And now would you open your Bible please?
Open your Bible please to 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
We always give a little extra time to music on this special morning, and today it's been
especially good because I have a cold that I caught this week and it settled right in
my throat.
So the less talking I do today, the better.
Like some of you, our family has been thinking a lot in recent weeks about how to help aging
parents.
As you know, it can present some difficult challenges.
The process of growing old is not a pleasant process.
Growing old weakens the body and it often also robs the mind.
But decline is a reality that you and I live with.
Humanity has long dreamed of being ageless.
In fact, our generation, it seems, has become obsessed with the idea of remaining forever
young.
It reminds me of a story from mythology about Aurora, who was the goddess of the dawn.
She fell in love with a young mortal by the name of Tithinus.
Zeus promised Aurora anything that she wanted and since she was in love with this young
mortal she asked that he might have eternal life like the gods.
And so Zeus granted that request.
But she forgot to ask Zeus that as he grew, as he aged, that he would stay young.
She asked that he live on, but not that he stay young and the result was that as he lived
on and on he got older and older and experienced all of the problems that go along with aging.
From that mythological story we can see that the gift of living forever can become a curse.
Historian Will Durant, when he turned 70, said, to live forever would be the greatest
curse imaginable.
Well that's true and it's false.
Of course it would be true if we were to live forever in these bodies that are cursed by
sin.
That would be miserable beyond comprehension.
But God, our creator and redeemer, has something else for His people, something else in mind
that is far greater than that and that is the reality of a new body.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 15 I begin reading in verse 50 where it says,
Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does
the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Behold, I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, that is, die, but we shall all
be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.
For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed.
For this perishable must put on the imperishable and the mortal must put on immortality.
These bodies of flesh and blood are perishable, that is, they are mortal, they are subject
to death.
But God has a plan in process that will change these bodies.
That will make them forever young, imperishable, and immortal.
His plan, of course, was set in motion with the death and the subsequent resurrection
of His beloved Son.
As Paul says earlier in this chapter in verse 20,
Now Christ has been raised from the dead the firstfruits of those who are asleep.
For since by a man came death, that's Adam, of course, by a man also came the resurrection
of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.
Notice that.
Even so, also those in Christ shall be made alive.
Those in Christ.
God's plan for resurrection is linked inseparably to the resurrection of Jesus our Lord.
The resurrection, of course, is the theme of 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
In this chapter we learn yet again that Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the
scriptures.
He was buried and He was raised again on the third day according to the scriptures.
Paul goes on to assert that therefore we, His followers, will one day be raised from
death as well.
We will have resurrection bodies.
But then, of course, that brings a question, doesn't it?
What will these bodies be like?
What do we know about the resurrection body that we will someday have?
In 1 Corinthians 15 the Apostle Paul attempts to answer that question as the Spirit of God
gives him words to record for us.
The first thing that Paul says regarding the resurrection body is that it is God's design.
We see this in verses 36 through 38.
He says, That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies, and that which you
sow you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something
else.
But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.
What does God design the process of germination with the seed dying and then producing a new
body?
So God has also designed a resurrection change for the human body.
And here the analogy is the seed.
You put a seed into the ground.
What is it?
It is a kernel that is dry and shriveled.
Have you ever seen a body that is buried?
And what happens to that seed?
It decays.
And from the decay comes forth new life through the process of germination, and a plant is
born.
Paul is saying here if God can design, change, and create rather, and sustain the universe,
and if He can design within that universe the process of germination, then surely this
same God is able to raise the dead and reconstitute a body that is appropriate for eternal life.
The resurrection body that God has designed is one that is identifiable but not identical
to the one that we now have.
In other words, the resurrection body is not going to be merely a re-formed body so that
you have the same body you do now.
It is not identical to the body you have now, any more than what grows out of the ground
is the identical thing that was planted a few weeks before.
But the resurrection body is identifiable.
In other words, you will be you, I will be I, we will all know each other in the resurrection,
even though the body will be different just as the plant is different than the seed and
yet you know the plant came from that seed because it is a corn, a stock of corn, or
a stock of wheat, or whatever you plant.
There is continuity, in other words, between what is planted and what is brought forth.
What comes from the seed is really more beautiful than the seed itself.
A seed may be ugly, but the subsequent plant, lovely.
Consider for example a tulip bulb.
Is there anything more humble looking than a tulip bulb?
Shriveled, dead looking on the outside, and yet you plant that into the ground and what
comes up in the spring, but a beautiful flower.
And so the resurrection body will be more wonderful and more beautiful than the bodies
we have now.
Most of us take great heart in that idea.
The resurrection body will be a clear continuation of our existence in this body, but quite improved
from this body.
And so God has designed, says Paul, a resurrection body and he uses the analogy of the seed to
help us understand a little bit about God's design.
It will be a body that will be fitted for the spiritual realm as well as the physical
realm.
That brings me to the second point.
What is this body like, this resurrection body?
Well in verses 39 through the first part of verse 44, we see that the resurrection body
is unique to its order.
Paul in these verses talks about different kinds of flesh in animals.
Each one has its own kind of flesh or body.
He talks about the heavenly bodies and the earth.
Each is unique for the order for which it was created.
So the resurrection body, he is saying, will be suited and distinguished to that order
of life that is coming.
There is nothing in the world that we can compare it to.
For the only thing like the resurrection body that we will have is the body that Jesus now
has and he is in heaven.
But Paul in these verses describes its uniqueness.
Its newness.
How different it is with a series of contrasts.
He says our present body is perishable, verse 42.
But that resurrection body is going to be imperishable.
There's no deterioration with this body that's coming.
Secondly, he says in verse 43 that the present body is one of dishonor.
That is, it is a humble body, how well we know.
But the body that is coming is a body of glory, resplendent with glory.
The body we have now is known for its weakness, he says in verse 43.
But that body will be one of power.
Now our body is limited.
But that body will be unrestricted.
And finally he says in verse 44 that the present body is a natural body, whereas the coming
body will be a spiritual body.
That is, our present body is subject to the laws of nature that God has set up.
However, the coming body is going to be subject to the laws of the spirit.
Not that it's going to be an intangible body.
It's going to be a real body.
A material body.
And yet a body that will operate on the basis of different laws than our present body.
It will not be a body that operates on the laws of flesh and blood, as Paul puts it in
verse 50.
For bodies of flesh and blood cannot inherit what is eternal.
But it will be a body of matter.
It will be a body of flesh.
It will operate on different principles, the laws of the spirit.
Third, as the apostle wants us to know what kind of a body we will have, he describes
it as the superseder to the present body.
In verses 44 through 49 he says that there is a certain sequence that God has established.
He says if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
And then he quotes from the scripture.
He says it's written, the first man Adam became a living soul from Genesis.
And then he says the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
He calls Jesus the last Adam.
He's not the second Adam or the third Adam.
He is the last Adam because there is none that is coming after him.
Then he goes on to say the spiritual is not first, the natural.
Then comes the spiritual.
He says the first man came from the earth.
He was made out of dust.
The second man is from heaven.
And then he says as is the earthy, so are those who are earthy.
And as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly.
And just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the
heavenly.
Paul is saying that there is a now and there is a then.
Now we are in a body that is physical, that is earthy, that we have inherited from our
father Adam.
And our Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam, is a life-giving being.
And He is going to give us another body in the future that will supersede the body that
we have now.
Something better is coming, says Paul.
Reminds me of the epitaph that Benjamin Franklin wrote for himself.
He was not a Christian.
He was a deist.
And yet he believed in God and he believed certain things about God, including the coming
resurrection.
And this is the epitaph.
Perhaps you have heard it.
Apparently this is on his tombstone.
The body of B. Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out
and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here.
Good for worms.
But the work shall not be wholly lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once more
in a new and more perfect edition, corrected and amended by the author.
Well he had the idea of resurrection, even if he missed some of the other important truths
of the scripture regarding the person of Jesus Christ.
Finally, the apostle Paul in telling us about the resurrection body in verses 50 through
53 tells us that the resurrection body is the consummation of our hope.
Man's dream has long been of immortality.
One day the children of God will realize this dream.
The apostle says in Romans chapter 8, we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, groan
within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, that is the redemption of
our body.
Talking about the resurrection.
Then he says, for in this hope we have been saved.
Paul is saying just as the whole creation around us is burdened with the weight of human
sin, just as we have brought a curse to the creation that God gave us originally to rule
over.
So one day the very redemption that we know in spirit will be ours in body.
We groan now in these bodies because they age and deteriorate.
But one day we will have what he calls the redemption of our body, that is our hope.
And when we have that experience, he says, so will nature.
The creation itself will be released from the bondage that we have brought to it.
Paul speaks further of this day that he describes here in Philippians chapter 3 when he says,
our citizenship is in heaven from where also we eagerly wait for a savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body
of his glory.
That is the believer's hope.
Because of the resurrection, the message of the Christian faith is one of hope.
Our confession is founded upon the past certainly and upon historical events, but our faith
is oriented toward the future.
We who are Christians see the future through the eyes of faith, trusting in the promises
of God.
The hope of the resurrection to life is available to all who desire it.
And I ask you today, do you have that hope yourself of the resurrection to life?
This is the only message of hope there is, and it stands in contrast to the religions
of man that talk about death as being the end and that we simply cease to exist.
When Brezhnev died in Russia and was laid out in state, at the very end of the ceremony
his wife stood beside his casket weeping.
And just as the guards were about to reach up and close the top of his casket, she quickly
reached in and made the sign of the cross on his chest, hoping that somehow what he
had denied and fought against all of his life might still come true for him.
She wanted hope at that time of death.
She believed that there is something beyond the grave.
Then there are others who try to tell us today that we come back into the world as an animal
or as a tree until we are ready to unite with the cosmos, with the energy of the universe.
The Bible says nothing of that.
But the Bible does say that one day we will be resurrected.
The words of Jesus, I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me shall live even if he dies.
And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
Do you believe this?
He asked.
Is your faith in Jesus Christ this morning, the resurrected Son of God?
Before Columbus discovered America, the Spanish had coins that were stamped upon them, a Latin
inscription, which meant in English, no more beyond.
No more beyond.
And on that coin, along with that statement, was the outline of the Straits of Gibraltar.
What they were saying is that's the end.
There's nothing more beyond the Straits of Gibraltar.
And then one day, Columbus sailed across the ocean and found out there was a lot more beyond.
The Spanish did their coins again and they left off the first part of that Latin phrase.
So from then on it said, more beyond.
More beyond.
The Lord Jesus Christ one day went to the cross and as it were sailed through that narrow
channel that only He could go through and for three days He was buried in the grave.
And the world said, no more beyond.
But on that first Easter morning He rose from the dead.
And now the statement is changed and it says, more beyond because of Jesus.
I hope this morning that you know Him, that you've trusted Him as your Lord and Savior.
Let's pray together.
And friend, if you do not have hope in Jesus, if you do not have the hope of the resurrection
to life, that statement, no more beyond, frightens you, doesn't it?
The truth is that there is more beyond and that more beyond is found in Jesus.
Will you today receive Him into your heart as an act of faith?
Trust Him.
And if you're a child of God, will you today give your heart afresh to Jesus to live for
Him, to give Him your best, to give Him your all?
For He gave His all for you and for me.
Let's stand together please.
Father, we thank you this morning for the resurrection, for all that it means to us
now and for what it means for the future, the hope that it secures for us.
On this Easter morning, may all of us leave this place with that hope burning brightly
in our hearts and knowing that there is more beyond because Jesus lives.
And may our joy soar.
God bless you.
Word is missed.