1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
A month and a half ago a parent of one of our former Lakeside students sent out an email requesting a prayer for her son, and I happened to be on the email list. Her son was about to go through the “crucible.” Has anyone here ever heard of the “crucible”? It’s part of the training that a US Marine goes through. It’s considered the final test where the Marine recruit is pushed to the limits. 54 straight hours, where combat is simulated, marching takes place day and night, there is hardly any food or sleep – everything about you is tested. The Marines call it the “crucible” because a “crucible” is a container that can stand intense heat, and objects are placed into crucibles in laboratories to see what will happen to them under certain conditions. For 54 hours the Marine recruit is placed into the crucible to see if he can take the heat. If he can, he then earns the title of “Marine.” I haven’t heard back yet from the Lakeside mom to see if her son survived the crucible.
Sometimes, ministry in a school setting can feel like you are being placed into a crucible. When you are living your life as a Christian, or even more, when you are serving others as a called worker, you can be pushed to the limits, physically, mentally, emotionally, even spiritually. It can be very rewarding serving others, and yet, very exhausting at the same time. What exactly is the job description of a WELS teacher? There is so much expected of you, above and beyond the simple act of teaching a math equation or a point of grammar. If you think about it, you can summarize the job of a WELS teacher with one word – do you know what that word would be? What are you called to do? You are called to… LOVE. To love the students God has placed into your classrooms. To love their parents. To love your colleagues on the faculty. To love the members of the school board that oversee you. To love the congregation, or federation of congregations, that you are affiliated with. And ultimately, you are called to love God.
Isn’t that why you are here this morning? If we love our students, we will all want to get better as teachers. We will want to know and understand what the secular world considers to be the standards for education. We will want to learn from them, and how those standards apply to our already high standards as Christian teachers. All of this flows out of love. And love can be a very hard thing to do sometimes, in a school setting.
This Bible passage we are focusing on this morning was written for Christians who are in the crucible. Christians who are being tested. Christians who are being pushed. Christians who want to serve, but sometimes get tired. 1 Corinthians 15:58 is one of my favorite passages in the Bible, because it is filled with so much encouragement and hope and motivation, no matter what your circumstances might be. It is my hope and prayer that as we study this passage together this morning, you also will find these words of God to be helpful to you as you seek to serve the Lord. May we always give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because we know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Do you know why this passage is so often glossed over or forgotten? It’s because of where it’s located in the Bible– it’s the last verse in one of the greatest of all the chapters in the Bible - 1 Corinthians 15. Our verse starts with the word “Therefore.” “Therefore, my dear brothers.” Therefore is like an arrow pointing backwards - based on everything we have just talked about, you can stand firm. Remember what this chapter of the Bible talks about? It’s the famous resurrection chapter, packed with three major Christian doctrines. Doctrine number one – Jesus Christ physically rose from the dead, proving that his sacrifice paid for your sins and for the sins of the world. Doctrine number two – On Judgment Day, everyone is going to rise from the dead – your dead relatives, my dead relatives – and each one of us here today who has died before Judgment Day – all of us will rise from the dead – there is an afterlife, there is something coming that is bigger and better than the life we have right now. That’s doctrine number two. And doctrine number 3 – every Christian – every one of you, and me – we all someday be given a glorified body and live together with God forever. These three major doctrines are true and real, just as true and real as the chair you’re sitting on, or the person you’re sitting next to.
Based on those doctrines, Paul speaks to Christians living in the crucible. And what does he say? “Therefore, my beloved brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you.” “Let nothing move you” comes from the Greek word “kinos” – to move – we get the word “cinema” from it – cinematography – moving pictures. Paul is talking about the inside of you – your soul. This can be a place that is stable and firm, and doesn’t shift around or move around from one idea to the next.
Last month I was at a public beach with my family, and one of the regulars at the beach – he’s not a WELS Lutheran, recognized me and started a conversation with me. He was a brick layer and window installer, and often he worked for churches on their stained glass windows. He told me about this one church that was moving out of its building because it was combining with another church. His job was to uninstall the stained glass windows of the one church and install them to the next church. “I had one window to go,” he said to me. “I saw that it had a picture of Jesus returning on Judgment Day, raising everyone from the dead. I was about to take it out when the pastor said to me, ‘You can leave that window behind. We don’t talk about that topic anymore.’” The brick layer told me that he couldn’t believe it. “Isn’t that a big deal in the Bible?” he asked me. He uninstalled the window anyway, and brought the window shop, and he keeps the picture of Christ’s return and the resurrection there. “Why do all the Christians keep changing their beliefs,” he asked me.
We live in a very unstable world. Everything is in a constant state of motion – ideas and doctrines and realities always changing. Today we believe this. Tomorrow we believe that. There is no spiritual stability, and no moral stability, as everyone moves away from the Bible. There is no emotional stability, as the American family erodes into the modern family. There is no financial stability as retirement accounts evaporate, based on political instability.
But what does God say? Let nothing move you. Stand firm. A Christian, and especially a Christian teacher, is someone who is solid on the inside, someone who is stable, someone who bases his or her life on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and the sure hope of his own resurrection on Judgment Day.
Isn’t that what people are looking for? In this unstable, shifting world, the parent sees that you are different. The way you talk, the way you live your life, it’s obvious that you have a deep, inner conviction, an inner strength, an immoveable hope. You’re not all over the place like the rest of the world. And the Christian parent says – I want my child to have that. And so the parent sends the child to you.
The first half of this Bible passage talks about that inner conviction. The second half of the passage talks about the outward visible activity of the Christian servant: Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. The word for “give yourself fully” really means to go above and beyond the call of duty. You never do “just barely enough to get by.” Instead, you are always looking to do “more than enough.” Giving yourself fully means that you pour yourself so much into your call that the cup overflows. Because we are so rich in Christ, we are so giving. Because we have so much to give, we have so much to do. The Apostle Paul is a good example - he didn’t just preach the Gospel – he poured his whole life into it – all of his passion, all of his energy, all of his desire – everything - he held nothing back. And why did he do that? Because he was giving himself fully to the work of the Lord Jesus.
When you read the writings of Paul, you start to notice that Paul was always in awe of the grace that was shown to him by the Lord Jesus Christ. It was never far from his mind that Jesus had shown him an incredible amount of mercy on that road to Emmaus. More than once, Paul mentioned how Jesus forgave him for being so self-righteous and so violent that he persecuted the Christians. Earlier in this very chapter of the Bible, Paul writes, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them (the apostles) – yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” (1 Corinthians 15:10) Christ’s love filled Paul with passion for his calling as an apostle.
Christ’s love – our calling. Each one of us could say, “by the grace of God, I am what I am.” When did Christ come into your life with his grace? He met Paul on the road to Emmaus. Maybe he met you at the baptismal font. He looked at you and me, and we were dead in our trespasses and sins. And he loved us anyway. Through water and the Word, he poured into our hearts the Holy Spirit, and brought us to life, reborn as a child of God. By the grace of God, I am what I am. And in just a little while, Jesus will meet you again, and give you his grace again, in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. What wonderful words those are, to hear – that Jesus gave his body and shed his blood for the forgiveness of all of my sins. I am forgiven, for all the times I was too selfish to give myself fully to the work of the Lord. I am forgiven, for all the times I bent my beliefs, a little bit, because the rest of the world was giving me pressure. I am forgiven by the Son of God, who gave his body and shed his blood for me. By the grace of God, I am what I am.
And so now, I will give myself fully to the work Jesus puts before me. Christ’s love leads to our calling. And I know this is a very high standard that God sets before us. But ponder at that one word – “always.” Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Because of God’s grace, I will not water that word down. I’m going to give 110% of my whole self to God’s word, all the time. Whether I am young and new in the ministry, or I am older and toward the end of my ministry – I am always giving of myself fully. Whether the tasks before me are hard or easy. Whether I am working together with others as a team, or whether I am all alone, whether I am cheerful and happy, or whether I am struggling and sad and maybe even a little depressed – I am ALWAYS giving myself fully to the work of the Lord. Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for al, and therefore all died, and he died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. (2 Cor. 5:14-15)
Sometimes in the Bible, it seems that God is anticipating a problem, and he heads it off with his Word. What is a common problem God’s servants have, as we give our all to the glory of God. A lack of immediate visible results. That’s why the next verse tells us that we can work hard, “because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” Have you ever felt that all of your efforts were in vain?
I still remember one young man – a former student at Lakeside Lutheran. During his freshman and sophomore years at Lakeside this guy and his best friend would always get into trouble. He was always in my office, he was always in detention. I would try to reason with him, share Bible passages with him, be patient with him and yet firm with him at the same time. But nothing worked. Then came his junior year, and he and his best friend, and a bunch of other students under his leadership did something above and beyond your normal level of misbehavior. All of them were all almost kicked out, but not quite. He lied and lied until finally he realized that the gig was up. Then he twisted everything so that his parents were so mad at me and gave me a really hard time. At the end of his junior year, he convinced his parents to pull him out of school and go public – his final act of thumbing his nose at me.
I felt like my labor in the Lord was all in vain. The young never shaped up, he continued to be a bad influence on others, and his parents hated me. It was all in vain.
“I have had enough Lord,” Elijah said when he didn’t see the visible results he wanted to see. “Take my life. I am no better than my ancestors.” You have studied the standards for the curriculum you teach. You plan. You pour your life into your lessons. You do it all. And you look out at the students in your classroom, and you don’t see the kind of change you want to see. Where is the enthusiasm? Where is the progress? Where are the results? God acknowledges here in his Word that you work hard – your “labor” the Bible says. The word really means “hard, tiring exertion” – your fatigue – your “suffering” and “weariness.” And you don’t see the results you want to see, and it feels like it’s all in vain.
But it’s not. Do you know what it is? It’s the theology of the cross. One of the crosses that we bear as workers in God’s kingdom is the lack of immediate and always visible results. When you’re working with souls, that’s the cross. God tells us that it might feel like it’s all in vain, but it’s not. Who knows what seeds you are planting? Who knows what effect you might have with your kindness and patience and love?
Sometimes God pulls back the curtain and lets you see some of the positive results of your hard work. God did that for me this past summer. I was at the beach with my family again (I live in Lake Mills, and that’s you do when you have little kids), and this tall man walks up to me, and says, “Remember me?” And I looked into his face and I had no idea who he was. Turns out, it was the naughty kid who did all those bad things in high school and left after his junior year. He wanted to clear the air and apologize for everything that happened three years ago. He wanted to tell me that he wasn’t hanging out any longer with his bad friends, that he had completed the MATC auto mechanics program, and now he was gainfully employed and trying hard to be a good, honest, Christian who works hard and serves others.
I couldn’t believe that this was the same guy from three years ago. Maybe that labor in the Lord was not in vain, although at the time it felt like it was. It’s nice when God pulls back the curtain, and lets you see something good. And even when he does it, his word is still true – your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Remember, your labor is “in the Lord.” God had a plan, God had a time table, God has a purpose – This is his work, not mine. It’s all “in the Lord.” While touring Italy, a man visited a cathedral that had been completed on the outside only. Once inside, the traveler found an artist kneeling before an enormous wall upon which he had just begun to create a mosaic. On some tables nearby were thousands of pieces of colored ceramic. Curious, the visitor asked the artist how he would ever finish such a large project. The artist answered that he knew how much he could accomplish in one day. Each morning, he marked off an area to be completed that day and didn’t worry about what remained outside that space. That was the best he could do; and if he faithfully did his best, one day the mosaic would be finished.
We are all part of a giant mosaic that God is putting together. Each one of us has a small area in which we work, and we can’t always see the big picture. The big picture is that this is God’s love, and how he chooses to show it to me is up to him to decide. I will trust that my contribution to God’s mosaic is not in vain.
A seminary professor spoke to our class about this passage one day. He told us how it inspired him and kept him going in his ministry. He told us how he had set up his computer – his screen saver – so that across the screen, when it wasn’t being used – the words would sweep by, “Not in vain. Not in vain”
My dear friends in Christ, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Amen.
