St John the Beloved
Sermon and teaching audio from St John Church in Cincinnati Ohio.
St John the Beloved
Not Moveable - Christian Stubbornness
What if the life you’re built for can’t be lived in the body you have now? We open 1 Corinthians 15:35–58 and follow Paul’s sweeping claim: to inherit God’s kingdom, we must be changed. Not polished. Not upgraded. Transformed. We start with the contrast between Adam and Christ—dust and glory, natural and spiritual—and trace how faith in Jesus stamps a new image on us. That new nature doesn’t just tweak habits; it rewires hope, desire, and destiny. The old ways stop fitting because you were made for more than dust.
From there, we lean into the mystery of resurrection with images that make it tangible. A seed and a mighty tree share continuity yet look worlds apart; so will your present body and your future, imperishable one. Paul says the change will come “in a moment,” sudden and irreversible. We bring this down to earth with the twins parable: life after delivery sounds absurd until you breathe the air. Resurrection is like that—unimaginable now, obvious then. That hope creates space for growth today. You’re not what you were, and you’re not yet what you will be. Give yourself and others permission to change.
Finally, we land where Paul lands: be steadfast, immovable. In a world that never stops shifting, stubborn faith becomes a virtue. Think lighthouse in a storm—everything moves but the beam. Fix your eyes on Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and forever, and become the person who holds fast when the waves rise. Your labor in the Lord is not in vain; the King who raises the dead will not waste a single act of love or obedience.
If this encouraged you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review with one takeaway you’re holding onto this week.
This morning we are in First Corinthians chapter 15, beginning in verse 35. The word of God reads this way. But someone will ask, How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? You foolish person, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as He has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust, the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ, or sorry, through our Lord Jesus Christ. 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. This is God's word. Thanks be to God. You may be seated, and may God add his blessing to the reading of his word. It is estimated that only about five percent of the our Earth's oceans have been directly explored. We actually know more about the surface of the moon than we know about what's in our own oceans. Um this past week I've I've been following a story. So earlier this year in July, an object entered into our solar system from outside of our solar system. It's called 3I Atlas. And 3I means that since we have been monitor monitoring our skies, it is the third interstellar object that we have noticed. And right now it's behind the sun, and in December it's gonna fly past Earth. Uh it's gonna come within like 118 million miles of Earth. And most people think it's probably a spaceship, so we're getting aliens for Christmas. Um but uh my my point is that we know more about what's happening in our solar system than we know what's happening in our oceans, which is kind of interesting because they're just right there. Uh who knows what's down there? Unknown species, certainly undiscovered species, mate, precious resources, um, undiscovered ecosystems, or depending on who you ask, maybe the remains of an ancient lost city like Atlantis, or maybe even an ancient alien technology is down there. Who knows? But the reason that we know so little is very simple. It's that we can't go there, at least without lots of help. Our bodies cannot survive in the depths of the ocean, of course. Even if we could solve the problem of breathing underwater, which we have some solutions for that, we still face the freezing cold, uh the total darkness, the crushing pressure. If a human body tried to go down to the bottom of the ocean as we are now, our bodies would be crushed by the pressure. So if we're going to explore the depths of the ocean, we have to create bodies. We have to create vessels and structures and suits that are fitted for that environment. We are nearing the end of our series in 1 Corinthians, and here at the end of the letter, Paul is focused on the resurrection of Christ and on the future kingdom of God. And the Bible teaches that God's kingdom is already here in this world, that it was inaugurated by the arrival of the King, Jesus Christ. It is found now in humble form among those who belong to Christ. But one day Jesus will return in glory and fully establish his kingdom, and that's some of what Paul is talking about here in this chapter. And when he does, he will renew the earth, he will renew creation, he will unite heaven and earth, and he will bring about a completely new environment, the likes of which no eye has seen, nor the heart of man imagined. And herein lies the problem. Adam's fallen race cannot live there. As we are, Adam's fallen race cannot live there. In our present condition, body, mind, and soul, we are not fit for that glorious environment. As Paul says, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Just as our bodies are not fit to live at the bottom of the ocean or on the surface of the moon, we are not fit to live in the eternal kingdom of God unless we are transformed. Unless we are changed. And that's Paul's main idea in this latter half of 1 Corinthians 15, that in order to live forever in God's kingdom, we must be changed. We must be changed. And what does that mean? It means three things that we can see from this passage. It means that we must be changed now. It means that we must be changed then, and it also means that we must become unchangeable in a sense. So we're going to walk through those things and see what they mean. First, we must be changed now. Our future transformation, when Jesus returns and the dead are raised, as the scriptures talk about here, our future transformation is simply the completion of a change that has already occurred in the life of the believer. Paul calls Jesus here the second man, or the second Adam, or the last Adam. Listen to verse 45. He says, Thus it is written, the first Adam became a living being, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Now, why is Adam significant here? Why does he show up in this passage? Well, Adam was the first man, made out of the dust of the earth. He was the father of all humanity, all of us descend from him. And like any father, the choices that he made in his life did not just affect him, but had an impact on all who would come after him, including you and me. All of the children of Adam bear his image. Paul says in verse 49, he says, Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. Any time a legal document was made in Corinth or around the Roman world, it would have been imprinted with a wax seal and a signet ring that bore the image of whoever was authorizing the document. So, in other words, what Paul is saying here, and the Corinthians would have recognized this language, we are all stamped with the likeness of Adam. Or another way to put it is that we all reflect Adam. We resemble him. His image is stamped upon us. And we all reflect the first man in two important ways. Number one, we share his rebellious nature. Adam rebelled against his creator, he sinned against God, and since that time, we are also inclined to do the same things. We share his nature. And we also share his fate. Because of his sin, Adam died and his body returned to dust, and so too will we. We also will die because of sin. But Jesus came as a second Adam, as the first fruits of a new humanity. And just like Adam, his choices did not affect him only, but also benefit all who believe in him. But unlike Adam, Jesus obeyed God perfectly, and when we put our faith in Jesus for the first time, something amazing happens to us that can never be undone, that Paul is talking about in this passage. The old image, our resemblance to Adam, the old image is broken, and he stamps his image onto us by giving us a new nature like his. And instead of reflecting Adam, we more and more come to reflect Christ in two ways. We begin to share his righteous nature. And Paul teaches here also that we share his fate. In the same way that he was raised, we too will be raised. But what I want to point out is that we will be transformed in the resurrection only because we have already been transformed spiritually by faith in Christ. Our outer nature will be renewed because our inner nature has already been renewed. In other words, as a son or daughter of Adam, you cannot reform yourself. You cannot conform for long. You can try and you can conform for a little bit, but it'll break down. All of us must be transformed. What we really need is not a new set of rules or a new principle of life or a new teaching, but what we need is a new nature. And that is available to us by faith in Jesus. Bob Odenkirk is one of my favorite actors, and he recently starred in two films, uh Nobody and Nobody Two, the sequel, and they're basically the same movie, they're just in a different place. He plays a man named Hutch. And Hutch is someone whose hands know violence too well. In his past, he used to be a government black ops assassin, the kind of man who did the dirty work of three-letter agencies and took out the bad guys and highly trained individual. But he wanted a normal life, and so he retired. He sort of disappeared, he moved to the suburbs, got a job, raised a family, and just tried to be a nobody. And that's what the movie's about. He's just a nobody. But the problem is in both of the films, his old life keeps finding him. Circumstances draw him back again and again into the same violence that he's been trying to leave behind. Early in Nobody 2, Hutch tells his old handler that he needs a vacation, he's taking a break, he's taking his family on vacation, and the handler just laughs and he says, Good luck. And Hutch says, What are you talking about? What do you mean? And he says, This job is in your nature, Hutch, and nature always wins. And that is a, and sure enough, by the end of the movie, Hutch is back doing what he swore he would leave behind. He's pulled back again into his ways of taking out the bad guys. But that line, nature always wins, is haunting because it's true. All of us have a nature, a default setting that we keep returning to no matter how old we get, no matter what new information we've learned, no matter what new habits we've picked up. We have a nature. It's who we are in our unguarded moments, and we can suppress it, we can polish it, we can build a respectable facade around it. But eventually nature wins. Nature always wins. It will always overtake the ways that we try to get the better of it. Scripture says that all of us bear the image of the man of dust, Adam. His nature is stamped on us. We share in his rebellion and in his ruin, and no amount of self-control or moral reform can erase that imprint. What we really need is not to suppress our old nature, but to receive a new one. And that's what happens when you become a Christian. When you come to faith in Christ, we are given a new nature. The second Adam stamps his own image onto us, and we are given his spirit, his righteousness, and his life in our future transformation begins right there. If anyone is in Christ, Paul says, He is a new creation. Behold, the old has gone and the new has come. So what does this mean? Well, let me just speak to a moment. If you are here and you are not yet a believer in Jesus, but you're considering these things, you've not yet submitted your life to him, not yet been baptized into his name, then you are still a reflection of the original man, like we all are in our birth of Adam. And you will continue to make the same mistakes that he did, no matter how hard you work. No matter how hard you work, you cannot change your nature. What you need more than anything is to be made new and to receive a new nature in Christ. And all you have to do is surrender your old life to Jesus, and he will give you not only forgiveness, but he will give you a new spirit, a new nature that is like his. So if you are here and you're a believer, you believe in Jesus, you've been walking with him for some time, you've submitted your life to him, then you need to be reminded of who you are. You are no longer in Adam, you know, you are no longer a reflection of Adam, but you are in Christ. You no longer reflect the fallen man, and your former life no longer fits, and it no longer works because you've grown out of it. You now ref even if you have only been a Christian for two weeks, you now reflect the new man, Jesus Christ, and at the core of your being, the Spirit of God dwells, and at the core of your being, you want the things of God, because the Spirit that lives within you, whom you have from God, wants the things of God. This doesn't mean that we don't struggle with sin any longer. We are still tempted to return to our old ways, and we we fail, and we do that many times. But if if you are a believer in Jesus, the more that you do that, the more that you are tempted and lured back into your old life, the more you find that you have changed. And that the old ways just don't fit like they used to. And it just doesn't, it doesn't do for you what it used to do. That line, nature always wins, cuts both ways. And when we receive a new nature from Jesus, it is that nature that slowly but surely begins to get the victory as we press into it more and more. We cannot live in the kingdom of God unless we are changed. And that change can begin now. It must begin now. Point one. Point two, we must be changed then. Christians have a glorious, total, irreversible transformation ahead. The idea of the resurrection is very difficult for us to imagine because we've never seen it before. And so we have questions. My kids ask questions like, Dad, how old will our new bodies be? When we're raised up, will we be kids? Will we be adults? Will we be old men? How old will we be? Will we look the same? Will we recognize each other? I don't have any answers to these questions. The Corinthians had similar qu similar questions. How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? It makes sense that we would ask questions like that, but we must admit that we have very few answers. But this doesn't mean that the resurrection is silly or implausible. It simply means that it is something completely beyond our experience. We've never seen it, we've never known it, it's beyond our experience. The Bible tells us very little about what the resurrection will be like, probably because we would not be able to understand it, even if it was explained to us. We must experience it in order to understand it. How would you describe the color red to a man born blind? Someone who's never seen color, and they say, What does red look like? How would you describe it? Well, you only have to try to realize that it cannot be described. It can only be experienced. Color is something that can only be experienced. So Paul does not answer their question, but he does point to some analogies from nature. The first is the seed and the plant. In verses 36 through 38, Paul gives that analogy. Just from looking at the seed, it would be very difficult to know what the fully formed plant will be like, unless, of course, you had studied it and seen it a hundred times. And just from looking at the seed, you would never guess that this little acorn could possibly become a mighty oak. It's a transformation occurs. There is an organic relationship between the seed and the plant, but a transformation occurs that we never could have foreseen or guessed. Similarly, our glorified bodies, our new bodies, will have an organic relationship with the body that you have now, but a transformation will occur, one that you never could have guessed. And we will become something bigger, something greater, something more beautiful than we could ever imagine. You will still be human, but you will be glorified. Paul gives another analogy of different kinds of flesh. He mentions the different kinds of bodies that God made on earth. And he mentions the three realms of creation: land, sea, and sky. God has made bodies fitted for each of those environments. Paul says in verse 39, for not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. The renewed earth will be a new environment, and God is able to give us bodies fitted for that environment. Listen to 42 through 44, Paul says, What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Whatever kind of transformation will take place, Paul also says that it will happen suddenly and irreversibly. Listen to verse 51. He says, Behold, I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. He really emphasizes that the suddenness of the change. That phrase in a moment is the Greek atomos. It's from where we get our word atom, like in a molecule, the particle, and it means the smallest part that cannot be divided. And in this context, it means a singular moment of time. It's not going to happen in a minute because a minute can be divided into seconds. And it's not going to happen in a second because a second can be divided into milliseconds. Whatever is the singular, undivided moment of time, that's how quickly it will happen. When what Jesus began in our conversion and what he continues throughout our life in sanctification, he will finally and suddenly bring to completion at the resurrection. In the blink of an eye, we will all be changed. Up until our final breath. Up until your final breath, you are not finished. You still need repentance, you still need to change, you still need to be transformed. But at the resurrection, in the blink of an eye, we will be complete. We cannot inherit the kingdom of God unless we are transformed, and God will bring about that final transformation suddenly and irreversibly. There's an interesting parable that illustrates this, that uh the provenance is a little murky, but it looks like it could come from Henri Nowen, and it's often called the Twins. Has anybody ever heard this parable? The twins? Um there's two twins in their mother's womb, and they spend every day together laughing and talking and just enjoying being alive in the womb. And one says to the other, Isn't it great that we're conceived? Isn't it great to be alive? One day, one twin asks the other, Have you thought about what happens after delivery? Do you believe in life after delivery? And the second replied, Of course, there has to be something after delivery. Maybe we're here now to prepare ourselves for what we will be later. Nonsense, says the first. There is no life after delivery. What would that life even be? I don't know, but maybe there will be more light than what we have here. Maybe we'll walk with our legs, maybe we'll eat with our mouths. And the first baby just laughed. Absurd. Walking is impossible. Everyone knows that. And why eat with our mouths? Our umbilical cords provide all the supplies and the nutrition that we need. There can be no life after delivery. The umbilical cord is too short. In the parable, they go back and forth like this for some time. One believes in the existence of mother and that one day they will meet her, but the other has never seen any evidence of mother. Eventually, they both realize that their time in the womb is coming to an end, and fearfully they enter into birth, and the parable ends like this. They coughed up fluid and they gasped the dry air, and when they were sure that they had been born, they opened up their eyes and found themselves cradled in the warm love of the mother. They lay open-mouthed, awestruck at the beauty of the mother, whom they had never seen before. And that's exactly what Paul is saying here that in the resurrection, what seems unthinkable to us now, one day, will be the most natural thing in the world. Or supernatural, rather, but it will it will make sense after God has brought it about. Because of the resurrection, death is not the end, but it is the doorway into a greater world for which we are even now being prepared. So what does that mean that a glorious transformation is in our future? It means many things, but one thing that it means is that we are not yet what we will be. John puts it like this in 1 John 3 2. He says, Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. So even John, who spent his who spent time with Jesus, who knew Jesus personally, says, I don't really know what we will be, but I know that we will be like him. We will be we we when he comes, we will be like him, and we shall see him as as he is. And so we must give ourselves and others permission to grow and permission to be different than we were yesterday. And what do I mean by that? Well, think about the per think about the people that you're closest to. Um think about your spouse, for example, the person you're married to. You've been with them for many years, you know them better than you know anybody else, you know their strengths, and you know their flaws, and you probably know their flaws maybe a little bit better than their strengths. If they have disappointed you or let you down in the past, especially in a consistent way, repeated patterns of disappointment, it's easy to give up on them, believing that they're never going to change, and then so never giving them a chance to change or never giving them permission to change, and never never allowing them each day to be different than they were yesterday. But because of the resurrection of Jesus, we have been made new, we know that, and that work will be completed in the resurrection, and because of the resurrection, um uh sorry, we will be made new, that work will be completed, but until then, we never have to stay who we were yesterday. We have no obligation to keep making the same mistakes, and neither do the people around us, neither does your spouse, because their future is glorious, your future is glorious, we're headed toward our our glory selves, and our Savior is preparing us for the moment that we will be born into that world. So give yourself permission to change, give other people permission to change. They don't have to stay the same, and neither do you. And then number three, we must become unchangeable. The resurrection makes us immovable, and this is my new favorite word in the whole Bible. Paul closes the most comprehensive teaching on the resurrection in the New Testament with an exhortation that is both surprising and also deeply practical. In verse 58, he says, Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable. I want you to say that word with me. Be steadfast, immovable, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. The word immovable, um, ameta kenetos, ametakenatos, is striking. It is found nowhere else in the New Testament, just here, and you can hear in it the root word kinetic, ametakenetas, kinetic, which means movement and motion and change. The prefix ah is a negation. Ametakenetas simply means not movable. Not movable. And that's not a word that we typically associate with Christian virtue. You typically don't hear from your kids, Dad, when I grow up, I want to be not movable. Elsewhere, Scripture calls us to be gentle and peaceable and flexible and reasonable. Paul says, let your reasonableness be known to all. But Paul insists that when it comes to our faith, when it comes to our loyalty to Jesus, our confidence in the gospel, our hope in the resurrection, we are to be immovable. We are to be, it's the Christian virtue of stubborn faith. Stubborn faith is a Christian virtue. And that means that we can be open handed about and open minded about a thousand things in life. Our preferences, our culture, our possessions, our plans, all kinds of things. But we're able to be open minded and open handed. Because we are immovable about the thing that matters the most. Faith in the resurrection changes us. We must be changed to inherit the kingdom of God. We are being changed by the Spirit throughout our lives. And one day we will be changed completely when we are raised imperishable. But paradoxically, that continual change produces unchangeable people. How is that? Because all of our change is moving in one direction toward likeness to Jesus Christ, and Jesus does not change. Hebrews 13:8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. The more we are conformed to him, the more steadfast we become, because he is the immovable rock, and those who build their lives on him can never be shaken. You might think about it like a lighthouse in a storm. Imagine you're on a little boat in a violent storm on the ocean at night, and everything is changing, and nothing is stable, and you're in danger, and you can't you can barely even see where you're going. But then you see the light from the lighthouse in the distance, and the light, the light guides you to where safe harbor is, and it warns you about where the rocks are and where the danger is. And the most important thing about the lighthouse is that it is immovable. It cannot be moved, no matter how much everything else is changing. Everything else is shifting and changing, but the light stays the same. It shows the way home when nothing else is visible. Life is full of storms. Life is constantly changing. The world that we live in is constantly changing, culture is constantly changing, not often for the better, sometimes for the better, but not often. How can we become people who don't get shipwrecked? How can we become people who are consistent, dependable, immovable? Only by keeping our eyes fixed on the only one who is. Jesus Christ is the rock of our salvation. And because of Jesus, we can endure trials and waves. We can be consistent in an inconsistent world. We can be faithful in a faithless world. We can be a bastion of sanity in a world that has gone insane. We can hold things together for ourselves, for our families, for our city, for our nation. We can become and need to become immovable. Because even when all of life seems to be falling apart, Christians have one thing that always stays the same: Jesus Christ. So keep your eyes fixed on him and gain that Christian virtue of stubborn faith, not movable. To that end, let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for our Savior Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday and today and forever. We live in a world that is constantly changing, and it's often difficult to discern what change is good or positive, and what change is destructive and cancerous. And we pray, Lord, that you would help us to keep our eyes fixed on the unchanging one and to be stayed on him so that we may be truly open-minded and open in a thousand ways, and yet stable and immovable because we are fixed on Jesus. Help us to be that kind of people and fill us with the hope of transformation that comes from the resurrection. All of this we ask in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen. Stand with us.