Sunday Sermon: How Are the Dead Raised? (1 Corinthians 15:35-41)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabrielle Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is our Old Testament study, and then we answer questions from listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series, presently going through the letters to the

Corinthians. This is the sermon that was preached last week from our pulpit. Here's Pastor Gabe.

First Corinthians 15 verses 35 through 49. But someone will ask, how are the dead raised?

With what kind of body do they come? You foolish person. What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.

But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.

For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.

There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. But the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another.

There is one glory of the sun, another glory for the moon, another glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory.

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable.

What is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor.

It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power.

It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body, thus it is written.

The first man, Adam, became a living being, and the last Adam became a life -giving spirit.

But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural and then the spiritual.

The first man was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust.

As is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

I tell you this, brothers, for the sake of the beauty of this passage, I'm just going to keep going. I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

When the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the

Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain.

Amen, hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Let us pray.

Our Lord, as we come to these words this morning, the words that have been declared to us by Christ through his apostles, the apostolic teaching, which is the foundation of the church,

Christ himself is the cornerstone. We have such an essential doctrine, a pertinent biblical truth that is being laid down here in 1

Corinthians 15, which we have so committed ourselves to studying over the past few months. And so I pray that as we come back to this today, it is no less interesting to us than it was when we first cracked open these pages.

But it is a truth that endures to the end. It is a truth that enlivens our spirits and grounds our hope in the promises of our great

God and King. And that promise is this, that those who believe in Christ Jesus will not perish, but will have everlasting life.

And so we're reminded of this truth again, the whole basis for our faith, that in Christ Jesus, our sins are forgiven and we are given an eternal inheritance with him in glory.

We will be raised again with Christ. We will live forever with him in his eternal imperishable kingdom.

It is the reason why we have faith. It is the reason why he suffered and died.

So that we would not have to die, but with him live forever. We pray and ask that we come to understand this truth all the more and even how it applies to us in our everyday lives.

In Jesus name and all God's people said, amen. Thank you. You may be seated.

In his book entitled Miracles, C .S. Lewis mused about why we tell dirty jokes.

Why is it that people tell crude jokes and laugh about those things? Furthermore, why is it that we as people are afraid or timid to talk about death?

Lewis thought these two things were interconnected, telling dirty jokes and being afraid of death, not having anything to do with a corpse, not even wanting to talk about death because it is inevitable for all of us.

So here is what Lewis wrote. Almost the whole of Christian theology could perhaps be deduced from the two facts,

A, that men make coarse jokes, and B, that they feel the dead to be uncanny.

The coarse joke proclaims that we have here an animal which finds its own animality either objectionable or funny.

Unless there had been a quarrel between the spirit and the organism, I do not see how this could be.

It is the very mark of the two not being at home together. But it is very difficult to imagine such a state of affairs as original.

To suppose a creature which from the very first was half shocked and half tickled to death at the mere fact of being the creature that it is.

I do not perceive that dogs see anything funny about being dogs. I suspect that angels see nothing funny about being angels.

So why is it basically that we tell crude jokes? You know, jokes that might have to do with bodily functions or sexuality.

That's usually the nature of all crude joking. Why is it that we do that? Because we feel uncomfortable in our own bodies.

And we know inherently as eternal spirits, whether you believe in Christ or not, your soul is eternal.

You will either go to live with him forever in heaven or you will go and suffer in hell for all eternity. So because we have an eternal spirit within us, we feel uncomfortable in these mortal, finite bodies so that we make fun of them.

And everything that pertains to the finite becomes funny and crude to us. And so Lewis makes this connection in crude joking.

He thinks there is Christian theology in the fact that we observe people telling crude jokes.

Clearly there's some sort of disconnect here between the eternal soul and the finite body so that we end up making fun of it.

We make fun of those things that we know we're not taking with us into glory.

All of our bodily functions that we either suffer with or make fun of now.

So then Lewis goes on to even connect this with the subject of death. He says, Our feeling about the dead is equally odd.

It is idle to say that we dislike corpses because we are afraid of ghosts.

You might say with equal truth that we fear ghosts because we dislike corpses. For the ghost owes much of its horror to the associated ideas of pallor, decay, coffins, shrouds, and worms.

In reality, we hate the division in which makes possible the conception of either corpse or ghost.

Because the thing ought not to be divided. Each of the halves into which it falls by division is detestable.

The explanation which naturalism gives both bodily shame and of our feeling about the dead are not satisfactory.

In other words, naturalism cannot explain to us why we tell crude jokes and why we're uncomfortable about death.

It refers us to primitive taboos and superstitions as if these themselves were not obviously results of the thing to be explained.

But once except the Christian doctrine that man was originally a unity and that the present division is unnatural and all the phenomena fall into place.

So we understand that we are one being, we are body, and we are spirit.

We're one being, but there's two parts to that. You have to be careful with the way that you explain that lest you fall into dualism.

You know, the idea that whatever happens to the body doesn't affect the soul. The Gnostics who taught that whatever happened in the flesh was always evil, always sin.

So you can do whatever it is that you want because eventually your body is going to die, but your soul is holy.

It's inherently holy. It is perfect. And so when the body dies, the soul will just go on to live forever in glory.

That's what the Gnostics taught, and that's wrong. Because according to what the Scripture teaches, what we experience in the body every bit has to do with what happens to our soul, which is what drives

Paul to say in Romans 12, 1, to present our bodies as a living sacrifice unto the

Lord. And this is your spiritual act of worship. Present your body, and it's your spiritual act of worship.

So what we have been called to be as a spiritual people, we must display within our own bodies.

And we as people understand that we are body and soul. I've mentioned that ancient

Greek understanding as we've kind of gone through 1 Corinthians 15 here, the Greeks who believe that the spirit just died along with the body.

There was no eternal spirit. Just as the body was finite, so was the spirit also.

But yet Paul points out in an argument that we looked at last week that even those who are not Christians believe that there is something about the soul that goes on beyond the body.

And as I argued, even from naturalism and from the arguments that you hear come from the mouths of atheists.

There is a longing for the eternal, thus proving what Solomon said in Ecclesiastes that God has placed eternity in the hearts of man, but we cannot fathom what he has done from beginning to end.

And so when even an atheist waxes on about eternity or tries to explain eternity in an infinite universe or an infinite number of universes, they are showing that in their hearts, it is true what

Solomon mused about, that God has placed eternity within our hearts so that even those who reject

God still long for something eternal or philosophize about the eternal.

We understand that. It's inherent within every one of us. That we are going to die, that's evident even within our own bodies, we know that.

And yet there is a longing within us to want to live on, to want to live forever, to even cling for the eternal.

It's the fleshly side of us that's aware of our impending end.

It is the spiritual side of us that longs for an eternal life.

This is what God has placed into our hearts, that as Paul says in Acts chapter 17, we may reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

Here in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul has been laying down an apologetic argument concerning the resurrection of the dead.

So if there is a resurrection of the dead, how is it that some of you can say that there is no resurrection?

This is a basic biblical truth that we must all believe. It is a fundamental doctrine.

He starts out in the very beginning providing a thesis for an understanding of the gospel.

It is by the gospel that we are being saved. One of the more famous verses that affirms that, beyond 1

Corinthians 15, 1 and 2, is Romans 1, 16. I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

It is basically the same statement Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1 and 2. After that, to prove the resurrection of the dead, he appeals first to authority.

The scriptures have said it. Secondly, he appeals to evidence. The eyewitnesses have spoken of it.

They saw Christ resurrected from the dead. Paul even refers to himself, I saw him on the road to Damascus.

And then Paul makes an appeal to logic. So first the authority argument, then there is the evidence argument, and then an argument from logic.

And we have in verses 12 through 19 seven things that follow one another as inexorably as night follows day.

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then this. If this, then this. But having proved his point, the argument is over by the time we get to verse 19.

Why would Paul even need to go on any more about this? He gets to verse 20 and comes back to his point to affirm what it was that he's been arguing from the beginning of this chapter.

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits who have fallen asleep, so that we would know that we who are in Christ will likewise rise from the dead, just as he has.

See, Paul is being very pastoral here in his apologetic. He's not just writing a textbook answer or response or argument for the resurrection of the dead.

He's being pastoral. He wants the Corinthians to know the truth and have it affirmed in their hearts, so that not only do they believe it just as some sort of, just as they would believe anything that the philosophers would say, but that it would also change their lives.

It actually changes the way they live life. It changes the way they look at their own lives, and it changes the way that they look at one another, the lives of other people around them.

Yes, my friends, my brothers and sisters in the Lord, your theology absolutely affects the way that you live your life and interact with other people around you.

And so Paul means for them to understand this doctrine of the resurrection, not just because he wants to give them a theology lesson in some sort of lecture class, but so that it would change their hearts to know with hope the resurrection of Christ and thus the promised resurrection of the person who follows

Christ, but also then the way they live out an understanding of that resurrection with their brothers and sisters in the

Lord and with other people in this world, that they might know by faith in Christ they also will have the resurrection of the dead.

And so Paul works very pastorally here, very caring in helping the

Corinthian understand this doctrine of the resurrection. He comes back to an order of resurrection here in verses 20 through 28.

And then in verses 29 through 34, continues in the arguments of pointing out that there are those who are not even

Christian that understand the resurrection of the dead. There are those who are secular, and there are those who are at parts of other religions and other cults that long for some kind of eternity.

So therefore it must be inherent within the body or within the spirit of the body of a person to want to live on beyond this mortal coil as it's been so termed.

And then he gets to verse 35, and this is something that we see Paul do regularly with his letters, especially when he is presenting some kind of argument or some sort of rebuttal against an argument.

We saw this especially prominent in Romans. In fact, it's probably most prominent in Romans, where Paul will ask a question, and he's either asking a question that has been asked of him, or he's presupposing a question that would be asked of him by some sort of critic or skeptic.

So here the question is, but someone will ask, how are the dead raised?

With what kind of body do they come? So here we understand the disconnect that C .S.

Lewis was kind of pointing to here in his book, Miracles. We know that there is something beyond what we have in this body.

There's something spiritual just beyond the physical in which we live, just beyond the natural. There's something supernatural, but what is it?

So we know there's something, but yet our human psyche has trouble grasping what that is, right?

So there's something there, but it just seems so illogical to believe it. And that's the struggle that the

Corinthians are having here as well. I know I need to believe it because Paul said I need to believe it because Jesus taught it, but it's so difficult.

So what if we don't believe it? I mean, is it even really a big deal that we don't believe it at all? Maybe I don't need to believe in the resurrection.

I can still call myself a Christian, right? There are theologians today that continue to try to argue that point.

In 2006, Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote an article responding to Professor N .T.

Wright, who was defending a friend of his, another theologian, who was arguing against the resurrection.

So N .T. Wright, who believes in the resurrection, was trying to defend his friend who doesn't believe in the resurrection and was trying to say, you can still be a

Christian and not believe in the resurrection. And then Dr.

Mohler spoke up and said, well, wait a second. This is exactly the thing Paul is responding to in 1

Corinthians 15. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

So yes, it is important that we believe in the resurrection of the dead. But if Christ has not been raised, no one gets raised.

And it's completely futile for us to believe that. That's the exact argument Paul presents in verses 12 through 19.

So yeah, there are theologians even today, prominent theologians, respected theologians, who are attempting to tell people that it's not important to believe in the resurrection of Christ.

Paul is saying, if it's not for the resurrection, there's no reason to even believe this. Why am I even enduring the struggles that I go through in this life if there is no resurrection from the dead?

We can preach the gospel and we can be ridiculed for it and still have hope in Christ knowing that this life is not the end and there's something that's promised for us.

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, what's the point of even preaching the gospel? Why be ridiculed for something that ultimately doesn't even lead to anything?

You can't even argue that it makes your life better if by believing the gospel people hate you for it.

How is your life better because of the gospel of Jesus Christ? So Paul says, we don't do these things in vain.

And we've even come to that argument again here at the very end of 1 Corinthians 15 in our reading this morning.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the

Lord, your labor is not in vain. My friends, when you preach the gospel, it isn't in vain.

It isn't for your health. It isn't for you.

But God is actually accomplishing a purpose through the gospel. Isaiah 55, my word will not return to me void, but will accomplish the thing that I have sent it forth to do.

Just as the rain comes down from heaven and doesn't return without doing the thing that it was sent to the earth to do, watering the ground.

So the same is the case for the word of the Lord. What is that called, the process of evaporation, everything?

Is that circumvention? Any students can tell me exactly what that is?

No? Alright. Clearly, my science class stuck in my brain.

Did you have it, Raymond? Just a water cycle, okay. That works.

You know what I'm talking about. And that, see we can't even remember what the scientific term for it is, and yet it's discussed in scripture.

Scripture. The Lord uses it through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 55 to point out to us how the word of the

Lord works. It does something in the hearts of the hearers, everybody, even those whom you preach the gospel to and don't believe it.

There is still a work that is being accomplished with that. Either the Holy Spirit is softening a person's heart to receive it, or the

Holy Spirit is hardening that person's heart to lead to their destruction and God's glory will be shown even in those on whom that he pours his wrath out upon.

Paul makes that argument in Romans 9, and we find that in other places as well. So the word of the

Lord is accomplishing something. What it is accomplishing is not your responsibility.

Like your ability to shout louder than another person is not going to convince them of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You must be obedient to the word, and part of the instructions that we have in the word is to preach that word with gentleness and respect, always ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within you.

Yet correcting opponents with gentleness, kind of mash 1 Peter 3 .15 and 2

Timothy 2 .23 together there. So we respond to our opponents with gentleness and respect, and we give an answer for the hope that lies within us.

That is our responsibility when it comes to the handling of the word of God. God will do the work that he means for that word to do in the heart of a person.

So you just remain obedient to believe it and to share it. And in that obedience, that means that we understand theology.

Like there is an instruction in scripture that you must learn theology. The words doctrine and theology tend to be taboo even in the

American church today. Well, I don't want to talk about doctrine. It divides people. Yes, Jesus even said that.

I came not to bring peace, but a sword to divide father from son, mother from daughter, brother from brother.

Because our belief in this truth will divide us from people. But again, that's a work that the word of God does.

That doesn't mean you need to be a jerk with the word of God. I'm going to go ahead and cause some division here since Jesus said that's what was going to happen anyway.

No, the Lord will do the work that he means to do.

We must be obedient to what he has called us to do. And in this instruction to understand right doctrine, it's the very first instruction

Paul gives Timothy at the start of 1 Timothy. The instruction that is given to us to know right doctrine, to know theology, means that we must study things like the resurrection of Christ and come to an understanding of this doctrine of the resurrection.

And Paul very pastorally is attempting to help the Corinthians understand the doctrine of the resurrection.

Someone will ask, he presupposes the question, how are the dead raised?

With what kind of body do they come? And it's natural for us to ask those kinds of questions because we experience the disconnect between the spiritual and the physical.

We know it's there, but yet we can't fathom it. We know by what God's word says that there is eternity, but who knows what that looks like?

Who knows what eternity looks like? Who knows what a resurrection looks like?

I mean, what did Jesus look like when he came back from the grave? Part of him was recognizable, but part of him wasn't because he walked with a couple of disciples seven miles on the road to Emmaus and they didn't recognize him, even though they had just seen him a couple of days ago.

So there's something about it that's recognizable and something about it that's not. What does it look like when a person comes out of the grave?

I don't know, but there were over 500 witnesses to it. And so there are certain things that we just can't fathom.

We just can't understand because we know it is outside the natural. The resurrection of the dead is indeed something supernatural.

So even though it is natural for us to ask the question, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?

And that is an argument that we would just come to because it seems the most logical argument to raise against the resurrection of the dead.

Well, it can't be possible because it's something unnatural. How would that even happen?

Even though it is natural for us to ask that question, Paul doesn't congratulate the

Corinthians for asking the question. His response in verse 36 is, you foolish person.

Listen to what John Calvin says. There is nothing more at variance with human reason than this article of faith.

And he's talking about the resurrection. For who but God alone could persuade us that bodies, which are now liable to corruption, will after having rotted away or after they have been consumed by fire or torn in pieces by wild beasts, will not merely be restored entire, but in a greatly better condition?

Do not all our apprehensions of things straightway reject this as a thing fabulous, nay, most absurd?

So in other words, according to Calvin, even for the believer, it's natural for us to both accept it as something glorious and reject it as something ridiculous.

Yes, the resurrection of the dead. Wait a minute. The resurrection of the dead?

And so as a person comes to war with these things in their own mind, in their own heart, coming to understand deep theological concepts like the resurrection,

Paul doesn't congratulate them for their doubt. Rather, he says in verse 36, you foolish person, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.

But God gives it a body as he has chosen and to each kind of seed its own body.

For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.

Basically, here's what Paul's response is to the Corinthians. So by logic and by your appeal to nature, you're attempting to argue against the resurrection.

Well, if the dead are raised, with what kind of body do they come? Because the body's died, it's gone into the ground, so how could they be raised again?

What kind of body are we talking about here if that body's going into the ground and decaying? And Paul says you're foolish because you're using a natural argument for the resurrection of the dead when you could actually draw from nature an argument for the resurrection of the dead.

A seed, when it goes into the ground, doesn't it die? And then it turns into a new thing?

And so the same is true for the human body as well. See, the same argument that the skeptic will use, an appeal to nature, is the very same structure of the argument that Paul presents in rebuttal to that argument.

Okay, you want to argue from nature? I can still argue for the resurrection of the dead. Have you ever seen a seed break open and produce a plant?

That's one of the great things about time -lapse photography and time -lapse video, right? You remember those videos that you watched in biology class where you would have the seed that's placed in the ground, and you have the camera that's focused on that spot where the seed is, and over time -lapse, the soil breaks open, this little plant starts growing out.

You remember those videos when you were in school? Are some of you so old that you didn't have videos in school?

But we've seen those time -lapse videos, right? So we get the privilege of being able to watch something in time that's easier for us to process that maybe in this particular time they weren't able to watch with their own eyes but was still a concept they understood.

A seed being buried in the ground and breaking open and producing a plant, and that seed has died and it's become something else.

It's got a completely different body. It doesn't have the hard shell on it that it had before. It's not even the size that it was before.

It's open and growing. It's a different color. It's producing something.

It's getting taller and taller. That seed has died. It's become something else. Paul is saying it's the same with the resurrection.

The body dies. It becomes something else. It becomes a different body.

So when you're trying to argue naturally for the resurrection of the dead, you're talking about one body that becomes a different body.

And so it is in nature, and so it is with God. God gives each a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed, its own body.

So in other words, if God has chosen the body that we are to have, he has the power to resurrect the person from the dead.

So there's no concern of yours as to what kind of body you're going to come back with. God has already chosen what kind of body you are going to receive in the resurrection.

God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed, its own body. For not all flesh is the same.

There's one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. Folks, this is something that we understand inherently as well.

We understand that there's a difference between people and animals. Even PETA understands that.

They might suppress the truth with their unrighteousness, but the people who work for PETA still understand that there's a difference between people and animals.

God has made us in different ways, and we know that. God has even affirmed for us the legitimacy of life from conception to natural death because he sent his

Son, Jesus Christ, to take on human flesh. God could have sent

Christ into this world any way that he chose, because we're reading here, God gives it a body as he has chosen.

So he could have sent Jesus to this world any way he chose, but he chose conception.

He chose that Christ would be in the womb of a woman and grow in that womb for what we often say is nine months, but ladies, it's more like 10, amen?

That Christ would grow in her womb for 10 months and be born into this world a baby child and would grow up and experience things exactly as a man.

That he would even be tempted and yet be without sin.

He would live perfectly. He would live sinlessly. He would die a death in his own body.

He would rise again in that body, thus verifying and sanctifying the entire process of life from beginning to end.

I mentioned to you at the start of the sermon today that an understanding of the resurrection changes our anthropology.

It changes the way we look at life, the way we look at our own life, the way that we look at other lives.

The resurrection, the doctrine of the resurrection does that. How would this doctrine then, understanding that Christ was human, he died and he rose again, how would this help us to understand how we should consider all life?

Since Christ has verified and sanctified the entire process of life from conception to natural death, that is where we as a church, as the people of God, have adopted the position that we protect life from conception to natural death.

Why is it that we believe that abortion is wrong? Because Christ was that child at six weeks, at eight weeks, at two months, six months, nine months, ladies, amen, ten months, and was born and his life was precious that whole time from the conception of the

Holy Spirit to his birth. His life was precious over the course of his life.

His life was even precious at the moment of his death. It was precious at the time of his burial and it is most precious at the time even of his resurrection.

We do not treat the human body the same as we treat other bodies because we understand that there is a difference between humans and animals.

We have been made in the image of God. We are image bearers of God and so it is our duty as Christians to protect that life from beginning to end and it's in light of the doctrine of the resurrection that we do that.

The way that you look at people who are around you, you love one another, which is the command of Christ that we are to love each other and you love them and you respect them and you should even respect their bodies because you know that this body that we've been given by the

Lord, though it dies and goes into the ground, it will be resurrected. It will be made imperishable just as he is imperishable now as he sits at the right hand of the

Father in heaven. So we should treat one another's bodies with dignity and respect.

We're seeing an argument about that play out in front of our very eyes in Hollywood right now as to how it is that we should be treating one another's bodies.

There's a particular media mogul, Harvey Weinstein, who has been exposed, uncovered as having used and abused women with the power that he had there in Hollywood.

And not only he, but there are other actors and other guys that, you know, kind of work in the heads of the different studios and things like that.

People from the highest to the lowest that work in Hollywood are being exposed as being sexual predators against women.

Well, this eventually prompted Matt Damon, famous actor, in case you don't know, to say, why is it that we're just cutting all of these guys down?

Why don't we set up some good examples of men that should be emulated, people who actually treat women with dignity and respect?

Well, there were women feminists that even were outraged by that. They were like, you know, just because there are men out there who know how to treat women, that doesn't mean we should be raising them up on a pedestal.

We need to be cutting these other guys down that are abusing women. Because it should be just natural and dignified that you would treat a woman with dignity and respect.

It's not something that we should praise a man for. You know, I actually, I have a theory as to why

Hollywood doesn't actually want to raise up examples of solid men who know how to treat women with dignity and respect.

You want to know why they don't want to do that? Because by doing that, it would expose them as the hypocrites that they really are.

When you're talking about a man who knows how to treat a woman with dignity and respect, who are you talking about?

A husband who is faithful to his wife and to his family. And that would expose all the rest of Hollywood for being frauds.

All we want to do is expose the thing that we think is unrighteous to make us feel more righteous about ourselves, but we don't actually want to live righteously.

And yet, it is understanding that Christ has created life to be precious from conception to natural death, that we value all life, and we value it at every stage, and we value every person, whether they are a man or they are a woman, whether they are an adult or they are a child.

We hold every life precious, and we treat each person with dignity and respect, most especially because our

Lord Christ took on the sinful flesh that we inhabit and lived a perfect life for us as a substitute, died as our substitute, taking upon Himself the wrath of God, rose again from the dead so that all who believe in Him would have a life like His.

And because Jesus loved us so much to do that for us, shouldn't we also be laying down our lives for each other, considering others' needs ahead of our own?

So that, my brothers and sisters in Christ, is why the doctrine of the resurrection is important, not just to your salvation, but also to your sanctification, that you would grow in holiness, not just yourself, but with one another as the body of Christ.

And so when we come to this table this morning, this is not just something that we do, that you do for yourself, but the whole body together.

We all, as the church, we come together to partake of the bread and partake of the cup because we are individual parts, but we're one body in Christ.

That's the point that Paul makes at the end of this particular paragraph, and here's where we're going to end and then pick up next week in verse 42.

Paul says there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, the glory of the earthly is of another.

There is one glory of the sun, another glory for the moon, another glory for the stars, for star differs from star in glory.

Don't read into that too deeply. For Paul, all he's saying here is that every person is given a different glory.

Everyone has a different body. There's heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. The glory of the heavenly is one kind, the glory of the earthly is another.

Not all flesh is the same. There's one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, another for fish.

So it's going to be the same for us when we get to glory. That we have a fleshly body now, we will have a glorious body when we are forever with the

Lord. And though we will be one in Christ around the throne singing his praises forever and eternity, yet there's still something individualistic about our eternity.

Which is why he draws individual examples of glory. A glory of the sun, a glory of the moon, a glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory.

So though we will all be glorified before the throne of grace for all eternity in Christ Jesus, yet there is an individual glory that you will receive because of the sanctification that Christ is working in your life right now.

So work with one another and sanctify one another and build each other up because I tell you that as your brother or sister matures in Christ, you mature also.

The whole body of Christ benefits. This morning I've asked my brother

Chris to come forward and take us to the Lord's table and prepare our hearts to eat of this bread and drink of this cup.

And so Chris, I hope I haven't taken too much material from you and you are still ready to take us there.

No, not too bad. But I'm going to read one verse from the Bible and I'm going to go about through half of this here. So we should get out by next week sometime.

No, it really is a blessing. You know, this is the first Sunday of the month and as is our tradition, we celebrate communion, the

Lord's Supper on the first Sunday of every month. This being the first Sunday of the year, I thought it appropriate to share with you this devotional.

This is a devotional I have shared. I shared it with our Sunday school last year downstairs. I've shared it with numerous

Bible studies. They all end up being a little bit different. But the one thing

I do share that is repeated is a portion of Matthew Henry's diary from January 1st, 1704.

And for those of you who don't know who Matthew Henry was, he's a Bible commentary. This is a condensed version of it.

If you were to see the full volume, it'd be about 20 books long and cover, you know, a couple shelves of somebody's...

Anybody have a full version of it? You have the full? Sonia does? You do?

So it's one of the most read commentaries around in evangelicalism today.

Such a good commentary. C .H. Spurgeon said that every minister should read through Matthew Henry's commentary at least once, and then read through it at least once carefully.

That was his recommendation to every minister for reading material. So a tremendously good book, tremendously good commentary.

It is hard to find another Christ -centered... another commentary as Christ -centered as Matthew Henry.

You can go through all types of passages, and he points to Jesus, and you kind of have to go back, what? Where? Where does he see

Jesus in this? You see, I had to go back and forth and go through, but I say that to its compliment.

So why 1704? I believe it to be for two reasons why I think

I want to share this with so many. The first reason is it was a big year for Matthew Henry.

Matthew Henry became extremely ill in 1704. It was not a good year for his health.

He suffered with his health for almost his entire life, likely due to complications.

He was born very premature, and he had health complications that likely were from that situation.

But he became so ill that year that his family and himself thought he was going to die. It was also in November of 1704 which he began his

New Testament notes, which we now call and became his commentary.

So the second reason I share this with you is not to praise Matthew Henry, but instead obviously to praise God for the work that he's done through Matthew Henry, but to encourage us in surrender.

In a time of New Year's resolutions, you will not hear the word resolution in this diary entry.

For those of you who follow the What page, I'm giving you in about eight minutes what Pastor Gabe gave in 90 seconds, by the way, regarding resolutions.

If he had the time, this is what he would have said. You will hear words though, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with resolve.

You'll hear words that are synonyms with resolve. Here are some of the words you're going to hear, surrender, commit, earnestly desire, divine dispose, will of the

Lord, and the providence of God. He didn't make a resolution though to do one thing more than he had to before.

He didn't make a resolution to refrain from doing something or to stop doing something all entirely. Instead, this diary entry is his surrender of his year, his abilities, his health, his comfort, his security, his joy, his studies, his service, his desires, surrendered his doubts all to the

Lord for his purpose, for his will, and his glory. What I see in this diary entry is him doing what is explained, what he explained in his commentary in Matthew 16.

I'm going to read the verses first. Matthew 16, verses 24 through 28.

Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever would save his life would lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his

Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the

Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Of those verses, Matthew Henry, in his commentary, describes those as the law of discipleship.

He continues on describing each of these verses, and he summarizes by saying, these are the fixed terms of a

Christ follower set by Christ himself. This is what I see him explaining in his diary entry in 1704.

So let me go ahead and read that for you this morning. It's not too long, but for those of you who were raised on the

King James Version, some of you will follow this a lot better than others. This is written by a man in the 17th century,

I guess early 18th century. Here's what he wrote. This New Year's Day I have in much weakness and come past about with many infirmities upon my knees, made a fresh surrender of myself, my whole self, all

I am, all I have, all I can do to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, my creator, owner, and ruler, and benefactor.

All my affections to be ruled by the divine grace, and all my affairs overruled by the divine providence, so as I may not come short of glorifying

God in this world, and being glorified with him in a better world. Confirming and ratifying all former resignations of myself to God, and lamenting all the sinfulness of my heart and life therewith, and depending upon the merit of the

Redeemer to make this and all my other services acceptable, and the grace of the sanctifier to enable me to make good these engagements,

I again bind my soul with a bond to the Lord, and commit myself entirely to him.

Particularly as to the events of this year which I am now entering upon, not knowing the things that may abide me in it.

If this year should be a year of continued health and comfort, I commit myself to the grace of God to be preserved for carnal security, and to be enabled in a day of prosperity to serve

God with joy. If my opportunities as a minister should be this year continued, I commit my studies and ministerial labors at home and abroad to the blessing of God, having afresh consecrated them all to his service and honor, earnestly desiring mercy of the

Lord to be faithful and successful. If I should be this year at any time tried with doubts concerning my duty,

I commit myself to the divine conduct, with an unbiased desire praying to know what God will have me to do, with a fixed resolution by his grace, to follow his direction and the integrity of my heart.

If I should this year be afflicted in my body, family, name, or home,

I commit my all to the divine dispose, the will of the Lord be done, only begging that the grace of God may go along with the providence of God in all my afflictions, to enable me both to bear them well and to use them well.

If this year I should be assaulted or molested in the exercise of my ministry, if I should be silenced or otherwise suffer for well -doing,

I commit the keeping of my soul to God as a faithful creator, depending upon him to guide me in my call to suffer and to make that clear and to preserve me from perplexing snares, depending upon him to support and comfort me under my sufferings and to bring glory to himself out of them, and then welcome his whole will.

I share this with you so that in this first meditation of Christ's sacrifice on the cross for our sins, so that it would not only be a remembrance of his grace and mercy displayed on the cross, but be a reminder for us of the surrender and sacrifice we are called to make as disciples of Jesus Christ, the one who we call

King, Lord, and Savior. As Matthew Henry makes very clear, he has a call to suffer, he has a call to suffer for the gospel.

And that is what we see here, that this cost that we have, that was given for our salvation, that was given for our salvation from our own sins, came at a great cost.

We see that in communion, we see that on the cross, we see that in our own sin, just how rotten we are.

So let us look forward to the grace that is given to us now, let's look forward to the grace that is given to us in the day of resurrection, and understand and see.

I give you this verse here, Romans 12, chapter 1. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Verse 2, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable, and perfect.

Shine on me, sustain us by thy will.

Strengthen us in order, save in thee.

Our faith is built upon thy promise free.

Lord give us peace and make us calm and sure, that in thy strength we evermore grow.

Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.

For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.

On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, Growing Together in Christ, when we understand the text.