SPEAKER_00: If you'll please join me turning in your Bible to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 20.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be reading verses 27 through 40.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't happen to have a Bible with you, if you look right in front of you, there should be a black hardcovered Bible there.
SPEAKER_00: And you can find the scripture passage on page 880.
SPEAKER_00: And each week we remind people if you don't own a Bible or you don't have easy access, ready access to a Bible, please take that Bible home with you as our gift.
SPEAKER_00: We'd love for you to have it, to read it, and bring it back each week and we'll study it together.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 20, beginning in verse 27.
SPEAKER_00: There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And they asked him a question, saying, Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.
SPEAKER_00: Now there were seven brothers.
SPEAKER_00: The first took a wife and died without children.
SPEAKER_00: And the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died.
SPEAKER_00: Afterward were the woman also died.
SPEAKER_00: In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be?
SPEAKER_00: For the seven had her as a wife.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to them, The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he called the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.
SPEAKER_00: Then some of the scribes answered, Teacher, you have spoken well.
SPEAKER_00: For they no longer dared to ask him any question.
SPEAKER_00: If I was going to title this section, really this whole chapter, I think I would title it, Don't Mess with the Man.
SPEAKER_00: Not being irreverent or disrespectful, but that really is what is happening here.
SPEAKER_00: They have been an onslaught over and over again, challenging Jesus' authority, undermining his ministry, trying to entrap him and eventually put him to death.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had just cleansed the temple a few days ago, and we're in the final week of Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_00: Everything moving forward is in that last week of his life.
SPEAKER_00: There's an all-out assault against the ministry and the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, they want him dead.
SPEAKER_00: And in a few days, they'll succeed.
SPEAKER_00: In the last section, we saw kingdoms in conflict.
SPEAKER_00: The religious leaders and the political component joined forces to try to trap Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And it was odd bed, fellows.
SPEAKER_00: It was the religious conservatives, the far religious right conservatives, and the political left who were aligned with Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: And they had brought him a coin and they asked him, Should we pay tax to Caesar or not?
SPEAKER_00: The coin was made in Caesar's image, so when Jesus asked him whose inscription is on it, they answered, Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's.
SPEAKER_00: And what we saw there was Jesus answering them and saying, in essence, give back to Caesar what is made in his image, but each one of us, Caesar included, is made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, every human being, including Caesar, has a responsibility to answer to him, and he is Lord over all.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus silenced them by saying there is a legitimate place for government under the sovereign rule of King Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now another group comes to him, the Sadducees.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning we're going to move from the political to the philosophical.
SPEAKER_00: And even as I say that, I see eyes glazing over.
SPEAKER_00: We have here worldviews in conflict.
SPEAKER_00: This is a very obscure argument on a very ancient passage from a relatively unknown group, and we're going to try to ask ourselves: how does this apply to us today?
SPEAKER_00: And I think we're going to find there's a lot of application once we begin to understand who the Sadducees were.
SPEAKER_00: These are worldviews, and we don't often use that word, but it's a very helpful word, and so let me explain what I mean by the word worldview.
SPEAKER_00: A worldview is a set of beliefs or assumptions by which we view life and evaluate circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: It is the grid that we interpret life through.
SPEAKER_00: It is our set of beliefs and our assumptions.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone has a worldview.
SPEAKER_00: And the Sadducees here have what we will find is a very modern worldview.
SPEAKER_00: The question they ask, even as we read it, might seem silly, nonsensical, absurd, ancient, but it hides a very vicious and fatal attack if it's not addressed.
SPEAKER_00: These two worldviews are in direct conflict today.
SPEAKER_00: The Sadducees' philosophy of life, if I could sum it up this way, is this this is all there is.
SPEAKER_00: It may seem odd coming from a religious group, but at the heart of it, what they believed is this is all there is.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus talks of the kingdom of God, of forgiveness, of new life, of heaven, of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And his view could be described as the best is yet to be.
SPEAKER_00: How many remember a couple years ago the phrase that became popular in about 2012?
SPEAKER_00: YOLO.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone remember that?
SPEAKER_00: You only live once.
SPEAKER_00: If you didn't, you're blessed.
SPEAKER_00: But it became a very popular saying, go online, you'll find all of these different references to it.
SPEAKER_00: It became popular on t-shirts and and uh and the response was you only live once.
SPEAKER_00: And the idea behind it is this life is all you have, so live it to the full.
SPEAKER_00: And so, no matter uh how how how foolish you need to live free, as wild as that may be, because this is all there is.
SPEAKER_00: And and so, no matter how foolish and stupid the activities were, and they ended up on YouTube, when they would be asked, Well, why did you do it?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is, Well, you only live once.
SPEAKER_00: So you you need to live to the full now.
SPEAKER_00: When I was a kid, there was a similar phrase, and you may remember this one, Carpe Diem, it means seize the day, but the underlying idea behind it is you live for this life because ultimately that's all there is.
SPEAKER_00: Is this life the best that there is?
SPEAKER_00: Is this all that there is, or is the best yet to be?
SPEAKER_00: Should we live it up because we only live once, or should we live wisely because right now counts for eternity?
SPEAKER_00: When we examine the arguments of the Sadducees, we recognize the cynicism of an unbelieving heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to look at these two competing worldviews.
SPEAKER_00: The first one we're going to look at is the cynicism of the Sadducees, of this unbelieving heart, that this is all there is.
SPEAKER_00: And then we'll look at Jesus' reply and find the hope of every believer that the best is yet to be.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's examine, first of all, the Sadducees and their argument.
SPEAKER_00: The argument is this is all there is.
SPEAKER_00: Who were the Sadducees?
SPEAKER_00: And when we understand who the Sadducees were, we see how this argument plays out.
SPEAKER_00: You may recall from reading through the gospel accounts that the Sadducees and the Pharisees were religious rivals.
SPEAKER_00: They were constantly at odds with one another.
SPEAKER_00: Even after the time of Jesus in the book of Acts, we see Paul splitting the Sanhedrin against one another, religious rulers, based on the opposing views of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees wanted to overthrow Rome.
SPEAKER_00: The Sadducees wanted to play it safe.
SPEAKER_00: They were more conservative.
SPEAKER_00: They supported Rome because they wanted to preserve their power.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees followed religious traditions.
SPEAKER_00: In addition to the Old Testament, they they continued to put additions and adding on regulations not explicitly found in the Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: This might surprise you, but the Sadducees were actually hyper-literal in their reading of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: They focused primarily on the books of Moses, but they would describe themselves as a close reading of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: They claimed only to believe what was written in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And if they didn't find it explicitly stated, then they denied it.
SPEAKER_00: They come from a guy named Zadok.
SPEAKER_00: And back in 586 BC in the Old Testament, Israel, the southern kingdom, was carried off to Babylon for 70 years.
SPEAKER_00: And when they came back from exile, this family was put in charge of the priesthood.
SPEAKER_00: And over the generations they gained control over the priesthood.
SPEAKER_00: And so the high priest and all of the priests and most of the religious leaders, the Sanhedrin, were part of this family, and they were Sadducees.
SPEAKER_00: And so they had a power.
SPEAKER_00: Now keep in mind, they were in charge of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus had just cleared the temple, overthrowing and expelling the people.
SPEAKER_00: They were in charge of exchanging money and selling animals.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus had just confronted them.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what didn't they find in Scripture?
SPEAKER_00: Well, they didn't find a lot.
SPEAKER_00: They rejected the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we find in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: The Sadducees, they denied that there's a resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't believe that there was a resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: They denied eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: They denied that there was life after death.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, according to one ancient historian, Josephus, he said that the Sadducees said the soul perishes along with the body.
SPEAKER_00: So they denied in, they denied eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: They denied, in other words, the doctrines of heaven and hell.
SPEAKER_00: They denied the idea of rewards.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't believe in the supernatural.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't believe in angels or demons.
SPEAKER_00: Believe it or not, they actually believed in God, but they said that God created this world and then he just walked away.
SPEAKER_00: And so that he is not involved with this world.
SPEAKER_00: He is not active in this world, and he doesn't intervene in history or in the affairs of people.
SPEAKER_00: That God completely is a hands-off God.
SPEAKER_00: And so there is a God, but he has nothing to do with the created order.
SPEAKER_00: And so they gave lip service to being spiritual, but they lived as through and through materialist.
SPEAKER_00: This life is all there is, and so we need to make the most of it.
SPEAKER_00: We need to live to be happy.
SPEAKER_00: We need to live for affluence.
SPEAKER_00: We need to live to enjoy life and squeeze the most out of it that we possibly can.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the mindset of most in the world today.
SPEAKER_00: We can see the arguments of a skeptic, and it's it's fascinating, even seeing, and and you probably encounter this when somebody comes to challenge your faith or ask you about what you believe, and we see this coming through with uh their question and how they ask it.
SPEAKER_00: Um often uh use hypothetical situations.
SPEAKER_00: You ever notice that?
SPEAKER_00: You know, they'll say, Well, how about, and they come up with the most absurd, ridiculous hypothetical situation that has never happened in the history of the world, but if it did, how would you answer this?
SPEAKER_00: And so they use hypothetical situations.
SPEAKER_00: They they tend to be uh skeptical, uh cynical.
SPEAKER_00: There's often an absurd, cynical edge to their questions.
SPEAKER_00: They really don't want an answer, they just want to show you how foolish your beliefs are.
SPEAKER_00: One of the tactics that's often used is skeptics often try to use the Bible to disprove the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: How often do we find that?
SPEAKER_00: They try to use the Bible to disprove the Bible, and they do that in three ways.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, they they do it by misreading the Bible, they will misquote what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, often you'll get into discussion with people who claim the Bible says something that it plainly doesn't say, but they will misquote the scripture to try to disprove the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Another thing that they do is they misinterpret the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: This is huge today in dealing with a number of issues, but they misinterpret the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: They don't understand theology and they don't understand the flow of redemptive history, they don't understand what God is doing in different eras of redemptive history, and so they misinterpret the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Uh for instance, uh today it's very popular for people to say uh that uh that we can't believe what the Bible says on moral issues.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I'll give you a, for instance, they uh they'll talk about uh the Old Testament in Leviticus, and they'll say, Well, you see, the Bible talks about sexual issues, and the Bible talks about not eating shellfish.
SPEAKER_00: And you guys go out to Red Lobster, therefore, the entire Bible's wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And so they misinterpret the Bible, not understanding the difference between God's moral law, which is a reflection of his character, and the ceremonial law, which was an illustration of what was to come that Christ fulfilled, but they don't understand the nuances of theology or the Bible, and so they come up with misinterpretations of the Bible to try to disprove it.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, they misapply the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: They'll find an absurd application of a biblical teaching in order to disprove the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, there was a book out, I saw the cover of and read a review of uh The Year of Living Biblically.
SPEAKER_00: And it was it was a person who for a year tried to apply every uh every application from the Old Testament and the New Testament and live it out.
SPEAKER_00: And the intent of it at the end of the day was to write a book to show the absurdity of living biblically and to say that Christians don't really follow their Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: And so they misapply the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we find here.
SPEAKER_00: The Sadducees misread the Bible, they misinterpret the Bible, and they misapply the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's look for just a moment at what the arguments are in particular.
SPEAKER_00: One author described it as uh one bride for seven brothers.
SPEAKER_00: And they come up with this argument based on a teaching in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, what they're basing it on is a teaching from the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 25, verses 5 and 6.
SPEAKER_00: And there in Deuteronomy it says this if a brother if brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger.
SPEAKER_00: Her husband's brother shall go into her and take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.
SPEAKER_00: And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, as one author says, if a woman was child a childless widow, her brother-in-law should marry her for the explicit explicit purpose of producing a son to carry on the family name.
SPEAKER_00: This was not practiced at the time that the Sadducees asked it.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't practiced during New Testament times, but it was uh taught in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And so they bring this up, they come up with a hypothetical situation, and they say, Whose wife is she?
SPEAKER_00: And so what they do is they take this teaching from the Old Testament, they come up with an absurd argument that the first couple marries, the husband dies, the second, third, fourth, on to the seventh.
SPEAKER_00: And whose wife is she?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer that they're driving at is basically this.
SPEAKER_00: Well, obviously, she must be all of them if the Bible is true, but but this contradicts other parts of the Bible, therefore, it is false, and the belief of the resurrection is absurd as well, because you can't even explain how the resurrection works out.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I can only imagine they the the Sadducees viewed themselves as the more sophisticated crowd.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Pharisees, they were the religious guys, they were the kind of the country bumpkins, we're we're the sophisticated city dwellers, and at this point they view themselves as the big guns, and now they've come in to put Jesus in his place because obviously uh the Pharisees couldn't handle him, but but we're going to.
SPEAKER_00: And I can just imagine them giving themselves high fives and patting themselves on the back, thinking, we've won.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's kind of like Vikings fans in the first quarter.
SPEAKER_00: Um they just think, we've won, we've we've got it, we've got Jesus now.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the cynicism of an unbelieving heart.
SPEAKER_00: This is the heart of somebody who says, you know what, there's all there is, and I and I will do whatever it takes to prove that.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus reveals in his answer the hope of every believer.
SPEAKER_00: And we need to see what he says, but also behind what he says, to understand that what Jesus says is the best is yet to be.
SPEAKER_00: That really is where Jesus is driving at with his refuting of their answer.
SPEAKER_00: The best is yet to be.
SPEAKER_00: We saw the cynicism of the skeptics.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at the hope of our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Mark records something that Luke doesn't, and I love what Mark records, adding to this, as the discussion turns and Jesus begins to answer them, uh, he says something to the Sadducees that really underlies everything that we find here in Luke's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And he he says this to them.
SPEAKER_00: When they ask him this question, Jesus answers, says, Is this not the reason you are wrong?
SPEAKER_00: Because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus really cuts to the quick and he says, You don't understand scripture and you don't know God, that's why you're thinking how you're thinking.
SPEAKER_00: You don't understand the Bible, you don't have the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus dismantles their arguments by showing that they don't know what the scripture says.
SPEAKER_00: And then what they think they know, they interpret wrongly, and what they interpret wrongly they apply foolishly, and that's what we find.
SPEAKER_00: This is a really important issue that is brought up here.
SPEAKER_00: Because it cuts to the heart of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: If what they say is proved, then we have no hope.
SPEAKER_00: If the Sadducees' arguments are allowed to stand, it undermines not just the idea of marriage and not just the discussion of the resurrection, but really it comes to the heart of the gospel and the hope that we have in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Because what they're attacking is the resurrection, and the resurrection is our hope.
SPEAKER_00: If there's no resurrection, there's no hope.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the apostle Paul says this very thing in 1 Corinthians 15.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what Paul says, and he puts it very bluntly.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.
SPEAKER_00: And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins.
SPEAKER_00: Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
SPEAKER_00: If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
SPEAKER_00: The issue underlying this is the hope of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It is the hope of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We believe in Jesus Christ, crucified, dead, buried, and physically resurrected, that He is alive.
SPEAKER_00: And if we don't believe in the resurrection, if the resurrection is not true, we have no hope.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrection is the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus answers this by showing them that they don't understand Scripture or know God.
SPEAKER_00: He says, first of all, that there are two distinct ages.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says in verse 37.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: He says, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: He says there are two distinct ages.
SPEAKER_00: There is this age and there is the age to come.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we need to understand is what Jesus is talking about is the ultimate end for which we live.
SPEAKER_00: That there are two ages.
SPEAKER_00: We are in this present age, and then there is the age to come.
SPEAKER_00: And this present age will culminate in the tribulation and the millennium and a final judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And after the final judgment comes the eternal state, where the Bible says there is a new heaven and a new earth.
SPEAKER_00: That heaven and earth are joined together for all of eternity, that God dwells among his people, and that we will be resurrected in our physical bodies, and we will live with God for all of eternity in a recreated heaven and earth.
SPEAKER_00: And that is our final hope to be in fellowship with God for all of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: But what Jesus tells us is although there are a lot of similarities between this age and the age to come, we need to recognize there are also some differences.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that Jesus says is that our relationships will be different.
SPEAKER_00: He says that we are that marriage is for this age, it is not for the age to come.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, we'll be different.
SPEAKER_00: Look at how he describes us.
SPEAKER_00: He says, we'll be different.
SPEAKER_00: He says that when we attain to the resurrection of the dead, uh we're they're no longer given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore.
SPEAKER_00: We will be immortal.
SPEAKER_00: Death will be no more.
SPEAKER_00: There will be no more sickness, sadness, sin, or decay.
SPEAKER_00: Death will be no more.
SPEAKER_00: We will be immortal.
SPEAKER_00: He also says we'll be like the angels, and there could be a lot of ways that he means that.
SPEAKER_00: Angels worship God continually.
SPEAKER_00: Angels don't sin.
SPEAKER_00: Angels are immediately obedient.
SPEAKER_00: Angels do not marry.
SPEAKER_00: Angels have no offspring.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, we'll be sons of God and sons of the resurrection, that we'll experience the fullness of our relationship with God that we only experience through a glass dimly.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's an issue here that I think many of you are probably wondering about.
SPEAKER_00: And so I need to address it, but kind of like a lawyer when he does a sidebar and says, okay, well, this isn't in the flow of the argument, but let's go to the side and we need to address something.
SPEAKER_00: And that is how do how do we handle this question of marriage?
SPEAKER_00: For some people sitting here saying, the love of my life that I've been married to for 40 or 50 or 60 years, when I get to eternity, I'll no longer be married?
SPEAKER_00: And that is what Jesus is saying here.
SPEAKER_00: And for many, uh, that's a very difficult uh question to answer or to realize.
SPEAKER_00: And so let me talk a little bit about what the Bible teaches about marriage and the relationship even to this passage.
SPEAKER_00: There's a direct relationship between marriage and the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage is designed to be a living illustration of our relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Our relationship with God is described as a marriage.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, it says God's people are married to God, and the imagery of marriage is used throughout the Old Testament, and we find that we as God's people are the bride of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so the imagery of marriage is really a reflection of a greater relationship, and that is the relationship between God and his people.
SPEAKER_00: God didn't copy the imagery of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage was created to illustrate a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: That is primary.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage here is the living illustration of that.
SPEAKER_00: We see that in Ephesians 5, 22 to 33, for example.
SPEAKER_00: We also learn here that marriage, it has many purposes, but one of the main purposes is a covenant relationship to perpetuate the human race.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis chapter 1, verse 28, God says, be fruitful and multiply.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the Old Testament, in Malachi chapter 2, we're told that God made them one because he was seeking godly offspring.
SPEAKER_00: And so God designed marriage to be the context in which children are brought into the world.
SPEAKER_00: In this age, we are a race and we perpetuate the human race generation after generation.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is one of the foundational purposes of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the only one, but it is central to God creating marriage in this age.
SPEAKER_00: This leads inescapably to the fact that true biblical marriage can only be between a man and a woman.
SPEAKER_00: That no other relationship is true marriage according to the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It is a fiction because of the foundational reality of what God intended marriage to be.
SPEAKER_00: Well, some might argue that not every married couple can or will have children, and that's very true.
SPEAKER_00: Every husband and wife will not have children, but every child has a mother and father.
SPEAKER_00: And that is inescapable in this age.
SPEAKER_00: And so marriage is the covenant community by which those whom God gives children are raised, are brought into this world and raised in a context of security and safety.
SPEAKER_00: But individual circumstances don't take away from God's creative design or purpose.
SPEAKER_00: One other reality of marriage, as I've mentioned, is marriage is a temporary institution in this age, and some find this unsettling.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says that you will not be married in the eternal state.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, even when we perform weddings, we say, till death do us part.
SPEAKER_00: And we recognize that those who are widows or widowers, widowers, are released from that marriage and have a right to remarry in the Lord because of that reality.
SPEAKER_00: In this life, marriage is the most intimate personal expression of love that we have.
SPEAKER_00: It is a relationship and the only relationship where you can share heart, mind, body, and soul with another human being.
SPEAKER_00: But we need to recognize that heaven is not a diminishing of what we find in this world.
SPEAKER_00: Heaven in no way is less than what we have here.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in every way, it is not only greater than, it is the superlative reality of everything that we can possibly experience in this life.
SPEAKER_00: And so in heaven, we we need to recognize that there will be even deeper, more intimate expressions of relationship with one another, not in a sexual way, which is to this age, but in a deeper, more intimate way that we even experience now.
SPEAKER_00: And so we will not sense loss in the relationships that we have, but we will experience an even deeper level of relationship.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we long for a depth of relationship in this life that we only experience glimpses of, even in the best of marriages.
SPEAKER_00: I think if we were honest, we would we would say that.
SPEAKER_00: That in those peak moments of experience, we wish that those would be perpetual.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a glimpse of something greater that God has for us.
SPEAKER_00: One other sidebar comment, and that is this.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus points out elsewhere that not everyone will get married in this life.
SPEAKER_00: And we need to honor and celebrate singleness in the same way that we do marriage and recognize that singleness is equally a gift from God, just different from marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And that those who are single are complete and whole in themselves in their relationship with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Singleness is not a diminished gift than the gift of marriage is.
SPEAKER_00: It's just different.
SPEAKER_00: And so often in our churches we look at singleness as something to uh to feel sorry for or uh to have pity on or to try to arrange.
SPEAKER_00: And God may, for one purpose or another, have called that person and gifted that person to be single for his purpose, for his glory, and we need to honor and celebrate that and recognize that.
SPEAKER_00: And in the eternal state, we will all have experience and the same depth of relationship as every other person who knows Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The entire Bible, even this sidebar, points to the hope of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You claim to believe Moses, but you really don't read the Bible well, because if you did, you'd recognize that Moses talked about the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and he's not the God of the living.
SPEAKER_00: He's not the God of the dead, excuse me.
SPEAKER_00: He is the God of the living.
SPEAKER_00: And they are all alive right now, and they live before God.
SPEAKER_00: And for those of us, when we die, if we die before the Lord returns, our hope is in the reality that when we die, we go to be with the Lord, and that when Christ returns, the dead in Christ will be raised, and those who are alive will be caught up together in the air, and we will worship Him forever and ever in a relationship that goes beyond the ability for us to even understand and fully comprehend.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the hope of the resurrection that we have.
SPEAKER_00: And there's only two ways that we live our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We can live our lives for this life only and say you only live once, and so you better squeeze the most out of it that you can because you only go around once, and when it's over, it's over.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe we should change the letters and say you live only once, but you live for eternity, and everything you do now counts for eternity, and so recognize that every moment counts, but it's not just for the here and now.
SPEAKER_00: Those who have been made worthy by Christ, who've come into a relationship with Christ, our eyes don't just see the horizontal, we see the vertical, we don't just see the temporal, we see the eternal, and we have a hope, and our hope is in Christ who rose from the dead, who is the first fruits of our resurrection, and we too one day will rise, and that is the hope of the gospel of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You only live once, make it count for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Don't live for the here and now.
SPEAKER_00: Live for eternity because the best is yet to be.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.