Here A Body, There A Body - [1 Corinthians 15:35-49]

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Let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 15 this morning to answer this question. Can a body of a
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Christian laying there in the grave after you die be changed and go to heaven?
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You mean to tell me that the body that's in the tomb, rotting, corrupting, decaying, that's going to be the body that's raised on the resurrection day that you'll get?
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It's fascinating. Paul's going to deal with that very issue. I read in Newsweek magazine in 2010 when it was still a magazine.
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No more print as of this week, I think. Lisa Miller wrote an article called Heaven, Our Enduring Fascination with the
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Afterlife. And here's what she said. Everyone who thinks about heaven today, believer or unbeliever, thinks that there's going to be a body in heaven.
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Unbelievers, if you ask them about heaven, they'll say, if I believe in heaven, there's going to be a body.
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For instance, she says, some people say, I want to lay my head on Grandma Lucy's lap. That's what
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I want to do in heaven. And when they say that, they realize there has to be a body in heaven.
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Someone else said, I want to shell field peas with Fanny Bell and listen to Schubert with Earl.
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Embodiment in heaven, people seem to understand that. Although recently, 26 % of people polled believe that there's bodies in heaven.
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74 % of people don't think there's a body in heaven. And as people's view of there's no body in heaven increases, so too does cremation.
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Did you know cremation's up? And one Boston University professor believes that the rise in cremation is linked to a growing disregard of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body.
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What about you? Will there be a resurrection? What will the resurrection body look like?
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Will I recognize my loved ones in heaven? We need a resurrected body.
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Christians get sick too. Christians get older. Christians' bodies decay. Christians die.
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Will there be a resurrected body? Paul's going to answer that. I could ask it this way, how relevant is a resurrection?
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Come on, I need news that I could use. I need practical stuff. I need to know exactly what to do.
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And Paul for 58 verses in 1 Corinthians 15 says this is going to get very practical. It's practical because we were raised.
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Christ was raised for our justification, Romans 4. It's going to be practical when you have to bury a loved one.
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And it's going to be practical right now. What about the bodies? Now if you look at verse 12 of 1
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Corinthians chapter 15, this was what was going on at Corinth.
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And this is why Paul was addressing not just Jesus' resurrection from the dead after his substitutionary sin bearing.
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But people are saying there's no resurrection of the dead for our bodies.
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They're like Sadducees. Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there's no resurrection of the dead?
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And what they were doing is saying this. They look in the grave and when you see a dead body, how can you say to yourself that body is going to be now in heaven?
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That body's gross. That body's defiled. That body's ugly. That body's cold. That body's hard. You mean to tell me that's the body you're getting in heaven?
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This is a foolish thing according to these people. What's going on with the body? People ask these questions all the time.
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I even read in rabbinic literature this week. Queen Cleopatra wrote to Rabbi Meir and said,
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Are we going to rise naked or are we going to rise in our clothes?
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What's going to go on with the body? I did find his answer interesting. He said, If you are put into the ground with your clothes, then you'll be raised in your clothes.
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Now, it doesn't take very long for you to say to yourself if you've ever been to a funeral, in light of what happens to a decomposing body, how could that be fit for heaven?
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I'm sure it's my job, but I go to more funerals than the average person, and to walk in with a young widowed lady and walk up to the casket expecting to see the dead body that's at least with a little makeup and looking okay, as far as dead bodies go, to walk up and then see some large man scrunched inside of a cardboard casket, jammed in because he's too big and the funeral home's too cheap, and then to look at the wife and then what am
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I to say? Oh, it's okay. He looks better now.
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He's in a better place. I need something to say to that person. Not made up, but what happens to that body?
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And when you go to grandma's funeral and she's a Christian and you stand there with all the kids and they're looking at you, what do you say to those kids?
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Friends, I think that's fairly relevant for this world. I think it's very important for us to know.
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Now, Paul's writing this passage, and the whole context is the people that he's writing to, they've got this bad thought, and here's the bad thought, that the body is bad and the soul's good.
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So with that thinking, how can that bad body that's dead now make it to heaven? A rotted body goes to heaven?
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Well, if it does go to heaven, what kind of body will it be? Can God really make life out of death?
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That's exactly what happens. Let's take a look at verse 35, and then we'll see the outline. First there'll be the setup, then it'll be the outline.
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How can a resurrection occur? Verse 35, but someone will ask.
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Probably the same someone of verse 12. Someone will ask, how are the dead raised?
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And what kind of body do they come? Some people who are not,
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I just would like to know, I think there's a website called gotanswers .com or something close, it's a
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Christian website, and do you like answers to questions like this? If you'd like to know what about the body, it's fine, because I know you sitting here are saying to yourself, whatever
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Scripture teaches, I believe. This is not a mocking question, this is not a, you know what,
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I'm going to try to trick Jesus question. You know this lady, she's married a bunch of times, she gets to heaven, who's her husband?
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Trying to trick Jesus. What about this tax? Trying to trick Jesus. We're not trying to do that, but these people were.
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They're trying to trick Jesus, and so what does Paul, I'm trying to trick Paul, what does Paul say in verse 36?
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Well, that's a nice question. I'll use that for Bible trivia in years to come. These people believe like the philosophers that the hope of the resurrection is the hope of swine.
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This can't be. These questions that they're asking have answers built into them.
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This can't be, and so what does Paul say? You foolish person. Now, for us, if we'd like to ask the question, how can you go over to the compost pile and then life can come out of that?
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Well, that's a fair question for us, if we're asking in faith, if we're not trying to make some conundrum to God and mock
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Him, remember Paul's words at Athens? The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now
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He commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom
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He has appointed. And of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some, what?
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Mocked. But others said, We'll hear you again. And some men joined Him and believed.
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They believed. How can there be immortality of the body, the soul we get?
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Now, I talked to somebody this week about this, and they said, This is easy. God's all -powerful, God's almighty,
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God creates with a word. Of course God can take all the atoms and the molecules and the dust and the ashes of someone who was cremated and put them all back together again.
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That's no problem for God, and the answer is, that's true, that's no problem for God. What's the song?
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I sing the mighty power of God that made the, what? Mountains rise.
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I think we're going to sing that song at the end of the service, and we're going to change the word. I sing the mighty power of God that made the bodies rise.
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How can you take the dead body and say, Get up! Change it!
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Make it fit for heaven! Well, if you believe that there's an all -powerful God, then you realize what is vile what is corrupt, what is ceremoniously unclean,
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God can make alive. Now, I promised myself that I wouldn't try to do a gross -out this morning, so I won't really try to do that.
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But just to say, if you study what happens to a corpse, you'll easily become grossed out.
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If you seal up the corpse in a hermetically sealed casket, airtight, nothing can get in.
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There are still enough bacteria that are in our intestines that will stay alive after we die to eat us from the inside out.
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Enzymes from broken -down cells do their job. I will read this because it's not that gross, at least to me.
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But within a year, all that is usually left is the skeleton, the teeth and traces of tissues on them.
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It takes 40 to 50 years for the bones to become dry and brittle in a coffin. How can you take this body that's corrupt and then make it fit for heaven?
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Now, Roger Williams, we know Roger Williams. Forget the zoo part. Roger Williams, Baptist, evangelist, the
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Indians, founder of Rhode Island. He was a wonderful saint of God, used by God through the glory of God and the grace of God.
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He was a wonderful preacher, a hero of the faith, if you will. They didn't really give him a good burial.
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So they thought, you know what? Let's dig him up and give him a good burial. Now, some people like to dig up old reformers to burn them because they weren't burned alive at their homegoing.
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This is different. And so the account goes like this. Quote, so they went to the place of the grave and they dug down where his body was and they discovered that the roots of an apple tree, which was over the grave, had entered the skull of Roger Williams and followed along the line of his backbone, dividing at the hips and turning up the feet so that the whole body had been absorbed by the apple tree.
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You all look awake right now. That is going to be changed and then fit to glorify the
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Lord worthy as the lamb that was slain. To get a body to be in heaven, there's Jesus in the glorified body and then now that and then this.
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How can that be? Well, for us who believe in the power of God, it's not that amazing.
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But Paul's trying to answer the questions. And so let me give you for our outline today. Paul has four glorious resurrection facts.
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We'll get through three of them. But in Paul's account, verses 35 through 49, four glorious resurrection facts designed to answer your questions about the body so that you'll praise the
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Lord who rose from the dead. So you'll sing the mighty power of God that makes bodies rise.
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Fact one. Your resurrection body will have some relationship to your current body.
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Verses 36 through 38. Your resurrection body will have some relation to your current body.
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And now Paul does what he does in such a wonderful way. He uses an analogy of seeds.
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It says in verse 36, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
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Now think about this for a second. We grow up in our culture now never amazed.
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At least I was never amazed as a kid. You put a dry, dead seed in the ground in a little glass full of dirt on your window sill and you add a little water and a little warmth and out comes what?
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Out of the dead, dry seed out comes life. Now we just take that for granted now that God uses something that's dead and dull and dry and gray and lifeless and you put it in there and all of a sudden germination.
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That's pretty amazing, germination. Who comes up with that? I mean now we just say let's get a little chia pet, slap on some little seed, put some water on and it's like a joke.
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Chia animals growing by your sink. Everyone who's laughing has had one of those. Chia. Paul says let's just think about this.
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Dead seed goes in the ground, live plant comes out. Dead body goes in the ground.
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It shouldn't surprise us that out of the dead body God can make a live body. There's a continuation principle here.
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God is at work. Resurrection is not without parallels in other words. Body disintegrates, life comes forth out of death.
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And take a look at the passage if you will please. Verse 36. What you sow does not come to life.
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Come to life. Passive. It doesn't do it itself. Something is acting upon it. Who here has
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King James Version? Well I know you do at home probably or on your computer but in front of you it's quickened.
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It's quickened. It's made alive. God quickens us when it comes to salvation. Colossians 2.
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God makes us alive. Ephesians 2. God makes alive monergistically God alone working for our salvation and He does the same thing and He's built it into the principle of nature where dead seeds germinate acted upon by outside source.
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Seeds got to die before it's alive. God affects this transition between seed and plant.
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Wonderfully, creatively it can happen. All the details we don't know. Seeds got to go into the ground dead and then who would ever think
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I'm going to bury a dead seed and out will come life. That's amazing. I sow the seed.
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I bury the body and God makes alive the plant. God makes alive the body.
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Who would ever guess? Verse 37. What you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.
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When you want to plant watermelon in the spring, you go buy 60 watermelons and you bury the big watermelons.
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You want to plant pumpkins? You plant whole pumpkins. You want to plant corn? You have to plant full ears of corn.
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No. You're all going like this and you go, I shouldn't be doing that. No, you get a little seed and then out comes an ear of corn.
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Plant a kernel, get an ear. It's pretty good. Thinly said, the grain of wheat gives to the eye no more promise of the body to spring from it than a grain of sand.
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What's the difference? I put a piece of a rock in the dirt. Think life's going to come out of that?
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There's no difference between a rock and a seed except for what God has done. And the neat thing about it is there's continuity between seed and plant.
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There's continuity between kernel of corn and cob of corn. There's continuity between watermelon seed.
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I know kids don't know what those are anymore. There's no seeds in watermelon practically. And the watermelon itself, there's continuity.
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Difference, greatness, vitality, aliveness, but continuity. Dead planted, live out.
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You say, well, you know what? Decomposing bodies, that's a hindrance to resurrection. No. Verse 38, look at the sovereignty of God.
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You can't run from it. God's sovereign in salvation. He's sovereign over everything else. And as soon as you bend your knee to the ultimate sovereignty of God, the better it is, including even for the topic like this.
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But God gives it a body as He has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.
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God wills divine agency, sovereignty of God, not in salvation only, but also in this.
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Transformation, glorification, divine oversight over the whole thing. Plants don't rise on their own.
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Bodies don't rise on their own. God raises them. Evolution can't explain this.
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God does it. Not identical, but related. So I ask you the question, can you recognize your loved ones in heaven one day?
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Will you know who they will be? Well, they saw Moses and Elijah on the
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Mount of Transfiguration. They recognized them. But better than that, listen to Matthew 26.
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And listen for the words, I and you, for continuity of person. Jesus on earth said in Matthew 26,
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I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when
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I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. I with you, continuity of person.
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You're going to recognize your loved ones when they get a new body. They'll be different because they'll be glorified, but they'll be a relationship there, a continuity.
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I think that's going to be exciting. I'd hate to get to heaven after a billion years of worshiping
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Jesus trying to figure out, well, which one of you is my mother? Are you my mother? That would be a bad heaven.
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How could God do this? Body dead in the ground, then new life?
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It's glorious. Fact number two found in verses 39 to 42. Not only will your body have some relationship to your old body, but your resurrection body, number two, follows creation differences.
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Verses 39 to 42. Your resurrection body follows creation differences. This is just Paul's outline here.
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This isn't my outline. This is the second analogy, and we're moving from planting seeds to flesh, fish flesh, human flesh, bird flesh.
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Verse 39. There's all kinds of different kinds of flesh. Of course there could be resurrected flesh because there's all kinds of flesh, for not all flesh is the same.
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There's one kind for humans, another kind for animals, another kind for birds, and another for fish.
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Differences in flesh. Wide variety of differences in the plant world, yes.
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Wide variety in the bird world, yes. Wide variety in the animal world, yes. Wide variety in the human realm, yes.
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Body now on earth, dead body in the ground, living body in heaven. There's differences.
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That's all Paul is trying to say. Can't God give resurrected bodies? Of course.
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There's a dissimilarity between men and animals, and there's a dissimilarity between our old bodies that are dead in the ground and our bodies in the heavenly.
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Speaking of which, look at verses 40 and 41. You're going to see several times, there's five in the original language, the word glory.
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See if you can spot them when I read verses 40 and 41. Different kinds of glory. Glory, glory, glory.
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There are heavenly bodies, verse 40, and earthly bodies. The glory of the heavenly is of one kind, the glory of the earthly is of another.
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There's one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for stars differ from star.
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Star differs from star in glory. Now we have a complex body right now, an amazing body that is like God's image.
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We are image bearers, and our body is pretty amazing. You can even watch on PBS, can't you? Evolutionary kind of shows that just teach you about how complex the body is.
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Glorious. Cut yourself, if your blood is any thinner, you bleed out. If your blood is any thicker, your heart can't pump it.
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White blood cells, antibodies, all these kind of things, circulatory system. It's amazing.
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Can you imagine you eat some food and then your body absorbs the nourishment? It's a fascinating thing.
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That's pretty glorious to think, human bodies, glorious. I'm telling you, when you see a baby being born, and then they hand you that baby, what do you say?
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Well, there's different kinds of flesh. Hannibal Fleshberg. No, you go like, that is amazing! That is amazing!
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I can't believe that. This is even making me forget that the nurses act like I'm just in trouble for getting my wife pregnant, like I'm not even supposed to be in the room.
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This baby makes up for all that. Talk about reverse sexism.
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You'll find it in labor and delivery, but that's another story. You go, this is glorious!
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The baby! My baby. Well, there's different levels of glory.
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We are gloriously made. Fallen, I know. But there's more glory in heaven, a glorious heavenly body.
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Different degrees of glory. That's all Paul is saying. The sun's got more glory than the moon.
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And a glorified body will have more glory than an old body, especially the one that's in the tomb. Splendor.
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Indescribable glorified body. Resurrection body is not just some dead corpse.
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It's made alive, perfectly fit for heaven. Fact three, in verses 42 through 44.
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Third glorious resurrection fact, your resurrection body will be better than your current body. Verses 42 through 44, in my notes
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I wrote, W -O -O -H -O -O. Woo -hoo! Tom said amen.
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He made it more holy. Your resurrection body is going to be better. Now all the young people, they don't really care too much because you're young.
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I tried 11 font, 12 font, 13 font. Now they're reading glasses.
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Reading glasses on, off. Now they're just on. Bad backs, cancer in our church, recent deaths in our church, sickness in our church.
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We're going to get a better body. Perfectly designed. Paul says first though, to kind of introduce this, verse 42, so it is.
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See, there's the topic. All this glory stuff and relationship and continuity at different.
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So it is with the resurrection of the dead. We're talking about bodies. So it is with the resurrection of the dead.
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It's the same thing. It's going to be a radical difference of glory. And then he gives four reasons why, or four ways your body is going to be better here.
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Kind of sub points under point three. You think your body's good now? Just wait.
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First reason your body is going to be better as a resurrection body is it's going to be imperishable. 42B.
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What is sown is perishable. It corrupts. It corrodes. It gets sick.
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It dies. What is raised, talking about the resurrection body, is imperishable.
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No heart attacks. No viruses. No colds. No flus. No stretching.
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When you get milk, it perishes. How do you know if milk perishes?
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Our bodies perish. They're perishable. They're corruptible.
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They decay. Receding hairlines.
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Bad eyesight. Bad backs. Cancer. Philippians 3.
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But our citizenship is in heaven and from it we wait a Savior, the
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Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body by the power that enables
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Him even to subject all things to Himself. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the
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Lord, my beloved. You're struggling. You're going through issues. Your body's racked with pain. You have all these issues, my beloved brethren.
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Think about the body you're going to get. Does a resurrection matter for holy living? Of course it does.
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Stand firm thus in the Lord. Our bodies are corrupting. Physical infirmities.
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I used to be six foot two. I'm probably not even six foot now. I'm just getting closer to the grave every year basically is what
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I'm doing. Breaking down.
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Probably going to have to use that AARP card in the mail one of these days. Some kind of thing.
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Bodies are breaking down in heaven. Never breaking down bodies. Paul says there's another reason why your resurrection body is going to be better.
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Not just it's imperishable, but the curse is going to be gone. Look at verse 43.
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You can read the ethical, moral, sinful dishonor toned in this. It is sown in dishonor.
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What could be more dishonorable than sin? Shameful than sin. It is raised in glory.
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No sin in glory. When you see a grave, you should say to yourself, sin.
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Adam's sin was imputed to that person. You bury a baby. Sin. Adam's sin was imputed to that baby.
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The wages of sin is death. And we've got to get rid of that death, curse, sin issue because otherwise that's going to affect us in heaven.
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That's exactly what God does with the resurrection body. Raised in glory.
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When Adam and Eve sinned, you returned to the ground since you were taken from it for you are dust and to dust you will return.
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Wouldn't you like to get rid of the sin that's in you now? Of course we don't have to pay for the penalty of sin.
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Jesus did that at the cross wonderfully and marvelously. But even when we succumb to the power of sin, which we don't have to, we've got the presence of sin.
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Aren't you just sick of sinning like I am? We of all people know better than to sin and we still sin as Christians.
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I know better and I still sin. Romans 7,
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For we know that the law is spiritual and I am of the flesh sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions.
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For I do not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what
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I do not want, I agree with the law. That is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
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For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
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I do not do the good I want, but the evil I want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what
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I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be the law that when
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I ought to do right, evil lies close at hand. I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
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Wretched man that I, who will deliver me from this body of death? Verse 25.
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Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now we do not know if it is true or not, but one of the commentators would say something like, if you committed murder, one of the ways they would punish you is to take the dead body that you killed and strap it on to you in such a way you can't get out and so eventually the bacteria would seep into you and then kill you.
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Who's going to deliver me from this body of death? I've got sin just on me like Bunyan would talk about in the burden of sin.
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And even as a Christian, get me out of this sin. Get sin out of me. One day it's going to be true.
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One day it's going to be true. Romans 8 goes on to say, and not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the
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Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
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New, better bodies. No sin in our bodies. What a day of rejoicing that will be.
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Fully redeemed. Well, it gets better. If it could, found in verse 33, the second part, your resurrection body will be better because it will never grow weak.
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It will be raised in power. Now just think about this for a second. Let's read the verse.
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Ponder it. It is sown in weakness. We are frail creatures, of course sinful, but here just emphasizing how weak we are really.
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Of course our world, we think we're strong, but we're really weak. It is raised in power.
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Do you get tired ever? You wish you had more energy to serve the Lord? You ever get listless and kind of just run down and you say to yourself, you know what,
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I just don't have the energy I once had. How about if you're older? How about if you're a senior citizen and you go, you know,
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I really used to serve the Lord a lot more and now I think about serving the Lord but then wake up 25 minutes later and have a hermit and a coffee.
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I mean, that's just what happens. Was that in my notes actually?
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I didn't even know what a hermit was. How do I know what a hermit is? But you know in heaven, the place where you're going to want to serve the
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Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, your body won't let you down.
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No naps in serving. You're just going to be able to serve the Lord full throttle, all out, for all eternity.
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You can just say, Lord, after you have saved me from my sin and from death and from hell, you've given me a body perfectly suited for heaven.
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Underneath your auspices, self -sufficient body because it will be God's sufficiency that just keeps this body going and going and going forever and forever
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I get to serve. Who would want to get to heaven and then want to serve the Lord Jesus Christ with a broken body?
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Infinitely strong body. Eternally strong body. One man said, ultimately strong body.
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I like that. I love the story of the two old believers.
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They're both in their 80s and married to one another. Telling each other good night before they go to sleep.
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The wife said to her husband, Good night, John. We'll soon be 33. We'll soon be 33?
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You're 84 right now. Oh yes, John, but we're going to be like him.
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And Jesus was 33 when he was nailed to the cross. How old we're actually going to be,
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I don't know. But when you're 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, you'll soon be young again to have that new body to serve.
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Better. He says it's even better because of verse 44.
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Here's kind of the fourth sub -point. It's better because it's a spiritual body. We're going to get better bodies in heaven that are imperishable.
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No more curse. Raised in power. And spiritual body as well. Verse 44.
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It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. Not spirit.
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This is not body spirit. But there's a body fit for heaven. There's a body perfectly fit for earth.
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Natural body is the earthly body. This is not the difference between body and spirit. This is the difference between earthly body, heavenly body.
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It's sown a natural body. It's raised a spiritual body. If there's a natural body, there's also a spiritual body.
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It just makes sense. If there's one, then there's the other. One's perfectly fit and suited for earth, for social relationships, marital relationships, suited for reproduction.
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And in heaven, there's a body perfectly suited for all that you can do in heaven.
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For all that you want to do in heaven. For all that you could do in heaven. For all that you will do in heaven. It's belonging to the future.
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It's spiritual. It's supernatural. The details? I don't have the details. It's just going to be better.
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And that's enough for the Christian. Knowing by faith, it's just going to be better. So if you think the body's good now, there's going to be a better body.
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If you think the body's decaying now and you can't wait to get out of this body of death, the Bible teaches that it's true.
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This is doctrine that matters. Resurrection.
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Let me ask you this question. Do you go to funerals? Do you go to wakes?
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If you're a family with small kids, do you take your kids? This is the kind of stuff that you need so when you take your kids to the funeral home, you can tell them about Grandma Carla's new body that she'll get one day.
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Grandma Evie's body that she'll get one day. You take those children and you saunter them up to that casket and there lies a dead, cold, hard body and there are the hands that used to wipe your tears away and used to make you chicken noodle soup and to pray for you.
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And then what do you tell your kids? This matters.
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The resurrection doctrine matters. Friends, if you're a dad and you don't take your kids to the funeral home, could
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I try to give you what to say so that you actually will do it? I don't care if you public school your kids, homeschool your kids, or private school your kids, you better take them to the funeral homeschool.
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This is life and death. This is how to live and how to die. Oh no, we can't make it to the wake today because we couldn't find a babysitter.
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You know, I've heard that. I've seen the opposite where... I'm trying to think of somebody. The Goddards will say, you know, we're just all going.
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I don't care if your kids are this big or your kids are this big. You all walk them to the funeral home and here's what you say ahead of time.
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Dads, so and so lost their loved one and when you say greeting to them, you don't have to even say really anything.
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You just need to say, I'm sorry, I love you. Or you can just give them a hug. That's all you have to do. You don't have to say anything.
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You can say, I'll miss the person too. Whatever you'd like to say, but it doesn't need to be a bunch of rationale. Just express your love to them, either verbally or physically.
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And they'll probably talk to you. They'll realize you're a kid. So they'll make it easy on you. Oh, thank you. And I always tell my kids this.
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You have to look at the dead body. Why? Because I'm weird? Well, I am weird, but this has nothing to do with this.
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I'm trying to teach my kids the lesson. Here's the lesson. Kids, you have to look at the body just for a few seconds.
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Usually the body is before the people. So you go there and you'll see some people kneel down and cross themselves and other things.
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You just have to go up and you have to look at the body. And here's what I want you to think about, kids, when you look at the body. Who could say to that body, get up.
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Rise. That body's dead, cold, embalmed. Jesus Christ goes to Lazarus' tomb and what does
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He say? Lazarus, arise. I am the resurrection. Jesus has the power over death.
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Lesson two, kids. You're going to be in that casket one day. I might have to put you in there or maybe
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I die first, but you're going to be in that casket. You will die. Now, right about this time, children all are pre -tribulational rapturists and they believe that I might get raptured.
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But when the Lord comes, I'm not saying I don't believe in pre -trib rapture. I'm just saying every kid at the casket is pre -tribulational rapture.
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Wouldn't you be? Even if you're post -trib, don't you want pre -trib to be true?
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Deep down? Of course you do. This week
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I got to preach the gospel to someone for about a half hour and I said, you know, the wages of sin is death.
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And in God's economy, the only way for forgiveness to happen is through bloodshed. Adam and Eve sinned.
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God shed the blood and provided atonement and then wrapped them with the skins of the animal.
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Day of atonement, the goat was killed. The lamb was killed in the place of the nation.
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Passover, the lamb was killed in place of the family. John the
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Baptist sees Jesus and he says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. You need a substitute because you're going to die one day.
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You're going to be in a casket just like that. And your soul will be in heaven. And then what?
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You need a substitute. You say, well I don't really want to think about that. Well friends, that's why the
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Bible is written so you think about today and you think about that day. You're going to talk about the
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Savior when you go to a funeral. It's okay to cry. This isn't some memorial service.
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Only, this is to remember Jesus and remember the person and it's certainly not only a celebration because this hurts.
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And Jesus is weeping at what sin did in the life of a man. Adam's sin and Lazarus' own sin.
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And Jesus is weeping. He's going to raise Lazarus from the dead. He's not weeping that he's necessarily dead. He's weeping that sin killed him.
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So when you have those kids there and you look at Grandma Carla's body, you look at your friend's body, you look at someone else's body, you just say we need the
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Savior. There's no other hope except for Jesus who can raise bodies from the dead and then you tell them about Grandma's body.
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You know, this body right now, it's cold, hard, something's weird.
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It's just like a shell. It's not really real. But that person is going to get, if they're a Christian, an imperishable body.
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A body that's glorified, no curse. A body that's never going to get weak and a spiritual body and you preach to them.
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Well, no, we don't want to bring our kids to the funeral home. I just wish you'd start.
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A new body. How relevant is that? I want to know how to die well. I want my children to have an object lesson that they'll not soon forget.
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I want my children to go to a place where there's dead bodies and they know how to minister to other people.
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I'm not having any open caskets. You can do whatever you'd like. Let's have an open casket because I want you to see that body.
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And I want you to see for that last time and then think, if this is what the body looks like, now how great is it going to be?
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I want to die knowing my Savior and I want to have death, which is sadly the unnatural result in life, my kids to see that.
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It's not supposed to be fun, but you can teach a lot at a funeral. Well, what about you?
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You would like a new body? Can you imagine you get a new body? If you're a
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Christian, you get a new body perfectly fit for heaven, ready for you. And if you're not a
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Christian, today is the day you must repent and believe our God will prepare for you a perfect body that can last in hell forever.
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We don't want you to do that. We want you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ so you get the new body so you can worship the
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Lamb that was slain, worthy as a lamb to receive power and glory and riches and honor and strength in heaven.
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Actually, if you study the resurrection body, you might actually want to go to heaven more than you do. How many people here want to go to heaven?
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How many people want to go right now? Well, not as many. We have things to do. We've got to see the patriots lose again.
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Come on. We've got to really do real things in life. No, but seriously you go, it's just better.
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And you know, the Bible doesn't say a lot about heaven. It says a lot about your resurrected body though, perfectly fit for heaven.
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Well, we're going to see next time that the best thing of all in verses 45 through 49 is your resurrection body is going to be like Christ's resurrected body.
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And wow, that's something. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we would just submit to your scriptures and believe what they say.
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Jesus was raised from the dead the third day. He ascended into heaven. He appeared.
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He's coming back. And Father, we know that we are going to die and then our bodies will be laying there like a seed while we're in heaven with our spirit praising you and your son.
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And then one day on that day, on resurrection day, we'll be reunited with our bodies to even serve you with all the more.
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And I pray for everyone here today that they'd be encouraged, they'd be hopeful on what the future will bring.
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And Father, for those dear people who are here today that don't have a substitute, I pray that you would not give them any rest until they rest in the
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Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and they rest in Him by faith alone. In Jesus' name we pray.