City Life Starter

I. The Word: I Corinthians 15:24-26

24… then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when

He has abolished all rule and all authority and power.

25For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.

26The last enemy that will be abolished is death.

II. Questions

1.What is the tension with which the Apostle Paul grappled?

2.What is King Jesus doing through us from his right hand of Father?

3.What should the certainty of death motivate us to do?

As a trial attorney, my work life is governed by deadlines. Every case has between five and fifteen deadlines, and they all must be calendared with reminders and respected. The failure to comply with the deadlines can compromise a case. I’ve learned to like deadlines though because they force action and completion. As the saying goes, “If it wasn’t for deadlines, nothing would get done.”

The Apostle Paul wrote in the Scripture above that there will be an end to the world, and that end comes only after Jesus puts all His enemies under His feet. Until then, King Jesus reigns from the right hand of the Father working through His followers to reconcile the world to Himself, i.e. putting all his enemies under His feet.

For you and I, though, death is the ultimate deadline. It’s always good to remember that for believers there will be a resurrection and eternal life, but Jesus didn’t put us here just to save us. He put us here to partner with Him in changing the world into the place He intended it to be. I will die. You will die. And when we do, we will not be able to do anything more to reconcile the world to Jesus. We will be with Him but we will be able to do nothing more for Him on the earth.

The Apostle Paul understood this. That is why he said he was torn between living and dying. If he remained he could continue to be fruitful for the Kingdom; if he died he would no longer be fruitful for the Kingdom but he would be with Jesus. See Philippians 1:21-25. If we have the proper perspective, this a tension we should all experience.

That tension does not exist in a vacuum. That tension exists with a looming deadline—the deadline of death. The certainty of that deadline should incite us to action on behalf of Jesus in the advancement of His Kingdom. The older I get the more urgent the work of the kingdom becomes to me. I wish had felt that sense of urgency more when I was younger. The reality is that none of us know when the ultimate deadline will come for us, and it often comes without warning. So run fast, work hard, and do the work of the Kingdom, and when we are all done, and the world has been reconciled to King Jesus, He will defeat the final enemy, death.