But one Corinthians 15, verse 20, the title of the message is
raised in glory, our certain hope of resurrection.
And in our introduction we're going to look at this idea that
that we weren't made and meant to die.
So we were not made to die, but sin in the fall of humanity
'cause that I don't know about you, but I'll ask this question.
I'm think we're all going to ask in the affirmative.
How many of you would trade in your body today for a new one?
I would. I think most of us would,
because we're getting old, aren't we?
And we're feeling it every day. It used to be when I was younger
that I would feel parts of my body that might be through an
accident or a sporting injury. Now I'm waking up with sleeping
injuries. No idea how it happened, but I'm
sore because I just spent the night lying down.
We've got parts of our body that start to crack and creak and
groan and smell and ache, and right now I'm sweating more than
Mike Tyson in a spelling bee. You know, it's warm in here, I
know, but it's, it's not that warm.
Our bodies, they just don't seem to work well, do they?
And mirrors certainly aren't our friend.
I don't know if you remember the film Brad Pitt was in it, but
it's called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
It's based on a 1920s novel. And effectively it was this
idea, this premise of what life might be like lived in reverse,
of starting elderly and morphing back into an infant face.
So somebody wrote that idea, took that idea and wrote this
down. It's called My Next Life.
And and the author said I want to live my next life backwards.
I'll start out dead and get that out of the way right off the
bat. Then I'll wake up in a nursing
home and start feeling better every day.
When I'm kicked out of the home for being too healthy, I'll
spend several years enjoying my retirement collecting benefit
cheques. When I start work, I'll get a
gold watch on my first day. I'll work 40 years or so,
getting younger every day until pretty soon I'll be too young to
work. So then I'll go to high school,
play sports, date and party. As I get younger, I'll become a
kid again. I'll go to primary school, play,
and have 0 responsibilities. In a few years I'll become a
baby and everyone will run themselves ragged keeping me
happy. Finally, I'll spend my last nine
months floating peacefully in a luxury spa with conditions like
central heating and room service on tap.
It's an interesting idea, isn't it?
And we kind of laugh at it. But imagine never having a body
that wears out, never experiences those things that we
get frustrated with, you know, living in a world where there is
just simply a body that is fully functioning, a body that is at
its peak, that is at its prime. There, there are no handicaps.
Imagine having a body that never sags, that never droops, that
never aches, one that never has any kind of a disease or any
kind of a problem. And and we really have
difficulty imagining that I think especially as we age and
the opposite becomes more and more our reality.
And so we spend so much of our, our life dedicated to fixing
what ails our bodies to try and rectify our health, going to
doctors, to naturopaths or working on our diet or
exercising, taking medication if we get sick and, and then next
thing you know, you're on antibiotics because what was
supposed to fix it didn't. And then on, and, and then you
get really sick and, and hospitalised and we need surgery
and cancer happens and we have chemotherapy and, and we're
frustrated with our bodies and, and the sickness and, and all of
the difficulties that come with life and, and living here in
this fallen world. And, and we want to get this
body together. And it never really does come
together. We experience the death of loved
ones and it breaks us. And we sit there and we consider
and we think, you know, my dad should be alive today.
He should be playing with my kids.
He's not. And so why, why death does not
feel right for us is because of this.
It is not right. Death is not natural.
It's not part of God's original design.
And so the human heart within us resists death and all of the
symptoms that go along with that.
Why? Because we're made for life and
for living. And Paul's message to the
Corinthians here as as we get into this passage, is that he
answers these deep questions that are within many of us, like
what kind of body will I have in the resurrection?
We've been looking at that, and he's been Speaking of that last
week. How and when will this
resurrection happen? And in a world of sickness, in a
world of loss, in a world of death, on Corinthians 15
declares the Christians certain hope that we will rise in very
real, imperishable, glorified bodies like our risen Saviour,
just like Jesus. And so in this passage, Paul
pulls back the curtain and shows us the ultimate enemy in death
being swallowed up in victory. That's the language that he
uses. And he shows us that because
Christ is risen, we will rise too.
We're going to look at three points in our passages as we
break them down. And the first is again, Christ's
resurrection is the pattern, is the prototype for ours in verses
20 through to 28. But now Christ has risen from
the dead, and has become the first fruits of those who have
fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by
man also came the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, Even so in Christ all shall be made
alive, but each one in his own order.
Christ the first fruits, afterward those who are Christ,
that He's coming. Then comes the end, when he
delivers the Kingdom to God the Father, when he puts an end to
all rule and all authority and power.
For He must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet.
The last enemy that will be destroyed is death, for He has
put all things under His feet. When he says all things are put
under Him, it is evident that He who put all things under Him is
accepted. Now when all things are made
subject to him, then the Son himself will also be subject to
him who put all things under him, that God may be All in all.
Now again, we looked at this bit last week, and I want to build
on our understanding from that. I want to ask some questions and
answer them as we do so. The first is this.
Maybe you're wondering why resurrection?
Why not just spirits after we die?
Why not just souls, you know, ethereal entities?
Why is it that physically our body is to be resurrected?
It's a good question and it's a very honest question as we look
and read and consider this. And so the short answer is this,
that the resurrection is what completes our salvation.
God is interested in saving not just your soul, but also
redeeming your body. Began with the frustrations of
our physical bodies and salvation is an entire complete
process. Why?
Well again, because of what happened in the Garden of Eden
when man sinned and there was original sin.
Remember what God had said, that in that day when you eat thereof
of the tree, of the fruit, of the forbidden tree, He said you
shall surely die. And men have died and women have
died ever since. In the garden day, Adam and Eve,
when they ate, they died immediately spiritually, they
were separated from God. There's no longer that intimacy
of fellowship of relationship that they once experienced, but
also immediately Adam and Eve began to deteriorate in body and
they eventually died. And we have that passage in
Genesis where it goes through all of those that had been born
and then they died, and then they died, and then they died.
And every generation since has died.
And so too, you and I should the Lord tarry.
And so to counteract the death principle that came in through
the fall of humanity that was instilled in God's creation at
the fall, a resurrection is absolutely necessary.
And so Jesus, he said, here is the first fruits of this.
And last week I touched on this, but I want to go into a little
bit more deeply. The first fruits is reference to
a Jewish feast which took place after the Passover.
We've celebrated communion modelled on the Passover
tonight. And the ritual was that in
Judaism, they would bring a sheaf of the harvest and they
would wave it before the Lord as an offering unto him.
And and the first sheaf, that one sheaf indicated that the
rest of the harvest was coming as well.
And in other words, the idea was wrapped up in that we're
dedicating this first sheaf unto you God.
But it's more than just this first sheaf that we're doing so,
but a whole lot more is coming that we're going to dedicated to
the Lord out of our produce. And so the sheaf was indicative
that more was to come and Jesus bodily resurrection was, Paul
says, the first fruits in verse 20.
And that means that there are more resurrections to come,
yours and mine. And so Jesus resurrection is the
guarantee of our resurrection. That's the principle.
And on top of that, Paul uses this language of death where he
says falling asleep. And it's called going to sleep,
because when you sleep, what happens?
You get up again. The next day rolls around and
you're awake. And so when you die, you get up
again. Your body will rise.
And then Adam and Christ are mentioned and, and are seen as
as two federal heads of two dispensations, Adam as the one
who brought sin into the world, Jesus as the one who brings life
into the world. Adam caused the fall of
humanity. Jesus brings the redemption of
humanity, both acting as federal heads.
And see, people think of Adam and, and they go and, and maybe
you thought this, and I know I certainly have.
You know, it's not fair that Adam sinned and, and that I
today, thousands of years removed from him, am suffering
the repercussions of that. OK, So let's entertain that for
a moment. And, and I'll go along with
that. Yeah, not fair.
But isn't it then, if that's the case, also not fair that Jesus
died on a cross and that you weren't there when that happened
and that I was not there when that took place.
And yet we get the benefit, we experience the blessing by
believing in Him. And we could say on that, not
fair because it isn't. You should not have the benefits
of what Jesus did. I should not experience the
benefits of that. But we have them.
And so both Adam and Jesus performed an act that has
repercussions like Adam's sin or like Jesus death and
resurrection. We get the bogus results of one
in Adam and we get the benefits, the blessing of the other in
Jesus. And so yes, we can blame Adam,
but we can also bless Jesus Christ for his work as the
federal head. Whereas in Adam all die, he says
Even so in Christ all will be made alive, but each one in his
own order. Christ the first fruits,
afterward those who are Christ's at his coming.
Then comes the end when he delivers the Kingdom to God the
Father, when he puts an end to all rule, all authority contrary
to God in all other powers. Why?
Because Jesus must reign until those enemies are put under his
feet. And the final, the last enemy,
is death. So what kind of resurrection,
what kind of body will we have in such a resurrection?
Well, let's look at this for a moment, and we'll build on this
a little later as well. Our resurrected body, since
Jesus is the first fruits, it says of the resurrection, our
resurrection body is going to be very much like Jesus
resurrection body being able to do some of the things that Jesus
was able to do when he was resurrected.
We're going to have in our resurrected body an earthly body
that is glorified. Jesus rose from the dead, but he
was fully man as well. He said to his disciples, touch
me, feel me. A spirit does not have flesh and
bones like you and I. And he was able to eat meals
with his disciples. And then he ascended into
heaven. And so today at the throne of
God, there's a man, a physical, real man, Jesus, in his
glorified resurrected body in heaven, seated at the right hand
of the Father. He's the first fruit.
So again, what is your body going to be like?
It's going to be very much like that.
You're going to have your earthly body.
You're thinking, well, I hope it doesn't look quite like this
one. Hold that thought for a moment.
But it is going to be an earthly body glorified.
Not a new body, but your old body renewed somehow.
Jesus died and was buried. A new body did not come up, did
it? His body that was on the cross
and died is the same body that was resurrected.
The body that goes into the ground at death is the body that
gets raised from the dead at resurrection.
But your body is going to have advanced properties.
It's interesting, when Jesus rose from the dead and was in
his glorified physical body, the same one that was on the cross
again, but now glorified, renewed, what was he able to do?
Says that he would just appear sometimes and then vanish right
before their very eyes. It's like he could go through
walls there. The disciples are in the upper
room, doors are locked. All of a sudden Jesus just poof,
Shalom, how are you fellas? Peace.
One minute he was able to be in Jerusalem and then suddenly when
the disciples were in Galilee, just be transported to the
Galilee region instantly on the shores for a fish breakfast.
And then he was also that that body that was able to to move
not just horizontally but move vertically.
He ascended up into heaven. The the disciples stood on in
ore at what's probably the Mount of Olives.
It is and Jesus went heavenward up, up, up.
If you consider, and we'll get to that in, in Revelation, our
resurrected bodies for a moment, But think about when the New
Jerusalem is mentioned. You know, it's roughly 2000
kilometres cubed horizontally, vertically.
I don't want to go too far with this, but because we only have
certain things revealed about our bodies in Scripture, but
it's fair to say that you'll have advanced properties to be
able to traverse around in the New Jerusalem.
Think of that, but in the eternal state that is mentioned
here. And don't worry, we're going to
build on this in future verses that we'll read.
But it will be God and the glory of the Lamb that lights this New
Jerusalem, we're told. And the throne of God will be
present and will be able to worship God face to face, to be
in his presence. His name, it says, was written
on our foreheads. And so there will be this
immediate, direct kind of fellowship that we'll be able to
have physically with God. Where, when, Now that is not
possible. Now currently the only way to
have access to God is through a mediator.
There's, there's one God, the Bible says and and 1 mediator
and that is Jesus Christ. But in the eternal state you
will have direct access to God the Father.
You will see him face to face. You will be like Jesus, the
Bible says. You'll be like him for you will
see him as he is. It says you will see God's face
and there's direct intimacy there that requires resurrected
body. And so the second aspect that we
consider tonight is our, our glorified, our, our glorious
resurrected bodies. And and as I say, it's built on
in verses 35 to 49. Jump ahead to verse 35.
But someone will say, how would the dead raised up and with what
body do they come? We've sort of looked at that,
but now we'll, we'll dig in a little further.
Foolish one. Verse 36.
What you sow is not made alive unless it dies.
And what you sow you do not sow. That body shall be, but mere
grain, perhaps wheat or some other grain.
But God gives it a body as He pleases.
And each seed, its own body, all flesh, is not the same flesh.
But there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of
animals, another fish, and another birds.
They're also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies.
The glory of the celestial is 1 and the glory of the terrestrial
is another. There is one glory of the sun,
another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars.
For one star differs from another star in glory.
So building on that illustration of of what happens in the
physical world and our understanding of that, he says
so verse 42 also is the resurrection of the dead.
The body is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption.
It is sown in dishonour. It is raised in glory.
It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power.
It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body.
There is a natural body, there is a spiritual body.
So it is written the first man Adam became a living being.
The last Adam became a life giving spirit.
However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and
afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth
made of dust. The second man is the Lord from
heaven. As was verse 48, the man of
dust, so also those who are made of dust.
And as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are heavenly.
And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall
also bear the image of the heavenly man.
So again, back in verse 35, Paul pre empts the question.
He says, but some will say, how are the dead raised up?
And what body do they come? And so now this is 2 questions
that we'll look at. How are the dead raised up?
How is that even possible that dead people can get up?
Again, in the 1st place, I mean in the history of humanity,
every generation has the proof on display that dead people, as
a general rule, stay dead. I've not seen a resurrection.
I've been to plenty of funerals, not been to 1 yet, where someone
has popped out of the casket, said, what's what's going on
here? And so the question is, how are
the dead raised back? How is that possible?
And then that flows onto other considerations.
And maybe you've pondered this, You know, as a kid, I thought
often, how about a soldier who's at war and and the body is blown
to smithereens. What about their body?
How about someone who out in the ocean drowns, dies shark, bites
off 1 arm, takes it over here, bites off the leg, takes it off
over there. How's the body come together in
the resurrection? All of those questions or
creation, cremation, how is that going to happen?
And these the physical aspect here.
And then the second question with, with what body do they
come back? And so, you know, if a person
dies with a stroke and is incapacitated in their final
days, is that how they're going to come back in the
resurrection? Or if they've lost a limb, an
amputee, and is that how they're going to come back in the
resurrection? Or if an infant is born and
dies, will that person be an infant for all of eternity?
Or if an older person dies, 104 a 105, and it's just vegetable
state, is that how they'll be for all of eternity?
So with what body do they come? These are the questions that the
Corinthians had. Have you ever wondered those
things? Thought through that perhaps so
these two questions are addressed here and what we've
just read how is it possible that dead people are raised with
what body do they come back? So notice how wonderfully
gracious Paul is in answering that.
He says in verse 36, foolish one dummy, what you saw was not made
alive unless it dies. And so back to the first
question, with what body do they come short answer to what body
you'll have in the resurrection. Let me go to another book in the
Bible, Philippians chapter 3. We've sort of anticipated the
answer a little in verse 20. It says Philippians chapter 3,
verse 20, our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also
eagerly wait for the Saviour of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now get this, who will transform our lowly body, that it may be
conformed to his glorious body according to the working by
which he is able even to subdue all things to himself?
So again, the short answer is that our body is going to be
like Jesus body. Isn't that awesome?
A real human body, but limitless.
He'll transform it into a glorious body.
Now what Paul does back to 1 Corinthians 15 is he gives us
some illustrations from the biological world.
He he speaks of the plant world, the terrestrial world as as well
as the heavens, the celestial world.
Let's consider the plant example for a moment that he gives to
us. He says you take a seed,
effectively it's dead, it's dormant, but you place it into
the ground and it decomposes. And the point is that you bury
it, but something comes up that is related to it but different
from it, right? It has the same genetic code,
the same DNA. And this is what Paul is
pointing to as an illustration for our bodies.
So there's a relationship genetically, but they're vastly
different from one another. And so with our bodies, the body
that shall be in eternity is related to this one here now,
similar but different. Consider tulips as a tangible
example. That's a, a beautiful, a perfect
little flower if you've ever seen one.
And if you were to to look at a bunch of tulips and go, man, I'd
like to grow 1 like to grow a bunch of those things and have
them through my garden. And and you go and you buy a
bulb and you look at that and you go, that's not what I
wanted. You ever seen a Tulip bulb?
Those things are ugly. It's lowly, you might say, but
put it in the ground and watch what happens.
If I were to tell you, you know, you, you take that brown ugly
thing, you, you stick it in the ground and life and beauty will
come out of it. You might say that's insane.
That's, that's incredible. That's impossible from that old
thing, this Tulip, this beautiful creation.
Paul said, look, this is common knowledge, like plants, like
grains, like flowers, What goes into the ground, the sowing is
lowly compared to the glory of the produce to come of what
comes out of it. And the harvest is more
beautiful than that which went into the ground.
And so he connects that to our physical bodies.
And that's what he does from versus 42 on through to 44.
He says the body is sown in corruption and it's raised in
incorruption. It's sown in dishonour.
You know, there's nothing majestic about a dead person.
Even our bodies alive are dishonourable at times, right?
Joke at the beginning, but you know our feet stink, our ears
filled with wax. We hop into bed and cut one
another with our toes. Hair moves from our heads and
grows elsewhere. Our ears get bigger, our noses
get bigger, we sweat, we groan. We are dishonourable.
But when we die again, there's nothing majestic about a dead
body. That's why we typically cover up
a corpse when they die. There's a dishonour to that
event, the way they look. I mean, some of us now are
afraid to get out of the house without our makeup on.
When you die, all is exposed. It's sown in dishonour, but it
is raised in glory, Paul says. It's sown in weakness, it's
raised in power, it's sown a natural body and it is raised a
spiritual body. And he talks in this passage
again about Adam and again about Jesus natural body, spiritual
body. Now again, this does not mean
that our resurrected body will be immaterial.
It's not just a, a spirit being, some kind of ethereal thing.
It's going to be a real body. A better translation, I believe,
of this passage is a supernatural body.
There's a physical body, a natural body, but you're going
to get a supernatural body without the limitations that now
physically we're held by. Why?
Because think of it, you and I are going to be in a place, in
an environment that demands different capacities.
If you wanted to go to the moon, you couldn't go to the moon
unless you had some kind of a contraption of sort.
You'd have to have a space suit, It'd have to be pressurised.
You have to have the oxygen that we breathe here on Earth
transported with you to take into the atmosphere.
You could not live otherwise. Well, heaven, eternity is going
to be somewhat like that. Now, I don't want to live for
all of eternity in a space suit with limitations.
And so God is going to give us a body that is suited for the
environment of eternity. And so because you'll be living
in a glorified body, you'll be able to enjoy the glorified
state. It would be a body, but a
supernatural body, not a non corporal body or a non material
body. It will be a real, again,
physical body. You're just going to get a
marvellous makeover and our new body will be immortal.
It'll live forever. Won't you be happy to never have
to go to another funeral? Won't you be happy to not have
to worry about the death of a loved one or of yourself?
This immortal body will live forever.
It will not die. Now, it's no coincidence, I
think that on that, that humanity is consumed with
wanting to live forever. You know, many of our cultural
stories, many of the things that we gravitate to and our, our
myths, our fables, our folklores teach us something.
I think about this deepest longing within us.
I was thinking about that particular point and connecting
it. You know, there's a whole heap
of, you know, new comic book kind of movies coming out and so
on. And that's really what our comic
book superheroes are, aren't they?
There's this average ordinary person that then undergoes some
extraordinary transforming event, often times in an
instant, and they subsequently get a a new body.
They're strong, they're they're supernatural and they don't die
and they don't get sick, but they live the life that that we
wish, we wish we could. That's the appeal for us.
So a Peter Parker becomes a Spider Man, a Bruce Wayne, a
Batman, Diana, a Wonder Woman, Bruce Banner, Incredible Hulk,
and these characters that humanity invents.
They're human beings, but they're superhuman and they
don't get sick, they don't get injured, they don't die, not
like we do. There's there's something
immortal about them and we love that.
We're enamoured with that. It'd be disappointing if, you
know, you read a Superman comic or watch the Superman movie and
he's got the flu all the time, right flying around.
He's going, man, I got to be a fever, runny nose.
I got to go home. I got to stop this.
And and we'd be annoyed if if the Hulk was picking something
up and threw out his back and like Hulk need Cairo.
See something in US wants this this different kind of body
that's incapable of being hurt and broken and and and frail and
and fragile and defeated. Something within us wants this
eternal state. Ecclesiastes in the Old
Testament puts it this way and says that God has set eternity
in the hearts of men. You see, it's God given and it's
fulfilled here in our text. So, so people ask back to this
question, what is my body going to look like?
What will it be like? And, and again, if I have a, a
relative who's an amputee and, and they come to Christ, what
will their body be like? And, or an infant when they pass
or an elderly person and on and on and on through the list.
So let me try and answer that by going back to Genesis a bit.
When Adam was created by God, he was created as an adult.
He had an apparent age even though he also had a a technical
age. When God created Adam on day
one, how old was he? A day old, but he did not look
like a day old. He looked probably 20-30 mature
adults. Hard to know exactly, but a full
functioning adult with adult capabilities.
But a day old he had an apparent age, a peak age and so I believe
that your resurrected body will be like that peak age capacity.
So if having died as an infant or a miscarriage.
I I love this we've my wife and I had a couple of miscarriages.
There are two waiting for us in eternity that we'll get to meet.
It's going to be amazing. Or if you die 104 I believe you
won't be like that in eternity. More like a full functioning
adult with incredible capability.
Again Jesus when he died, When he was resurrected he was
unrecognisable by a lot of people.
Wasn't he at 1st until he did or said certain things?
And yet he bore unique markers, specifically the marks of
crucifixion, similar characteristics, attributes
recognisable in one hand in in those instances, but not in
others. Sort of hard to tell exactly
what it's going to be like for us, but it's going to be, I
think something like that. So physical bodies, glorious
bodies, glorified bodies. How awesome.
And let's finish this now versus 50 to 58.
Our transformation will be instant and irreversible.
Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit
the Kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption.
Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed. So even if you're worried about,
well, what's that going to be like with the rapture in my
body? You'll be changed in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, verse 52.
For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal
must put on immortality. So when this corruptible is put
on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then
shall be brought to pass the saying that is written.
Death is swallowed up in victory.
Oh, death, where is your sting? Oh, Hades, where is your
victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour
is not in vain in the Lord. So we wonder when thinking of
resurrection, when will this happen?
How will this happen? It's the miracle of the moment.
Paul speaks of the last trumpet of Christ's return.
Those who are dead will be raised in perishable the living
transformed instantly. No long drawn out process, no
purgatory, no reincarnation, no more doctors, no more
prescriptions, no more funerals. This is not science fiction.
This is God's promise to you and I.
And you don't need to wait, it says it will happen suddenly,
completely and gloriously. Isn't that amazing?
And then the mockery of death, he said.
Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Where, O death is your sting? Paul here quotes Isaiah in the
book of Hosea to show that death's days are numbered.
So there will come a day, when you think of it, that you'll
look at your coffin and say you didn't win because of Jesus.
We mock death like Jesus did death's sting.
It's there because sin has power through the law.
But Jesus kept the law, bore our sin and broke deaths grip and
took out the venom from the sting.
Only Jesus claimed to forgive sin, to die for sin, to rise,
and to conquer sin. You know, no other religion
makes that claim and none offers resurrection as a gift.
Verse 58, Here's the conclusion for us tonight.
He says, therefore, stand firm. First of all, let nothing move
you now. We can stand firm now in light
of what we've discovered, in light of what we've read through
in this passage, through suffering, through the
frustrations of our physical body.
Now Paul knows what life is like.
Paul ever got sick. Paul ever grieved.
Paul grappled with questions, tells us that there was a point
in time where he was sick, that he cried out to God to have it
removed. But God said, no, My, my grace
is sufficient for you. And maybe you've had questions
like that, You know, why am I sick?
Why am I going through this? Why is she dying?
Why is he dying? Why is he suffering?
Where is God in all of this? And yet Paul says, therefore, in
light of all of this, stand firm.
Let nothing move you. God's not asking you to fake
happiness here, but He is calling you and I to cling to
hope, the hope of resurrection. And we need the Lord most when
we're hurting, don't we? And others need him most when
they're suffering. And so we pray and we go to him
and we stand firm. And then second, he says, serve
fully with the resurrection hope.
He says, always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord.
Now our ministry, what we do, our service unto God and and to
one another is not, it's not just for the strong or for the
healthy amongst us. You know, many times haven't you
found that it flows best from our weakness.
If you've known pain, if you've experienced loss, if you've
encountered grief, you are uniquely equipped to comfort
others. The mother who's lost a baby can
minister to the one who is grieving with the same.
The man with chronic illness can encourage the weary.
The widow can help the grieving spouse.
So he says, serve fully with resurrection hope.
Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord.
And so tonight, because of resurrection, we suffer, Yes,
but not without hope. We grieve, but not as those
without a future. We serve not in vain, but in
resurrection power. May that be an encouragement to
you tonight. Let's pray.
Lord God, we thank you for your word out of this passage.
How wonderful it is to think and to consider of eternity of our
of our resurrected bodies, of us forever being in your presence,
of how glorious and how wonderful that will be and of
the frustrations that we experience in our bodies here on
earth, of them no longer being a part of our experience.
And what a hope that is for us, what a joy that brings to our
hearts in the midst of what we encounter now.
And so, God, I come before you now and pray for all of your
people gathered here tonight and ask that you would bless them,
you would guide them, that you would be with them, that you
would fill their hearts with great hope tonight.
It's in Jesus name we pray, Amen.
May God bless you.