Text: 1 Corinthians 15:21–26, 30–42
Theme: Fear not!
Other Lessons: Genesis 45:3–15; Psalm 103:1–13; Luke 6:27–38
Introduction
A. In the Name of the Father…Amen.
B. The Epistle reading serves as our sermon text for this morning.
C. Grace, mercy, and peace be yours from God the heavenly Father through
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
D. Memory verse!
1 Corinthians 15:22 (NASB95)
22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
E. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray:
LSB 741:1-2 Jesus Christ, My Sure Defense
1 Jesus Christ, my sure defense
And my Savior, now is living!
Knowing this, my confidence
Rests upon the hope here given,
Though the night of death be fraught
Still with many an anxious thought.
2 Jesus, my Redeemer, lives;
Likewise I to life shall waken.
He will bring me where He is;
Shall my courage then be shaken?
Shall I fear, or could the Head
Rise and leave His members dead? Amen.
F. James was a Christian living in Sudan.
1. James watched Muslim soldiers kill his mother, his father, and each of
his siblings.
2. The soldiers told James his life would be spared if he became a Muslim.
3. What would you do if you were James?
4. James knew the life-or-death consequences of his response.
5. James was still a young boy.
6. But James also trusted Jesus.
7. James refused to renounce his Savior.
8. The soldiers threw James into a blazing fire alive.
9. In the end, James survived.
10. But the burn scars will never leave his body.
11. Those burn scars will be honored at the resurrection.
G. Paul tells the Corinthians he fought with wild beasts at Ephesus,
presumably because he would not compromise his faith in Christ.
1. Authorities threatened Paul repeatedly during his ministry.
2. But Paul kept preaching Jesus, even when, eventually, he was killed for
doing so.
H. Do you want to imitate little James and the apostle Paul?
1. What Paul says in our Epistle lesson for this morning will help.
2. Paul is very blunt when he says:
1 Corinthians 15:22 (NASB95)
22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
C. There are only two possibilities.
1. Are you dying with Adam or living with Christ?
2. If you are dying with Adam, you ought to fear!
I. Do Not Fear Living and Even Dying for Christ, Because While in Adam All
Die, in Christ All Will Be Made Alive.
I. We all die like Adam because we all sin like Adam.
A. In Adam, all die.
1. All.
2. No exceptions.
3. You have Adam as an ancestor.
4. So the next time you’re at a funeral, take a good long look at the body
in the casket.
5. Unless Jesus returns quickly, the day is coming when that will be you.
B. You can put me in a solid gold casket, and I’ll be just as dead as if
you bury me in a cardboard box.
1. I can cover your grave with a blanket of beautiful bouquets.
2. The flowers will hide the dirt.
3. But they will not change the fact that you’ll still be a lifeless corpse
six feet under the soil.
4. Because you are connected to Adam.
5. Like I am.
6. In Adam, all die.
C. How does the triage nurse in the emergency room determine if the
unresponsive body that just arrived is dead or alive?
1. Feel for a pulse, right?
2. And check for breath.
3. If possible, maybe find out if there are brain waves.
4. If you have a pulse and breath and brain waves, you have life, right?
D. No!!!
1. Instead, you have death waiting to happen.
2. You started dying the moment you were conceived.
3. So did I.
E. But not Adam.
1. Adam started with life that did not have to end in death.
2. Adam enjoyed a carefree existence.
3. And he could eat from apple trees, peach trees, mango trees, and
especially from the tree of life.
F. God wanted Adam to continue living.
1. So God told Adam not to eat from that one tree, that is, the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.
2. From the only tree with deadly fruit.
3. God was protecting Adam.
4. God warned that eating that fruit would kill Adam.
5. Maybe Adam did not believe the consequences could be that dire.
6. God says ignoring His Commandments will kill us.
7. But we’re tempted to believe the consequences could not be that dire.
8. So we sin.
9. And we die.
G. You can try to blame Adam all you want.
1. After all, you inherited sin from him.
2. But Adam isn’t the one listening to the devil when you break one of the
Commandments.
3. You are.
4. Adam isn’t the one who’s harboring anger in his heart toward the person
who makes you mad.
5. Adam doesn’t force you to curse.
6. Or lie.
7. Or covet.
8. Adam is not the one afraid to live for Jesus, because he is dead.
9. You are.
H. You and I are in Adam.
1. And in Adam all die.
2. There is nothing you can do to stop or reverse that reality.
3. As Paul says, we might as well:
1 Corinthians 15:32 (NASB95)
32 If from human motives I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, what does it
profit me? If the dead are not raised, LET US EAT AND DRINK, FOR TOMORROW
WE DIE.
D. Indulge in those sinful desires while you can before you die.
II. But Christ died our death for us, so in Christ all will be made
alive.
A. Unless we have another Adam.
1. Unless there is a human like Adam but unlike us, an Adam who starts life
without any of our sinful inclinations.
2. This Second Adam needs to do what the first Adam failed to do.
3. That is:
a. Heed God’s warnings.
b. And resist every enticement of the devil.
c. On top of this, the Second Adam would have to do something even more
unlikely.
d. He’d have to be willing to die for people who ignore His warnings.
B. Jesus is the Second Adam who volunteers to pay your sin debt in full.
1. Even when your account says you need to die in order to pay your debt.
2. He takes the blame for the sin that kills you.
3. Your sin kills Him instead of you.
4. That in turn leaves you sinless.
C. That is why we clothe the newly baptized in white.
1. It’s also why we cover the bodies at each Christian funeral with a pall.
2. The pall used here at church is white, to tell you the body beneath it
belongs to a purified, baptized child of God.
3. That pall reflects the fact that body beneath it was washed clean and
made white in the blood of the Lamb, the Second Adam.
4. The pall also reminds us where that blood was shed.
5. Someday a pall may cover your dead body.
D. Maybe the pall should also include an altar, where your Lord puts into
your mouth His body that rose from the dead and His blood that pays the
debt it would have taken an eternity for you to pay in hell.
E. In Adam, all die.
1. But you have already died.
a. With Christ.
b. In Baptism.
c. Now in Christ will all be made alive.
F. That’s why when Paul speaks of Christians who have died, he sometime
calls them asleep.
1. Make no mistake; the bodies of Christians die.
2. The wages of sin is death.
3. We will collect our paycheck for the wages we deserve.
4. But when you are in Christ, that death is not permanent.
5. It is only temporary.
6. Like sleep.
G. One Greek word for resurrection (egeirō) means “to be awakened.”
1. If you die before our Lord’s final advent, before the day Jesus returns,
picture Him reaching down into your grave, tapping you on the shoulder, and
saying, “It’s time to wake up.”
2. Then you will wake up from death just like you wake up each morning.
3. You will get up out of your grave like you get up out of your bed.
4. Because whether you’ve been dead only a few minutes or for a few
centuries at His return, you still will be linked to the risen Christ
through your Baptism.
5. And in Christ, all will be made alive.
H. You no longer have death hanging over you, waiting to happen.
1. You have life waiting to be lived, now in this old creation and fully in
the new creation.
I. Yes, death hurts.
1. Death separates you from the people you love.
2. Death is a blot on God’s good creation.
3. So despise death.
4. But do not fear death.
5. Death has been conquered by Christ’s death.
6. Death will be undone.
7. In Christ will all be made alive.
J. That is why James (the boy in the opening illustration) did not have to
fear death when the soldiers threatened to kill him.
1. That is why Paul did not have to fear death when he faced the wild
beasts.
2. That is why you could say at your confirmation,
a. “I am ready to suffer anything, even death, rather than compromise my
confession of faith.”
3. That’s why you can love your enemies instead of hating them.
4. Like Joseph did.
5. His brothers sold him into slavery.
6. But Joseph did not hold it against them.
7. He believed in the God who uses evil to accomplish good, who uses the
evil of death as the gate to life with Him.
8. You are in Christ.
a. Even if they kill you for being a Christian, you won’t stay dead.
b. Not permanently.
K. Perhaps that is why in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul does not say the bodies of
believers are buried.
1. He says they’re planted, “sown” (v 42).
2. Maybe we’ve been using the wrong word.
3. We talk about burying Christian bodies.
4. Maybe we should join Paul in saying we plant them.
5. When you bury something, you put it in the ground and expect it to stay
there.
6. When you plant something, you put it in the ground and expect it to come
out again.
7. We plant the bodies of baptized believers in Christ.
8. That’s why we do not need to fear living for Christ or dying for Him.
L. It’s true that in Adam all die, but in Christ all shall be made alive.
M. Think about this for a moment.
1. In reference to last week’s Epistle lesson, which is right before
today’s text and is connected with what we hear today:
a. If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is in vain:
1. If there is no resurrection, then Jesus is not risen, and Paul and the
other apostles have preached in vain. There is no real, resurrected Jesus
whom they serve.
b. Worse, if Christ is not risen, then we are found false witnesses of God.
1. If there is no belief in the resurrection, and if Jesus did not rise
from the dead, then the apostles are liars.
c. Worse yet, if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still
in your sins!
d. Let’s follow Paul’s logic point-by-point:
1. If there is no principle of resurrection, then Jesus did not rise from
the dead.
2. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then death has power over Him and
defeated Him.
3. If death has power over Jesus, He is not God.
4. If Jesus is not God, He cannot offer a complete sacrifice for sins.
5. If Jesus cannot offer a complete sacrifice for sins, our sins are not
completely paid for before God.
6. If my sins are not completely paid for before God, then I am still in my
sins.
7. Therefore, if Jesus is not risen, He is unable to save you or me.
e. Worse still, if Christ is not risen, then those who have fallen asleep
in Christ have perished.
1. If there is no belief in the resurrection, then the dead in Christ are
gone forever.
f. Worst of all, if Christ is not risen, then in this life only we have
hope in Christ, and we are of all men the most pitiable.
1. If there is no belief in the resurrection, then the whole Christian life
is a big pitiful joke!
2. If we don’t have something beyond this life to look forward to, why
hassle with the problems in being a Christian?
3. One might as well renounce their faith right here and now!
Conclusion
A. This year will see the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War II;
the last allied bombs fell on Germany in April 1945.
1. Yet each year, over two thousand tons of unexploded bombs are still
discovered in Germany, often imbedded underground where they landed and
uncovered in excavations for new building projects.
2. All these decades after the war’s end, these unexploded bombs still have
the potential to kill.
3. A German government unit known as the KMBD has the dangerous job of
defusing them.
B. Some two thousand years ago, Jesus’ death and resurrection won the war
against Satan and sin.
1. Yet we still die:
a. sometimes suddenly, unexpectedly.
b. But not forever.
c. When Christ returns, death itself will finally be defused.
1 Corinthians 15:26 (NKJV)
26 The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. Amen.
C. Let us pray:
LSB 741:6-7 Jesus Christ, My Sure Defense
6 Then take comfort and rejoice,
For His members Christ will cherish.
Fear not, they will hear His voice;
Dying, they will never perish;
For the very grave is stirred
When the trumpet’s blast is heard.
7 Laugh to scorn the gloomy grave
And at death no longer tremble;
He, the Lord, who came to save
Will at last His own assemble.
They will go their Lord to meet,
Treading death beneath their feet.
Text: Public domain
D. Philippians 4:7 (NASB95)
7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your
hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
E. Come Lord Jesus, come quickly.
All of us are waiting and none of us will be disappointed.
The Lord continue to bless us,
shine His face on us,
be gracious to us,
that He lift His countenance upon us,
and give us His peace.
F. In the Name of the Father…Amen.