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May 09, 2021

1Cor15 - Stingless (click here for resources)

Passage: 1 Corinthians 15:50-58

Speaker: Brian Land

Series: 1 Corinthians 15

Category: Grace Brevard

The stinger has been taken out of the dragon’s tail. Though we live in the heart of a broken world in broken bodies and broken relationships, the “sting”, the death-nail itself, has been nailed to the cross, enabling us to live the victory that nothing in all creation can separate us from Jesus Christ.

5.09.21 GBV Livestream from Grace Brevard on Vimeo.

Click HERE for the Sermon Slides.

ILLUSTRATIONS:

5.09.21 Album

Sermon Discussion Questions:

Click HERE for printable form

These final paragraphs of 1Corinthians 15 summarize the importance of why it matters that Christ was raised from the dead. We are reminded and comforted with a renewed perspective of life and death as we all live through daily deaths as we await for our “final” death.


Think beyond our mortal “death” and look at the everyday deaths we all face. What are “deaths” you’ve been facing lately?
(for instance: relational, financial, pride, failures, illness...)

 


Which of these “deaths” packs the most painful sting for you? Why?

 

The “STING” of these daily deaths happens when a significant pain becomes an ultimate pain; a significant fear becomes an ultimate fear; a significant loss becomes an ultimate loss.

Talk about the difference between “significant” and “ultimate”.

 

At the end of our lives there is THE Death (mortality) that sin has “birthed” for us. The “sting” of this mortal death is what happens AFTER death (which sin also birthed, but it is a sting that, in Christ, can be avoided)

Talk about what Sin is (not name sins, but the root of Sin itself)

Which of these definitions of Sin stands out to you?
- Treason vs. The King
- Glorifying anything besides God
- “My Will Be Done”
- “Me First”

This next part can be really uncomfortable to talk about...what happens after death: Heaven and Hell.

Scripture paints a dark picture of hell which, like it does with heaven, is more artistic than literal (remember that “artistic” does NOT mean it isn’t real but drawing us to use logic as well as imagination).

What concepts of Hell do you have?

What does Scripture say about hell?

This is hard to dig into because it brings up a lot of really valid and difficult questions. The fundamental reason for hell is that God must retain his holiness and justice (he can’t just turn a blind eye to sin or he wouldn’t be just).

How do we get there? Why does it exist?
Romans 6:23 “wages of sin is death”

Thankfully God is ALSO perfectly LOVE. So He created a miraculous and shocking solution.

In Christ we have life, both in the here and now as well as forever. He endured hell on our behalf; he took the sting of death which means that the real pain of life, including the pain of mortality can be appropriately experienced as significant without experiencing it as “ultimate.”


If we can really live in the truth that daily-deaths a mortal-death aren’t the final word, how would it change the way we live?

How can we begin to get there? Talk through 15:58 to get some practical and hope-filled help toward that:

58 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.