SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: Many different ways to praise the Lord and exalt him.
SPEAKER_01: Many different styles of music.
SPEAKER_01: If you went other places in the world, you would experience totally different kinds of worship.
SPEAKER_01: The richness and the fullness of the Church of Jesus Christ around the world, using our culture, using music, using art, using poetry, using speech to exalt him, to direct our attention to him.
SPEAKER_01: If you have been here for the last number of weeks, you will know that we are in the middle of a series talking about a very pertinent and very personal subject: life, death, and life after death.
SPEAKER_01: You will die.
SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about it.
SPEAKER_01: We have been exploring this in various ways, and this is the fifth of seven messages that come at the subject of life, death, and life after death from different perspectives, different facets of this incredibly rich, important concept.
SPEAKER_01: The only way we know truth about life, death, and life after death is through the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: We know some things about this life outside of the scriptures, but we have no perspective to put this life in except when we see the sweep of life.
SPEAKER_01: Life did not begin when you were born, and it does not end when you die.
SPEAKER_01: There was life before birth, and there is life after death.
SPEAKER_01: And we will not understand and rightly think and begin to experience this life as we should, as God intends, as it was meant to be, until we also understand something about the life to come.
SPEAKER_01: Last week we looked a little bit on about the subject of the resurrection in kind of a general way.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrections, actually, as we examine Scripture, there's a whole series of resurrections, as Paul said, each in their own order.
SPEAKER_01: And we tried to understand something of that from throughout Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: This morning, I'd like to focus explicitly on the nature and of the resurrection body.
SPEAKER_01: And how we ought to think about that and what that understanding ought to do to us.
SPEAKER_01: So we have seen that all men live forever somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: All men live forever somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: We've touched on that various times.
SPEAKER_01: The reality is that no man lives forever anywhere without a body.
SPEAKER_01: Forever.
SPEAKER_01: All shall be raised.
SPEAKER_01: Believers, unbelievers, the righteous, the unrighteous, the saints, the sinners.
SPEAKER_01: All men everywhere shall be raised.
SPEAKER_01: Some to a resurrection of life and some to a resurrection of judgment, but all shall be raised.
SPEAKER_01: No man will live forever anywhere without a body.
SPEAKER_01: There is a resurrection body.
SPEAKER_01: No man comes onto this earth without a body.
SPEAKER_01: We are more than just a body, but we are not less than a body.
SPEAKER_01: When God created man, he created man out of the dust of the ground, the material parts of who we are, and he breathed into him the breath of life, and thus became a living being.
SPEAKER_01: The totality of who we are is both material, the body, and the immaterial parts.
SPEAKER_01: And we will exist forever somewhere in a body.
SPEAKER_01: So we ought to think about that.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the scripture says a great deal more about the resurrection body of the believer than it says about the resurrection body of unbelievers.
SPEAKER_01: It just says they will be raised.
SPEAKER_01: And it's in the context of bodily resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: This morning, I'd like us to focus specifically on the resurrection body of believers.
SPEAKER_01: And the scriptures tell us actually quite a bit of information about it.
SPEAKER_01: Information that is meant to change the way we think and the way we live.
SPEAKER_01: I want to do two things basically.
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to explore what we can know about the resurrection body based on Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Where else do we go?
SPEAKER_01: Where else would we go to find out about the nature of the body that we will have and we will be body and soul together forever in the new heavens and the new earth?
SPEAKER_01: Where else would we turn to knowledge about that besides God's word?
SPEAKER_01: So I'd like us to look at that, and yet at the same time, I would like us to get a hold of something that all the time life, death, and life after death is talked about in Scripture, especially that which is to come, there is a sense of eager anticipation.
SPEAKER_01: The best is yet to come.
SPEAKER_01: The best you you have not seen yet, and I haven't either.
SPEAKER_01: I've just seen you.
SPEAKER_01: Not all that great.
SPEAKER_01: And me.
SPEAKER_01: Not all that great.
SPEAKER_01: The best of us is yet to come.
SPEAKER_01: Now, um, we in our culture and society we we spend a lot of emphasis, put a lot of emphasis on our bodies.
SPEAKER_01: Now, to look at some of us, you wouldn't necessarily quite know that.
SPEAKER_01: But actually, uh multibillion dollar industries exist to keep us looking relatively good, and you look good today, but you only look relatively good.
SPEAKER_01: And women have a better opportunity to paint the barn than men do.
SPEAKER_01: Um but that's a huge industry, just the just appearing cosmetically looking good.
SPEAKER_01: But what about fitness centers and gyms?
SPEAKER_01: What about rehabilitation?
SPEAKER_01: What about the whole medical community where we try through all kinds of efforts, sometimes seemingly absurd efforts, to forestall the inevitable?
SPEAKER_01: Because you know what?
SPEAKER_01: No matter how much we invest in looking good, feeling fit, and living longer, it's a losing battle, folks.
SPEAKER_01: It's a losing.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've noticed it.
SPEAKER_01: Just if you've been around a while, just look in the mirror.
SPEAKER_01: It's a losing battle.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying it's wrong to take care of ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Far from that.
SPEAKER_01: The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying it's wrong to seek medical care, and but sometimes we have the feeling that we must do everything possible and impossible to maintain that which cannot be maintained.
SPEAKER_01: Our bodies, since the fall, are destined to wear out and fade away.
SPEAKER_01: We will wear out and our bodies will give out.
SPEAKER_01: That is just the reality.
SPEAKER_01: But sorry.
SPEAKER_01: God has a plan, and it's called the resurrection of the body.
SPEAKER_01: And God's plan is not that we continue to patch this body forever and ever, but our bodies will be transformed, and we will be who we were meant to be: body, soul, and spirit, for the very first time.
SPEAKER_01: And we ought to look forward to that.
SPEAKER_01: We ought to look forward to that with eager anticipation.
SPEAKER_01: Couple of things I want to mention somewhat briefly.
SPEAKER_01: I know you'll say, Walt, mention something briefly.
SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: There's two important thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: The first of which, if we want to know something about the resurrection body, your resurrection body, my resurrection body, we need to look at Jesus' resurrection body.
SPEAKER_01: A fundamental understanding of our resurrection body is that the believer's resurrection body will be like Jesus' resurrection body.
SPEAKER_01: And there's several places in Scripture where that's talked about.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to turn to these passages now, but make note of them if you're at all interested in the body that you would die for and will die for.
SPEAKER_01: When he was here on earth, there were some things.
SPEAKER_01: He became man, truly, fully man, the humiliation of Christ to take on our humanity.
SPEAKER_01: And there was more to Jesus than that.
SPEAKER_01: Occasionally the curtain was drawn aside, the Mount of Transfiguration, for example, where some of the majesty that Christ was that hadn't been revealed, we were able to see.
SPEAKER_01: And even with Jesus' resurrection body, I don't know, the scripture doesn't make it fundamentally obvious that we will suddenly appear places and walk through doors and closed rooms the way Jesus did.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But fundamentally, our resurrected body will be like his.
SPEAKER_01: He will transform our lowly body, that's the body in this stage of our existence, into the likeness of his glorious body.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians 15, 47 says, just as we have borne the likeness of the man from earth, and that's in the middle of a whole context, a whole discussion that Paul had, and he compares Adam with Christ and talks about the first Adam and the second Adam, the man from dust, the man of earth, and the man from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Adam was fashioned out of dust, Genesis 2, and God breathed into him the breath of life, and thus Adam and Eve, and we became living creatures.
SPEAKER_01: And just as we have borne the likeness of Adam, so also shall we bear the image or likeness of the man from heaven, Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And this is in the middle of the context of the revelation of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: So what he is saying is, in Adam, because we are sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, I love that expression, C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis put it so beautifully.
SPEAKER_01: We are sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.
SPEAKER_01: We inherit from Adam after the fall, thus, we inherit from Adam a broken physical nature and a broken spiritual nature.
SPEAKER_01: There is death.
SPEAKER_01: There is spiritual death.
SPEAKER_01: We've seen this in some of the other messages.
SPEAKER_01: Spiritual death, the separation of the creature from his creator.
SPEAKER_01: Death always involves a separation.
SPEAKER_01: And that is restored in Christ through regeneration.
SPEAKER_01: What sin has torn asunder, God puts back together.
SPEAKER_01: That's part of the good news.
SPEAKER_01: But also in terms of physical death, which we inherit, were born dead as we have seen.
SPEAKER_01: The separation of body from non-body, soul, spirit, heart, old nature, conscience, inclinations, desires, all of those immaterial things, the separation of the touchable and the non-touchable stuff of you, both of which are important, and yet physical death separates those.
SPEAKER_01: And what sin, and it separates it because of sin, what sin has torn asunder in terms of physical death, God will put back together.
SPEAKER_01: And just as regeneration is God's solution to spiritual death, so resurrection is God's solution to physical death.
SPEAKER_01: We become new creatures.
SPEAKER_01: Now there's a bit of a difference here because when we come to faith in Christ, we begin a process of renewal and growth and transformation.
SPEAKER_01: We're not completely baked yet, even as believers.
SPEAKER_01: There's a process that we call sanctification, personal transformation into the spiritual image of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's a lifelong process.
SPEAKER_01: Resurrection is instantaneous.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So the prototype for our resurrection is Jesus and his resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: The practical point is that through the resurrection we get the ultimate upgrade.
SPEAKER_01: And just want to think in terms of the horrible, wonderful world of technology, where our computers need to be upgraded and the software needs to be upgraded because there's imperfections that come along.
SPEAKER_01: Windows is an upgrade version 10.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a Mac guy, so I have no idea how many versions of iOS there is, but uh version after version after version.
SPEAKER_01: What I want to suggest to you that in terms of your hardware, the ultimate upgrade awaits.
SPEAKER_01: Um I'd like to call it version 3.0.
SPEAKER_01: Walt, version 3.0.
SPEAKER_01: Chris, version 3.0.
SPEAKER_01: It's not there yet, but it's a coming.
SPEAKER_01: Version 1.0.
SPEAKER_01: Um December 13, 1947.
SPEAKER_01: Uh my parents were incredibly proud of this beautiful little baby.
SPEAKER_01: Only a parent would have thought that I was beautiful as an infant.
SPEAKER_01: I look back at those pictures and I want to just hide them.
SPEAKER_01: But they were pretty proud.
SPEAKER_01: It was pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01: That was Walt 1.0.
SPEAKER_01: Not all that great.
SPEAKER_01: Neither physically nor spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: Not all that great.
SPEAKER_01: Version 2.0.
SPEAKER_01: I will never forget.
SPEAKER_01: Sometime in April 1967, Bloomington, Illinois, Illinois Wesleyan University, Thetacai Fraternity House, Campus Crusade for Christ, version 2.0, transformed.
SPEAKER_01: Transformed.
SPEAKER_01: New birth.
SPEAKER_01: There was a new Walt at that point.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone who is in Christ is a new creature.
SPEAKER_01: The old has passed away, the new has come.
SPEAKER_01: Walt version 2.0.
SPEAKER_01: That was a major upgrade.
SPEAKER_01: Believe me.
SPEAKER_01: Jane knows that.
SPEAKER_01: We had dated for two and a half years at that point.
SPEAKER_01: She knew Walt 1.0, and I knew Jane 1.0.
SPEAKER_01: But we both got to know version 2.0 within a few weeks of each other.
SPEAKER_01: And we were changed.
SPEAKER_01: Fundamentally deeply transformed.
SPEAKER_01: That upgrade was good, but you know, I'm still getting renewed day by day.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not who I was the day after I came to faith, but I'm not who I will be one day.
SPEAKER_01: In this phase of life, there's these changes that go on with us spiritually, of spiritual growth.
SPEAKER_01: The changes that go on for us physically are a little discouraging.
SPEAKER_01: I can remember a time where I could raise this arm out on this direction and go all the way up like I can on this side.
SPEAKER_01: You know, our bodies fall apart.
SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't quite work.
SPEAKER_01: We sag.
SPEAKER_01: Our functions start to get impaired.
SPEAKER_01: Our kidneys don't work right after a while.
SPEAKER_01: Or our mind begins to wander.
SPEAKER_01: Or we can't.
SPEAKER_01: And that's just the nature of life now with our bodies.
SPEAKER_01: There is a day coming in which I will be Walt 3.0, and I can't wait.
SPEAKER_01: Walt as Walt was intended to be, Jane as Jane was intended to be, Chris as Chris was intended to be, and all around.
SPEAKER_01: We will one day be body, soul, and spirit, that which we were.
SPEAKER_01: You have not seen yourself the way you will one day be.
SPEAKER_01: If you saw yourself the way you one day will be, you would be astounded, spiritually and physically.
SPEAKER_01: And if we really get a handle on what awaits us, we will begin to yearn and long and groan and eagerly anticipate the full revelation of the children of God, according to Paul in Romans chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: We, like all creation, are subjected to futility.
SPEAKER_01: The sufferings of the present day are not in anything to be compared to that which is come.
SPEAKER_01: We, together with all creation, groan with longings almost too deep to utter, awaiting with eager anticipation the full revelation of the sons of God in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And he's talking about version 3.0.
SPEAKER_01: Not yet seen.
SPEAKER_01: In version 3.0, and it's obviously just a poor parallel.
SPEAKER_01: Version 3.0, you will still be you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about the resurrection body.
SPEAKER_01: You will be you, you will not be a ghost, you will not be an angel.
SPEAKER_01: I have no idea where that crazy thought ever came about.
SPEAKER_01: And I haven't taken the time to look up the source of all true knowledge, Wikipedia, and find out where that false thought came from.
SPEAKER_01: What I do know is that 1 Corinthians 6, verse 3 says, not that we will be angels, but that we will rule over angels.
SPEAKER_01: You do not die and become an angel.
SPEAKER_01: When you die, there's no little tinkle in heaven and a new angel appears.
SPEAKER_01: Or whatever that fantasy is all about.
SPEAKER_01: Luke chapter 24, verse 39, when Jesus was revealing himself to his apostles after the resurrection, before the ascension, he said, Look at me, it's me, it's me.
SPEAKER_01: It said literally, it is I myself.
SPEAKER_01: He said it with proper grammar, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_01: It is I, not it's me.
SPEAKER_01: It's I, myself.
SPEAKER_01: It's really Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you understand?
SPEAKER_01: Come, put your hands in this in the scars of my hands and my side and my feet.
SPEAKER_01: It's me.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a ghost.
SPEAKER_01: And he he he Food and they recognized him.
SPEAKER_01: There was continuity between his pre-resurrection physical existence and his resurrected existence.
SPEAKER_01: We don't become phantoms or shades.
SPEAKER_01: We're not like the dead in the Pirates of the Caribbean.
SPEAKER_01: We're not like the Black Riders in the Lord of the Rings.
SPEAKER_01: We're not like Marley's Ghost in Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
SPEAKER_01: No, we're us, recognizable, continuity, but us like we've never been before.
SPEAKER_01: Us version 3.0.
SPEAKER_01: Us, but better by far.
SPEAKER_01: Our personal identity and our personal history will continue.
SPEAKER_01: It did for Jesus and it shall for us.
SPEAKER_01: You will be you, but for the very first time, without the broken, twisted, bad parts.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just think for a moment of the broken non-physical parts.
SPEAKER_01: We're a mess.
SPEAKER_01: We're a mess inside.
SPEAKER_01: We're a bundle of conflicted desires and longings.
SPEAKER_01: And even as we come to know Christ, there's still a lot of the old within us.
SPEAKER_01: And we're in a process where a lot of that emotionally and spiritually broken stuff goes away by God's grace as we become more and more like Christ.
SPEAKER_01: But there's still a lot broken inside.
SPEAKER_01: We still don't get along.
SPEAKER_01: I know that's a surprise to you.
SPEAKER_01: We still, well, we're a mess.
SPEAKER_01: We still are a mess.
SPEAKER_01: Not as bad as version 1.0.
SPEAKER_01: But my friends, the best emotionally, spiritually is yet to come.
SPEAKER_01: And certainly in terms of our bodies.
SPEAKER_01: There will be nothing needing fixing anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing that's broken or twisted or malfunctioning in your body.
SPEAKER_01: You have never seen or experienced the human body the way it is intended to be and the way it one day shall be.
SPEAKER_01: A real, tangible, physical human body, just as Jesus' resurrection body was a real tangible resurrection body.
SPEAKER_01: And we will dwell forever in the new heavens and the new earth, the resurrected and regenerated heavens and earth, in resurrected and renewed physical bodies.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a certain parallel between the garden and the way things were originally created and intended to be.
SPEAKER_01: And often we ask ourselves, gee, I wonder what would have happened if Adam and Eve hadn't sinned.
SPEAKER_01: It's a pointless question.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe it's not.
SPEAKER_01: You know, the first two chapters, there's a lot of things in the last two chapters about the new heaven and the new earth that reappear from Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: There's the tree of life.
SPEAKER_01: There's a whole bunch of things.
SPEAKER_01: And in a sense, we will see humanity as it was intended to see, be seen and be, if it weren't for sin having come into the picture.
SPEAKER_01: God is restoring us in our totality, including us physically.
SPEAKER_01: That which has been impacted by sin, that which has been ravaged by sin, will be restored to what it originally was, and I tend to think what it would have become if sin hadn't entered into the picture.
SPEAKER_01: Even greater perhaps than what we read in the first experience.
SPEAKER_01: But there will be a physical place called a new heaven and a new earth, and we will have physical bodies, and we will be as we should be.
SPEAKER_01: You have never been whole.
SPEAKER_01: Never once.
SPEAKER_01: In our deepest core, we long to be whole.
SPEAKER_01: We long to not have these internal conflicts.
SPEAKER_01: We long for our bodies to function the way they were intended to function.
SPEAKER_01: When we are whole and when we were home, we will live forever in the place that we were intended to be.
SPEAKER_01: And we will then realize that this phase of our existence was mere shadowlands.
SPEAKER_01: Again, a wonderful C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis expression.
SPEAKER_01: We will look back and we will see that the glories and the wonderful experiences of this life, and there are many, there are many for which we praise God.
SPEAKER_01: In comparison, they will appear as they truly are, but a mere foretaste, a mere shadow of that which is to come.
SPEAKER_01: And we will wonder why we ever thought this was so great.
SPEAKER_01: It is great, much of it is great, much of it stinks too, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: But even the greatest things in this life will pale by comparison.
SPEAKER_01: We were never intended to live this way forever.
SPEAKER_01: It's worth thinking about, perhaps, that all of the disabilities, let's just talk physically, all of the disabilities will be removed.
SPEAKER_01: And most of us probably aren't that in tune with what that means because more or less we've got it together.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about serious life-changing disabilities.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the older we get, the more we begin to taste that, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: Things just don't work anymore quite the way they should.
SPEAKER_01: But let's just think about someone who is severely handicapped.
SPEAKER_01: That's not an evil word, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: It may not be politically correct in our society.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe it's just plain incorrect.
SPEAKER_01: What makes us think that we're normal physically?
SPEAKER_01: What makes us think that we're the way we're supposed to be?
SPEAKER_01: The times that I have spent around truly disabled people, I often walk away thinking, you know.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not so sure that what I am is the way it's really supposed to be.
SPEAKER_01: And some of the disability disabled people that I know, they seem to be in touch with some realities, depending on the nature of the disability.
SPEAKER_01: Where I think they they might appreciate even more than I do that which is uh to come.
SPEAKER_01: Um a great example of that is uh Johnny Erickson, Johnny Erickson Tada.
SPEAKER_01: Uh you probably know her story as a young teenager.
SPEAKER_01: She had a diving accident, and uh she had a spinal cord injury, and she has spent the rest of her life as a paraplegic.
SPEAKER_01: She must be 50 plus years old at this point.
SPEAKER_01: And here is something that Johnny Erickson Tata said somewhere in my broken, paralyzed body is the seed of what I shall become.
SPEAKER_01: Just think about that.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere in our brokenness is a seed of what is to come.
SPEAKER_01: She says, the paralysis makes what I am to become all the more grand.
SPEAKER_01: She can appreciate it all the more.
SPEAKER_01: So I complain about my phoy.
SPEAKER_01: Johnny says, the paralysis makes what I am to become all the more grand when you contrast the atrophied, useless legs against the splendorous resurrected legs.
SPEAKER_01: I'm convinced that if there are mirrors in heaven and why not, she says, and why not?
SPEAKER_01: Mirrors in heaven would reflect the glories of God in a phenomenal way.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I am convinced that if there are mirrors in heaven and why not, the image I see, I will see, will be unmistakably Johnny, although a much brighter, better Johnny, so much so that it's not worth comparing.
SPEAKER_01: I will bear the likeness of Jesus, the man from heaven, like his, mine will be an actual, literal body perfectly suited for earth and heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And Johnny looks forward to that more than you and I do if we're not careful.
SPEAKER_01: And yet I truly believe that part of what the revelation about what is to come is intended to do is to make us hungry for that which awaits us.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look a little bit at the body that you will die for.
SPEAKER_01: It's the only way you'll get it.
SPEAKER_01: You will die to get this body.
SPEAKER_01: A couple of things.
SPEAKER_01: It will be the same earthly body, but vastly improved.
SPEAKER_01: We've already touched on this.
SPEAKER_01: It's really interesting.
SPEAKER_01: In God's dealing with sin, he does not scrap that which has gone wrong.
SPEAKER_01: He regenerates, resurrects, redeems.
SPEAKER_01: In redemption, God does not scrap or cast aside the old, either the old earth or the old bodies.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't cast it aside.
SPEAKER_01: He transforms them into what they were originally intended to be and will become.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't cast the old earth aside.
SPEAKER_01: He regenerates, he resurrects it.
SPEAKER_01: There's a new heaven and the new earth that replaces all that was broken, and for eternity we will be there, and the same thing with our bodies.
SPEAKER_01: Notice the terms: your body and all creation will be resurrected, redeemed, restored, renewed.
SPEAKER_01: That little preface means to go back to what it was, and with redemption it becomes not just what it was, but what it was meant to be.
SPEAKER_01: What Adam and Eve would have been like had they not sinned.
SPEAKER_01: What we spiritually and physically shall be like is far more, but it's still us.
SPEAKER_01: It's still our body, it's still this world.
SPEAKER_01: God does not give up on you, and God does not give up on his creation.
SPEAKER_01: What sin ravages, God heals and makes even better.
SPEAKER_01: The best is yet to come.
SPEAKER_01: The best you, and that's not just rah-rah, it's going to be a good day tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: You've never even tasted the best of who you will become by God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: None of your doing, all of Christ's on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: All we have is Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He who knew no sin, bore our sin, took our sin on the cross that we might become like him, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
SPEAKER_01: It's not our doing, it's the free gift that is constantly offered.
SPEAKER_01: If you've not responded to it, you better respond.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to miss it.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to miss the best of what God has.
SPEAKER_01: And it comes initially through faith in Jesus Christ, personal commitment and following Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Some of the characteristics of Jesus' resurrected body.
SPEAKER_01: We can draw some parallels, and let me just read something that will say it more quickly and to the point than if I were to try to blather on about it.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So the bodies we receive in the resurrection will have the same qualities as the glorified resurrection body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: For we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him.
SPEAKER_01: Now he explains this.
SPEAKER_01: Christ's resurrection body was the same body as before, not a whole new one.
SPEAKER_01: We've touched on that.
SPEAKER_01: When he arose, the tomb was empty.
SPEAKER_01: His body was changed.
SPEAKER_01: The tomb was empty.
SPEAKER_01: The body was resurrected.
SPEAKER_01: The same body, but a glorified one.
SPEAKER_01: The wounds from his crucifixion were still visible.
SPEAKER_01: We have a wounded body of a man who is alive in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus with his scars reigns in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: The scars are still there.
SPEAKER_01: There's continuity.
SPEAKER_01: And instead of that being a reminder of pain, it is a reflection of God's grace and God's goodness.
SPEAKER_01: When we see the scars in Jesus' hand, we will worship.
SPEAKER_01: Dances were much more appropriate in those days, in my opinion, than what they may be now.
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, I left and I wasn't drunk and I wasn't high.
SPEAKER_01: I was just a stupid teenager.
SPEAKER_01: And I put my hand through the door.
SPEAKER_01: And to this day, although it's fading now, there is a gash, a scar, that keeps reminding me of that stupid 16-year-old kid.
SPEAKER_01: The reminders of our scars, physical, spiritual, emotional, in heaven will not remind us of how stupid and how sinful we were.
SPEAKER_01: They will remind us of how great and how glorious and how full of mercy our God is.
SPEAKER_01: And they never once questioned his humanity.
SPEAKER_01: He ate real earthly food with his friends.
SPEAKER_01: Yet his body was a little bit different.
SPEAKER_01: It could pass through walls.
SPEAKER_01: Our bodies will be like that.
SPEAKER_01: There'll be real, physical, genuine bodies, the very same bodies we have, and yet fixed, fixed, fixed.
SPEAKER_01: Apparently we will eat in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus ate in the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: That's an interesting thought.
SPEAKER_01: Eating with no guilt.
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't that be wonderful?
SPEAKER_01: Eating not just to survive, but to enjoy the goodness of God and the provision of God.
SPEAKER_01: I believe we're going to eat in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus ate in the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: Why wouldn't we?
SPEAKER_01: We don't think that way because we don't think in a tangible physical reality which heaven will be.
SPEAKER_01: So wounds, food, we will eat in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Food is not sin.
SPEAKER_01: Now, maybe the genetic modifications are not what is helpful, but the food will all be healthy in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: The Folsoms will be out of work.
SPEAKER_01: Not because your food isn't healthy.
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, I'm in trouble now.
SPEAKER_01: Moving right along.
SPEAKER_01: Some of the upgrades we will see, we will be, our bodies will be imperishable.
SPEAKER_01: That means they will be indestructible.
SPEAKER_01: They will not wear out, they will not grow old, they will have no defects, they will no longer be subject to the law of entropy, second law of thermodynamics.
SPEAKER_01: Everything goes to pot.
SPEAKER_01: There'll be no more going to pot in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: There'll be no more decay, no more just falling apart.
SPEAKER_01: Things now wear down and they wear out.
SPEAKER_01: They won't.
SPEAKER_01: That's a result of sin.
SPEAKER_01: Powerful.
SPEAKER_01: None of the weaknesses that we presently experience.
SPEAKER_01: At the end of a hard day of work, we're tired.
SPEAKER_01: That's not wrong, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: It's not wrong to be tired after a hard day of work.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a great joy, necessarily.
SPEAKER_01: But there will be no more weaknesses in our body, and we won't collapse in death.
SPEAKER_01: We'll run and not grow weary, soar on wings like eagles.
SPEAKER_01: We'll walk and not faint.
SPEAKER_01: There'll be no disease, no infirmities, no blemishes, no defects, no shortness of breath, no accidents, no dialysis, no braces, no vitamin supplements, no need of a pharmacy, no contact lenses, no health clubs, no rehab centers.
SPEAKER_01: You'll just keep going and going and going and you'll make the ever-ready bunny look like the cartoon character it is.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine that?
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that what you would want from this life?
SPEAKER_01: To be able to just be strong and keep going all the time?
SPEAKER_01: It's not for this life.
SPEAKER_01: It's for the life to come.
SPEAKER_01: And we ought to look forward to it.
SPEAKER_01: We'll be spiritual and glorious.
SPEAKER_01: And basically what I'm understanding that to be, we'll be spiritual and glorious, will be suited for heaven and for home.
SPEAKER_01: We will, if we experienced now an angel, much less God, we would fall down and be set with fear.
SPEAKER_01: Every time angels appeared, it's fear not, fear not, fear not.
SPEAKER_01: When Isaiah had a vision of God, just a vision of God, woe is me, for I'm undone.
SPEAKER_01: I can't handle encountering God.
SPEAKER_01: I can't handle being around God.
SPEAKER_01: In version 3.0, we will be home and we will be safe and it will be good to be with God.
SPEAKER_01: And the best thing about it is that Jesus will be there, and it'll be good and right.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: There's a whole lot of plausible things that might be true about heaven that are not explicitly declared.
SPEAKER_01: I would encourage you, if you haven't read it, to read Randy Alcorn's book Heaven.
SPEAKER_01: It's the thick book like this.
SPEAKER_01: There's a couple little pamphlets.
SPEAKER_01: It's a thick book, but it's not a hard book.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a technical book.
SPEAKER_01: And he makes a pretty good distinction between the kinds of things we can know for sure, based clearly on scripture, and the kind of things that are maybe a pretty plausible extension of what we know.
SPEAKER_01: And so he will discuss things like will we all have beautiful bodies?
SPEAKER_01: Will we all appear the same age?
SPEAKER_01: Will we all drink coffee?
SPEAKER_01: I hope so.
SPEAKER_01: What I want to close with is just the encouragement to focus on the good that is to come, to keep that alive.
SPEAKER_01: Our desires, our desires are not meant to be fully fulfilled in this life, but in the life to come.
SPEAKER_01: My dear friend C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis, I have a bunch of dead friends that I've never met in this life.
SPEAKER_01: One of them is Charles or Clive Staples Lewis, C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis.
SPEAKER_01: He said it this way: I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country.
SPEAKER_01: This is not our country.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care what your passport is, this is not where you really belong.
SPEAKER_01: You're not home here.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about the true country in the Hebrews 11 sense of the people who walk by faith saw from afar that that country, that faraway country of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Which I shall not find till after death.
SPEAKER_01: Would we please get this straight?
SPEAKER_01: This life is not to fulfill.
SPEAKER_01: All of our desires.
SPEAKER_01: And when we try to make life to fulfill all of our desires, we discover they taste like cotton candy.
SPEAKER_01: They're not what fulfills.
SPEAKER_01: They're not that doesn't taste.
SPEAKER_01: The best things in life now don't taste the way the glories of the future will.
SPEAKER_01: I must make it the main object of my life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.
SPEAKER_01: I came across some words of a wise and godly pastor, just thinking pastorally about what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just read part of it.
SPEAKER_01: Whenever I spend time with severely handicapped people, physically, mentally, or both, I'm keenly aware of how wonderful it will be to have resurrected bodies, resurrected minds.
SPEAKER_01: My friend David O'Brien is a brilliant man trapped in a body that groans for redemption.
SPEAKER_01: His cerebral palsy will be gone the moment he leaves this world.
SPEAKER_01: But the biggest treat will be at his resurrection when he will have a new body forever free of disease.
SPEAKER_01: I picture my friend David never having to repeat himself because others don't understand him.
SPEAKER_01: Never having to repeat himself because his mouth doesn't work the way he wants it to.
SPEAKER_01: I see him running through fields on the new earth.
SPEAKER_01: I look forward to running beside David and probably behind him.
SPEAKER_01: And then he cites another excerpt from Johnny Ericsson Tata.
SPEAKER_01: Johnny speaking, I can still hardly believe it.
SPEAKER_01: I, with shriveled fingers, bent, atrophied, atrophied muscles, gnarled knees, and no feeling from the shoulder down, will one day have a new body, light, bright, and clothed in righteousness, powerful and dazzling.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine the hope this gives someone spinal cord injured like me?
SPEAKER_01: Or someone who is cerebral palsied, brain injured, or has multiple sclerosis?
SPEAKER_01: Imagine this hope that gives someone who is manic depressive.
SPEAKER_01: No other religion, no other philosophy promises new bodies, hearts, and minds.
SPEAKER_01: Only the gospel of Jesus Christ does that for hurting people with such incredible hope.
SPEAKER_01: And then the writer goes on and says that Johnny speaks, tells us, speaking to a class of mentally handicapped Christians, listen to this, it is beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: Speak Johnny, paralyzed from the neck down, speaking to a class of mentally handicapped Christians.
SPEAKER_01: They thought it was great when she said she was going to get a new body.
SPEAKER_01: But then she added, and you're going to get new minds.
SPEAKER_01: And the class broke out in cheers and applause, for that's what they wanted.
SPEAKER_01: New minds.
SPEAKER_01: My body and mind, he says, may be relatively healthy.
SPEAKER_01: He's insulin dependent, he's realizing his body's falling apart.
SPEAKER_01: I want a new body, a new mind without sin, without suffering, without incapacity.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the statement.
SPEAKER_01: Every year that goes by, I long more to be a resurrected person and to live on the resurrected earth in my resurrected body with my resurrected brothers and sisters, and above all, with my Lord Jesus, the resurrected Savior.
SPEAKER_01: I long for that, he says, and that pastor's heart, what he's saying, resonates deeply with my heart as well.
SPEAKER_01: And I would encourage your heart to resonate with the reality and the hope and the glory of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: That's why it's revealed.
SPEAKER_01: So we will long for that which is to come.
SPEAKER_01: My friends, I long for you more than you will ever get in this life.
SPEAKER_01: I long for myself and I long for you.
SPEAKER_01: A resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: Fixed body, soul, spirit with our resurrected Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_01: So much more I'd like to say.
SPEAKER_01: Would you please stand for the benediction?
SPEAKER_01: My friends, brothers and sisters, my friends.
SPEAKER_01: Go into the world in peace.
SPEAKER_01: Have courage.
SPEAKER_01: Hold on to that which is good.
SPEAKER_01: And honor all men.
SPEAKER_01: Strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak, help the suffering, restore the wandering, comfort the grieving, and share the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And may the grace and the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with us all.
SPEAKER_01: God bless.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.