- 5 days ago
- #mlcc
- #church
- #churchonline
How can God take the body you have now and completely remake it into something that never decays, never weakens, and never fails? How can your body, sown in death, be raised to a glory that surpasses that of the angels? Most importantly, how can you know for certain that your body will be raised to eternal glory one day?
📝 Study Notes, Scripture List, Transcript, and more: https://medicallake.church/sermons/eternal-glory-awaits
#mlcc #church #churchonline
📝 Study Notes, Scripture List, Transcript, and more: https://medicallake.church/sermons/eternal-glory-awaits
#mlcc #church #churchonline
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Alexander McLaren said, some of us are as dead to the perception of God's gracious call
00:06just because it had been sounded on uninterruptedly, as are the dwellers by a waterfall
00:12to its unremitting voice. It's a little tricky, that quote there. It took me a few times to read
00:18through to get it, but I think you do. A waterfall that maybe is right next to your house, all
00:24the
00:24power of that water, the noise, the glory and beauty of a huge waterfall. But if you're next to
00:30it for 20 years, you might not even remember that it's there anymore. It's just desensitized.
00:36I pray that that's not the case with us. If we've been in our faith 10, 20, 30, 40 years,
00:44it could tend to be desensitized to us. And I pray that that's not true, that we would be
00:52warm in our hearts toward what God has for us. As I was preparing for this sermon, the thought came
00:58to me, if the rapture and resurrection happened tomorrow, what would I think about how I delivered
01:04this sermon today, the day before? There I'd be in this glorious place. I'd be experiencing this
01:10new resurrection body that we're going to talk about today. How would I feel about how I delivered
01:15it today? And I hope that thought has influenced how I will bring this to you guys today. And I
01:21believe it has because it is so glorious and how so awesome. Because of the resurrection of Jesus
01:28Christ, we who believe in him will experience a resurrection of our mortal bodies to be conformed
01:35to the image of his glorious body in order that we may be able to spend eternity in glory with
01:42him.
01:44Our text today is 1 Corinthians 15, 35 to 49. And so if you want to get out your Bible,
01:51your device, however, whatever you want to call it, we're going to look at God's word together.
01:57But before we start in on the text, let's look for a minute at the biblical support
02:01for a general resurrection of the body. And maybe we think, well, everybody knows that,
02:06but not everybody does and not everybody believes in that. Jesus said in John 5, 28,
02:13do not marvel at this for an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear
02:18his voice
02:18and will come forth. Those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life and those who did the
02:24evil
02:24deeds to a resurrection of judgment. Bible teaches a resurrection, a general resurrection,
02:30one way or the other. Paul said in Romans 6, 5, for if we have become united with him in
02:38the likeness
02:38of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. If you're in Christ
02:44today, you did die with him and you will live together with him in the resurrection. One of my
02:52favorite passages, John 11, 21 to 26 says, Martha then said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here,
02:57my brother would not have died. Even now that I know that whatever you ask of God, he will give
03:02you. And Jesus says back, your brother will rise again. Martha says, well, I know he'll rise again
03:09in the resurrection on the last day. But Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.
03:17He who believes in me will live even if he dies and whoever lives and believes in me will never
03:25die.
03:27Do you believe this? That's what the passage, the very next question is. That's what he asked
03:35Martha. And she said, yes, I do.
03:39So, we're going to look at these two main questions in our passage today. And if we look at verse
03:4435 to
03:45start with, we begin with a detractor, a scoffer asking these two questions.
03:53Someone will say, how are the dead raised? And what kind of body did they come? Paul's response
04:00to that, you fool. Now that's a strong term in scripture. And I'm sure Paul kept that in mind.
04:08His answer to those questions led us to the conclusion that this was a scoffer whose questions
04:13were grounded in the belief that our bodily resurrection was undesirable, maybe impossible.
04:19The philosophers of those and Gnostics of that day believed that the body was evil. The spirit was
04:25good. They couldn't wait to get out of this prison of a body and, you know, float around as a
04:30pure
04:30spirit somewhere to be rid of this thing. But God will transform this body. He's not going to let it
04:36go. He has a purpose for us and this body is his to do with. I'm sure the apostle, again,
04:47as he used
04:48that word fool, didn't take it lightly because Jesus said in Matthew 5.22, whoever says, you fool
04:54shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. So, he used that advisedly. This was not a good
05:02question like, oh, Lord, how can this be? It's like a scoffer. How could that ever happen? In our
05:08day, it might sound something like, well, what about those who've been drowned at sea and disintegrated
05:13or burned up in a fire, totally disfigured in a car wreck or cremated? How could those bodies ever be
05:18put back together again? It's impossible. Such arguing against the truth of God is foolish.
05:27But Paul, rather than dismiss the questions altogether, Paul proves why the questioner is
05:33an ignorant fool using several different methods in our passage. First, he talks about the analogy of
05:40something familiar, a seed, to explain something spiritual. Second, he talks about the true things
05:46that we already know about. So, we're going to look at these in the passage. Third, he uses those
05:51things to draw a contrast between this weak, fallen body that we have and the resurrection body that
05:57we will have. We'll look at those comparisons. And then fourth, a presentation of the two prototypes,
06:04both of which we as born-again believers in Jesus Christ will experience, both types.
06:11So, let's look at those together. Let's look at verse 36.
06:15That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies. So, that's immediately after Paul says,
06:22you fool. He's going to give him a lesson here and says, that what you sow does not come to
06:28life
06:28unless it dies. It's an easy lesson. We see that all the time. That which you sow, you do not
06:34sow the
06:34body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. God gives it a
06:40body
06:41just as he wished and to each of the seeds a body of its own. So, first he uses this
06:48analogy of a
06:48seed and that's really simple for us. We know what that's about. A seed, you have to plant it. It
06:54goes
06:54in the ground, disintegrates and it dies. You can see an example of that there. It kind of goes through
06:59the process, but you look at the seed. When the seed goes into the ground and grows, it doesn't come
07:05out just another seed. It comes out as this glorious plant that you see here, God's glorious
07:11plants that he's made. So, that's the lesson. This resurrection body that we're to receive,
07:17and that's this whole passage is about this body that we're to receive as those in Christ in the
07:23future, this glorious body that we'll have sown in the ground the way it is now. And we'll talk about
07:29all the ways that is weak, but raised as a glorious new body that he will build for us. He'll
07:36make for
07:37us. The plant looks nothing like the seed, but it is beautiful with the same source of life that the
07:46seed had. It's not something totally different. It's the life of the seed, but it's new. It's glorious.
07:55Kirstie and I don't have a $5 deal that I can't use her name in a sermon, so I guess
08:00I can do it
08:01without having to pay. But her and I sit in the hot tub almost every morning, and right across the
08:09fence is this huge, glorious maple tree. It's gigantic. And it reaches over the top of us a lot
08:15of the times, and it's always dropping things onto us. But as we go through the seasons, it's just
08:21beautiful because we can see, like right now, the buds are coming out. That thing is just getting so
08:26beautifully green. It's just nice. But in the fall, we get about a million of these helicopters. You
08:33know the helicopters, right? We still have thousands of them in our yard, even after trying to clean them
08:39up. I was going to bring an example, but you know what they are. You've seen them. But so that's
08:44the
08:44example. You take that seed, you plant that in the ground. It disintegrates, but it starts a new plant
08:50in 50 years. You have this gigantic tree. So that's the principle. That's the principle he's
08:56trying to teach her, that this resurrection body of ours, it's going to be what we are, but it's going
09:01to be amazing and glorious. So that was the first lesson he was trying to give, trying to tell this
09:08fool what he should believe. Philippians 3, 20 and 21, talking about this transformation that we will go
09:16through says, our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior,
09:22the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, we are. Who will transform the body of our humble state, we have
09:29it now, we know what that is, into conformity with the body of his glory by the exertion of the
09:35power
09:36that he has, even subject all things to himself. That's what's going to do it. That's what's going to
09:43happen is by the power that God has to change us. That's what he will do. He'll transform us. He'll
09:50conform us to the body of his glory. And just how does this all happen? God gives it a body
09:55just as
09:56he wants to. It's up to him. And just like there are thousands, if not millions of different kinds
10:01of seeds and the same kind of plant that goes along with that, God will not have a problem making
10:06us a new,
10:07unique, glorified body in the future. He won't have a problem with it. It'll be just like who
10:13we are, only gloriously different and new. So, next he goes on to look at an examination of what
10:19is. And so, look at verse 39. He says, all flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one
10:25of men,
10:26another of beasts, another of birds, and another of fish. There are also heavenly bodies and earthly
10:31bodies. The glory of the heavenly is one and the glory of the earthly is another. There is one
10:38glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars. For star differs from star
10:45in glory. So, these things aren't that hard to understand. He's trying to give us lessons of
10:50things that we look around at and see all the time. We see the difference in what things are.
10:57He continues to inform this fool as to why his creation is totally uninformed by the diversity
11:03that's around in the universe of God's creation itself, things that we can just look around and
11:09see. They should move us to worship and glorify Jesus Christ as we look around at these things in
11:15our world. That's what should be happening in our hearts when we see the world around us, when we see
11:20the glory of his creation. We don't have time to go there, but I would suggest that you look up
11:26Romans
11:261, 18 to 32 this week sometime to read through what the scriptures say about what the reaction to these
11:34things in the creation should be and the judgment that comes from the lack of that. So, we won't go
11:42there, but it's a great passage to talk about. So, first he refers to living things. We see the
11:47difference between what humans are like, our skin, our upright gait, reasoning brain, and eternal soul
11:55created in the image of God as opposed to all these different kinds of animals.
12:00After a short search on the number of speeches on the internet, and so,
12:04sermon preparation can teach you a lot. There's a lot of things to learn as you do a little research
12:10on different parts of what's there. And no different here. It says,
12:14a short search on the number of species of creatures on the earth, it becomes readily apparent
12:18that we really don't know how many of everything there is out there. Our knowledge is limited to
12:26what God has made. It's estimated that there are more than 3.5 trillion fish in the world.
12:33And so, for any fishermen out there, there's plenty of them out there for you to go after. Go get
12:38it.
12:38There's a lot of them there. The number of species of insect, not how many insects,
12:43but the number of species of insects is around a million, just of the species.
12:49The study shows that there are more chickens on the planet than humans. And I'm glad for that. I
12:55like my eggs. I like chicken. So, I'm glad. I'm glad for that. But that's, and I'm not really surprised
13:00that there's more chickens on earth than humans. So, what? What's the point of that? It's just that God
13:08has the power and the ability to create millions of things. He is capable of doing whatever He wants
13:16and needs, and He has the ability to create for us a new, unique, glorified body for every one of
13:22us
13:22that believe and entrust in Him. He's got the power and the ability to do it, and He will do
13:27it at the
13:28resurrection. So, then what about the heavens? With the advent of these newer telescopes, we know
13:33what those are, and they've even sent them outside the atmosphere so they can get a better look at
13:38what's out there. So, you know what? They've discovered that the heavens are glorious. Wow,
13:44what a discovery. God already told us that a long time ago. Psalm 50, verse 6 says,
13:49And the heavens declare His righteousness, for God Himself is judge. Psalm 115, 16 says,
13:56the heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth He has given to the sons of men.
14:02In Psalm 19, a very familiar psalm to us, as it goes on, we'll just read the first verse,
14:07the heavens are telling of the glory of God, and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
14:15The heavens that we look at out there came because He said so. He spoke it into existence.
14:21It was almost just like a little phrase at the end of one of the verses in Genesis chapter 1,
14:25He created, He created, oh yeah, and I created the stars. These unnumerable amount of stars that
14:31are so glorious is just like an afterthought to the power of God that He has. So, what is the
14:37glory
14:38of these different things talking about heavenly bodies He's referring to is just the manifestation
14:43of what they look like to us? How do we see them? That's their glory is what we see about
14:49them.
14:50And there are so many differences. Our sun blazes in its own glory. The moon, as we look at the
14:56reflection of our sun, is bright. If you looked out there on a full moon night with clear sky,
15:02it is very bright and it's just reflective. But God has created all these things. And I have a couple
15:08slides of, first of all, the color of the stars. And we've seen these more and more, especially as
15:13these telescopes get outside the atmosphere and look, they're not just all white spots out there.
15:20And I don't know if you've seen some of the pictures that have been taken through some of
15:25these and the glorious colors and all the galaxies and all these things that are out there that are
15:33so amazing looking are because God made it that way. And we can look even at the size of stars.
15:39And this one here, you look at the, on the left side, that little spot there, that's our sun
15:44all the way up to, and I don't know, somebody who knows could correct me if I'm wrong, but John
15:49MacArthur calls that beetle juice, the biggest one. I'm seeing some nodding out there. So good,
15:55good. But anyway, that's 1.2 billion kilometers in diameter. And for you non-metrics like me,
16:02that's 745 million miles in diameter, just the star itself. And if I'm not wrong, I think I've
16:12even seen some more current ones that maybe there are some bigger ones that they've detected. But
16:16think of that, 745 million miles in diameter. And again, God has just said, be there. And there it
16:23was. God has got power. God has got so much power that we just can't get our minds around that.
16:30But we, I think we should try, and some of these kind of help us to see the power of
16:36God that's
16:36out there. Could he not make us into whatever he wants to make us to be? Obviously he can. Of
16:43course
16:43he can. So we go on from there to the contrast of the body type. So we kind of get
16:51a proof that
16:52God is able to do these things. With all his diversity and power, he is able. So what is it
16:58going to be? What is that going to be for us? So we look at verse 42.
17:03So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body. It is raised an
17:10imperishable body. So we'll go through these, but we see that pattern again, sown and raised.
17:15And so it's the picture of us in our death and the burial of a human body, and then the
17:22raising of us
17:23in the resurrection. And so that's the comparison, the contrast. It's sown in dishonor. It's raised in
17:31glory. It is sown in weakness. It's raised in power. It's sown a natural body. It is raised a
17:38spiritual body. If there's a natural body, there's also a spiritual body. So what a sharp and enlightening
17:46contrast that is for us. These are the things that we could never know apart from God's revelation to
17:52us. The scriptures, these are the only way we can know about these spiritual things, about these
17:58future things is God's revelation to us. These can't be surmised by logic, human reason. We know
18:05these things because God has revealed them to us in the scripture. It's his grace that has done so.
18:10It's not speculation. It's revelation. He's already seen it. He's planned it. He's done it. It's more
18:17sure than our waking up tomorrow, that's for sure. Hopefully, the foolish questioner in this passage
18:24repented and believed. So there's these four distinct contracts. We'll look a little bit more
18:30at those in detail. Perishable versus imperishable. We all started to die the minute we were born.
18:38That's kind of a sad thought, but it's true. Some sooner than others. Sin has crushed the life
18:46out of this existence of ours in so many instances. We're naturally subject to decay,
18:52aging, our systems failing, eventually leading to a total shutdown. Our body has to fight off
19:00disease, infection, aging, and injury every minute to continue to survive. It's a battle to stay alive,
19:08and it's ultimately doomed to fail. Someone I know calls this body betrayal. I think that's a good
19:16one. But in the resurrection, our bodies are raised, transformed into imperishable bodies. He's going
19:24to reverse that more than reverse it. He's going to give us this new glorious body in place of this
19:30old
19:31one. Nothing from inside of these new bodies of ours will ever malfunction, change, deteriorate,
19:39or ever operate below 100% perfection. Imperishable means that. Nothing will ever change for the worse.
19:50It'll never get worse. It'll never age. It'll never grow old. It'll stay 100% forever and ever.
19:57That's what that means. He talks about dishonor versus glory. He brings back the idea of sowing the
20:04body. And so, we try and honor those ones that we love in death, but it's still a position of
20:12dishonor. We can look at a dead body. We see that. It's not honorable, even though that person was the
20:19one we loved. We see that. In spite of our modern methods, a body either needs to be buried, cremated,
20:26or done something in preservation before too long or things start to smell bad. It's dishonorable.
20:34And we also can talk about the idea of dishonoring God with these bodies because of that curse of sin
20:40in us. None of us, even as believers, as much as we want to try and please God, we walk
20:47in the Spirit,
20:48we love Him, we want to do what He wants us to do. None of us have done it perfectly.
20:54I know that for
20:55myself. We have dishonored God in these bodies. We live for Him, but in death, it's dishonorable.
21:06But the good part in God's mercy and grace, He forgives our sin in Christ. Amen is right.
21:15He forgives our sin. He goes beyond raising us in honor. If you make the comparison, you'd say,
21:20well, it's sown in dishonor. It's raised in honor. Well, it's more than that. It's what God always
21:26does. He raises us in glory, not just honor, in glory. In Ephesians 1, 7, and 8 says,
21:37in Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to
21:43the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us. So, thank God that is what happens in the
21:49believer that He has forgiven our sin that's caused us to be that way and can make a way for
21:54us to have
21:55this new glorious resurrection body. As far as our future glorious state goes, we will transcend
22:01angels in glory after the resurrection. The apostle John couldn't help falling down to worship an angel.
22:09That's how glorious an angel is. And it says, our glory will surpass that. Revelation 22, 8, and 9,
22:16we see where he failed. I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard
22:21and saw,
22:22I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. But the angel said
22:29to John,
22:29do not do that. I'm a fellow servant of yours and your brethren, the prophets and of those who heed
22:36the
22:36words of this book, worship God. But the point is, this angel was so glorious that John was tempted
22:42to worship Him. And in our resurrection state, we will exceed the glory of these angels. It's a truth
22:49from God. I know it's hard to get our minds around it, but it is a true statement from God.
22:561 Corinthians 6, 2 and 3 says, do you not know that the saints will judge the world?
23:02Truth. If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts?
23:08He's given them a rebuke for what they were doing at that time. But he made the statement and he
23:13says,
23:14do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters to this life? So there's some
23:20mystery there. We don't know exactly how all that's going to work out, but those are statements of
23:24truth by God. That in some way and in some form as believers in this new glorious transformed state,
23:32we will judge the world and we will judge angels. And I'm thinking probably in the millennium when that
23:38next age comes, that's where we'll be. That's what believers will be doing in this new resurrected
23:44state. And so he ends up with weakness versus power. Of all God's creatures on earth,
23:50not last, but third, physically speaking, we're probably the weakest thing on earth.
23:57Everything besides us can be born and live in the wild. I think most of us know that animals are
24:03a
24:03lot tougher than we are. We must cover ourselves from the weather or we'll die. We break easily.
24:09Most predators in the wild can easily take us down. In terms of relative strength to size,
24:16another one of these internet learning phases here, we're pathetic compared to say the mound
24:23ant who can hold up to 5,000 times its body weight. That's pretty incredible. And the strongest weight
24:32lifter, I can't remember what it said about them, but it was, I think it was only 1.8 times
24:40its body
24:40weight or something instead of 5,000 times. So we're pretty weak comparatively. And when you combine
24:47the corruptible part with the weakness part, it's even worse. And so a lot of our pain during the
24:52workout and all those things, we can tell that we're pretty weak. But on the power side, and so
24:59it's always the comparison. We don't want to stay there. We want to realize that the comparison
25:03side is that we're raised in power. And I count this attribute as also talking about the
25:10indestructibility part of our new being. In 1 Corinthians 15.54, it says,
25:18when this perishable will have put on the imperishable and this mortal will have put on
25:24immortality, then we'll come about the saying that's written, death is swallowed up in victory.
25:29That's what we'll be, is immortal. So we can't be corrupted from the inside. We can't be hurt from
25:36the outside. No bomb, no bullet, anything could ever penetrate us after that. We're immortal. We
25:43can never die, ever. That's the state we'll be in. And lastly, natural versus spiritual. And what
25:51could Paul mean by this one? Spiritual, it's not, we're not a spirit, we're spiritual.
25:58It helps us to remember that we're told in 1 John that in the resurrection, we'll be like
26:02Jesus Christ after his resurrection. 1 John 3.2 and 3 says,
26:08Beloved, now we are children of God and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know
26:14that
26:14when he appears, we'll be like him because we'll see him just as he is. And everyone has this hope
26:22fixed on him purifies himself just as he, Jesus, is pure. So when we look at those passages that tell
26:32us about Jesus after the resurrection, we find out that he was solid, he could be touched, he could eat,
26:38but he went through walls at will. He didn't need an open door to go through, he just appeared in
26:44rooms.
26:45He could travel wherever he wanted just by wanting to be there. So I hope you're comparing him to what
26:53we will be like. He altered his appearance according to the need of the moment, such as during the walk
26:59to
26:59Emmaus. When he was with the two disciples walking along, they couldn't tell the difference between him
27:04and anyone else. But in the revelation, when John saw, when Jesus in the revelation, he fell down
27:12unconscious because Jesus was so glorious. So there's some mystery there about what Jesus is
27:19like after the resurrection, but he tells us that we will be like him. So taken together, what do you
27:27think we will be like? We'll be like him. We won't be him, but we will be exactly like him
27:33in body.
27:34That's what his promise is to us. So lastly, we want to look at the contrast of these prototypes.
27:40So we see that there's an order to things that's determined for us that if we will have a natural
27:45body, we will have a spiritual body. And so how did this happen anyway? So let's look at this last
27:52section, verses 45 to 49. So also it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last
28:02Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the
28:08spiritual. The first man is from earth, earthy. The second man is from heaven. As is the earthy,
28:17so also are those who are earthy. And as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly.
28:24Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.
28:32John MacArthur was the one in his commentary who used this term prototype. I think it fits well.
28:37And we know what a prototype is. It's the example, say, of a machine or other industrial product from
28:43which all the later parts are formed. They have to conform exactly to this prototype to be sold,
28:50to be copied, to be made into something later on. So that prototype is the perfect word.
29:00The first man, Adam, is the prototype of whatever human being who has ever been born is. Adam is
29:08the prototype for us. In Genesis 1 and 2, God described how he made Adam. He fashioned him from
29:15the dust of the ground. Genesis 1.27 says, God created man in his own image. In the image of
29:22God,
29:22he created him. Male and female, he created them. And Genesis 2.7 says,
29:30then the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of
29:37life, and man became a living soul. First noticed in the text that the Lord Jesus Christ is not called
29:44the second Adam. He's called the last Adam. There will not be another. He is a life-giving spirit to
29:51us.
29:51Adam was made on earth, from the earth. You can't get much more earthy than that.
29:58And what a downgrade if he would have tried to make it the other way around. Of course,
30:02God puts things in his order. It has to be earth first and then heavenly.
30:09Jesus is also called the second man after he establishes that he is also the last man.
30:15It establishes also that there are only two federal heads of the order that come in under after them.
30:21We come in under Adam. We come in under his sin nature. That's how we are. We are
30:28counted as being in Adam without Christ. We inherited his earthy, natural body type. And those are what
30:36we've talked about already on that side. His past sin nature on us. He has passed his sin nature onto
30:45every one of this race who came after him, to every one of us. That's our problem. We inherited that
30:51from him. Jesus Christ, as the last Adam, passes on his righteousness to all who belong to him.
30:58We also inherit his heavenly body type. So, how do we bear the image of the earthy? We're living it
31:06right now. That's who we are. We will also bear the image of the heavenly in Jesus Christ if we
31:13are in
31:14him. John, so let me ask one question regarding what it says in this last verse of our passage.
31:22I think it's rather conspicuous that the words, we will, is not used anywhere in the passage until
31:27we get to that section, to that verse right there. Only the ones who are included in this verb form,
31:35we will, will be included in the benefits of all these glorious things we've talked about.
31:42So, the question is, who is the we that we're talking about here? Who is that we?
31:47Jesus said in John 3, 3, that unless a man has been born again, he will not see the kingdom
31:54of heaven.
31:55Our bodies, these new resurrection bodies, are made for the kingdom. That's where
32:00they should be. That's what they're made to be in. If you're not born again, you will not see that
32:05kingdom. Later in the chapter, we see in 1 Corinthians 15, 50 says,
32:11Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,
32:17nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. We can't get there in these bodies.
32:23We will not be in his kingdom in these. We know that. These can't last to be in there. They
32:30have
32:30to be transformed to get there. Unless we're born again, unless we are in Christ, we will not experience
32:38these things that we talked about. These glorious things are for the believer, for the born again
32:43Christian who is in Christ. So, I'd say this, beloved unbeliever, if you are out there,
32:52unless you're born again, you will not be experiencing any of these wonderful benefits
32:56we've talked about today. You must repent and believe that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead
33:03and that he is able to forgive your sin. You must call out to him for salvation to experience these
33:11glorious things. When we think about them and to the believer, these are the most awesome things we
33:17can think about as we look forward and look up to see what is in store for us as Christians,
33:22as believers.
33:25That you must be born again to receive those, to live those, to know those things. You have to be
33:31in
33:32Christ. Don't be fooled any other way to think that you're going to be there except that way.
33:39You must be in Christ. But to the believer, what a future we have in him. What a thing that
33:47we have
33:47to look forward to as we are in Christ in the future. And so, the last question I would ask
33:55is,
33:55why? Why does God do all this? What's the point of all this? Ephesians 2.7 says,
34:02so that in the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward
34:10us in Christ Jesus. That's the why for the believer. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you.
34:17so much for your word. Thank you for the glorious truths that you've presented to us there,
34:22the future that we have as believers. Help us to rejoice in that every day, to look up to see
34:29you
34:29and the future that we have in you. Help us to temper how we live today, knowing that your promise
34:35is
34:35true and unbreakable to us and that we would live in the glory of that. In Jesus' name we pray.
34:41Amen.
Comments