Well it is so wonderful to be with you; it's wonderful to be back in Singapore. Luella and I love Singapore; we always talk to people about how much we enjoy being here. I think this is my fourth time being here, and so this feels like home. It's wonderful to come back to a place several times. I spend much of my life going to places I've never been before and being with people I don't know, so it is it wonderful to be here with you. There is something that you do every day; in fact, you do it multiple times a day.
Something That Shapes Your Life
I think most of us don't realize that we do it, but this thing that I'm talking about really does shape the course and direction of your life. It's the basis of the decisions that you make. It's the foundation of your highest joys and your deepest sorrows. It's why you say the things you do, why you make the choices that you make, why you respond and react the way that you do. It's an intensely human thing to do; everybody does it. Are you wondering what I'm talking about? Every day, in multiple situations and in multiple times, you interpret your world - you make sense out of what is going on in your life.
Human beings made in the image of God do not live life based on the facts of their experience, but they live life based on their interpretation of the facts. That's why you can have two people in the very same situation who have dramatically different responses. I've used this illustration many times. Luella and I will go to a movie together; one of "her" movies. And in the middle of the movie I'll hear Luella doing this - (sniffling noises). She hasn't caught a cold; she's having an emotional reaction to the film.
About then, I'm thinking, "This is the best candy I've ever had! I need more of this candy in my life!" As we leave the theater, Luella says, "Oh Paul, wasn't that a wonderful movie?" And I say, "The candy! Did you taste the candy!?" Two people in the very same situation with dramatically different responses. Or I was in New York with our granddaughter Lily. And we spend many days in New York with her. And out of the blue little, Lily walks up to me and she says, "Grandpa - I'm a girl; Mommy's a girl; Grandma's a girl.
You're not a girl - you're a boy! Daddy's a boy." And off she walked. Now that's an amazing thing that's going on. This little girl is thinking about her identity. She's interpreting the world. She's thinking about relationships and who people are and how we're the same and how we're different. Very significant. You're always making sense of your world. In fact, I want to say something that will surprise you. Everybody lives by faith. The most agnostic, irreligious person, lives by faith. Everybody wants to think that they know the truth.
Everybody wants to think that they're right. Everybody hooks their hope to something. Everybody wants to be sure - that they're living the right way, that they're making the right choices, that they're doing the right things. Everybody wants to understand the mysteries of life. Everybody lives by faith. Christians aren't different because they live by faith - Christians are different because of the object of their faith. I was riding home on a bus from New York City. The cheapest transportation between Philadelphia and New York City is the Chinatown bus.
We live in Chinatown, and it's just ten American dollars each way - very cheap. And I got on the bus late and the only seat on the bus was in the very last row of the bus. The reason why it was the only seat left on the bus was because it was the seat next to the bathroom. It's a glorious place to ride home to Philadelphia. I had the joy of being in the seat that your knees get bumped every time somebody goes to the bathroom. I know exactly how many people went to the bathroom. Twenty eight. So I'm sitting next to this young man and we began to talk and he asked me what I did, and I said, "Well I'm a pastor and an author," and immediately he got a bit tense, and he says, "I don't believe in any of that stuff!"
I said, "What stuff?" He said, "All that Christian stuff. I don't believe in any of that. In fact, I don't believe in God. In fact, I don't believe that there's such a thing as truth. I don't believe in right or wrong. I don't believe in anything." And you know what I was thinking as I was listening to him? That's a belief! You surely do believe - you believe in not believing! And I said to him, "How do you know you're right?" I said, "Do you understand? You are living by faith, just like me. How do you know?
How do you know that, all by yourself, you've come up with what is true?" Now why am I talking about this? Because I want to look with you, for our times together, at First Corinthians 15. First Corinthians 15 is not in the Bible to be distant, abstract, impersonal theology. In fact, the theology in Scripture is never an end in itself; the theology in Scripture is a means to an end, and the end is a transformed life. And First Corinthians - the entire letter - is about what it means to live every day in light of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In fact, the first chapter of First Corinthians makes this contrast between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God - the wisdom of the world and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul is arguing there's only two kinds of people in the entire world: people who hook their lives to the wisdom of the world and people who hook their lives to the foolishness of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what he does throughout the wonderful chapters of First Corinthians is unpack for us what it means to believe the gospel.
Hear this: belief is not just something you do with your brain; belief is something you do with your life. Belief is not just something you think; belief is something that you live. And so it's his desire, it's his passion, to lay out what it looks like to live in light of the gospel. And the crescendo of that conversation is First Corinthians 15. Because he wants you to understand: you will never ever know what it means to live in light of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ - in your marriage, in your parenting, in your leisure, in your work, with your finances, with your sexuality - you will never know what it means to live in light of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ if you don't understand the power of the implications of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Because what he argues is that apart from the resurrection, our faith is useless. Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Christianity descends down to being just another belief, just another philosophy on the shelf of philosophies. It's the resurrection that changes everything! So he wants you to understand the implications - the practical, everyday implications - of living in light of the gospel of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's his crescendo of his practical discussion of what it means to live the gospel.
Let me take you to those first verses again. I want to read one more time for: "Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
He Appeared to Five Hundred
Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me." You have your Bible in front of you, or your electronic pocket-sized Bible called a phone. Look at the first few words: "Now I would remind you..." Think with me for a moment. Why would any preacher at any time ever have to remind any Christian of something as shocking and miraculous as the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
Why? You think something as powerful and as glorious and as miraculously unusual as the resurrection, once you knew about it, you would never have to be reminded about it again, that you would be thinking about and talking about that forever. You know when you have something amazing happen to you, you can't wait to talk about it. The people around you get tired of hearing you talk about it. They wish you'd stop talking about it. Why would it be necessary for Paul to say, "It's my passion to remind you of the message of the resurrection of Jesus Christ."
Well he's not talking about the fact that in your theological system you would forget that Jesus rose again. What he's talking about is that in the way you live your life, you would forget the power and the glory and the practicality of the resurrection. What he's speaking to is what I would call gospel amnesia. That in the press of everyday life, in the press of marriage, in the press of parenting, in the busyness of career, in the busyness of your weekly schedule, that you would forget who you are and that you would forget what you have been given.
That you would forget the amazing thing that has been done for you - that God actually harnessed the forces of nature and controlled the events of human history, so at a certain time his Son would come and live a perfect life and die an acceptable death and rise again conquering sin and death. He did all of that for you so that every single thing in your life would be different. That it would radically change the way you think about marriage, that it would radically change the way you think about parenting, that it would radically change the way you think about your education, that it would radically change the way you think about your finances, that it would radically change the way you think about your sexuality.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ, properly understood, is meant to change every single thing in your life. But it doesn't always, because we forget who we are. We forget what we've been given. We forget what God has done for us. We forget that Jesus conquered death so that you would know life, not just life eternal, but abundant satisfying life in the here and now. You see, if you don't understand that, if you don't understand that life has been given to you - life right here right now - you will search for life where it can't be found.
Because everybody is looking for life. Everybody is interested in life. Everybody is running after life. Everybody. And if you don't understand that you've been given life vertically, you will seek for life horizontally. Wives, look at me. If you're a wife in the room, raise your hand. Ladies, hear this: your husband should love you. He should nourish and cherish you. But he has no ability to give you life. The job of your husband is not to make you happy. The job of your husband is not to give you worth.
Because if you ask that of your husband, you are turning that poor man into your own personal Messiah. You have a Messiah; he doesn't happen to be sitting next to you right now! It doesn't work! The burden that's placed on marriage when people forget that they've been given life, life abundant, and they try to suck life from the person they're married to. It never works! If you're a parent, your children haven't been given to you to give you identity. So many parents are trying to live through their children.
And you get an identity and reputation from your children's successes. You want your children to be your little trophies. You polish them up because you think that that gives you worth. Listen, asking your children to be your identity is a miserable place to find identity! In case you didn't realize it, our children don't get up in the morning and say, "How today can I give my mom and dad worth? What thing could I do to give them reason for living?" Children never say that! You're parenting little self-sovereigns who are full of themselves; they actually don't care about your identity.
Your career is not meant to give you life. There are so many things in your career over which you have no control. It's a dangerous place to look for life. My second son was the art director of a major pharmaceutical firm; very, very gifted young man. And one day, he was called into the office of his boss. His boss was actually a bit emotional and said, "The higher boss up in New York City has decided to downsize. He just picked a hundred fifty names and you're one of them." His boss looked at Ethan and he said, "I'm so sorry.
I feel like I'm firing one of the smartest people I've ever worked with." Like that, his career was gone. It's a dangerous place to look for life. Your possessions can't give you life. Physical, inanimate things have no ability whatsoever to give you life. They can't do it. And people keep adding possessions, they keep buying things in hope that one of those things will satisfy the heart. Listen: earthly, created, physical things have no ability to give you life. Earth will never be your Savior! It won't work; it won't work.
That's why the reminder is so important. That's why Paul is so concerned as he looks around at the Corinthian church and sees evidence of gospel amnesia, evidence of people who are in the struggles that they're are in, making the decisions that they're making, doing the dysfunctional things they're doing, because they've forgotten the resurrection of Jesus Christ and its radical implications for the way you think about your identity and the way you live your life. Paul has always been a sweet and tender and loving pastor, longing for his people to understand the rest and the motivation and the joy and the contentment and the satisfaction that comes when you understand the life that is yours because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Matthew 6 and Treasure
There are a couple great examples of this in Scripture. One is found there in Matthew 6, verses 19 through the end of the chapter. You may want to look there. Near the end of Jesus's conversation there, he talks about worry and anxiety, and he says, "Why do you worry? You have a Heavenly Father who knows your needs," And then he says something very interesting. He says, "That worry stuff, that anxiety stuff, that's Gentile's stuff." Now what does he mean by that? He means people who don't know God, people who don't believe in God, it makes sense if they worry; worry makes sense.
If you don't know God, you better worry, because every day you have to load your entire welfare of your life on your own shoulders. Every day you have nobody to depend on, nobody to trust, nobody to look to, but yourself. How burdensome is that? No wonder you're afraid. But worry for a Christian is always the result of gospel amnesia. Because if you understand what you have been given, if you understand who you are, if you understand what Jesus has done it, lifts the burden of worry. Jesus is saying, "There is, for you, a Heavenly Father.
He is the Lord of Lord and King of Kings. He is the great Creator. He is the sovereign One. He will care for you! Why would you worry?" Anybody in this room struggle with or worry? Don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about. You know you do. You know you lay in bed sometimes not being able to sleep because you're worried about the next day. You wake up the morning and you put that catalogue of "what ifs" through your brain. That's gospel amnesias stuff. If you're a parent, you load the entire burden of the welfare of your children on your shoulders.
Listen: you do not carry the burden of the welfare of your children; your Savior does! You're but a tool in his hands. You carry the burden of finances as if there was no God who cares for you, as if he has never promised to provide. It makes things burdensome for you. I know what that's like. When I was early in ministry, Luella and I lived the life of a poor pastor and his wife. We founded a little church and we didn't have much money. And that was burdensome to me. I will confess, I worried as if I didn't have a Father.
And we got, in the mail, an envelope with a check for a hundred dollars. To me, that was like a million dollars. I no more than opened that check and I had spent it 15 different ways. Luella shockingly said to me, "You know, God's taking care of us. Maybe we ought to just give this money to someone else." I thought I was married to somebody from Mars! I'm thinking, "What are you talking about?!?! You have lost your mind!!" No, she hadn't lost her mind. She had remembered her identity. She was resting in God's provision.
We took that money, we bought groceries for a needy family, and gave it to them. I have never found in my life shopping for food would be more difficult. I tend to like to shop for food that will go in my mouth. Where is there evidence of worry in your life? Worry is the result of resurrection amnesia. There's another example. It's in Second Peter chapter one, verses 3 through 9. Peter argues that there are people who really do know the Lord but whose lives are ineffective and unproductive. Their lives are not producing the normal fruit of faith, the expected fruit of faith.
You expect certain things in the life of a believer, and those things don't appear in these people's lives. And when you read the passage you wonder, Why would a Christian be unfruitful and unproductive? Well Peter tells us. He says this: "They're near-sighted and blind, having forgotten that they were cleansed from their past sins." You know what he's saying? They've forgotten who they are and they've forgotten what they've been given. Gospel amnesia. When you forget who you are, when you forget what you've been given, you are a sitting duck for temptation.
You are susceptible to all the surrounding temptations of this fallen world. You see, because when you forget who you are in Christ, you quit pursuing what belongs to you in Christ. Let me say that again, very important statement: When you forget who you are in Christ, you quit pursuing what belongs to you in Christ. Now I would ask you: is there, in your life, evidence of gospel and resurrection amnesia? Worry? Looking for life where it can be found? Areas of life where your life is unfruitful and unproductive?
Maybe the grace you're being given tonight is the grace of reminder. Maybe you are in this room by God's sovereign plan because you too need to be reminded of who you are and what you have been given. Now that is wonderful important stuff and it's just the first four or five verses of the passage. We will be here till June. Let me take you a little bit further: "Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain.
(Now listen to this) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received." When Paul thinks about life, when he thinks about all the things that make up everyday life, he says, "The most important thing in life to me, the thing of first importance to me, is the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Nothing is more important to me than this." If I would watch the video of the last six weeks of your life, and I would watch the moments when you're happy and the moments when you're sad, the moments when you're irritated or angry, when I would watch the things you say and the things you do, what would I conclude is most important in life to you?
Maybe it's your career, and the thing that drives you, the most significant thing, it becomes the basis of your major decisions in life, the thing that drives you, is your career. Or maybe you're a single person, and the thing that drives you is the hope of marriage. And you are putting your identity and your future hope in the fact that somebody will find you or you will find somebody and you will convince that person that you are a glorious human being and they will marry you. What is of most importance to you?
Paul is arguing that more important than your marriage, more important than your parenting, more important than your career, more important than your education, more important than your gifts and abilities, more important than all of those things is the message of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now why does he say that? Well he says that because of what I said when I began talking to you this evening: that there is something that everyone in this room is carrying around that helps them make sense out of life.
Everyone Is a Theologian
I say this I think every time I speak. Everyone in this room is a theologian. Everyone in this room is a philosopher. Everyone in this room is an archaeologist and you will dig through the mound of your existence to make sense out of life. Everybody is carrying some organizing thoughts, some organizing principle, that gives your life tracks to run on, that helps to make the decisions you make, that helps you respond the way you respond, deal with the problems in your life, that gives you joy or produces in you sorrow - everybody.
And if you call yourself a believer, a Christian, Paul is arguing the thing that is most important is that the gospel of Jesus Christ - with the resurrection at its core - is the thing that you carry around that now makes sense out of life to you. It'll make sense of your finances. I am convinced that a good financial existence doesn't begin with budget. Did you hear what I said? I'm causing trouble right now. A good financial existence does not begin with budget. It begins with the gospel. Because the Gospel can free you from two things.
First - love of money. Because if love of Jesus Christ dominates your heart, love of money can't. I'm serious - it'll free you from love of money. Second thing: it will free you from the lie that physical possessions can bring contentment to your heart. There are so many people that think, "If I only acquire the next thing, if I only get the next thing, then I can quit spending because then I'll be happy." Debt is not first a condition of what's in your wallet; bebt is first a condition of the heart.
People spend, spend, spend, buying things they don't need, wrapping up more possessions, hoping that somehow, some way they'll finally be satisfied, and it never works! Now I know I'm in Singapore. This entire city state is a mall. You have been "mall-ed." It's an amazing thing! I was telling Chris today that Luella and I I took a bit of a walk. We're staying at the Marriott Tang Plaza there on Orchard Road. We are surrounded by the most amazing upscale shopping ever. And there was one block, the entire block was high-end watch stores.
I'm talking, in those stores, there were like seven or eight of them lined up, there's not a watch under ten thousand dollars. And a couple of those stores, you can go in and pay two hundred thousand dollars for a watch. A WATCH!!!! W-A-T-C-H. Now you know there is something deeply broken inside of you no matter how much money you have, if you are paying $200,000 for a watch!!! There's eight of those stores together. Why? Because people are buying them! Your life better be made up of something more than work, eating and shopping.
Because you'll end up fat and in debt and very tired. See, the gospel frees you from that. Listen: if you find it easier to buy a blouse that you don't need, or a pair of trainers that you don't need than you do putting money in the plate at your church to support the work of the gospel, you have a resurrection problem. Something has become more important to you than what is truly important. You know this is true for most of us. It's much easier for us to spend on ourselves than to give for the needs of others.
Is that not true? You refuse to shake your head. It's true. It's true. Now here's the struggle. This side of eternity, it's very hard to keep what God says is important important in your heart. Let me say that again: this side of eternity, it's very hard to keep what God says is important important in your heart. What happens is things rise in levels of importance way beyond their true importance and they began to command your heart and control your decisions. Your job is very important, but it must not be the most important thing in your life.
If you're married, your marriage is very important, but it must not be the most important thing in your life. If you're a parent, your children are very significant and important, but they must not be the most important thing in your life. If you have possessions, that's important, you must steward your possessions, but they must not be the most important thing in your life. If you're pursuing your education, your education is important. I believe in education, I was a seminary professor for 20 years.
I believe in education but it must not be the most important thing in your life. Because the gospel must be; it must be the means by which you understand life. You understand who you are and you understand what is important. First Corinthians 15 is in the Bible so that you would know what is the most important thing in all of life, and you would remember, and it would shape every decision that you make. What is important to you? If you're at the end of a week, and you look back and say, "That was a wonderful week!" why would you say that?
What is it that makes you say that? Or if you're at the end of a day and you say, "That was a terrible day, I hope I never have to live a day like this again" What is the most important thing? Some of you know that over the last two years I've suffered greatly physically. Six surgeries in two years, lost 65% of my kidney function, never to return. It's been hard. And in the midst of this, I was confronted with the fact that my physical health and my productivity had become too important to me, that what I thought was faith in Christ wasn't faith in Christ at all.
It was that I was, for my age, very healthy and strong and able to produce. I don't think till I got sick, I was ever tired today day my life. I only went to bed because people told me to. I used to see that sleep was a necessary interruption to otherwise productive day. And then I got sick, rendered weaker than I've ever been in my life. There was a bit of a panic inside of me. "How can I do what God has called me to do? How will this happen? What sense does it make that in my moment of greatest influence, literally worldwide influence, influence I never thought I would have, that I'm rendered weaker than I've ever been before!"
What the Resurrection Gives You
Listen: the only thing that will solve that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The only thing that will solve that is understanding what the resurrection of Jesus Christ gives you. In these two years, I had this amazing experience that confronted me at the deepest level. These two years of utter suffering have been the two most productive years in my entire ministry. In fact, that book that Chris held up was written during that suffering. This may sound unusual to you. When that book was delivered, I held that book in my hands, I went upstairs and I said to Luella, "I don't remember writing this book."
Literally, I don't remember writing this book. And for the first time, after 17 books, I sat down and I read a book that I had written from cover to cover. That's what the power of the resurrection is able to do in your life. I've been confronted with the fact - this will be unusual to some of you - that God doesn't need me to be healthy to use me. In fact, his grace is sufficient. It's made perfect where? In our weakness. And when you're there, when you believe deeply in the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it liberates you from the fear of things that would not only make you afraid, that would lead you into paralytic depression.
That's why the message of this passage is so important. Let me read a little bit further for you. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures." When Paul says, "Here's the important message - are you listening to me? - he doesn't talk about what you do for God; he talks about what God has done for you. The humbling core message of Christianity is that hope is never found in your religiosity.
Hope is never found in your religious duty. Hope is found in the radical things that God in love has done for you. Every other religion tells you that there are things that you can do to achieve acceptance with God. Every other religion tells you there are things you can do to achieve life. Every other religion says there are things that you could do to find unity with God. And Paul says, "No no no no no!" The core message of Christianity is that there's nothing you could ever do to achieve acceptance with God.
There's nothing you could ever do to buy life. There's nothing you could ever do to find hope. God had to do a radical thing. First, sending his son to earth to live a perfectly righteously life. Next, sending his son to a cross to die in your place. Next, rising him from the dead to conquer sin and death, because there is no way possible for you to achieve acceptance with God or to know life here and now and live forever on your own. Now why is that true? Here's the humbling message. Are you ready for it?
Are you ready for me to hurt your feelings? Your biggest problem in life is you. The greatest danger in your life is you. The thing that we need to be rescued from - are you ready? - is us. Because there's something broken inside of us. And so we need to be rescued from us. It's the humbling message of the gospel. I am my biggest problem. If you're a husband and you are yelling at your wife, you're not yelling at your wife because she's a sinner. You're yelling at your wife because you are. It's always what's inside of you that causes you to do what you do.
The Bible says you live out of the heart; the heart always shapes, shepherds and directs the things that you do. Now, I don't think we actually believe that. If you asked little Johnny why he pushed his sister Susie so hard that she fell and hit her head against the wall and began to cry, Johnny's not going to say, "Well mother, I'm a sinner. I have violence in my little heart. You should expect worse from me." No, he doesn't say that. Who does Johnny talk about? Parents, you know this. Johnny doesn't talk about Johnny.
He talks about Susie, because he thinks his biggest problems in life are outside of him. My brother Tedd tells this wonderful story of his son beginning to learn to drive. He goes off one evening with the car, comes back walking. That's a bad sign! And Tedd says to his son, "Where's the car?" He said, "It's up on the mountain." He said, "Why is it there?" Now listen to this explanation. He said, "I was driving and the car just went off the road." It's an amazing thing! The car just took over and said, "I'm going to crash you."
Now how human is that? You're irritable and you say, "I'm not feeling well" or "It's been a busy week" or "It's my personality." If you got nothing left, you kick the dog. Because you don't want to think that what you do actually comes out of you. I said this afternoon to the pastors, "Have you ever said something like this, 'Oh I didn't mean to say that'? What would be more biblical to say is, 'Please forgive me for saying what I meant.'" Right? Because if it hadn't been in your heart, it wouldn't have come out of your lips.
Listen: the message of the resurrection is that God would go to such extents because we cannot rescue ourselves from ourselves. We are people in desperate need of divine intervention. There is no more powerful glorious picture of intervention than the resurrectio
