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Apr 25, 2021

Live Your Most Pitiable Life Now

Live Your Most Pitiable Life Now

Passage: 1 Corinthians 15:12-19

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Let Us Not Mock God with Metaphor

Keywords: faith, sin, empty, in vain, pitied

Sometimes imagining the alternative to a view we hold can sharpen our thinking about that view. It can also help us feel the weight and worth of that view were it deemed to be untrue. Paul takes a curious approach to a discussion of the resurrection by considering what would be true if the resurrection were untrue. Of what value is contemplating the opposite of what is central to following Jesus? Let’s see.

Readings & scripture

PREPARATION: 1 Peter 1:3-4; 8 ESV & Lamentations 3:22-23
LEADER: 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,
ALL: 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

PRAYER: To Live In Christ
LEADER: Jehovah God, creator and upholder of all things. It is our privilege to be under the care of your wisdom righteousness, mercy, and grace.
ALL: It is the discovery of Your goodness and mercy alone that can banish our fears, allure us into Your presence and help us to confess sin. For in You there is mercy and kindness. Exceeding riches through the finished work of Your Son.

LEADER: May we always feel our need of Jesus. Find all joy and strength in Him. O Blessed Spirit, enliven our hearts. Renew our mind. Work in us the image of the heavenly.

ALL: That we may know Christ and live in this good news. Thy kingdom come.

ILLUSTRATION: After the Fall (Arthur Miller)
You know, more and more I think that for many years I looked at life like a case at law, a series of proofs.

When you’re young, you prove how brave you are, or smart; then, what a good lover; then, a good father; finally, how wise, or powerful or what-the-hell-ever.

But underlying it all, I see now…there was a presumption.

That I was moving on an upward path toward some elevation, where-God knows what-I would be justified, or even condemned…a verdict anyway.

I think now that my disaster really began when I looked up one day…and the bench was empty. No judge in sight.

And all that remained was the endless argument with oneself, this pointless litigation of existence before an empty bench. Which, of course, is another way of saying…despair.
And, of course, despair can be a way of life; but you have to believe in it, pick it up, take it to heart, and move on again.

Instead, I seem to be hung up. And the days and the months and now the years are draining away.

A couple of weeks ago, I suddenly became aware of a strange fact. With all this darkness, the truth is that every morning when I awake, I’m full of hope! With everything I know…I open my eyes. I’m like a boy! For an instant there’s some unformed promise in the air. I jump out of bed, I shave, I can’t wait to finish breakfast…

…and then, it seeps in my room…my life and its pointlessness.

And I thought...if I could just corner that hope…find what it consists of…and either kill it for a lie…or really make it mine.

CENTRAL TEXT: 1 Corinthians 15:12-19
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

BENEDICTION: Romans 16:25-27
LEADER: 25 Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages 26 but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—

ALL: 27 to the only wise God be glory for evermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Sit down for a moment and, so to speak, have coffee with your inner atheist: It may require a bit of reflection but how do you think history would be different if there had been no resurrection, no belief in a resurrection? How would your own story be different if you’d never heard of the idea that there was a man who was also God who had died and been raised again? How would you think of life differently? 
  2. Put in your own words all the implications Paul is drawing out if Jesus Christ had in fact not been raised. If it isn’t true, what then becomes true of your faith in it, those who proclaim it? What becomes true of sin? What becomes true of death?
  3. So why do you believe in it, find any encouragement or comfort in it? What leads you to think your faith is not in vain?
  4. What are features of that “pitiable” life--what others would pity you for if the resurrection isn’t true--if in fact it is true? That is, what kind of life believes in the resurrection? How can you spot one? How does resurrection shape the way you respond to the ordinary (and extraordinary) parts of life--relationships, disappointments, achievements, devastations, illnesses, estrangements, thrills, etc?

QUOTES:

  • You know, more and more I think that for many years I looked at life like a case at law, a series of proofs. When you’re young, you prove how brave you are, or smart; then, what a good lover; then, a good father; finally, how wise, or powerful or what-the-hell-ever. But underlying it all, I see now...there was a presumption. That I was moving on an upward path toward some elevation, where-God knows what-I would be justified, or even condemned...a verdict anyway. I think now that my disaster really began when I looked up one day...and the bench was empty. No judge in sight. And all that remained was the endless argument with oneself, this pointless litigation of existence before an empty bench. Which, of course, is another way of saying...despair. And, of course, despair can be a way of life; but you have to believe in it, pick it up, take it to heart, and move on again. Instead, I seem to be hung up. And the days and the months and now the years are draining away.  from Arthur Miller’s After the Fall
  • If Christ was not raised from the dead, we would never have heard of him. Tens of thousands were crucified in the Roman era; of all of these, the name of Jesus of Nazareth is the only one known to us.  Fleming Rutledge
  • I know what you must be saying to yourselves
    If that's the way she feels about it why doesn't she just end it all?
    Oh, no, not me, I'm not ready for that final disappointment
    Because I know just as well as I'm standing here talking to you
    That when that final moment comes and I'm
    Breathing my last breath, I'll be saying to myself
        Is that all there is, is that all there is?
    If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
    Let's break out the booze and have a ball
    If that's all there is. - Peggy Lee, “Is that all there is?”
  • Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. Puddleglum in C.S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair
  • The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. . . . If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. C.S. Lewis
  • Unexpectedly, and initially against my will, I found myself being pulled determinedly towards Christianity. It’s a long story, which I might tell one day. Suffice it to say that I started the year as an eclectic eco-pagan with a long-held, unformed ache in my heart, and ended it a practicing Christian, the ache gone and replaced by the thing that, all along, I turned out to have been looking for. Paul Kingsnorth

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