Matthew 22:23-33 Defending Resurrection

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Recast Church.

As Dave said, I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here, and really glad that we have the opportunity to gather together in the name of God.

I think most of us have come to realize over the past year how our gathering is a lot more than a social club.

Have you guys identified that? That it's more than just a social club. For most of us, it's a lifeline.

It's something that we really need to continue in our walk with God. I'm really thankful for the technology that allows people who need to quarantine to stay connected here through the live stream, so welcome to all of you that are tuning in right now.

Glad that you're here with us, and in the future, if there comes a point where you might need to quarantine for a variety of different reasons, you can take advantage of the live stream there, too, and know that there's a way for you to connect in weeks that you're not able to be here.

This week, we're going to be picking up where we left off in the book of Matthew, and this morning we're going to see the second of three questions that were posed to Jesus by the religious establishment of His day.

The religious leaders were questioning Jesus on the last week of His life, and they are in the temple area there, outside in the courtyard, and they are asking

Him questions and kind of peppering Him with questions, and they were not genuine questions. They were questions with the purpose of tripping

Him up. They were trying to get to Him. They were trying to find Him in error, to get

Him to make a mistake, and the questions cover three aspects of controversy in their day and age, controversies that still even kind of bleed over to where we live today.

The first we saw a couple of weeks ago, they asked Him a pretty direct question to try to get Him in trouble with the

Romans, and they asked Him, should we pay taxes? And He answered in such a way, you could go back and listen to that message, it's available online, but He answered in such a way that His challengers marveled at His wise teaching.

They were astonished at the wisdom of this guy. Now this morning, the challenge is going to come from a more religious perspective, where that was kind of a political challenge to Him.

Are you going to say, no, you shouldn't pay taxes, get in trouble with Rome, or something like that? But the two primary social groupings of the

Jewish leadership during the time of Jesus, the two largest kind of offshoots or denominations of Judaism, were the

Pharisees and the Sadducees. Now the Pharisees had a crack at Jesus with the first question, and they failed.

And so, having failed, now the Sadducees come in to take a crack at Him and ask a question that they think is going to trip

Him up. And the way that they ask their question, the tone and all of the surrounding information about this question that they ask, points toward it being snarky and kind of sarcastic.

They have every intention of trying to make Jesus look silly in His theology. They want to trip

Him up. They want to help Him to lose face in front of all of the crowds that are gathered there to hear

His teaching. Now think about it. Often when you go in to try to make

Jesus look silly, it's going to come back and bounce back to you. So they think

His belief in resurrection is absurd. And so they set up an outlandish scenario to try to catch

Him in this silly absurdity. Of course everybody knows that there's no life after this one, would be their mindset.

And so the subject of our text is resurrection. But if we're not careful, we're going to find that the subject that Matthew is writing about is going to get commandeered, it's going to get overwhelmed when we end up to the point where we're going to want to focus on marriage.

I read the text here in just a moment. You're going to see that your mind subtly shifts to questions about marriage as we go through this text to the point where by the time you get to verse 30, you're going to be thinking about marriage and you're going to be having questions about marriage.

And that's going to be prominent in your mind because of the nature of what's going on here. But we can't lose sight of the main point is about resurrection.

And by the way, does anybody find it ironic that we're going to have a message this morning about resurrection?

How many of you have read anything in the news about death recently? Anyone? Anybody need a message about resurrection today?

Anybody that needs to hear that there's hope for life beyond this life because of what Christ has done for us?

I think all of us need that message regularly. So let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew 22, verse 23 through 33.

Again, Matthew 22. You can navigate in an app over there or grab your own

Bible. Matthew 22, 23 through 33. And I want you to note how much your mind strays from the central point of resurrection as I read because you're going to have to force it to come back to that main point because of the things that are said.

In recast, I say this every week when I read from the text of Scripture. This is God's holy word. In the

Bible, it wants to change us. It wants us to think what it thinks, and it wants to change the way that we live and the things that we do.

So let's listen in and let the word change us. Matthew 22, verses 23 through 33.

The same day the Sadducees came to him who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question saying, teacher,

Moses said if a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.

Now, there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother.

So too the second and the third down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died.

In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.

But Jesus answered them, you are wrong because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God?

I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the

God of the dead but of the living. And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your word that speaks directly into where we live today, that it is not a distant word, it is not just a theoretical word, but it is a word that addresses the very headlines that we read today, the very space in which we move and live and have our being.

Father, I thank you for your word that would address a topic such as resurrection when there's so much fear and darkness in our culture right now and people calling for a very, very dark winter.

We know hope. Where the headlines read death, death, death, your word reads life, life, life and a hope for resurrection through Jesus Christ who has loved us and gave himself for us.

So Father, I pray that from that place of acknowledging and recognizing the sacrifice of Christ and his new life as vindication by you where you actually gave him new life.

You raised him from the dead and honored him above all. And so Father, I pray that from that place we would rejoice now and as we move over the next couple of weeks to thinking about Christmas and having a little mini -series coming up in the next couple of weeks about Christmas and thinking that through,

Father, I pray that you would continue to bring to us joy and peace and gladness over this season.

Father, that we would just recognize your peace and your love poured out on us through the giving of your son.

And it's in his name that I pray. Amen. I'm continuing to bring to us joy and peace, gladness.

Hey, Recast. Pastor Don here. Just wanted to catch up to speed on the new elder candidates that we have to put on the

I'm really super excited. We've got three men that are coming forward. You're going to get a chance to hear their testimonies here in just a second.

So you get to know them, put a face with a name. But I want to talk about the process. So we want all three of these guys to join the board.

We're not having a competition between them. And you're going to receive an opportunity to vote for each one of them.

Now, those votes are going to look like a form that's going to come in your email, in your inbox this afternoon.

So that's going to be mailed out by the church office. Everybody's going to get that contact information. And whether you're a regular attender here or a member, we value your vote.

Now they need to have 85 % of the members who vote for them say yes in order for them to be invited to be on the board of leadership for our church.

Now remember, this is not a contest between the three of them, but we would love all three of them to be on there. So you're voting on their integrity, you're voting on their qualifications, and we would love to have your feedback on that form.

And so those are going to be due on the 20th of December. So fill those out as soon as you can.

I encourage you as much as possible to get to know these guys. I know that this is a weird time to try to get to know each other, but hopefully you've actually interacted with the three guys.

Hi Recast. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Brian Dragone. You may know my wife

Sandra, or my children Sophia, Lucia, Timothy, and Galena. I was born in the

Metro Detroit area and grew up in a Catholic home. However, I lacked an understanding of God's word and Christ's redeeming work on the cross.

In the aftermath of a car accident that happened when I was in high school, I struggled to come to terms with what had happened.

I questioned why the two people in the other vehicle had to lose their lives, and I struggled to understand if I was to blame for this tragic loss.

I also questioned why I was allowed to survive the crash virtually unharmed. I started attending

Western Michigan University at the age of 18, where I met a group of Christians who invited me to spend time with them studying

God's word. Looking for answers to these difficult questions I had been unable to answer on my own,

I accepted their invitation. As I spent more time in God's word and in fellowship with these believers, my understanding of both

God's love for me and my understanding of my own sinful nature increased. One evening

I shared my past with one of my Christian friends, and he offered to pray with me. That night, at the age of 18,

I asked God to forgive my sins and to make Jesus Christ the Lord of my life. I now believe that God used that accident to reveal to me my sinful heart, how holy and adequate

I was to save myself from my sin, and to draw me to Him so that I could make

Him the Lord of my life. Thanks, Recast. Hey, Recast, it's

Nick McLaughlin, and this is my testimony. As a kid, I grew up in and around church to Christian parents, and it was good.

But I never really had a relationship with God of my own until sixth grade.

With the church youth group, we went up to camp in northern Wisconsin for a winter retreat, and during one of the services there,

God just absolutely struck me. He struck me with His existence.

He struck me with that He was real, and that Jesus was real, and that I'm real.

And I couldn't just play Christian anymore. I knew that I was a sinner.

I knew that I needed a Savior, and I believed that Jesus was the Son of God who God sent to save me from my sins.

And that was the beginning of my walk with God. I will never forget that night,

January 21st, 2001, as a matter of fact. And it certainly hasn't been all smooth sailing from there, but I am so grateful to God for giving me faith in Him, and I hope that my testimony can help reach others.

Love you, Recast. Hello, Recast. My name is David Wilson. My wife,

Melissa, and I have been married for 16 years, and during that time, we've managed to have seven wonderful children.

We've been attending Recast Church for greater than three years now, and consider it our home church. I've been blessed to have been raised in a

Christian home and accepted Jesus Christ in my life at a young age. When I was six, my father sat me down and read me the gospel and led me to that decision.

I always knew that I was a Christian. However, my junior year of high school, I wrestled with my faith.

That summer, I attended a church camp and had one of those famous bonfire sermons.

And during that time, I decided to rededicate my life to Jesus Christ and make Him the center of my life.

Our goal as a family is to make sure that we keep Christ the center of our home. Melissa and I pray that our children will decide to make a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and that they live a life that is reflecting of Him.

When I was asked by Recast to consider being elder for the church, Melissa and I prayed about this decision, and we were led to serve the church in this capacity.

Melissa and I are excited to see what God has planned for our church in the coming years.

Thanks to those three men who are being kind of called out to step forward into that potential role.

Encourage all of you to vote. If you get that email, if we have your email address, then you're going to get sent a ballot and encourage you over the next couple of weeks to vote.

If you have any questions about the process, you can email office at recastchurch .com and we'll seek to answer that in a timely fashion.

So let us know. And just to clarify, we have these three guys. We actually have four slots currently on the board. Guys have termed out, and so by our bylaws, that's the process that happens.

So we have two -year terms, four -year terms, and we have four that are terming out right now. And so with that, we have three spots, or four spots, three, hopefully, these three guys fill, and then we're still in the process of looking for that last one.

And so we really would like to get our board to seven at this point. And so just be praying for that process and be involved by putting your vote out there on these guys.

And again, the vote is for each individual. They're not candidating against each other or anything like that. And then

I encourage you to get comfortable and reopen your app or your Bible to Matthew 22, verses 23 through 33.

We read that earlier, and now we're just going to walk through it, and I'm going to try to explain it and explain what's going on there.

And I want to just point out, the first and foremost thing that I want to say about this text is that as we read these words,

Jesus is about to die. He's about to die as He's talking about this. This is His final week of life that we're reading about here.

From here to the end of the book of Matthew is about that last week of His life. This very conversation about resurrection comes maybe a week at the most, probably most scholars believe, about four days before He goes to the cross, and just about a week before that first Easter morning where He seals resurrection for us.

So how appropriate that we would be speaking about resurrection in our current context, in our culture.

Amazing that God brings this message to us today, but then also that these questioners, these religious leaders who are out to get

Jesus would actually begin to challenge Him on the subject of resurrection in that time. How personal for Jesus that He would be answering a question about resurrection just before He goes to the cross.

What a great reminder of the hope He will bring to the world in just a few short days. The context of this discussion is powerful in its timing, and I believe that Jesus had a significant interest in this line of questioning.

When they're talking about resurrection, that is personal to Him. So to set the stage, it helps to know who's asking the questions, who are these

Sadducees that are mentioned in the text. Sadducees would be like a denomination within Judaism. Like we as Protestants have

Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians, all with their own flavors and flares. They had Zealots and Pharisees and Sadducees, et cetera, and each one had their own mix of social and political and theological belief.

So they had nuances in the way that they viewed Rome. They had nuances in the way that they viewed God. They had nuances in the way that they viewed scriptures.

And so the Sadducees, what you need to understand about this group that's challenging Jesus about this question, is that they were the elites of their age.

They were mostly very wealthy and aristocratic and moved in the power circles of Judaism of the day.

The high priest family, for example, the high priest and his entire family in that lineage identified themselves as Sadducees.

So the highest religious leaders of the land were Sadducees. Now politically they tended to be more friendly to Rome than like, for example, the

Zealots and the Pharisees. And part of that was just straight up self -centeredness.

Rome helped keep them wealthy. Rome helped keep them in power. And theologically they would be like the deists of their time.

How many of you, when I say deists, it means something to you? It probably needs a little bit of definition, a little bit of explanation. Deists, a lot of the founding fathers of America, when they identified as Christian, they would have said,

I mean, really technically a lot of their theology was deism. That's the belief that they'd be really skeptical about miracles.

They thought that God was a distant holy creator who was far removed from the everyday events of human lives, that he doesn't interact a lot with the world, would be the view of deists, would be the view of the

Sadducees. God is not in the process of fine -tuning the details of everyday life.

It's kind of like he just wound up the world and now it just runs based on physics and laws and rules and human interaction.

And so that would have been the view of these guys that are asking these questions to Jesus. They'd be primarily materialists who believe in the end that God just wound it all up and is removed.

And for humanity, they would have believed this and it actually says and declares openly in verse 23, this significant belief, there is no resurrection.

In other words, these guys believe that this life is all that there is and they lived accordingly.

How would you live if you thought when you died, that was the end? Would you live a little bit different? I think many of us would, like why would you get up on Sunday morning and show up here?

Like at the end of the day, if you're just going to be worm food at the end of the day, you just got to carpe diem, milk this life for all that it is.

And they lived accordingly, they grasped for power, they grasped for wealth and in many cases they lived very lavish lifestyles in their culture and their context.

And so in verse 23, it states directly, the Sadducees who say there is no resurrection and so they ask him a question about the resurrection, but how many of you have ever asked a question that your mind was already made up on?

You're actually trying to make a point at that point, right? You're trying to drive home your agenda and that's exactly what they're doing.

They don't believe in resurrection at all, so why would they ask a question about how it works, about the mechanics of it?

They're trying to corner Jesus into absurdity and so they do so by declaring a pretty absurd story.

In verse 24, they start off by appealing to an obscure Old Testament law, it's recorded for us in Deuteronomy, you don't have to turn over there but you can look it up later,

Deuteronomy 25 verses 5 through 6, obscure law that wasn't even applied by Jews during this time.

So it's in their law, never was this a favorable law, like even down through the histories there's a couple of accounts of this and nobody ever wanted to follow it.

It says that if a man dies without providing an heir to his wife, then his brother was to marry her and provide her offspring that would be considered the heir of that brother, the one that died.

So what made this controversial and the reason that it wasn't easy to apply and the reason that it often wasn't followed through on by Jews is that it was the cost to the living brother that was prohibitive.

It interfered with his kid's inheritance. How many of you would like to just have another denominator thrown into your inheritance?

One more division, you know you got five kids now you got this sixth one so now your kids get less, are you getting what

I'm saying in that? And so for that reason it often wasn't followed and there's only two cases in the Old Testament in the story portion, in the history portion of Scripture where this comes to bear and in neither case does the guy actually want to provide an heir to his brother.

In both cases the guy is selfish because of the financial problem for his kids and for his inheritance, his wealth.

So they reference that law, an obscure law in Passy because the point of the question is the absurdity of believing in a resurrection and the story therefore is intentionally outlandish that they say in setting up this story.

They say there's seven brothers, seven brothers. The first married a woman and then proceeded to die.

So the second brother married his sister -in -law but before they had a child he died and this went on all the way down to the seventh brother.

How many of you have seen the absurdity in the story? Like this is just crazy and how many of you guys, I'm talking to the guys for just a second, how many of you if like you were from number four on would be reticent to eat anything she cooked?

Are you getting what I'm saying? It's kind of like get a food tester man, is she knocking these guys off or what? Like I mean what is the story here?

You guys feeling me on that? What in the world? But then flip that on its head, this poor lady, this poor lady, talk about grief.

No children and her husbands are dropping like flies. After the seventh season of grief the text says she finally died and went to be with her husbands.

Or did she? Or did she? And that's the question. That is the question posed by the

Sadducees. Don't miss the primary question, is there life after this life?

That's the question. That's what this whole text is about. What happens to us after we die?

And it's an important question. How many of you wrestle with that? Have you thought about it? Go ahead and raise your hand if you've thought about that question.

I hope all of us have. It's a significant and serious question that all of us need to wrestle with.

The root question is where did she go? And where did the seven husbands go? And what does that look like in the life to come?

But they're not being really so direct as to ask is there an afterlife, instead they set up this secondary concern.

Whose wife will she be in the resurrection? This is again driving towards absurdity. They were all married to her, so what's a family like that look like?

That sounds miserable. Checkmate, Jesus. That's what they're thinking, checkmate, high fives all around Sadducees, we got him this time.

They really think they've been crafty. By the way, if you think you're being crafty with Jesus, watch out.

Watch out. He is wiser and more holy and more bright than any of us. So in their minds, the resurrection is, think about what they're implying by their line of reason here.

What does the afterlife look like in their mind? They say the resurrection is just like a continuation of this life with all the jealousies and relational strife.

Who wants that? That can't be it. They're missing a major component of the resurrection that Jesus is going to drive for here in a moment.

But I would suggest that not only are the Sadducees missing something, but so are we.

I think we miss it too, because in part we have a struggle in this text, many of us do.

Jesus answered the Sadducees in verse 29, and he's blunt and he's direct. His death is impending.

Remember the context. His death is impending. He knew and declared openly that he had come to Jerusalem to die and to be raised to new life.

He's already said it. This is not a trivial or distant topic. This is not academic. This is not theoretical to Jesus.

This is visceral to him. This is personal. This is a commend himself to the

Father by dying on the brutal cross with trust that that very same Father would raise him up again on the third day.

That's that kind of discussion that he's having here. And he directly says to them, quotable quote, you are wrong, hyphen,

Jesus. Put that on a mug. Put that on your t -shirt. You are wrong,

Jesus. Quotable words of our Lord. There is no equivocation here.

As a matter of fact, I think we see him responding in this text, ramping up to chapter 23 in the most visceral and emotional terms that he's going to use in his life.

You are wrong. Now, he's taking it back to them. No half points for partially correct answers on this exam.

You have this all wrong. And the word has the notion of even going astray, like there's some intentionality behind their wrongness.

You are out in left field, might be a good translation to this. And he gives two reasons why they are so off base on the subject of resurrection.

There's two things that have led to their false understanding about resurrection. You don't know the scriptures, and you also lack the knowledge of the power of God.

You're forgetting how powerful God is, and you don't know what the scriptures say. And how many of you know that's a dangerous combination, a combination that could be reality for any of us?

Well, what you need to understand is that the Pharisees, that branch prided themselves regarding the knowledge of the word of God.

They understood the law, and they held people to the law. But the Sadducees, like I said, they were a little bit more of the upper crust and the elites, and they were kind of just rolling with the power, and they used religion primarily for power.

They were not robust Bible scholars digging into the word. And further, they did not believe in the power of God displayed in the everyday world.

They thought he was far removed. Remember that deism. So, both of these indictments land squarely. Jesus understood the people of his day.

He understood what the Sadducees were, and he calls them out on it. And let me pause to point out that both of these indictments, you don't know the power of God, you don't know the word of God, could be real for any of us gathered here today.

We will be wrong if we do not study and know his word. We will be wrong. It's going to happen.

But further, if we do not have knowledge of the power of God, we also run the risk of error.

As soon as we say something like what the Sadducees, think about what the Sadducees are saying by their line of questioning here. What are they getting at?

God cannot figure out how to raise people who have been widowed seven times. He can't do that.

He can't figure that out. That's a problem too difficult for God. Think that through. That's what the Sadducees are saying to Jesus in this text.

Ha ha, absurdity. There's no way God could manage that mess. But that is to be an error to say

God can't. There is no problem God can't solve. And I would say, by the way, that the more you know

Scripture and believe them, the more that you study this word and believe it by faith, the more you will see the power of God, the more room there will be in your mind for the power of God, the more you will see his problem -solving capabilities and his ability to reach into your situation and solve it.

It's all in here. We've got a God who killed giants with just a stone.

God who rescued his prophet in the guts of a fish. God who parted the

Red Sea, dry land. God who stilled the storm on the Sea of Galilee.

God who fed 5 ,000 people with just some loaves and some fish. God's word is filled with the power of God.

Do you see it? How many of you have seen it? Have you studied it? Do you believe it? Does it expand the horizon?

Does it expand in your life room for faith and trust in the power of God to work? You read it?

You see how he worked in history? You go, I don't think my problems today are bigger than the

Red Sea. I don't think my problems today are bigger than Goliath. I don't think my problems today are bigger than him feeding 5 ,000 people with just a couple of loaves and a couple of fish.

God's word is filled with God's power. The two go hand in hand. Know the word of God, you will know the power of God.

These Sadducees had neither. He indicts them, you don't have either one.

They were not trusting the word and therefore they lacked trust in God's power. So, of course, they couldn't imagine how God could resolve a conundrum like a woman married to seven guys in the resurrection.

Their God was small and their capacity to trust in God's power was small and therefore just the littlest things got in the way of their ability to see how

God could solve this. How could he fix that? That's an unsolvable mess.

To be honest, I think we also lack understanding on this very point. It's for this reason that verse 30 grabs our attention so much and often can become the focal point of the whole text.

Here Jesus answers the question directly in verse 30. God is powerful enough to manage resurrection just fine, but further, he is even able to handle the brokenness that is caused by the effects of the fall.

Problems like spouses dying and remarriage and all of the messiness and the problems that happen in life.

He could solve all of it. You see, the Sadducees are saying that a resurrection is made absurd by messy human relationships.

And so, at this point, he's attacking their ability to perceive the power of God. Then he's going to attack their lack of knowledge of God's word in just a moment.

But right now, in this part, he kind of flips it and he says, I'm going to talk about the power of God here. Think about the absurdity of the story they tell, but think about the real problems of the story they tell.

Wouldn't there be jealousy in a family with seven husbands? How many of you see some problems with that? Going to be some problems, going to be some strife, going to be some ...

I mean, does that sound like heaven to you? No, sounds like the other place. That does not sound good to me.

Anybody signing up for that mess? Not at all. Isn't that a recipe for broken relationships and animosity?

Absolutely. For sure is the right answer to that. We agree with the Sadducees on that point.

This is a mess. That's just not going to help. God created marriage to be a man and a woman together until death.

So start adding multiples and things get really wonky. I'd encourage you to see Jacob, Rachel, and Leah in Genesis for more information.

You can go back and read that mess. So the Sadducees were not wrong in their concerns here.

Not wrong at all in what they set up, but hear me carefully, church. They were wrong in their lack of trust in God's ability to problem solve.

That's where they were wrong. They couldn't figure it out, so they figured God couldn't either.

They couldn't figure out how that's possible. Seven guys and one woman, that's a recipe for disaster.

Checkmate, no resurrection. No creativity in their mind about God's power,

God's authority. Why? They didn't know the scriptures. They didn't see him solve problems. They didn't see.

They weren't even thoughtful. They couldn't apply the backed up Israelites in the Red Sea going, there's no way out.

There's no way God can solve this problem. I'll take your staff. Touch the water. Watch what happens. They were lacking the knowledge of God, and therefore they lacked creativity in their understanding of God's immense power to solve problems.

So in verse 30, Jesus ends all of this nonsense by explaining the solution that God has designed for the new earth.

Something that we have to take on by faith. Something again that grabs our attention. In that eternal kingdom, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage.

Now that sounds like it's redundant, doesn't it? They'll neither marry nor be given in marriage. Why repeat yourself,

Jesus? Why double that up? Is it just for effect? No. They're two different words. Marrying or given in marriage.

One is for the male role in marriage, and the other is for the female role in marriage. In other words, they will neither take men, will not take a wife, nor will the woman be given in marriage.

Neither one of those will happen on the new earth. In other words, neither men nor women will pursue marriage in the afterlife.

It will not be something we pursue. Now, how many of you, that sounds confusing to you. How many of you, the idea of family and marriage and all of that is pretty dear to your heart?

I hope it is, especially those of you that are married. I hope that's pretty important to you. It kind of can rub us the wrong way.

That's why it sucks the ... That's why this kind of sucks the air out of the room and gets all the attention. It's like the elephant in the room.

What in the world is he going on about, about we're not married in the afterlife? I don't think it's a stretch to say that the basis of our existence here is the family unit.

We were born to a mother and father, whether we knew both of them or none of them, we still have a mother and father.

We live with siblings. If you don't know your mother and father, then you want to know them. I mean, that's just part of how we're designed.

The fabric of our nature is grounded in the family. That design has been for the purpose of procreation within the protective confines of a commitment, a marital covenantal commitment with the purpose of raising up godly offspring.

That will no longer take place on the new earth, he says, and further, he adds a cryptic statement in there that can be somewhat confusing.

He says, instead, we will be like the angels in heaven. What does he mean by that? Well, the angels in heaven, there's two things that I think he's kind of getting at by this.

The angels are neither familial nor reproductive. They don't cluster together in families, and they do not reproduce.

And so, from that standpoint, he's basically saying on the new earth, that's over. The familial structure is redone, and reproduction is gone.

But let me be clear that I think too many people go further than what this text says. This is a beautiful text, by the way, and it looks ugly to those of us that are happily married.

I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, but I hope many of you right now are thinking I'm happily married. But don't go further than what the text says.

Jesus does not say that I will be distant and clinical toward Linda on the new earth.

That's not what it says. By no means should you walk away from this text thinking that God is moving us towards a robotic nature on the new earth.

We'll be robots who will just, oh, yes, everybody is fine with me, everybody, I love everybody equally. It will be just great.

That's not it. If I am, hear me carefully, if I'm still Don Felsick, then

I will certainly have more than a mere courtesy toward Linda. I thought we were going to pass each other on the golden streets and I'd be like, hey, how are you doing?

Hey, how are you doing? Hey, how are you doing? Hey, how are you doing? I don't believe that for a second, and I don't think that that's what

Jesus is teaching us here. He is not trying to dumb down love. He is enhancing it.

It's going to be better. Linda and I will no longer be married in the earthly sense that we experience it now, but hear me carefully, church.

I believe fully our love will be more pure and innocent than it has ever been here.

Our relationship cannot be defined by purity and innocence right now. I do not love her like I ought.

She does not love me like she ought, and that's reality. That's reality for every man.

Anybody that's married could raise your hand and say that's us too. Go ahead. No? Just us?

Okay, and six others? The rest of you are all nailing it. I'm coming to you for marital counseling.

If you're nailing that, that's awesome. That's good. So now we're going to set up a ... somebody take notes on who didn't raise their hands.

I believe that our love will be pure like it's never been, and in that sense, I think it's fair to say that we will love each other better than we have ever loved each other here and now in that place.

It will not be a lack of intensity of love that Jesus is trying to explain to us here. Rather, it will be a proper ordering of love to the degree, hear me carefully, that the erotic will no longer be the defining reality of our relationship with the one we spent our lives with here.

That won't be the defining thing anymore, and all the jealousies and things that go with that.

The answer that Jesus gives here is pretty profound. He's saying, you don't understand the resurrection because you do not understand the power of God to transform our jealousies and our passions and our desires.

You don't understand that he has the power to conform us to a true and selfless love. You're missing the boat.

You are wrong because you do not understand that he can fix you. You don't understand how broken you are.

Some of you would cling to this broken marriage. You would see this as the highest of all things, and in some cases it actually is the highest of all things that we can have here on this planet, but not the highest of all things.

Not even the highest of all loves. Do you believe? Are you going to stand in line with the

Sadducees here in this text? I don't think God can fix me. I don't think God can fix this.

I don't think he can resolve these broken relationships. I don't think he has the power to actually do it, so therefore

I just don't even think there can be an afterlife because there's no way he can fix this mess. That's what the Sadducees are saying here.

Or do you believe and trust that God can fix us and make it all right?

They give an absurd question. He gives a profound, deep answer. They say seven guys, one lady with a smirk.

He says, you're wrong. God can change hearts to love with integrity and with purity and with selflessness.

Amen to that? I am so glad for that. And then in verses, so he's tackled the power of God.

You don't understand because you can't imagine how God can solve this. God will solve this.

He will fix it. And then in verses 31 through 33, he tackles their lack of study of scripture by addressing a core passage that any good

Jew would have been able to quote by heart. They love this passage. They pride it. They took pride in this passage where God said,

I am the God of Abraham. I am the God of Isaac. I am the God of Jacob.

All present tense verbs. He said it present tense despite the fact that all of those guys were long dead.

So why did he use the present tense for them if they did not still live? God entered into covenant with these guys and he remains to this day in covenant with these guys.

Even after they exited the stage and went backstage to meet their maker, they are still in relationship to God.

They didn't cease to exist. God was not saying, I was the God of Abraham. I was the

God of Isaac. I was the God of Jacob. He is their

God, showing that these men still live. While the crowds were astonished at this teaching and astonished for good reason, the

Sadducees, this was a central doctrine to them, and he bested them at their signature doctrine.

The crowds knew how thick the debates were around the subject of resurrection, and in just a few short sentences,

Jesus cuts through all the baloney to answer emphatically, you are wrong,

Sadducees. There is a resurrection. God will make it work, and he is the God of the living and not the dead.

The applications for this text are pretty direct. The first thing that I would bring to you to encourage you to change, if it's not something that you're already by nature doing, and that's don't just read the

Bible, but study it to know him. Study it to know him. And this might be a really good message to take on.

Here we are in December. This would be a great year, 2021 would be a great year to read through the Bible in a year. We're going to have some

Bible reading plans. I actually ordered a bunch of Bibles. There was a big discount on them, so we're going to have a bunch of Bibles that are out there.

Some of them are actually geared towards daily readings, things like that. So we're going to have a bunch of resources out there in the next couple weeks.

They'll probably come in this week, they're supposed to. And so we'll have all kinds of resources for you, buy at cost, out there in the lobby.

Dig into God's word. The scriptures, by the way, for me are so much more than just merely a tool that I use to teach and preach a sermon to you every week.

I have gotten in the habit, and by God's grace, I would say, not because I'm awesome and you might expect your pastor to do this.

This is not something that comes naturally to me, but has become a habit over the years because of force of will at times and just trying to keep it up.

And now I love it. But I get up early in the morning, I get my cup of coffee. Now that cup of coffee recently has had a

Stroopwafel on top of it. Have you ever had a Stroopwafel? If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're missing out. I saw them at Costco. Amazingly delicious little wafer thing that you put on top of your coffee, soaks up that coffee.

Ah, sorry. I'm giving you a sales pitch right now. But Costco, royalties later. I get up in the early morning,

I get my coffee, I sit down. It's not about the Stroopwafel, it's about His Word. It's not that delicious wafer that gets me going in the morning, it's getting into His Word.

The Bible, I mean this sincerely, I actually believe that that time with God has kept me in ministry this year.

I believe that the reason I'm still sane this year is because of that time in His Word.

It has been nourishment to me. It has been sustaining to me. It has been defining to me.

And I hope that for all of you. I long for that for all of you. Not just that you'd be, not just that you'd do it because I told you to, not that you'd feel guilty and walk out of here, but you are missing out on something.

I hope you receive it that way. Like there's a treasure I'm missing out on, not a, well, pastor's up there beating us up again because I don't spend time in the

Word, I guess I got to go do that, one more thing on my schedule. It's a delight.

It's nourishment. It's defining. Study the Scriptures. The second application and last application is trust in God to fulfill

His promises. God promises to those who are

His literal resurrection for all those who trust in His Son for salvation. Now I have some questions about how that works.

Any of you ever have any questions about resurrection? Like does that ever get in your mind a little bit? What if I die at sea and the turtles eat me?

What if my ashes are scattered to the wind? What if parts of my molecules eventually become part of someone else?

Can God figure that out? Oh, you better believe He can figure it all out. He's got this.

He says He's got it. Jesus here is emphatically saying, I got this. You give me a problem,

God can solve it. Nothing in your mind that you can come up with that's a conundrum is difficult for God.

Seven wives, one husband, how is He going to handle that relational mess? He's already got it. Already thought about it.

Jesus already had an answer for it. Just gives it to us. Sadducees had questions and those questions crowded out their ability to believe that God could do it.

Don't let that happen to you. In a season where death is in the headlines and death is on the mind of our coworkers and our neighbors and everybody else around us, we need to camp on this hope of resurrection more than ever.

Death is not the end for those who are His. And Jesus here is emphasizing that truth for us.

So let His stern, you are wrong, echo in your ears any time that doubts about resurrection come to your mind.

Our Lord and Savior here emphatically declares resurrection is real. And just a few short days from this declaration,

He Himself will rise victorious over sin and death securing that for His people.

So let's study the Scripture so that we can be moved by faith to trust in the very power of God that He promises.

And let's trust that very power that we see at work in the past. We get to read in the pages of Scripture the way that God worked in history, the way that God solved things that we couldn't solve.

And let's trust that very power to be applied to His future promises, future things that He says are true.

So if you've asked Jesus Christ to be your King and Savior, then I encourage you to come to communion together, to reflect on His death,

His death that paid the penalty for our sins. Him taking on Himself the sins and the wrongs that we've committed and paying that eternal price in our place, taking hell for us so that we in turn can be set free by the justice of God.

But let's also reflect on the centrality of His resurrection, that He did not remain dead but is vindicated by God Himself.

The resurrection that demonstrates His victory over death. He has conquered it and we are called to live and to share that hope with others this week.

Let's pray. Father, I thank You so much for the hope that we have in Your Son, a hope for resurrection that we know that all we read in the headlines is death, death, death.

And we as a church have the truth, life, life, life that comes through resurrection.

God, I pray that You would help us to bring this message to others around us. And I pray that even now as we have an opportunity to take the cracker to reflect on the body of Christ broken for us and we take the juice to remember

His blood that was shed in our place. Father, I pray that we would receive this with gladness, with joy, and with peace today.