientific, twinkling of an eye refers to the amount of time it takes light to get from your iris to your retina.
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You know how long that is?
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You know how long it takes light to get from your iris to your retina?
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A sixth of a nanosecond.
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You're like, "Well, what's that?" Brace yourself.
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Well, a microsecond is a millionth of a second.
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Okay, that's a microsecond.
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A millionth of a second. A nanosecond is one thousandth of a microsecond.
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And it's a sixth of that.
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So you will get this glorified body instantly.
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And you're like, dude, you could have just led with instantly and that would have been good enough for me.
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Fair enough.
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And then he talks about the last trumpet.
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Did you see that?
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Verse 52, he says at the last trumpet.
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I love that.
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Study your Old Testament passages like Numbers 10.
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God would use the trumpet to call his people together.
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Like, "Hey, everybody." It was like Old Testament version of group text, right?
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"Hey, everybody, we're getting together." And that's what's gonna happen when Jesus returns.
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He's gonna sound the trumpet and God's gonna be like, "Hey, hey, all my people, we are gathering "and it's gonna be awesome.
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"Get together to meet God." Awesome.
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This is what Paul was talking about 1 Thessalonians 4.16 says, "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." That's exactly what Paul is talking about in this passage.
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This is an event that we often call the rapture.
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Rapture is the word used to describe Jesus Christ ascending from heaven to gather His people, those who died and those alive at the time, to be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air to receive their glorified bodies and off to heaven." So when does that take place?
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Ah, that's where the controversy comes in.
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When is the rapture?
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I want to share with you why I believe in a pre-tribulation rapture.
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Now a couple of years ago we went through the book of Revelation, so this is going to be a review for those of you who were with us for that.
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But why do I believe that Jesus will take His people off of the earth before the tribulation events outlined in Revelation?
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Well, the first reason, letter A, it's the most straightforward understanding of the biblical language.
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In Revelation 3.10, Jesus said, "And I will keep you from the hour of trial, of trouble that's coming upon the whole earth." Revelation 3.10, Jesus said that there's this global trial.
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Tribulation is going to be coming on the earth.
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And Jesus said, "Literally, I'm going to remove you from that." Other passages - again, this is just review.
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There's other passages in the New Testament, 1 Thessalonians.
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It's just the most straightforward understanding of the biblical language.
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Letter B, why do I believe in pre-tribulation rapture?
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is because we never see the church in the tribulation in Revelation.
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And we went through the whole book of Revelation, verse by verse.
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And when you go through Revelation chapters 1 through 3, you see "the church, the church, the church, the church, the church, the church, the church, the church, the church..." like, nineteen times the church is mentioned.
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And then interestingly, after Revelation 3, when the tribulation events start to be described, after a quick stop to Heaven, chapters 4 and 5, But you get to the tribulation events, the church isn't mentioned one time.
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Sinners are mentioned, Israel's mentioned, all kinds of people are mentioned, but the church is not mentioned at all during the tribulation events.
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The third reason I believe in a pre-tribulation rapture is this.
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God has this track record of removing His people before He judges the wicked.
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You study your Bible, when God's going to judge people that are rebellious against Him and reject Him and flagrantly sinning, when God's going to judge those people, the first thing He does is get His people out of there.
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That's all through.
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Like, for example, you remember the story of Noah's flood, Genesis 6?
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You know that story?
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And God's like, "Things have gotten so bad, I'm going to flood the earth and start over." And what was the first thing that God did?
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Told Noah to build a boat. Right?
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And then you go over to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
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God says, "I'm about to burn these cities off of the map." What was the first thing He did?
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Get His people out of there.
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Lot, get out of there.
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Remember when Israel was in Egypt during the plagues?
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Remember, what did God do?
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He protected Israel from the plagues that somehow went on Egypt only, but God's people were exempt from that.
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And then you can follow the wandering through the wilderness with Korah's rebellion.
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What is that? Number 16, I believe.
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Other rebels in the wilderness.
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Every time God was judging rebellious people, the first thing He did was get His people out of there.
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He just has His track record of doing that.
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And I believe that God will again separate His people from judgment on sinners by removing His church before the tribulation.
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God does not want the church to be the object of His wrath.
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The Bible is so clear on that.
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So I believe that this rapture event that's being described here happens before the tribulation.
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So at the trumpet, we receive the prize, the promise, the fulfillment of everything Jesus won for us.
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Forgiveness of sin, eternal life, the promise of heaven, That glorified body we've been talking about.
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Can you think of a greater prize?
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Jesus' victory was the greatest victory because He won us the greatest prize.
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Secondly, jot this down, Jesus' victory is the greatest victory because He defeated the greatest enemy.
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He defeated the greatest enemy.
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You're like, "Well, what enemy is that?" specifically in this passage what we're talking about today is death.
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We already saw in 1st Corinthians 15 that death is the enemy. Back in, was it verse 26?
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Death is the enemy. We fear death.
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We avoid it at all costs. And honestly we're uncomfortable even talking about. Death is just devastating.
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And I don't have to sell you on that.
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I imagine most everyone listening to this has lost someone very close to you.
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Whether it was a parent or a grandparent, good friend, child. Death is horrible.
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It's horrible!
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It takes people from us that we love and we need and now they're gone!
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And death is just... it's horrible and there's not a thing we can do about it.
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There's nothing we can do about it.
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I mean, how many of us have been on our faces crying out for God to spare the life of someone And it was their time and they're gone.
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It's the enemy that everyone fears.
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And then we consider also that you're going to die, and I'm going to die, unless Jesus comes first.
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And when He does come, when the resurrection occurs, death is finally and totally defeated for God's people.
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Jesus defeated the greatest enemy.
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To what degree?
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Look at verse 54.
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It says, "When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written," this is from Isaiah 25.8, "Death is swallowed up in victory." Oh, death, where is your victory?
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"Oh, death, where is your sting?" Stop there. To what degree did Jesus defeat death?
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It says that death is swallowed up in victory.
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Death wasn't just smashed or crushed or slapped.
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Swallowed. Opened the mouth, downed the hatch, gone forever.
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Swallowed.
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And then you see the taunt, he goes, "Oh, death, where is your sting?" The word for sting in the Greek was used for bees and for snakes to describe the venomous attack of such creatures.
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And Paul here says that death has a sting and it's gone.
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In other words, In case I lost you somewhere, in the midst of all of this, it's about as easy as we can make it here.
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Death is personified like a bee.
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Do you know what Jesus Christ did on the cross?
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He ripped a stinger out of that bee.
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Now what is a bee without a stinger?
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Annoying, right?
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It's inconvenient.
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A little bit of a pain.
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But nothing serious, right?
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Nothing serious.
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At the cross, Jesus took the stinger out.
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And when He comes back for His people, He's going to take that bee and He's going to swallow it.
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It's gone.
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It is over.
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That's what's happening to death.
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Our greatest enemy is ultimately going to be destroyed.
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You're like, "Alright, you're using some terms here, like with the stinger, and like, help me understand the word picture here." Well, that's exactly what he does.
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Look at verse 56.
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He says the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
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In other words, that stinger on that bee, he says sin is the stinger.
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What's that mean?
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Death has no power unless there's unforgiven sin.
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if you die, and your sin has not been forgiven, then death is an eternal sting.
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But when you die, and you have received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are born again, you are found in Christ, death has no sting.
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He says the power of sin is the law.
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That's Romans 7 type talk.
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does that mean? Well, sin is defined by the law. It's the law of God that shows us that we're sinners. Sin isn't just some concept of, "I have this vague notion of what's right and wrong." We have the Old Testament law where God says, "No, no, this is wrong and this is right. This is always wrong. Don't do that." The law defines sins. We're like, "Yeah, that is clearly wrong, what I'm doing." And see, this is the victory.
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The wages of sin is death, and Jesus paid the wage with his death.
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You see, the power of sin is the law, and Jesus satisfied the demands of the law.
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So when you receive Jesus Christ, again, death is like that bee, just without the stinger.
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That's why in Christ we taunt our greatest enemy, because our greatest enemy is defeated.
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Did you see that?
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Look again at verse 54 and 55.
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Do you see?
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He's like taunting death.
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He's like, "Death has swollen up in victory.
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"Oh, death, where is your victory?
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"Oh, death, where is your sting?
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"Our enemy's defeated." He's like, "Yo, death.
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"Yo, death, you had one weapon, and Jesus came and took that weapon from you.
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Death, you got nothing.
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You got some change?
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Nothing." Then verse 57, he says, "But thanks be to God." Oh, don't gloss over this.
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This could be like the most beautiful verse in the whole chapter.
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He says, "But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." God, did you catch that?
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That should be underlined in every Bible and there will be an usher at the doors to make sure that it is.
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But look at this, it says, "God gives us the victory." Can you wrap your brain around that?
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Think about that.
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You know what happened?
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Jesus Christ came to the earth.
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He was rejected, he suffered and died the most horrible, brutal death anyone could imagine.
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Beaten within an inch of his life and then nailed to a cross to die the slowest possible and most humiliating possible execution that the world's ever known.
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And then three days later, they show up and the stone's removed and He is gone, and He has His glorified body, and through His death and resurrection, God was like, "We're gonna let this be the embodiment of Christ's victory.
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Can we do that for a second?
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That Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead, and God says, "You won.
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You won!
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And Jesus, Jesus takes that victory.
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Jesus takes that victory and he says, "Here, this is for you.
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"I won this for you." He can be walking around the rest of the day.
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See, he has the victory, right?
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He can be walking around the rest of the day saying, "I got the victory, I got the victory." But he knows who did the heavy lifting there, right?
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It was Jesus.
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Jesus won the victory and he says, "Here, I want you to have this.
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I did this for you." So we have the victory over death, not because of what we did, but because of what Jesus did.
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It reminds me of one of my favorite sports stories of all time.
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Jaynauer, you know what I'm talking about.
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1990, Michael Jordan, greatest basketball player of all time, not up for debate by anybody.
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Michael Jordan is the greatest of all time.
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Can I get an amen?
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Well, 1990, Michael Jordan scored 69 points in one game.
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And that same night, he had a rookie teammate named Stacy King, came in late in the game, and he scored one free throw.
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And well, after the press conference, of course the reporters were mobbing Michael Jordan.
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Like what a game, 69 points in one game, what a game.
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But even though the reporters were all over Jordan, Stacey King was able to get his comment in.
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He jumped in and said this, quote, "I will always remember this as the night "that Michael Jordan and I combined to score 70 points."
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(congregation laughing)
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And that's the gospel, right?
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That in heaven, we're gonna be like, "I'm always gonna remember when death was defeated." And like, Jesus is like, "You know, I did all that." Like, yeah, yeah, "But you gave us the victory." And he goes, "Yeah, I gave you the victory." Jesus, we won.
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He says, "Yeah, yeah, we did.
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We did, didn't we?" Greatest enemies defeated.
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Why Jesus' victory is the greatest victory, finally, number three, because He gives us the greatest purpose.
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Because He gives us the greatest purpose.
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He says, verse 58, "Therefore," I love this, do you realize, like, 1 Corinthians 15 is a sermon, and everything that we've talked to, to this point, is the introduction.
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And then his sermon is one verse.
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Because of everything we've studied, because we know that Jesus was raised, because it motivates our conduct, because the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the promise that we will be resurrected, because of what our resurrected body is going to be like, because Jesus defeated death, therefore, because of all of that, he says, "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." He says, "Be steadfast." That means don't get distracted.
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He says, "Be immovable." That word for immovable carries the idea of being rooted to something.
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Being attached to something so that you can't be separated.
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And he says, "Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, because of the promise of our resurrection church, stay in the battle, never quit, use all of your time here on the earth.
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Whatever time you have, use it to serve Jesus Christ because we have the greatest purpose because it all matters.
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Everything we do for Jesus, everything we do for Jesus matters.
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Life is going to be hard.
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And for most of us pre-COVID, That was a concept.
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Now it's reality.
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I want you to listen to me very closely because what I'm talking about has nothing to do with the virus.
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What I'm talking about has everything to do with persecution.
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In the name of safety, this is for your own good, this is about keeping people safe.
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In the name of virtue signaling, We're just trying to protect others in light of the media lies of inflated numbers.
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That's what I'm talking about here, church, that we've already seen worship go from, you shouldn't do that to you can't do that.
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And to our friends up North, it's illegal to do that.
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And if you think, oh, not in America, not in America, You haven't been paying attention, have you?
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It's coming here.
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Have you been following the story with Pastor James Coates?
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Of Grace Life Church in Alberta, Canada.
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Have you heard this story?
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Have you heard?
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Here's a pastor in Canada, again our neighbors to the north, He was jailed for a little over a month for having church services.
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That was his crime.
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Well, church attendance has exponentially increased in his church as a result.
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Because what the world means for evil, God means for good, right?
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Have you been following what's happened since?
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The government, the Canadian government has come in and put a fence up around the church building.
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And even as the church was gathering, even outside, they sent 200 police officers.
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Let me ask you, do you think that's going to stop those people from worshipping?
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Ehhh!
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Oh, you're going to stop God at work, are you? Good luck with that.
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But I just have to ask you.
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What are you going to do when that happens here?
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Now, what are you going to do?
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Listen, not, "What are we going to do?" What are you going to do? I know what I'm going to do.
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What are you going to do?
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What are you going "When standing for Jesus cost me something, I'm out of here?" Is that what a disciple does?
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I get to remind you.
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I referenced Revelation already.
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Remember when we got to the end there, Revelation 21 gives us a list of the people that are going to hell.
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Ultimate final, eternal lake of fire hell.
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Revelation 21.8 says this, look at this.
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But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death." Did you happen to notice the first name on the list?
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The first category on the list?
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Did you see what it is?
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Did you see it?
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What's the first category?
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Say it.
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Cowards.
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And you know, I'm going to be honest with you.
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I've been studying Revelation a long time, and I would get to that, and I would always be like, "Well, that's interesting. Cowards are first on the list.
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Boy, that's really interesting." Like, what kind of cowards? Who's that talking about?
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Gosh, what?
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I totally get it now.
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That these events that are happening, there's going to be a sifting.
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We're going to find out who's sitting here and who's watching here.
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We're going to find out who's really committed to Christ and who's not.
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Who's committed to warming a seat at church or whatever.
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We're going to find out real quick.
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I've got to warn you, first on the list into hell are the people that were too scared to truly follow Jesus Christ.
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Like, "Well, what are we going to do, Jeff? What are we going to do?" I'll tell you what we're not going to do.
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Waiver.
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We're not going to stop.
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We're not going to forsake God's call.
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We're not going to abandon the Great Commission because we have the greatest purpose.
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So don't move.
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Don't chicken out.
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He says, "Always abound in the work of the Lord." Did you see that?
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the word, "Always, always abounding in the work of the Lord." Like, well, question, what if it costs me?
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Always!
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What if they arrest me for this?
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Always!
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What if they kill me?
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Always!
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There's no excuses here, because we have the greatest purpose.
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So listen, if you're sitting here, you're watching this on the stream, and you don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and everything that means, then I would say, don't bother.
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Just don't bother.
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Turn off your computer, go home.
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Don't bother.
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If you don't believe this, don't waste your time.
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But if you do, if you do believe and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and you do believe in your resurrection, then go hard.
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That's what he's saying, go hard.
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It's not in vain.
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He's saying it all matters.
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You know, we've heard a bunch of new terms through COVID that just drive me insane.
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Like social distancing.
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Oh, I hate that word.
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Sorry, if you love that word, no condemnation.
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I'm just, I hate that term.
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But you know what I hate even worse than that?
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Essential worker.
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Oh, do I hate that.
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Do you realize how insulting that is?
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Like, you're important.
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You're kind of optional.
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You're essential.
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You can kind of do without you.
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What?
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We're all essential!
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And I'm going to tell you where we're really essential is in God's kingdom.
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Every single follower of Jesus Christ is an essential worker in God's kingdom, whatever He's called you to do.
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So every second spent serving Him, every prayer with somebody hurting, every penny that's given to God, it all matters.
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That's what he said.
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Labor is not in vain when you're doing it for Jesus.
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Because it all matters, we always abound in the work of the Lord.
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That's why church, that's why we disciple our children.
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That's why we go to small group to sharpen each other.
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That's why we gather here on Sunday morning to serve God by serving people.
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That's why we're involved in the community.
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That's why we're witnessing to people at work.
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Because God says it all matters.
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Because we have the greatest purpose.
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So Jesus won the greatest prize in giving us eternal life.
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Jesus conquered the greatest enemy when he defeated death.
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Jesus gave us the greatest purpose in kingdom work.
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And this is our reminder that everything we do as a church, every single thing that we do as a church, everything is from a position of victory.
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So if we go through this and you're thinking about like persecution and stuff happening, and if you're sitting here and you're like, "Well, gee, I hope we win. I really hope we win." I'd be like, "Dude, you have not listened to a word that I've said.
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We already won.
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We won the day Jesus Christ walked out of that grave.
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And if you listen really closely, I'm convinced.
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I mean, you listen really close.
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That trumpet's been taken out of the case.
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And I can almost hear the inhale, because that trumpet's about to blow.
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Are you ready for that?
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Are you ready to go to glory?
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Are you ready to put on that glorified body?
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But when that trumpet sounds, may it be while we are laboring in victory.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we thank you.
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That God, we are not a church that is fighting for our lives.
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We are a church that's been given eternal life.
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And Father, we are not a church that's trying to win.
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And we are a church that's been handed a victory.
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Father, I don't know if we have another five minutes or another five years.
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But Father, I do believe that soon and very soon, we're going to hear that trumpet.
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"And this perishable shall put on imperishable." This mortality is going to put on immortality.
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Father, in whatever minutes or hours we have left, we labor, Father, in victory, because we know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain.
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God, we thank you.
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We thank you, Father, for the victory in Jesus Christ.
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We pray, Father, that you would encourage us and strengthen us, That you would just, you would cement our convictions that we truly are steadfast and immovable.
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Not in an arrogant or conceited way, Father, but in a, we're just doing what God has called us to do.
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Let that resolve be our witness.
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Father, bring people to Christ through these days of turmoil.
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Use us how you will, Father, we pray in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read 1 Cor 15:50-58
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Do you believe in the rapture? If yes, when do you believe it will happen? If not, why not?
What, specifically, is “the work of the Lord” (1 Cor:58)? How is this carried out in our pandemic age?
What can we be doing NOW to be “steadfast and immovable” when persecution comes (1 Cor:58)? How can the church help prepare people for this?
Breakout
Pray for one another.