 Throughout my life I've increasingly found that reading scripture in public isn't just about feeding our own spirits and minds, but about rehearsing the mighty acts of God for God's glory. So let's think together about 1 Corinthians 15-58. And first we're going to need some tea. So my dear family, be firmly fixed, unshakable, always full to overflowing with the Lord's work. As you know, the work you're doing will not be worthless. That promise that our work in the Lord is not worthless resonates back with a long-term nagging worry that Paul himself had had. We see it emerging in 1 Corinthians but also in Philippians and the Thessalonian correspondence. Paul's worry that he might have been wasting his time. He might have been doing stuff in preaching the gospel which would all go to waste. And Paul again and again alludes to a passage in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 49 verse 4, where the servant says, I've spent my strength for nothing and vanity. I've just been wasting my time. But the Lord says to the servant, actually you are to be the light to the nations that my glory may extend to the whole world. And so Paul himself went round that loop again and again, am I wasting my time? No. Paul has promised that I will be the one to take the message of Jesus and bring it to the nations so that people who are way outside even the borders of Israel will hear it and respond. And Paul is now saying the same thing to his hearers. And this is the more surprising because 1 Corinthians 1558 comes at the end of Paul's very long exposition of the resurrection. Now to us in the modern Western forms of Christianity, very often we are seduced into thinking that because God has promised us something great and good by and by, either in going to heaven or even if we talk about the resurrection itself, what's the fuss to do what we're doing in the moment? After all, God is going to give us a glorious future, so let's not worry too much about the here and now. Absolutely not, says Paul, as throughout 1 Corinthians, what you do in the present matters because of the new creation in which your body itself will be renewed so that the person you now are will be reaffirmed in the new creation, in the resurrection of the body. So that Paul is saying what you do now is part of God's future because in Christ and by the Spirit, God's future mysteriously comes into the present and starts to transform us right here and now so that we are already living the future life in advance. Mysteriously, because we still sin, we still get sick and we will still die unless we are among those who remain until the Lord's return. But the point is this, God's new world has broken in and by the Spirit it is breaking in, in and through our lives and the work to which we're called to do as His servants and His followers and therefore that will last into God's future. Now this is a mystery as indeed the resurrection of the body is a mystery. Some of the early fathers in the second century when they were being persecuted faced the question supposing not only do I die but supposing my body is burnt to ashes and the ashes are all thrown away into a fast-flowing river. How will God give me my new body if it's supposed to be the resurrection of the old one? And the answer is God will give you a new creation which will be truly who you really are. The continuity between the present and the future in your body and in the work that you do is provided by the Spirit. When Paul talks about the body animated by God's Spirit in 1 Corinthians 15 just before this passage that's what he's talking about that the Spirit indwells us in the present producing the work that we're called to do and that same Spirit will hold on to us and the work that we've already done so that all of that will be part of the glorious future in God's new world. So it isn't a matter of saying well God's going to raise me from the dead so what's the fuss to do anything now? I mean people sometimes say why oil the wheels of a car that's going to fall off a cliff at any time? Why bother to make this world a better place? Why bother to make beauty? Why bother to do justice? And the answer is these are signs of new creation and what you do as new creation people in the present will last into God's future. My favorite image for this comes from the time when I worked in a cathedral and I was aware of stone masons in a yard down the road who were carving stone because the stone weathered and needed replacing and I imagined their ancestors hundreds of years before who were being given tasks to do. I want you to carve this particular stone this way and that one that way. They might not realize they probably wouldn't realize what was going to happen but one day the master mason would collect up all those stones those bits of carved stone and with their scaffolding would put them up onto the high reaches of the cathedral and the stone mason would look up and would see that's the bit that I was carving. What you do in the present is not wasted it's not worthless it's part of a much greater design our task is to be faithful to get on with our work to be firmly fixed and unshakable in it full to overflowing with the Lord's work because it's part of the much larger project that God has in mind what you do in the Lord will not be worthless. So may God give you patience and confidence to go ahead with the work that he is calling you to do reminding yourself that in him and by his spirit it will not be worthless. Amen. How is this passage speaking to you let us know in the comments like and subscribe or check out our other videos.