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And now would you open your Bible please?

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Open your Bible please to 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

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We always give a little extra time to music on this special morning, and today it's been

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especially good because I have a cold that I caught this week and it settled right in

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my throat.

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So the less talking I do today, the better.

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Like some of you, our family has been thinking a lot in recent weeks about how to help aging

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parents.

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As you know, it can present some difficult challenges.

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The process of growing old is not a pleasant process.

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Growing old weakens the body and it often also robs the mind.

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But decline is a reality that you and I live with.

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Humanity has long dreamed of being ageless.

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In fact, our generation, it seems, has become obsessed with the idea of remaining forever

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young.

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It reminds me of a story from mythology about Aurora, who was the goddess of the dawn.

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She fell in love with a young mortal by the name of Tithinus.

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Zeus promised Aurora anything that she wanted and since she was in love with this young

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mortal she asked that he might have eternal life like the gods.

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And so Zeus granted that request.

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But she forgot to ask Zeus that as he grew, as he aged, that he would stay young.

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She asked that he live on, but not that he stay young and the result was that as he lived

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on and on he got older and older and experienced all of the problems that go along with aging.

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From that mythological story we can see that the gift of living forever can become a curse.

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Historian Will Durant, when he turned 70, said, to live forever would be the greatest

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curse imaginable.

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Well that's true and it's false.

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Of course it would be true if we were to live forever in these bodies that are cursed by

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sin.

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That would be miserable beyond comprehension.

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But God, our creator and redeemer, has something else for His people, something else in mind

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that is far greater than that and that is the reality of a new body.

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In 1 Corinthians chapter 15 I begin reading in verse 50 where it says,

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Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does

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the perishable inherit the imperishable.

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Behold, I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, that is, die, but we shall all

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be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.

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For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed.

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For this perishable must put on the imperishable and the mortal must put on immortality.

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These bodies of flesh and blood are perishable, that is, they are mortal, they are subject

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to death.

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But God has a plan in process that will change these bodies.

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That will make them forever young, imperishable, and immortal.

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His plan, of course, was set in motion with the death and the subsequent resurrection

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of His beloved Son.

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As Paul says earlier in this chapter in verse 20,

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Now Christ has been raised from the dead the firstfruits of those who are asleep.

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For since by a man came death, that's Adam, of course, by a man also came the resurrection

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of the dead.

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For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.

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Notice that.

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Even so, also those in Christ shall be made alive.

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Those in Christ.

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God's plan for resurrection is linked inseparably to the resurrection of Jesus our Lord.

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The resurrection, of course, is the theme of 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

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In this chapter we learn yet again that Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the

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scriptures.

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He was buried and He was raised again on the third day according to the scriptures.

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Paul goes on to assert that therefore we, His followers, will one day be raised from

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death as well.

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We will have resurrection bodies.

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But then, of course, that brings a question, doesn't it?

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What will these bodies be like?

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What do we know about the resurrection body that we will someday have?

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In 1 Corinthians 15 the Apostle Paul attempts to answer that question as the Spirit of God

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gives him words to record for us.

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The first thing that Paul says regarding the resurrection body is that it is God's design.

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We see this in verses 36 through 38.

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He says, That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies, and that which you

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sow you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something

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else.

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But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.

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What does God design the process of germination with the seed dying and then producing a new

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body?

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So God has also designed a resurrection change for the human body.

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And here the analogy is the seed.

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You put a seed into the ground.

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What is it?

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It is a kernel that is dry and shriveled.

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Have you ever seen a body that is buried?

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And what happens to that seed?

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It decays.

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And from the decay comes forth new life through the process of germination, and a plant is

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born.

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Paul is saying here if God can design, change, and create rather, and sustain the universe,

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and if He can design within that universe the process of germination, then surely this

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same God is able to raise the dead and reconstitute a body that is appropriate for eternal life.

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The resurrection body that God has designed is one that is identifiable but not identical

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to the one that we now have.

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In other words, the resurrection body is not going to be merely a re-formed body so that

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you have the same body you do now.

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It is not identical to the body you have now, any more than what grows out of the ground

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is the identical thing that was planted a few weeks before.

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But the resurrection body is identifiable.

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In other words, you will be you, I will be I, we will all know each other in the resurrection,

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even though the body will be different just as the plant is different than the seed and

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yet you know the plant came from that seed because it is a corn, a stock of corn, or

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a stock of wheat, or whatever you plant.

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There is continuity, in other words, between what is planted and what is brought forth.

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What comes from the seed is really more beautiful than the seed itself.

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A seed may be ugly, but the subsequent plant, lovely.

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Consider for example a tulip bulb.

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Is there anything more humble looking than a tulip bulb?

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Shriveled, dead looking on the outside, and yet you plant that into the ground and what

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comes up in the spring, but a beautiful flower.

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And so the resurrection body will be more wonderful and more beautiful than the bodies

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we have now.

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Most of us take great heart in that idea.

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The resurrection body will be a clear continuation of our existence in this body, but quite improved

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from this body.

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And so God has designed, says Paul, a resurrection body and he uses the analogy of the seed to

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help us understand a little bit about God's design.

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It will be a body that will be fitted for the spiritual realm as well as the physical

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realm.

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That brings me to the second point.

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What is this body like, this resurrection body?

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Well in verses 39 through the first part of verse 44, we see that the resurrection body

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is unique to its order.

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Paul in these verses talks about different kinds of flesh in animals.

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Each one has its own kind of flesh or body.

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He talks about the heavenly bodies and the earth.

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Each is unique for the order for which it was created.

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So the resurrection body, he is saying, will be suited and distinguished to that order

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of life that is coming.

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There is nothing in the world that we can compare it to.

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For the only thing like the resurrection body that we will have is the body that Jesus now

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has and he is in heaven.

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But Paul in these verses describes its uniqueness.

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Its newness.

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How different it is with a series of contrasts.

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He says our present body is perishable, verse 42.

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But that resurrection body is going to be imperishable.

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There's no deterioration with this body that's coming.

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Secondly, he says in verse 43 that the present body is one of dishonor.

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That is, it is a humble body, how well we know.

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But the body that is coming is a body of glory, resplendent with glory.

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The body we have now is known for its weakness, he says in verse 43.

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But that body will be one of power.

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Now our body is limited.

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But that body will be unrestricted.

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And finally he says in verse 44 that the present body is a natural body, whereas the coming

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body will be a spiritual body.

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That is, our present body is subject to the laws of nature that God has set up.

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However, the coming body is going to be subject to the laws of the spirit.

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Not that it's going to be an intangible body.

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It's going to be a real body.

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A material body.

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And yet a body that will operate on the basis of different laws than our present body.

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It will not be a body that operates on the laws of flesh and blood, as Paul puts it in

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verse 50.

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For bodies of flesh and blood cannot inherit what is eternal.

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But it will be a body of matter.

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It will be a body of flesh.

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It will operate on different principles, the laws of the spirit.

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Third, as the apostle wants us to know what kind of a body we will have, he describes

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it as the superseder to the present body.

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In verses 44 through 49 he says that there is a certain sequence that God has established.

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He says if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

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And then he quotes from the scripture.

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He says it's written, the first man Adam became a living soul from Genesis.

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And then he says the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

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He calls Jesus the last Adam.

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He's not the second Adam or the third Adam.

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He is the last Adam because there is none that is coming after him.

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Then he goes on to say the spiritual is not first, the natural.

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Then comes the spiritual.

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He says the first man came from the earth.

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He was made out of dust.

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The second man is from heaven.

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And then he says as is the earthy, so are those who are earthy.

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And as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly.

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And just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the

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heavenly.

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Paul is saying that there is a now and there is a then.

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Now we are in a body that is physical, that is earthy, that we have inherited from our

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father Adam.

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And our Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam, is a life-giving being.

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And He is going to give us another body in the future that will supersede the body that

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we have now.

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Something better is coming, says Paul.

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Reminds me of the epitaph that Benjamin Franklin wrote for himself.

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He was not a Christian.

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He was a deist.

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And yet he believed in God and he believed certain things about God, including the coming

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resurrection.

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And this is the epitaph.

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Perhaps you have heard it.

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Apparently this is on his tombstone.

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The body of B. Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out

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and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here.

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Good for worms.

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But the work shall not be wholly lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once more

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in a new and more perfect edition, corrected and amended by the author.

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Well he had the idea of resurrection, even if he missed some of the other important truths

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of the scripture regarding the person of Jesus Christ.

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Finally, the apostle Paul in telling us about the resurrection body in verses 50 through

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53 tells us that the resurrection body is the consummation of our hope.

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Man's dream has long been of immortality.

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One day the children of God will realize this dream.

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The apostle says in Romans chapter 8, we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, groan

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within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, that is the redemption of

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our body.

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Talking about the resurrection.

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Then he says, for in this hope we have been saved.

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Paul is saying just as the whole creation around us is burdened with the weight of human

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sin, just as we have brought a curse to the creation that God gave us originally to rule

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over.

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So one day the very redemption that we know in spirit will be ours in body.

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We groan now in these bodies because they age and deteriorate.

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But one day we will have what he calls the redemption of our body, that is our hope.

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And when we have that experience, he says, so will nature.

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The creation itself will be released from the bondage that we have brought to it.

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Paul speaks further of this day that he describes here in Philippians chapter 3 when he says,

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our citizenship is in heaven from where also we eagerly wait for a savior, the Lord Jesus

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Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body

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of his glory.

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That is the believer's hope.

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Because of the resurrection, the message of the Christian faith is one of hope.

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Our confession is founded upon the past certainly and upon historical events, but our faith

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is oriented toward the future.

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We who are Christians see the future through the eyes of faith, trusting in the promises

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of God.

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The hope of the resurrection to life is available to all who desire it.

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And I ask you today, do you have that hope yourself of the resurrection to life?

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This is the only message of hope there is, and it stands in contrast to the religions

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of man that talk about death as being the end and that we simply cease to exist.

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When Brezhnev died in Russia and was laid out in state, at the very end of the ceremony

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his wife stood beside his casket weeping.

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And just as the guards were about to reach up and close the top of his casket, she quickly

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reached in and made the sign of the cross on his chest, hoping that somehow what he

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had denied and fought against all of his life might still come true for him.

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She wanted hope at that time of death.

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She believed that there is something beyond the grave.

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Then there are others who try to tell us today that we come back into the world as an animal

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or as a tree until we are ready to unite with the cosmos, with the energy of the universe.

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The Bible says nothing of that.

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But the Bible does say that one day we will be resurrected.

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The words of Jesus, I am the resurrection and the life.

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He who believes in me shall live even if he dies.

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And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

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Do you believe this?

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He asked.

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Is your faith in Jesus Christ this morning, the resurrected Son of God?

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Before Columbus discovered America, the Spanish had coins that were stamped upon them, a Latin

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inscription, which meant in English, no more beyond.

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No more beyond.

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And on that coin, along with that statement, was the outline of the Straits of Gibraltar.

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What they were saying is that's the end.

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There's nothing more beyond the Straits of Gibraltar.

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And then one day, Columbus sailed across the ocean and found out there was a lot more beyond.

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The Spanish did their coins again and they left off the first part of that Latin phrase.

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So from then on it said, more beyond.

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More beyond.

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The Lord Jesus Christ one day went to the cross and as it were sailed through that narrow

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channel that only He could go through and for three days He was buried in the grave.

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And the world said, no more beyond.

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But on that first Easter morning He rose from the dead.

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And now the statement is changed and it says, more beyond because of Jesus.

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I hope this morning that you know Him, that you've trusted Him as your Lord and Savior.

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Let's pray together.

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And friend, if you do not have hope in Jesus, if you do not have the hope of the resurrection

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to life, that statement, no more beyond, frightens you, doesn't it?

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The truth is that there is more beyond and that more beyond is found in Jesus.

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Will you today receive Him into your heart as an act of faith?

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Trust Him.

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And if you're a child of God, will you today give your heart afresh to Jesus to live for

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Him, to give Him your best, to give Him your all?

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For He gave His all for you and for me.

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Let's stand together please.

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Father, we thank you this morning for the resurrection, for all that it means to us

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now and for what it means for the future, the hope that it secures for us.

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On this Easter morning, may all of us leave this place with that hope burning brightly

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in our hearts and knowing that there is more beyond because Jesus lives.

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And may our joy soar.

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God bless you.

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Word is missed.