A Fruitfull Sermon On 1 Cor

New York Times bestseller What is Jesus worth to you? It's easy for American Christians to forget how Jesus said his followers would actually live, what their new lifestyle would actually look like. They would, he said, leave behind security, money, convenience, even family for him. They would abandon everything for the gospel. They would take up their crosses daily... But who do you know who lives like that? Do you? In Radical, David Platt challenges you to consider with an open heart how we have manipulated the gospel to fit our cultural preferences. He shows what Jesus actually said about being his disciple--then invites you to believe and obey what you have heard. And he tells the dramatic story of what is happening as a "successful" suburban church decides to get serious about the gospel according to Jesus. Finally, he urges you to join in The Radical Experiment -- a one-year journey in authentic discipleship that will transform how you live in a world that desperately needs the Good News Jesus came to bring.

Believers know that when we die we enter heaven and will spend eternity there with God and the saints who have gone before us. But what actually happens in heaven? What are we going to be doing there? Won't it get boring at some point? According to Scripture, a large part of our experience of heaven will be a continual revealing of God's glory. Not just his glory in the moment, but during all of time. The mysteries of providence, the hidden movements of God throughout history, and the forgotten and unnoted works of even the most obscure of God's people will be unveiled so that we can see how wise, loving, gracious, and powerful our God is. And though we will experience perfection in heaven, we will never be omniscient, which means we will always be learning more about God's glory, inspiring us to return joyful praise and thanksgiving. If your vision of heaven has been limited to clouds and harps and angels, it's time to expand that view with the truth found in this biblically based look at the afterlife.

Baptist pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon is remembered today as the Prince of Preachers. But in addition to his sermons, he regularly reading a Bible passage before his message and gave a verse-by-verse exposition, rich in gospel insight and wisdom for the Christian life. === Sample: 1 Corinthians 15:19-24 === 19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. That is to say, if our hope for the future be all a lie, we have been dreadfully deceived; and, moreover, if we could lose a hope so brilliant as that has been to us, there would fall upon us a sense of loss so great that no one in the world could be so wretched as we should be. Besides, the apostles being always in jeopardy of their lives, if they were suffering poverty, and persecution, and the fear of death by martyrdom, all for a lie, they were indeed of all men the most deluded, and the most miserable. But the Corinthians would not admit that, neither will we. 20. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept. Paul has been arguing on every supposition, and now he comes back with his own positive witness a Christ is risen. You remember that Jesus died at the time of the Passover, as the one great Paschal Lamb; but he rose again on the first day of the week, and that was the feast of first-fruits with the Jews. They brought handfuls of wheat from the fields to show their gratitude to God, and in order that a blessing might rest on all the crop; and Paul uses Christ’s rising on that particular day as a figure: “Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.” He lives. He is the first-fruits, and the full harvest will follow. All who are in him will rise from the dead; for he is one with them, and none can separate them from him, nor sever him from them. They died in him, and they live because he liveth, blessed be his name! 21, 22. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, Given in Christ shall all be made alive. Not that all shall be saved, but all will be raised from the dead. Or else the passage means that, as all who were in the first Adam died as the result of Adam’s sin, so all who are in the second Adam, that is, Christ, Shall live as the result of his righteousness. The question is, Are we in the second Adam? Faith is that which unites us to Christ. If we are trusting in him by a living faith, then his rising from the dead ensures our rising from the dead; and if not, it be true that we shall rise, but it will be to shame and everlasting contempt. 23, 24. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. Whatever it may mean, it seems to teach us the mediatorial crown and government are temporary, and intended only to last until all rule, and all authority and power, are put down by Jesus, and the rule of God shall be universally acknowledged. Jesus cannot renounce his Godhead, but his mediatorial sovereignty will be yielded up to him from whom it came, and that last solemn act, in which he shall hand back to his Father the all-subduing scepter, will be a praising of God to a most wonderful extent beyond human conception. We wait and watch for it, and we shall behold it in the time appointed.

Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, one of the earliest Christian writings, had enormous influence on the formation of Christian teaching. In this Church's Bible volume Judith L. Kovacs weaves comments from all the commentaries and sermon series written in Latin or Greek between the years 250 and 800, illustrating the historic Christian understanding of this crucial text. The church fathers gathered here include Augustine of Hippo, Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius, Origen, John Chrysostom, and many more. Preceding the line-by-line exegesis are a lucid essay by Robert Louis Wilken on how the church fathers interpreted the New Testament, an informative introduction to 1 Corinthians by Kovacs, and two chapters of general patristic commentary on Paul and on this letter. Completing the volume are several helpful appendixes and indexes. Freshly translating many passages into idiomatic English for the first time, Kovacs does not merely excerpt random quotes from the church fathers but instead produces a sustained interaction with their direct comments on 1 Corinthians. This soaking in the wisdom of the past is sure to spiritually refresh and intellectually sharpen contemporary readers who seek to better understand this part of Scripture.