Pastor Bob Erbig: On December 23rd, 2025, former Senator and University President Ben Sass made a devastating and shocking post on his ex account.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He wrote, and I quote, last week I was diagnosed with metastasized stage four pancreatic cancer and am gonna die.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Senator Sass just turned 54 years old.
Pastor Bob Erbig: His post continued reminding us of the reality that we all face.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He wrote, advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It's a death sentence.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But I already had a death sentence before last week, too.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We all do.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That's a sobering statement.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Well, Ben Sass is known for his political career.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He's also a fellow believer in Christ.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And given the gravity of his situation, I've been amazed at his attitude and outlook.
Pastor Bob Erbig: In a subsequent post, he stated his goal was to redeem the time he had left, which is short.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so he's written op-eds and started a podcast.
Pastor Bob Erbig: In fact, in a recent deeply moving interview with theologian Michael Horton, Sass bluntly described his diagnosis.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He said, My torso's chock full of tumors, and I'm poisoning myself with chemotherapy, hoping it kills the cancer before me.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It's heartbreaking.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And yet in the interview, Sass and Horton found themselves laughing.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Why?
Pastor Bob Erbig: They called it gallows humor.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, if you don't know, gallows is a wooden frame used for execution of a person by hanging.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And they laughed because, as Christians, they understand that while the sting of the diagnosis is real, our victory has already been won on the cross of Christ.
Pastor Bob Erbig: As Sass said, nothing focuses the mind quite like an impending hanging.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Cancer has shattered his idols, forcing him to face the reality that we are all on the clock.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, how would you respond if this was you?
Pastor Bob Erbig: I know, in fact, that some in the audience are or have faced this situation.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And even if you have it, one day you will.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It can come out of nowhere because we're all on the clock.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, Sass's story gives us a window into a question our whole series has been asking.
Pastor Bob Erbig: What does God do with the body that suffers?
Pastor Bob Erbig: And it's timely because today, as you heard Suzanne read, we're going to turn to 1 Corinthians 15, verses 35 to 58.
Pastor Bob Erbig: 1 Corinthians 15, 35 to 58, which is Paul's classic and lengthy treatment on personal eschatology and the nature of the resurrection body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The sermon's title is Sown in Weakness, Raised in Power.
Pastor Bob Erbig: People turn to this passage to answer the question, what happens when we die?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, this is the final week of our series, Upside Down Glory, Disability, and the Kingdom of God.
Pastor Bob Erbig: If you're just joining us, I encourage you to go back and listen to the previous six messages, and I trust they will be a blessing to you.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But today's message in Scripture Passage takes that question a step further.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And I'll just voice it this way: What happens to disability in eternity?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, over the course of the series, we have defined disability this way.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Disability is the experience of limitation that arises when a person's body, mind, or senses do not function as expected in a fallen world.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, many of us today are living with limitations, whether that's genetic conditions or learning disabilities or mobility issues or pain from a disease, just to name a few.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Others are caring for someone we love with a disability.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And if we're Christians and we believe, as Paul writes, the dead will be raised, we should ask, what exactly is raised?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, in his interview, Ben Sass said, the hope of the great physician is that he will heal up every part of our body that is decaying and declining.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But what does that mean for somebody with disabilities?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Does this transformation of the resurrection body eradicate our unique embodied history?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Will the person who has never walked recognize their legs in eternity?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Will the person with dementia remember once more?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Will the scars of our earthly journey be gone?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Or will they be trophies of grace like the scars on the hands of the risen Christ?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, Ben Sass's attitude and outlook assist here.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He profoundly said, Death is a link in the chain of salvation.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Death is a link in the chain of salvation.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The seed must go into the ground and come out of something new.
Pastor Bob Erbig: What happens to disability in eternity?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now to answer that question, we'll investigate the process of planting and rising in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul beautifully outlines three actions we should take in response to the question.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And I'll say them this way: Number one, savor the seed.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Number two, shake off the dust.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And number three, listen for the trumpet.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Because in the end, death will not have the last word.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And in the future, as Tolkien wrote, everything sad will become untrue.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So let's pray, and then we'll look at God's word.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Heavenly Father, thank you so much for today.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Lord, thank you for the future.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Thank you for the hope that you give to us.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Thank you for your word, which points to a bigger vision of this world than we can see.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Lord, I pray for my friends today who need your ministry.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Holy Spirit, I pray that you would come and meet us where we are, speak to us, illuminate our hearts.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And may we leave today, both challenged and changed.
Pastor Bob Erbig: For your glory, we ask that in Jesus' name.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Amen.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So first, to lay the foundation, Paul tells us we have to savor the seed.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, in verses 35 to 41, he uses this powerful and accessible farming analogy to frame his argument.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But before we examine that, let's back up and remind ourselves of the context since we've not been in 1 Corinthians for some time.
Pastor Bob Erbig: 1 Corinthians 15 is all about the resurrection.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Paul opens the chapter by attesting to the veracity of Paul, of Christ's resurrection, in verses 1 to 11.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And then he shifts in verse 12 to confront the Corinthian objections to the resurrection.
Pastor Bob Erbig: They were not atheists doubting God's power.
Pastor Bob Erbig: They did all believe in some kind of afterlife.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But they were influenced by the Greek philosophy of their day, which said this: the physical body is a liability, not an asset.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The influential philosopher Plato taught that the soul is the real you.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Your body is a prison.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so death is actually liberation from that prison.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And their question was, why would God want to put us back in that prison through resurrection?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Does that make sense?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, Paul alludes to this question in verse 35.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He writes this.
Pastor Bob Erbig: With what kind of body do they come?
Pastor Bob Erbig: And the question sounds like honest curiosity, but it's not.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It's more like skeptical mockery.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Have you ever shared your Christian belief about the resurrection with an unbelieving friend?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Have they ever scoffed at that belief and said, oh, that's so silly and unscientific.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We're all just dust.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Well, Paul responds sharply and then moves into the seed analogy.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Look at verse 36.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You foolish person, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, in a biblical sense, a fool is someone who denies God.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so Paul's giving a sharp rebuke.
Pastor Bob Erbig: In fact, theologian Amos Young writes, in the broader context of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is responding both to those who are incredulous that there will be a resurrection of the dead at all, and to the more spiritually minded of the congregation who anticipate a body less after life, because they associate the body with the impurities of creaturely and fleshly existence.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So again, body bad, spirit, soul, good.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Paul now starts to make a case for why the body is good.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You sow in the Greek is an accessible farming image for the time.
Pastor Bob Erbig: What you sow does not come to life unless it dies, he said.
Pastor Bob Erbig: What you sow is not the body that is to be.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, what's he doing?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Well, let me see if I can illustrate this.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I brought a little a little prop with me here today.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I'll submit this.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Does anybody know what this is?
Pastor Bob Erbig: It's an acorn, right?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, if you're holding the acorn land, this is actually a pretty big acorn right here.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It would be even tiny, it's tiny in my hand, right?
Pastor Bob Erbig: It's a little teeny tiny acorn.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, if you go and plant this acorn in the ground and you give it enough time, do you know what it eventually becomes?
Pastor Bob Erbig: A massive oak tree.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But in order for that magnificent, oh, I dropped, I broke the acorn.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Oh my goodness.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It's dead already, it's in the ground.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Alright.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It eventually becomes an oak tree.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now imagine if you had no prior knowledge of what the acorn would become.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Nothing about this acorn right here tells you what is coming.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Would you be able to draw that oak tree if you knew nothing about what this acorn was to become?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Probably not.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But the creator knows and he sovereignly controls it.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so in this analogy, your earthly body is the acorn, and your resurrection body is the oak tree.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Paul further highlights God's sovereignty in the process.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Look at verse 38.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He says, But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: For not all flesh is the same, but there's one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, another for fish.
unknown: Right?
Pastor Bob Erbig: He's saying we all have different, we're all made different ways, right?
Pastor Bob Erbig: So you're not going to get resurrected as a dog or something.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But Paul moves from the analogy to the principle here.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He says, God decides what kind of body you're going to get.
Pastor Bob Erbig: If you take notice of that word flesh, that's the Greek word sarx, and that's the organizing principle in verse 39.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Paul is showing there's diversity of fleshly earthly bodies.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He's chosen what type of resurrection body we will get, and he then expands it to creation.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And Paul says, if God's created diversity is in earthly creation, why would the resurrection body be any different?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Our bodies are personalized to us.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, do you see he's making this profound point about the nature of the resurrection body?
Pastor Bob Erbig: So if you follow his argument, this is what he's saying.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He says, first, there is a continuity.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That our body and resurrection body are the same person.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The oak tree comes from the acorn, each kind of seed its own body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Second, there is a discontinuity.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That when the acorn goes in the ground, it does not look like that magnificent oak tree that comes out.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And then third, God is sovereign.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That massive towering oak tree is the fulfillment of everything hidden inside the acorn.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It is God who has chosen what the body will be.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And then finally, in order to fulfill that, death must take place.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You gotta go in the ground.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So you savor the seed, but don't disregard it.
Pastor Bob Erbig: God is doing something in your life right now, and you can't see what you will become, but it's gonna be glorious.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And that's where he moves in the next few verses.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Look at verse 40.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He says, There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another.
Pastor Bob Erbig: There is one glory of the sun and one glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So there's heavenly bodies and there's earthly bodies.
Pastor Bob Erbig: There's an acorn, there's an oak tree.
Pastor Bob Erbig: There's a stark difference between earthly and heavenly, but it sets the stage for transformation.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, if you take notice of that word glory, that's the Greek word doxa, and that's the organizing category in verses 40 and 41, marking a significant shift from verse 39.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Paul said there was diversity of bodies existing on earth, that's the flesh, but but now he talks about cosmic diversity, the sun, the moon, the stars, they all produce light, but not with the same intensity.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I mean, everybody in the ancient world knew that the noonday sun was brighter than the overnight moon.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Nobody was trying to get a suntan from the moon overnight, even if it was a full moon.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Paul's point is that the resurrection does not simply restore the present body, it transforms it into something greater, no longer an acorn but an oak tree.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And yet, there's an important principle you have to grasp about the nature of the resurrection body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: There's both continuity and discontinuity.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And this is what the text pictures that we're not going to receive a generic body, it's going to be a body specific to you.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Let me give you an illustration.
Pastor Bob Erbig: If you haven't noticed, I am not incredibly tall.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And when I was trying to play baseball in high school, I noticed this acutely and desired to be taller.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so what I did, literally, I put a little one of these things on my wall in my bedroom without the giraffe, but I put a mark, I put a goal of how tall I wanted to be.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I was just hoping, God, please just make me make me 5'10.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Maybe six feet if you're gracious.
Pastor Bob Erbig: As if it was something that I could achieve.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Friends, God made me five feet seven inches, and he chose to do that.
Pastor Bob Erbig: There's nothing about my there's something about my body that's personal.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And while my body will be transformed in the new heavens and new earth, do I need to be six five?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Right?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Why would I desire that?
Pastor Bob Erbig: See, in the resurrection, we will be recognizable but changed.
Pastor Bob Erbig: To each seed its own body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So savor the seed, live out who God has made you to be, because we all have a story.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, how does this apply to disability?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Well, Johnny Erickson Tata, who we've mentioned, was has written and spoken with remarkable theological depth about what she expects from the resurrection.
Pastor Bob Erbig: She does not expect to be fixed in the sense that her wheelchair years are erased as a mistake.
Pastor Bob Erbig: She expects to be freed and to be more herself than she has ever been.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so what strikes Johnny is not that she will have legs, but that she will have a body that perfectly does what she was always designed to do, to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so that wheelchair-formed character, the dependence and the empathy and the depth is part of who she is.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Resurrection doesn't wipe that out, it glorifies it.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And that's exactly Paul's point.
Pastor Bob Erbig: To each seed its own body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Johnny's resurrection body will be hers, not a generic replacement, but Johnny glorified.
Pastor Bob Erbig: There's continuity.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You're going to be recognizable.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But you will be transformed.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You'll be raised in power.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You will, secondly, shake off the dust.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Shake off the dust.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Sown in weakness, raised in power.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now we may be recognizable, but we will be different.
Pastor Bob Erbig: In what way?
Pastor Bob Erbig: What is the nature of the resurrection body?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Well, Paul answers that question with four contrasts in verses 42 to 44.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He writes this.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So it is with the resurrection of the dead.
Pastor Bob Erbig: What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It is sown in dishonor, it's raised in glory.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It's sown in weakness, it's raised in power.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It's sown a natural body, it's raised a spiritual body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: There's a natural body, but there's also a spiritual body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, if you notice that connector in verse 42, so it is with the resurrection of the dead.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now he launches into these four contrast examples of how it applies.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Let's look at each.
Pastor Bob Erbig: First, perishable versus imperishable.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Or other translations will say corruption and incorruption.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Our present earthly body is perishable in that it decays, it ages, it suffers, it breaks down.
Pastor Bob Erbig: In fact, we're all to some extent feeling the effects of the perishable body to some degree.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Amen?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Right?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Those touched by disabilities or disease feel this perishing more acutely at times.
Pastor Bob Erbig: This is the nature of life after the fall.
Pastor Bob Erbig: What is sown is perishable.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But our great hope is that one day our body will be raised imperishable, uncorruptible.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The present process of death and decay will not touch us anymore in the resurrection.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Second, dishonor versus glory.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now that's the Greek word atimia, which refers to social shame and low status, being treated without value.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And as we've spoken about, those with disabilities can feel shame and lack of value at times in this life.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But the hope of the resurrection body is one of glory.
Pastor Bob Erbig: All the dishonor and pity and exclusion of this world will be reversed.
Pastor Bob Erbig: This contrast gets at the heart of this series.
Pastor Bob Erbig: People with disabilities are often dishonored.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We've raised questions throughout the series about dignity, about the body, about personhood, about who counts and who belongs.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And those aren't just Sunday morning questions.
Pastor Bob Erbig: They're being debated in hospitals and courtrooms and university classrooms.
Pastor Bob Erbig: What does it mean to be a person?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Who deserves protection?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Who gets counted?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Well, on March 7th, as we've mentioned, we are hosting a special underground session with ethicist and author Jason Thacker.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I encourage you to take out your phones and sign up.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We need to know who's coming.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I need to know how much barbecue to have for you.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It's going to be a good night.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Dinners at 5.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The session starts at 5.30.
Pastor Bob Erbig: His topic is and who is a person?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Human dignity in an inhuman age.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Jason will help us engage the bioethics debates our culture is having.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Questions about the beginning of life and the end of life, the inherent worth of every human being, regardless of age, ability, and discrimination or circumstance.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That's the same conviction we've been diving into throughout this series.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so again, please register on the website.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We hope that you will come to that.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Third, weakness versus power.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And that brings us back to the first week of our series.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That the Greek word for weakness is Athenea.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It's the same word Paul used in 1 Corinthians 12, 9.
Pastor Bob Erbig: My power is made perfect in weakness.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Weakness, as I mentioned earlier in the series, was a word that would have encompassed all types of disabilities.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, in the resurrection, God's power will be seen.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Someone who needed help navigating this world, you will be raised in power, the power of the one who created you.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And then fourth, the natural body and the spiritual body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now this contrast is often misunderstood.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Paul's not talking about the material and the immaterial.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He's referring to what animates the present body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: While the resurrection body is still a physical body, it will be governed completely by the spirit rather than the flesh.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That sin nature gone.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now let me return for a moment to our key question.
Pastor Bob Erbig: What does disability look like in eternity?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Will disabilities still be present in the resurrection body, or does God remove them entirely?
Pastor Bob Erbig: And that's a question worth carefully considering because how we answer it says something about how we view people with disabilities right now.
Pastor Bob Erbig: On the question, two main positions have been offered.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Some scholars suggest that our personal identities will be preserved, but our suffering will be removed, pointing to Jesus' remaining scars in John 20 as evidence that marks of our earthly journey carry forward.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Others, and this is where I land, argue that the text points towards something more complete.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That all disability will be transformed, just as Isaiah described in chapter 35.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And I think that's literal.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That the blind will see, the lame will leap.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It's not poetry, it's promise.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Paul says in Philippians 3 that our lowly body will be transformed to be like his glorious body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: There's a progression there.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so the resurrection body, yes, will be continuous.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You will be you, recognizable, the person God's been shaping all your life, but it will be transformed, sown in weakness, raised in power.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And here's what I want you to hear very clearly Transformation is not erasure.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The disability will be gone, but the person will not.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The years of dependence that deepens somebody's faith that goes with them, but glorified.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The empathy forged through decades of suffering that goes.
Pastor Bob Erbig: With them, glorified.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The character shaped by limitation, the patience, the trust, the refusal to take a single good day for granted.
Pastor Bob Erbig: God does not throw that away.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He perfects it.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So think about it this way: when the acorn becomes the oak tree, the acorn is gone, but everything the acorn was is now fully expressed in something magnificent.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The disability was the acorn's shell, the person inside it is the oak tree God always intended.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So when I think about my son, will Josiah be healed?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Yes.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Will he still be Josiah, joyful and present, excited about the people around him?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Absolutely.
Pastor Bob Erbig: More himself than he's ever been.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Not a contradiction, but resurrection.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Which raises the deeper question.
Pastor Bob Erbig: If disability does not define us in eternity, what does?
Pastor Bob Erbig: What is the foundation of who we are both now and forever?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, Paul's been alluding to this answer the whole chapter.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And what he's saying, he's about to say, is this our identity is not ultimately found in our disabling circumstances.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Our limitations, our diagnosis, our suffering, our identity is found primarily in whose image we bear.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The Lord Jesus Christ.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And here is where Paul makes a stunning move.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He takes us all the way back to the beginning and then points us forward to something better.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, verse 45.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He says, Thus it is written, the first man Adam became a living being.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That's creation.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural and then the spiritual.
Pastor Bob Erbig: As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
Pastor Bob Erbig: What's the argument Paul's making?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Well, he's showing us what comes first, and then he's pointing us toward the promise of redemption.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So first there was Adam, our ancestor, the first living, breathing human.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He was the natural man, the man of dust.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We came from him.
Pastor Bob Erbig: All of us in this room are people of the dust.
Pastor Bob Erbig: In fact, every person on this planet is a person of dust, born in the image of God, like Adam.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But you know the dust eventually disintegrates.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And the dust that Paul is describing here has a connection with Genesis 2, but it's describing the entire weight of the fallen embodiment, the limitation and the decay and the curse that touches all of us.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Do you want to be covered in dust for the rest of your life?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Some of thank you, no.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Amen.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Some of you know my oldest daughter, Jenna, and she's a sweetheart.
Pastor Bob Erbig: She loves people, she loves Jesus, she loves to help take care of her brother.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We found out a number of years ago that she has some allergies, one of which is to dust mites.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Actually, a rather severe allergy to dust mites.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So the allergist told us to get rid of all the stuffed animals in the house to help with this.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And we said, Have you met a six-year-old girl who does not love stuffed animals?
Pastor Bob Erbig: It's not happening.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But when there's too much dust, her nose will get stuffed up and it's hard to breathe.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And one day I think she'll appreciate it when the dust is gone.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And it will be.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So this verse traces the narrative arc of the Bible.
Pastor Bob Erbig: At creation, God made us in his image.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Adam being the first, but then Adam and Eve rebelled and fell.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The fall came in the world.
Pastor Bob Erbig: They introduced the dust, decay and disease and disability and death, entered the world through sin.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But that's not how it's supposed to be.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Paul tells us that God, in his grace and mercy, sent a second Adam, a last Adam, a better Adam to bring redemption to this world.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That he possesses the life-giving, dust-eradicating power of the Spirit.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He's the man of heaven, Jesus Christ.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He took on the flesh of humanity, he lived a sinless life, he died a brutal death on the cross, and then like the acorn, he died.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He rose again as the first fruits, Paul tells us, of the new creation.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And when we surrender to him, when our hearts are regenerated, when we follow him, we are guaranteed that one day we'll not we'll shake off the dust and we'll be made in the image of the man of heaven.
Pastor Bob Erbig: One day he will fully restore the world.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That one day we're gonna shake off the dust.
Pastor Bob Erbig: No more allergies, no more death, no more pain, no more suffering because we're gonna be in his presence.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And our identity is not found in the dust, it's found in Christ.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now we're about two-thirds of the way through the message, so let's let's have a little bit of fun right now.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We're about to get to the good part of the passage.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So I want you to do three things.
Pastor Bob Erbig: First, if you're able, I need you to stand up right now.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Uh stand up if you can, and uh I want you to turn to your neighbor and say to them, one day I'm gonna shake off the dust.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Turn to your other neighbor and tell them one day I'm gonna shake off the dust.
Pastor Bob Erbig: All right, number three, number three, now, now the fun.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I want you to show them how to shake off the dust.
Pastor Bob Erbig: All right, ready?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Shake off the dust.
Pastor Bob Erbig: There you go.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Good, good, good.
Pastor Bob Erbig: All right, good.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now you can sit back down.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Thank you.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Church, you have to savor the seed, but you also have to shake off the dust.
Pastor Bob Erbig: 1 Corinthians 15, 42 to 49 tells us the resurrection body will be physical and personal and transformed and governed by Christ.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The resurrection body transcends present categories.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, this particular topic has been personal for me as I've shared throughout the series about our journey with our son Josiah.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I've um, and I hope that's been special for somebody.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I've often wondered, will I recognize my son in eternity?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Will he be the same Josiah?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, Josiah has a lot of excitement about life.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Some of you may have met him.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Just this week, my wife sent me a video of him at school where he learned how to jump off and get two feet off the ground for the first time.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He gets excited about things I take for granted.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We have a slide in our basement.
Pastor Bob Erbig: This is his new thing.
Pastor Bob Erbig: All he wants to do is just go down the slide, down the slide, down the slide, over and over and over again.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I take him out to the store now, and he starts to say hi to everybody really loudly.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Hi! People get taken off guard.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Uh-oh, okay, there's somebody there.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Started grabbing people yesterday, had to pull them back.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, in our lives, we have simultaneously had pain and joy.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And as hard as it's been, I would not trade it for the world.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And it's in the new creation where I picture Josiah going down the slide, seeing Jesus, and laughing and clapping, yay! But most important, he will bear the image of the man of heaven.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He will be like Christ.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And Revelation 21 tells us what the new creation that these resurrection bodies will inhabit.
Pastor Bob Erbig: What will it be like?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Revelation 21.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And after I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He will dwell with them, and they will be his people.
Pastor Bob Erbig: God himself will be with them as their God.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He'll wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things, the former things will pass away.
Pastor Bob Erbig: See, as Ben Sass said in his interview, the great physician will heal every part of our body, and I would say our world that is decaying and dying.
Pastor Bob Erbig: One day, shake off the dust.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And one day we will shake off the dust of this present world.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I mean, even Shakespeare knew we had to shuffle off the mortal coil, right?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Sown in weakness, raised in power.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, when's it gonna happen?
Pastor Bob Erbig: At the trumpet.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And you have to listen for the trumpet.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, the entire Upside Down Glory series has anticipated this eschatological reality when God's kingdom will invade and transform this world.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We have the opportunity now to bring a little bit of heaven to earth.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And that's why we've we've brought up that this ministry is important, that we can show people what is to come.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so now we've reached the climax of Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15.
Pastor Bob Erbig: When will we get this resurrection body?
Pastor Bob Erbig: At the sound of the trumpet.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Look at what he writes, verse 50.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I tell you this, brothers and sisters, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Behold, I tell you a mystery.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
Pastor Bob Erbig: For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
Pastor Bob Erbig: For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Are you excited about this day?
Pastor Bob Erbig: This is one of my favorite sections of scripture because notice what he says about the coming kingdom.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Flesh and blood cannot inherit it.
Pastor Bob Erbig: In other words, everything has to be turned upside down and changed.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We need a different body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And it's a mystery, right?
Pastor Bob Erbig: The Greek word mysterion introduces a new revelation.
Pastor Bob Erbig: In Paul's usage, it does not mean something inexplicable.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It means something that was previously hidden that's now revealed.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so Paul's telling believers a secret here the world doesn't know.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Let me tell you something.
Pastor Bob Erbig: What's the secret?
Pastor Bob Erbig: That we're going to be transformed.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But that verb, that verb, if you look in the original, it's in the passive form, which is intentional.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And what he means is this the transformation is done to us, not achieved by us.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It is done to us, not achieved by us.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The transformation is something God gives to us.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now, some of you right now, you've been fighting for someone who couldn't fight for themselves.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You've navigated IEP meetings, you sat in the hospital waiting room, you've rearranged your retirement, your marriage, your sleep.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You know what that groaning is like that we talked about in Romans 8.
Pastor Bob Erbig: This passage is for you.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The transformation is done to you, not achieved by you.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You do not have to fight your way to the resurrection body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: God's gonna give it to you.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And in a moment, in a nanosecond, is what that word means.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You're gonna be walking along and maybe poof, resurrection body.
Pastor Bob Erbig: When?
Pastor Bob Erbig: At the last trumpet.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You gotta listen for it.
Pastor Bob Erbig: One day you'll hear the sound resounding as heaven opens up, God's kingdom is finally and fully descending to earth.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And all around you, believers, they're being transformed because God's kingdom is here.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And Paul says, the mortal will put on immortality.
Pastor Bob Erbig: What does that mean?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Are we all gonna be like Thor and we can carry the hammer?
Pastor Bob Erbig: In this verse, mortal means subject to death.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But by contrast, immortality describes the resurrection body's liberation from death's dominion.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That death can't touch you anymore.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We will receive victory in Jesus.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And that's how Paul famously finishes the section.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Verse 54.
Pastor Bob Erbig: When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.
Pastor Bob Erbig: O death, where is your sting?
Pastor Bob Erbig: O death, where is your victory?
Pastor Bob Erbig: The sting of death is sin, the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Pastor Bob Erbig: This is the death taunt.
Pastor Bob Erbig: This is the gallows humor that Ben Sass and Michael Horton were talking about in their interview.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Death! You have no power here! Maybe not quite so maniacal, but death, you will cease to exist.
Pastor Bob Erbig: They laughed, not to avoid death, but because they knew something death doesn't know.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so, like Ben Sass, in the face of death, we can laugh, we can be confident because Jesus himself died and he was raised to new life and power.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so will we.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Listen for the trumpet.
Pastor Bob Erbig: At that moment, you'll be more alive than ever before, and the world will be more glorious than it's ever been.
Pastor Bob Erbig: In his book, The Last Battle, the conclusion of the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Lewis describes the characters arriving in Aslan's country and discovering that it's not a different world, but it's the this world, but fully itself.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The mountains are the same mountains, only more.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The grass is the same grass, only more real.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And Jewel the Unicorn cries out, What?
Pastor Bob Erbig: I've come home at last.
Pastor Bob Erbig: This is my real country.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The old Narnia was just a shadow of the real Narnia.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And Lewis is doing theology through the form of story, right?
Pastor Bob Erbig: The new creation is not the destruction and replacement of this world, it's the world freed from the shadow that has always dulled it.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And every person who has loved and suffered and hoped in this world is more themselves in that one, not less.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Do you long for that day?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Can you hear the trumpet in the distance?
Pastor Bob Erbig: If you're living with a disability right now, that word is for you.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Not for your condition to be pitied, not for your story to be used as an illustration.
Pastor Bob Erbig: But you personally are named in this text.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Raised in power.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And here's what I want you to leave with today.
Pastor Bob Erbig: God does not discard the body that suffered, He transforms it, glorifies it, and raises it in the power of the risen Christ.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That's the hope that allows us to love and minister in the face of suffering.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And it's this hope that calls us to action.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so Paul now, after spending 57 verses, and yes, that's a long chapter, even by biblical standards, talking about resurrection.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He finishes with a therefore.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Verse 58.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And that's how we end.
Pastor Bob Erbig: After seven weeks of defining disability, of talking about advocacy and hospitality and healing and suffering and hope, Paul calls us to action.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He calls the church to bring the kingdom of God to the disabled and beyond.
Pastor Bob Erbig: He's calling us to mission.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Therefore, based on everything I said about the resurrection, be steadfast, be immovable.
Pastor Bob Erbig: In the face of suffering and resistance, don't give up.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Abounding, which means to overflow with the work of the Lord.
Pastor Bob Erbig: See, friends, disability ministry is not a side project, it's an opportunity for God's work to overflow in our church.
Pastor Bob Erbig: So some of you listening right now, you've been giving it all you can.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Some of you serve as a buddy in our kids' ministry.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Some of you are parents who exhaust yourselves caring for your child and advocating for them in school.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Some of you have completely rearranged your lives to care for your aging parents or loved ones who are touched by disability.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Some of you don't know how you're going to get through the next day.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And I think God speaks to you today and he says, This, I see you.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I see the work you're doing in my kingdom to bring heaven to earth.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Your labor is not in vain.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And to the congregation at Millington Baptist Church, God challenges us with this, therefore.
Pastor Bob Erbig: That if you're a follower of Christ, you have this hope of resurrection.
Pastor Bob Erbig: God, God's, you we are called to bring God's kingdom to earth now.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so I would challenge you today.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We chose to spend seven weeks on this topic because it's important.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Ask God right now, where are you calling me to participate?
Pastor Bob Erbig: As a church, we put together a new disability leadership team that's gonna help us give legs to this initiative.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And we've been meeting and planning on how to expand that implementation and build a wider team.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so to help us do that and to be more effective in building the ministry, we're gonna ask you today to take one more survey.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You can see the QR code on the screen right here.
Pastor Bob Erbig: I'm gonna invite you to take out your phones and scan that.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Before we come to the table, we're gonna give you a few minutes to fill it out.
Pastor Bob Erbig: If you can't finish it today, that's okay.
Pastor Bob Erbig: If you uh need a physical copy, you don't want to do the phone thing.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Amy's gonna come around, one of the ushers, raise your hand, they'll give you a physical copy, you can fill that out and then drop it in the welcome center after the service or later on.
Pastor Bob Erbig: It's not long, but it's gonna ask you three things.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Number one, uh, how did this series impact you?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Number two, if you have a disability, we would love to know how we can connect with you.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And then number three, if you want to serve, let us know how we can get you plugged in.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Or let us know so we can get you plugged in.
Pastor Bob Erbig: A member of our team will contact you in the coming weeks.
Pastor Bob Erbig: What will disability look like in eternity?
Pastor Bob Erbig: Savor the seed, shake off the dust, listen for the trumpet.
Pastor Bob Erbig: As the worship team comes back on stage for our final song and as we prepare for the table, let me close the series with Revelation 21, 25.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Of the new Jerusalem, it says, and its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Now in the ancient world, city gates closed at night.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The night was when the vulnerable were locked out, when the stranger found no welcome, when the poor slept in the street, when danger came under cover of darkness.
Pastor Bob Erbig: In the New Jerusalem, in the world Paul's resurrection body inhabits, the gates never close.
Pastor Bob Erbig: There's no hour when access is denied, no policy that keeps anyone outside who belongs to the Lamb.
Pastor Bob Erbig: No sensory overload that makes the space hostile, no staircase without a ramp, no barrier that says, not you.
Pastor Bob Erbig: We spent seven weeks learning how to open the doors a little wider, how to lower the barriers a little lower to make room for people who've been locked out for too long.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And one day there will be no night.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The gates will never close, and the city will be full, absolutely full, of people the world told to wait outside.
Pastor Bob Erbig: And so we have the opportunity right now for that to model that city now for the city is coming.
Pastor Bob Erbig: Amen.
Pastor Bob Erbig: The worship team is going to play for just a few minutes.
Pastor Bob Erbig: You can finish filling out that survey, and then after a few minutes we'll sing and we'll come to God's table.