Landon Coleman
Immanuel Sermon Audio
Salvation: Resurrection
Go have notes in the back if you need notes. I hope you have a Bible. We're gonna look at a number of different verses as we think tonight about resurrection. This Wednesday night series is dealing with the topic of salvation. What is it? What are the different distinct pieces of it or the parts of it and what has God done in discrete ways to save us? Week one in this series, we just talked about salvation in the broadest terms, the most general terms. We said that God has saved his people. He is saving his people and he will save his people. He has saved us from sin. He saved us from death. He saved us from his own wrath. And he saved us for himself, for his glory and for a relationship with him. The next two weeks went together, propitiation and redemption. That is salvation accomplished specifically by God the Son in his work on the cross in satisfying the Father's wrath and in shedding his blood to purchase us, to redeem us or to buy us back from death and slavery. We talked about the spirit's work of regeneration. The Holy Spirit miraculously changes our hearts. He gives us life where we were dead. He moves us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And that work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration is a sovereign work. It's not a work that we manipulate or control or influence, but that's the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We talked about conversion. Our response to regeneration is we repent of our sin and we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We turn from sin and we turn to Jesus in faith. And then we talked about a number of things that kind of go together, union with Christ and justification and adoption and reconciliation. Last week we talked about sanctification and sanctification bleeds over into what we're gonna talk about tonight and next week. So tonight we're talking about resurrection and then next week we're gonna talk about glorification. And I made this outline quite a while back, it's been many, many months since I had this outline in place. And I thought I wanna talk about these two things discreetly and distinctly. And I put resurrection first and then glorification in that order. And as I studied over the last couple of weeks to brush up and to get ready for tonight and next week, I initially found myself thinking I should have reversed that order. We should have actually started with glorification and then we should have moved to resurrection. But then the longer I studied I came back and said, no, you were right the first time, you have it right this time. And what I'm saying to you is this is a little bit complex and these last two pieces of salvation while we can speak about them distinctly as unique works of God in the lives of the people that he's saved, they're intertwined and they're connected together. And so I think this quote from Bruce Demarest, the cross and salvation communicates this well. He says, in the broadest sense, the glorification of the saints will occur in four phases or stages. The first phase will occur at the believer's death when the immaterial soul spirit departs this sin cursed body to enter Christ's immediate presence and glory. Glorification proper occurs in a second stage, this involves the resurrection of the saints, transform bodies in reunion with their spirits. This great event will occur at Christ's second coming in glory. In the third phase of glorification, believers will finally be vindicated before the judgment seat of Christ. The fourth phase of glorification involves the believer's entry as embodied spirits into heaven. Now here's what I'm gonna tell you about that quote. It captures well that there are several things that are kind of intertwined together. And they're intertwined because of our experience of physical death and then are going to be with the Lord and then Jesus' return and then our resurrection and the reunification of our soul spirit with a resurrected body and this idea of a final judgment and then this entering as Demerys says as embodied spirits into heaven. Not all theologians parse this out exactly the same and put all these ideas under the headings that Demerys just put them under. And I would just say I picked the songs tonight. I picked the last song that said when the role is called where, up yonder. I would just say although I like that hymn and I sang the whole thing that the Bible actually says that in the end, heaven is gonna come down to earth and we're gonna live on a new earth, a new creation in a new restored cosmos. And so maybe when we sing that song from now on, we could say when the role is called or yonder, not up yonder like spirits floating around the sky, but orionder, somewhere or there, the role is gonna be called. I'll be there in the new heavens in the new earth. This is some complicated things to think about, things out there in the future. I'm gonna try to listen to what the Bible says. We're gonna talk about these two ideas together tonight and next week and so I'll give you these big ideas together. Resurrection, we're no longer dead and glorification, we're no longer sinful. And I agree with Demerus that in a real sense, glorification, if you die on this side of Christ returning and your body is buried or cremated or whatever we do with your body and you go to be with the Lord that your glorification begins now, not later, but resurrection does come later and the final full experience of glorification is later. Clear as mud, everybody tracking with me? All right, I wanna tell you about my granddad, my paternal grandfather. It's a man named William Coleman, we called him Grandpa Bill and he was a Marine and he was very proud of the fact that he was a Marine and we as his family were very proud of the fact that he was a Marine. He served honorably many times, multiple times during the Vietnam conflict and he was very proud of his service as he should be. He served his country faithfully and he did what was asked of him. He loved being in the Marines, he was very proud of that. When he retired, full military retirement, he was still in his working years and so he had a number of different jobs and one of the jobs that he was most proud of and as a kid growing up that we thought, at least I thought as a young boy was really cool, is he worked on the security team at Kamiski Park in Chicago. Kamiski's on the south side of Chicago. He didn't work at the old Kamiski Park but the new Kamiski Park and it's not called Kamiski Park anymore, it's called guaranteed rate field or something boring like that. But the old stadium was Kamiski, they built the new Kamiski right beside it initially, they called it Kamiski and he worked there as a security guard and he kept the players safe and he escorted them back and forth and we thought this was pretty cool. I thought it was pretty cool as a young boy who loved baseball and baseball cards, he would tell me stories about Frank Thomas and Robin Ventura and all the guys that he interacted with and I would say, could you please get me an autograph and he was such a rule follower military guy, he said that is not allowed, you cannot ask those guys for autographs when you work there and I thought that is the dumbest thing ever, just ask for an autograph, get me an autograph on a baseball card. So I never got an autograph. What I did get every Christmas is a giant duffle bag that had one of everything they gave away at Kamiski Park during the year. So one bobblehead, one calendar, one koozie, one, whatever, I had one of everything white socks on all kinds of stuff. So he's had white socks gear growing up. I got to visit him one time when I was in high school and he was so proud to tour me around the stadium and to show me how they did the security detail and even took me into, I don't think he was supposed to, but he took me into the owner's office, Jerry Rhinesdorf and let me look around and nose around at his stuff. Today there'd be security cameras everywhere, you'd get in trouble, but we made it in and we made it out okay. So he was proud of this, proud Marine, proud of his work at Kamiski Park with the white socks and there's one more thing you need to know about him. He was proud of his ability to tell a funny story and he swore most of his funny stories were true stories. We didn't think most of them were true. He told a story so many times of how he remembers leaving the hospital as a baby in the stroller, in Chicago and he would say I was so cold and all I wanted was someone to put a blanket on me and I was so cold and no one would put a blanket on me and he would tell you these things he remembered. He would tell you how you remembered being a reincarnated Roman gladiator or different things. He told one story in particular that I always remember. I texted my dad about it this week and he said, yep, that's the story, I remember it. My granddad was Irish Catholic and he grew up in Chicago and an Irish Catholic community, kind of a little enclave of Irish Catholicism. One of the things unique, really it's more, at the time was more Irish than Catholic but it was a blending of the two, is that when you had a family member pass away, you would keep the body in the home and you would stay up with the body and you would watch and keep watch over the person who was there and they would stay there and you'd have the Catholic wake and you'd read the rosary and you'd do all of these things and then you would take the person to bury him. There's some other pieces that were interesting along the way but that's the basic idea. And so it ended up looking something like this. I know you can't see that very well, I put it up and I was disappointed. Just go home and Google it, don't get your phone out now, just go home Google, Irish Catholic wake. Let me tell you what I like about this photo. Everyone in this photo is either drinking alcohol, smoking a pipe or passed out over a keg or dead. Those are the four things you're doing in this photo and there's some pictures on the wall that are sort of Catholic type paintings, different things and you can see the cross in the middle, you can see it off that black backdrop and then on the bottom left you can see the whiskey and then that long line coming down the middle, that old lady's got a long pipe and they've got some different things going on there. The bottom says Mickey O'Hulahen's wake, Mickey O'Hulahen's wake. So here's another picture, it's not quite as good but it's the same basic things going on, okay? You're either drinking or you're smoking or you're passed out or you're dead and that's what they did at these wakes. Apparently, I've never been to one. So my granddad says when he was very young, very young, that he had an uncle who died and they put the body in his living room and he was given a shift to stay up with the uncle. He said he was terrified, completely terrified, to stay up, it's just him in this living room, with his dead body and he's just terrified and they went through the whole thing, they had the wake and at the wake they do some scripture reading and different things and he says, he swears on his life, swore on his life that in the middle of the wake, his uncle laying in the coffin, got up in the middle of his own wake, came back to life and lived many more years after that before they eventually buried him again and he would tell this story and he would embellish things and it would never be quite the same as the last time and we would just sort of listen. The skeptic in me would say, well, I think you just made it up. I don't think it happened, maybe at all. Or the skeptic in me would say, maybe your uncle was taking a nap and he just, he wasn't really dead, clinically dead and he just kind of revived a little bit and he just needed a day or two nap to rest up. Maybe, maybe it's possible that he really was dead and the Lord wasn't done with him and send him back, you hear stories like this, I tend to believe almost none of them but there's nothing biblically that I could point to that would say this is categorically impossible, it could not, cannot happen, I don't think it's the norm and I think most people who tell these kinds of stories are fipping and stretching the truth and trying to make a buck. However, even if the story's true, what happened to my grandfather's uncle would fall in the category of resuscitation, not resurrection. Okay, these two things are categorically different and if you want biblical examples of the differences here, we would say Jesus, he raised Lazarus from the dead, he resuscitated him because Lazarus died again. Okay, he was not raised never to die again, he had two funerals and I can only imagine that the second one was a little bit anticlimactic or maybe it was very anxious like everyone's saying, what's gonna happen this time, I don't know. But he died again, he was raised back then he died again. The biblical idea of resurrection, biblically speaking has only happened to one person so far and that's Jesus Christ and he was raised from the dead and he received a glorified body and he was raised and placed in this body with his divine being, there's mystery in this and the Trinity and the incarnation, but he was raised never to die again and he ascended to the right hand of the Father and he promised that he would return in power and in glory. So we're thinking about resurrection, not just resuscitation, okay? This is not a talk about the boy, he died, he said he went to heaven and he came back, that's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about that at all, we're not talking about resuscitation, we're talking about resurrection. So question number one, why do we need to be resurrected? Now look, the obvious answer is because we're dead, resurrection, we're no longer dead, why do we need to be resurrected? Well, because we're dead, but if you're a Christian, you've probably thought about this and you may have thought to yourself, okay, yes, my body's dead, but if I go to be with the Lord upon death, why do I need to have a resurrected body? Why can't I just hang out with the Lord up yonder and we'll be up there together forever and he'll be there and I'll be there and my soul will be there, why do I need to worry about this body stuff anymore? So let me give you a few thoughts, why do we need to be resurrected? In the beginning, God intended for human beings to have a body and a soul. That was his design, that was his intention from the beginning. So if you turn to Genesis two, we could talk just briefly about what it means to be a human being. Genesis one says that we're made in God's image in his likeness. Unique amongst all creation, human beings are made in God's image. Male and female, he made us. Both male and female are created in the image of God. We had a unique blessing. Chapter one verse 28, we were given dominion and told to be fruitful and to multiply and it was at the end of the creation week only at the end when human beings had been created when God said not just that it was good but that it was very good. And his design in making us is explained in chapter two. Chapter two looks back to the sixth day of creation, human beings and this is what we read in Genesis two, seven. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living creature. All the other things God created, he said let there be and there was. And you understand and I understand the Lord's omnipotent, he could have just said let there be a man. But there's special care and special attention given to the creation of human beings and he forms man from the dust and then he breathes into him, he spirits into him the breath of life and at that point man becomes a living creature. And this is God's design for human beings that you have a body and that you have a soul. And so one of the things Demerus said and that opening quote was in the end, he talked about the believer's entry as embodied spirits into heaven. So I'm gonna say something and I'm not trying to pick a fight with you and I'm not trying to embarrass you or shame you. But sometimes when we go to a wake or a funeral or a graveside service or whatever, sometimes we say that's just a body, just a body. God's design was that you have a body and a soul that you be an embodied spirit. It's not accidental, it's not unimportant in God's design, it's fundamental to the creation story that we are embodied spirits. Angels are not, they're spirits. It's not God's design for them, but God's design for human beings is that they be embodied spirits. Your body is you, your spirit is you. And sometimes we just talk like our body's not all that important, we just, we have it, I don't know why we have it, where one of these days we'll get rid of it, we'll be free of it, and then we'll be with the Lord in glory. But God's design from the beginning is that you have a body and that you have a spirit. Secondly, the wages of sin is death and physical death at least involves the separation of our body and our soul. We've been talking about Genesis two and three. God said to Adam, if you eat a tree, on the day you eat of it, you'll die. And the eight of it, in spiritually, they died. Their relationship with God was broken. And if you keep reading Genesis five, they all died physically. And their bodies were put into the ground. And their spirits went to what the Old Testament would refer to as shield or the grave or the place of the dead. And there's this separation between body and spirit. What God designed to be integrated as a whole, that man and woman would be embodied spirits is now separated. And theologians sometimes call this the intermediate state. It's just a theological word for what happens when your body dies physically, and we put it in the ground or we cremate it or whatever. And your spirit goes either as new covenant folks to be with the Lord in glory, to be absent from the bodies, to be present with the Lord, or goes to what we would call the place of the dead, shield or Hades separation from the Lord, awaiting the day of judgment. There's this separation between your body and your soul. Now, one of the things you'll hear from time to time, we're not gonna rabbit trail down this very deep. We're just gonna kind of look down the rabbit trail, okay? Sometimes you'll hear people talk about the idea of soul sleep. Soul sleep. This is a seventh day Adventist idea and it's a Jehovah's Witness idea. And it's the idea that when you die and your body is placed into the ground, your soul, it's kind of like it goes to sleep. Your unconscious, unconscious, your unthinking, you're not aware of anything, and just waiting this final thing to happen at the end. And when it happens, it's kind of like you get woken up from a nap and you say, oh, how long have I been out? I don't know. It's been five minutes, it's been 500 years. Okay, it's not a biblical idea. Everything you read in the New Testament suggests that during this intermediate state, your soul is conscious. You're aware that you're with the Lord in glory, or you're in the place of the dead in Hades, awaiting the day of judgment. So, intermediate state, separation of your body and your soul, okay? Why do we need to be resurrected? God's design was that you have a body and a soul, and the wages of sin is death, and death brings about this separation. One more thought. In the Old Testament, the people of God saw through a glass dimly, yet they anticipated a future resurrection of the dead. Sometimes people say, if you read books, listen to podcasts, people will say, the idea of resurrection is a New Testament idea, it's not an Old Testament. Old Testament folks, Israelites, Hebrews, they didn't have any idea that there was gonna be a resurrection, okay? It would be fair to say that they didn't quite understand all of the things that we understand on this side of the cross and the resurrection, but it's unfair to say that they didn't have any concept of resurrection. So, just for the sake of time, look at the book of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 25, and really, there's a number of verses we could look at in Isaiah, but we'll just look at two. Isaiah 25. (silence) Verse eight. The prophet says, speaking about God, that he will swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. And the reproach of his people, he will take away from all the earth for the Lord has spoken. That business about tears ought to make you think about revelation, and it's a good place just to say that almost everything that John says in the book of Revelation is pulled from the Old Testament. You can't move a phrase left or right in Revelation without bumping into something that hasn't been borrowed from the Old Testament, okay? If you wanna understand revelation, the best thing you could do is read the Old Testament, 'cause John just pulls from it, left and right, left and right, it's gonna swallow up death forever. And then, if you just look the next chapter over, Isaiah chapter 26, in verse 19, it says, "Your dead shall live, and their bodies shall rise, "and you who dwell in the dust awake, "and sing for joy, for your do is a do of light, "and the earth will give birth to the dead." And I guess a liberal scholar or a skeptical scholar would say, "Oh, it's just poetry, it's just poetic, "it's just kind of an image or an idea." But I think if you keep reading in Isaiah, and especially as you get further towards the back end of Isaiah, you read some things and you say, "No, it sounds like he understood. "Maybe he's looking through a glass dimly." That's what the New Testament says about Old Testament believers. They didn't see all these things quite clearly, but they did see them, and they were looking forward in faith, and they had some idea of these things. We're not gonna read Ezekiel 37, but if you were here Easter, that was the text we used on Easter Sunday, and we talked about in Ezekiel 37, the valley of the dry bones as they come together. We talked about the immediate referent of that vision, is that Israel would be brought back from exile, okay? They've been sinned into exile and they have no hope, like a valley of dry dusty bones. God's gonna bring them back. But as you read it with Ezekiel 36, and you follow the train of logic in the book, and you read it as a New Testament believer, you look back and you say, "Well, I think that there's a picture there." That certainly seems like there's an idea of resurrection and coming back to life and having a new body and God doing this miraculous thing. I'll just give you one more Old Testament text. Look at the very end of Daniel. Daniel chapter 12, last chapter in Daniel. I mean, the end of Daniel has some really mysterious things, things that are hard to sort through. And even the verses we're gonna read are gonna raise questions in your mind, we're not gonna answer them. Daniel 12, one says, "At that time shall arise Michael." He's talking about Michael, the angel, archangel, Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people, has responsibility for Israel. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never been since there was a nation till that time, but at that time your people shall be delivered. Everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Sounds like resurrection to me. Okay, I'm not telling you there's tons and tons of stuff in the Old Testament about resurrection, but I think there's hints. And I think there's a general idea that God's gonna do something great in the latter days to raise people from the dead. I've given you some other verses here. You'll notice that I paired Luke 20 and Exodus 3, Acts 2 and Psalm 16, 1 Corinthians 15 and Hosea. Here's why I paired those up. All of those New Testament texts, quote the Old Testament text beside it. And if you just go back and read the Old Testament verse, you would probably not think it's a verse about resurrection. But when the apostles who were guided by it, inspired by the Holy Spirit, read the Old Testament, they looked at those verses in each of those references where they quote those passages, they are talking about resurrection. And the Holy Spirit is guiding them and showing them, "Hey, there are hints of this." And they go back and they find them in the Old Testament, and you can trace those quotes out on your own. Why do we need to be resurrected? God designed you to have a body and a soul. Physical death separates what God designed to be integrated, and God promised in the Scriptures that he was gonna do this. So how does he do it? How does God resurrect the dead? One way to answer that question is we could look at a number of texts. We could look at 1 Corinthians 15, and we could look at 1 Thessalonians 3, which we read earlier, and we could look at Revelation 20. I would say those are the most important New Testament texts dealing with the topic of resurrection. We could just walk through all of those. We don't have time to do that, to walk through three completely separate passages, especially 1 Corinthians 15 is a long passage, and Revelation 20 is a very debated passage. So we're just gonna make some observations, and I'm pointing you in the right direction if you wanna read more about these things. How does God resurrect the dead? Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, and raised from the dead, all in accordance with the Scriptures. 1 Corinthians 15. Crucified, buried, and raised. 1 Corinthians 15, 1. I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you, in which you received, in which you stand, and by which you're being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He appeared to Cephas, then to the 12, and then he lists out a number of other people that Jesus appeared to. All of those things happened in accordance with the Scriptures, with the Old Testament Scriptures. God said that those things were gonna happen. I've given you references here in your notes to Jesus himself predicting his resurrection. John 2, standing in the temple. Jesus said, "Tear down this temple, "and three days later I'll raise it." I said, "How are you gonna do that?" It took us all these years to build this thing, and John says the disciples realized after he'd been raised from the dead, he wasn't talking about the building. He was talking about himself. Three times specifically towards the end of his ministry, Jesus looked right at his disciples, and he said, "The Son of Man's gonna be betrayed, "he's gonna suffer, he's gonna die, "and on the third day he will be raised from the dead." He just told them straight to their face it would happen, and it happened exactly like Jesus said it would happen. Matthew recounts the resurrection story. Mark recounts it, Luke recounts it, John recounts it. All four gospels recount the resurrection story, and when you get to the book of Acts, over and over and over again, the apostles keep saying he was raised from the dead. He was raised from the dead. Yes, he died, he died for sins, but he was raised from the dead, and there's a major emphasis in the book of Acts. Now, two sub points here. The resurrection of Jesus was a Trinitarian work, and the resurrection of Jesus was the first fruits. The first fruits. When I say it's a Trinitarian work, this is what I mean. There are verses, and I've given you some, that say it was the Father who raised Jesus from the dead. And there's a verse from Jesus himself where he said, "I'm the good shepherd, and I'm gonna lay down my sheep, "and I have authority to lay it down, "and I have authority to take it back up." Jesus said he was gonna raise himself from the dead. And Paul says in Romans 8 that it was the spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead. And so what we're saying is, this is a work of the Triune God in concert, which is exactly what we've seen in the doctrine of salvation, that Father, Son, and Spirit work together in harmony, and it was a work of the Triune God to raise Jesus from the dead, and he's the first fruits, which means there's more to come. 1 Corinthians 15, 20, but in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep, those who have died. He's been raised, and one day all of his people are gonna be raised, and he's just the preview. He's just the guarantee on the front end that more is coming. He's the first fruits of the resurrection. I gave you a verse in Matthew 27, and I intentionally left the question marks on it. To say to you, I don't know exactly what's going on in that passage. It's when Jesus dies, and there's a great earthquake, and the skies are dark, and the curtain of the temple's torn in two, and Matthew puts in this little detail, and he says, oh, by the way, in Jerusalem, the tombs were opened, and many righteous people came out, and they walked around Jerusalem. I don't know who they were. I don't know if they were resuscitated, or if they were resurrected with Jesus, I'm inclined to think that they weren't, but maybe they were, it's an obscure passage, there's no other commentary on it anywhere else in the New Testament. Maybe you can figure it out this week. It's a Trinitarian work, and it's the first fruits. Okay, next, believers will be raised from the dead because of our union with Christ. This should sound familiar. If you've been with us on Sunday mornings, we've been working through Romans six, and in Romans six, verse five, Paul says, if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall, future tense will. We will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We're united to him in death. His death counts for ours. We're united with him in resurrection, just like he was raised one day. We too will be raised. Guess what? The resurrection of believers is going to be a Trinitarian work. I shouldn't surprise you. There's places in the New Testament that say the father's gonna raise you, and there's places where Jesus says he's gonna raise you. And Paul says in Romans eight, that it's the spirit of God that's gonna raise you. This is the trying God working together for the resurrection of his people. Last, the resurrection of believers will take place at the return of Jesus. You know I love you. Those of you who believe in a rapture before the tribulation. You know I love you. But I will kindly point out to you again, this is a complicated thing to hold to if you believe that Jesus is gonna come back secretly and snatch people away. Because everything that the New Testament says about Jesus coming back indicates that it's gonna be visible and loud and public. And we just sang about that. When the trumpet of the Lord sounds, that's when Jesus is gonna come back. The cry of the archangel, the command of God, the blowing of the trumpet, Jesus is gonna return, and it's when Jesus returns that the dead are raised. These things happen at the same time. Those who believe in a pre-tribulation rapture have to put a delay in here, and essentially they come up with three returns of Jesus if you wanna be honest about it. First Corinthians 15, verse 50, I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God nor does the perishable inherit the perishable behold. I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment. The twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. The trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall all be changed. We read that in 1 Thessalonians. The trumpet will blast. Those who have died have fallen asleep will come with the Lord. They will be given new bodies and those who are left that are alive when the Lord returns will be transformed in the twinkling of an eye. I think this is what Paul talks about in Philippians chapter three. The very end of this letter, Philippians three, our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior. He's gonna come, the Lord Jesus Christ. When he comes, verse 21, he'll transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Here's the general order of I think what the New Testament is telling you's gonna happen. If you're a believer and you die tonight, you go to be with the Lord. You're absent from the body. You're present with the Lord. And this process of glorification if you wanna turn it that way begins. And at some point the Lord Jesus is gonna return and those who are living are gonna be transformed in the twinkling of an eye. It's gonna be a miracle. You're gonna get your new resurrection body just like that. And in that same event at that same moment the dead are gonna be raised. Jesus is gonna bring his people with him. Those who are absent from the body, they're with the Lord, they're gonna come with him when he returns and the dead are gonna be raised, they're gonna receive their new resurrection body at that time. Now when I lay that out for you, you probably have questions floating around in your head. A lot of them. You probably have questions like these. What are we gonna look like? What's our appearance gonna be like? Some of you like me are saying, me and Michael wanna know, we're gonna have hair? How's that gonna work? At one point I had hair, I don't have it anymore, am I gonna have it? I'd like to know that. What kind of clothing are we gonna be wearing? Like robes from first century Israel, the latest fashions from the, I mean, what kind of clothes are we gonna be wearing? In all seriousness, people wonder what age are we gonna be in our resurrection body? I don't, what was your prime? You kinda hope you'll land there in your prime. Kids, kids think about this and they say, I don't wanna be a kid forever. An older, older people say, I don't want the aches and pains and I don't feel like this is what I wanna be stuck in forever. Are you gonna have to go on Weight Watchers and count the carbs and get the shots and all the stuff? I don't know. Are you gonna be recognizable? Okay, this is kinda, when you look at Jesus, Jesus is the template for this. Our resurrection bodies are gonna be like Jesus's resurrection bodies. And there's places where they saw him and they looked at him and they knew that it was him. And then there's other times where they looked at him and they're not quite so sure that it's him. So there's some continuity here and there's some discontinuity. And here's an honest question people ask me all the time. What about people who get cremated? Okay, what about people wrestle with this question? And I'm just gonna tell you the honest answer from church history. Some people don't like this answer. The honest answer from church history is that traditionally Christians buried their dead because they believed in the resurrection. And all of the pagan peoples around them tended to cremate. Now I'm not saying you're a pagan if someone in your family gets cremated. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just telling you the answer they gave from church history is they believed that the body would be raised and they believed it was important. They didn't believe it was just a body. They believed that Jesus was gonna raise it from the dead. So traditionally they didn't do that. So people ask me, should I get cremated? And I don't tell them no, you shouldn't do that. It's bad, it's evil, you're a pagan, you're going to hell. God can give you a new body. Just like people who get eaten by wolves. They're gonna get a new body. People who are lost at sea, they're gonna get a new body. People who wake up in the middle of their wakes are gonna get a new body. Everybody's, you're a believer, you're getting a new body. But that's the historical answer. Here's a real important question. How does this change us? What difference does all this make? We've thought about these same categories every week. Prayer. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit and Jesus are interceding for us as we wait for the final consummation of our salvation. Is a great thought as you pray. Okay, Romans eight will be there soon on Sundays. Romans eight is all about looking to the end, waiting for the end. What's it gonna be like when Jesus returns and we're set free from all of this suffering and pain and sorrow? Jesus is coming back. And in the middle of all that hope that Jesus is gonna return, Paul says the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We don't know what to pray for as we ought. But the Spirit himself intercedes with groanings that are too deep for words. And then if you keep reading in verse 34, it says Jesus Christ is the one who died more than that who was raised and he's seated at the right hand of the Father and he's interceding for us right now. So we're groaning with all of creation and we're waiting for this day of redemption and resurrection. And while we're waiting, the Holy Spirit and God the Son and all His glory are praying for us. That should be a great encouragement. Number two, discipleship. The Christian is called to hold fast to the gospel and the Christian is called to always abound in the work of the Lord. Okay, we read the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15 and Paul says, look, I wanna remind you of the gospel. You received it and it's saving you now. You're being saved by it if you hold fast to it. Unless you believed in vain, I hope that you're holding fast to it. You keep believing the gospel. That's essential to Christian discipleship. You keep believing the gospel message. And at the very end of 1 Corinthians 15, a verse that I ignored for a lot of years when I read this chapter. Until I preached a funeral in Oklahoma, it wasn't my first funeral to preach, it was the first one to preach it, the church we served at in Oklahoma. And I preached it with the previous pastor who came back to preach for this lady who had died of cancer. And he preached on 1 Corinthians 15 and he gave great emphasis to verse 58. Okay, the whole chapter is about resurrection. And this is what verse 58 says, therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain. You keep following Jesus. You keep worshiping, you keep making disciples because you believe he's gonna come back and the dead are gonna be raised. And you're abounding, always abounding in the work of the Lord. We're gonna sing about that in a minute. Number three, evangelism. The gospel message is good news about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. And I think many times when we think about sharing the gospel, we just wanna tell people that Jesus died on a cross. And what I'm telling you is that when you read the book of Acts, they tell people that Jesus died on a cross, but they always tell them that he was raised from the dead. Okay, C.S. Lewis, just a quick quote from C.S. Lewis. He says, "To preach Christianity meant primarily "to preach the resurrection. "The resurrection is the central theme "of every Christian sermon reported in the book of Acts. "The resurrection and its consequences were the gospel "were the good news which the Christians brought." One last thought, the church has changed us as a church. The resurrection is intended to be an encouragement to the people of God. Hebrews 10, don't forsake meeting together. Especially the author of Hebrews says, as you see the day drawing near. The day when the Lord returns. Don't stop meeting together, especially as you see the day drawing near and keep encouraging one another. What do Paul say to the Thessalonians? All this stuff about the trumpet of the Lord and the dead coming with Christ and the dead being raised and all of this glory. And at the end he says, therefore encourage one another with these words. Not fight over 'em, bicker over 'em, drop graphs and charts over 'em, but encourage one another with the truth that Jesus is returning. And he's gonna raise his people from the dead. We'll end with an encouraging word from D.A. Carson. It's one of my favorite quotes of all time. He says, you're not suffering from anything a good resurrection can't fix. And he's not trying to minimize your suffering or make light of it. He's just saying, there is hope that changes the way you experience suffering today. Father, we're grateful for your word. We thank you for this hope of resurrection. Lord, there's things we don't quite understand. There's things that are hard for us to understand. There's questions that we have, but Lord, we trust you. We believe that Jesus lived, that he died, that he was raised. All of it happened in accordance with the scriptures. All of it fulfilled Jesus' own predictions. Lord, this gospel truth of the resurrection is central to the story of Jesus and it's central to our hope as believers. And so our prayer is that these truths would encourage us as we see the day drawing near. Lord, be honored in our singing. We do it for your glory and we do it in Jesus' name.