Where are you from

Good morning. One of the things I just want to bring out in your bulletin, we have one point there for prayer. We mentioned Andrew Gillespie. Is Andrew here? Can we have you stand up? Not everybody knows who you are. Alright, this is Andrew Gillespie, no longer to be anonymous.

He has had a job that has kept him sometimes out of our Sunday morning service because they'll call him almost by surprise on Sunday morning and say, you know, please show up. But he's going to have a job that's going to keep him out of the service for a while.

That is when they send him over to Afghanistan. So anyway, we've mentioned our three mats who are in some aspect of service, and we certainly want to hold them up. Andrew's going to be going in a couple of months here for a period of training and then heading off to Afghanistan where he will be in a war zone. And while his occupation will not be directly a matter of fighting, they have the transport between jobs and that sort of thing, which is often the period of risk. whether one is in a fighting mode or some other support and active role.

So we want to be holding them up through that. We're going to be having Donna act as kind of a contact person for communication and things of that sort. We'll have subsequent announcements as to how we're going to do that. I think we're looking at like a gift box to send over from time to time, and people will have an opportunity to contribute to that. Anyway, more to come, but I wanted you to meet Andrew, and everybody make a point of all at once saying hi to him as soon as the service is over, okay?

Anyway, we like to have him feel extremely embarrassed. I mean, very welcome. Okay, with that we will go on to our passage here. What we had Courtney read was just actually the last part of the passage as an introduction. Paul is continuing through this entire chapter to address the questions related to resurrection. And he's going to look at some other angles.

We've looked previously at, for example, those who entirely deny a resurrection altogether. And there were those atheists and agnostics and deists in biblical times, as there are in our own time, who deny a resurrection altogether. There is no afterlife. When you're done, you're done. When they bury you, that's the last there is.

In this passage, we'll be looking at some other things that the world has as resurrection alternatives. And Paul will be going through this passage to make it clear what exactly is the character of this resurrection that we believers are looking forward to. So two questions. Start the passage. And this passage asks these questions that are actually very critical. How are the dead raised is the first question that Paul has. How does that happen? And secondly, and with what kind of body do they come?

It's apparent that he puts this out as a rather rhetorical question, and we'll get to that in a minute. Now, verses 36 through 38 tell us that a body to be resurrected must first be sown, and that's a key point in what we'll be looking at here. You see, well, we'll get to this. Alright, verses 39 through 41 use analogies to say that there are distinct kinds of bodies.

What does Paul do? He looks at distinctions in the natural realm in order to get people to understand the distinction between this natural body that you're sitting in this room with now, at least I hope so, and the resurrection body that each of us who believe will have. Now, verses 42 through 49, which is part of what Courtney read here, contrasts the natural, earthly Adam body, the one like we have now, with the spiritual, heavenly Christ body, the one like His, the one that He had when He was resurrected. So, the question here is, what is Paul saying? In verses 35-49, in this passage, Paul makes clear that he wants us to have an understanding.

Death is not the end. As a matter of fact, we're going to put it this way. We don't bury Christians. We sow them. We don't bury Christians. We sow them. They're planted to sprout. That's what's going on here. Christians are not buried, they're planted to sprout, they're sown.

That's an important distinction. So if you see anybody that's a little green around their ears, they're just getting ready. In this passage, he's also saying that resurrection is not just a return to this life. A very important distinction, as we'll see shortly. It is not simply a matter of, okay, I'm coming back to this life now. Okay, I'm not just coming back to a body just like this one. And I myself am very glad of that. Okay? Now, what is he making a distinction for?

Not only was there the teaching that he had addressed earlier in the chapter, not only was there the teaching that existed in his day and in our own, that no, this life is all there is. When you're dead, you're dead. There's not only that teaching, but there are also various kinds of other teaching, reincarnation and afterlife and that sort of thing. Now, reincarnation, the idea is that you go through the course of life and your body then dies and then that soul gets transferred on to the next life. That's the idea of reincarnation. The typical belief in reincarnation is that you get reincarnated and reincarnated and reincarnated and reincarnated again and again and again. And it just goes on and on and on. It is a teaching common to Hinduism. It is a teaching common to most branches of Buddhism. And by the way, here's something very, very interesting. We will sing Amazing Grace.

But one of the principles, have you ever heard of karma? Karma is that principle that what you do comes back on you, but karma judges you, the principle of karma judges you between the end of one life into the beginning of the next. And you are judged with absolutely zero grace. Karma has no grace at all. It's amazingly ungracious. I don't know how you fit that into the song, but it's amazingly ungracious. Karma says you get no grace at all, you get judged absolutely with no exceptions, and then put into the next life based on the judgment from what you did in the present one.

This is reincarnation. This is you keep coming back into a life like this. A life like this one, again and again and again and again. Many, many, many times. There is also, in addition to the reincarnation teaching, there is also Egyptian religion. Now Egyptian religion, interestingly enough, although Egypt declined and became just simply a province of the Roman Empire, the Egyptian religion spread throughout the Roman Empire during that time, including Corinth. Corinth also had temples that were part of the Egyptian religion. Now, in the Egyptian religion, you see these big giant pyramids that are all famous?

By the way, the Jews didn't build those. Those were already built by the time the Jews got there. Those were not just big monuments, but they were homes for the resurrected pharaoh. And that's why they would put in there, they would mummify and go through the special process for the pharaoh and actually put other people who have died inside the tomb, put in things to eat and things to keep the pharaoh entertained and to give him a good afterlife.

And what's very interesting is it was very important that everybody sacrificed for the pharaoh to have a good afterlife. It didn't matter what yours was like, but the pharaoh had to have a good one. That's Egyptian religion. Egyptian religion is you come back to a life like this one, in this present world, with all the things that are provided. And so that's what those things on the walls of the tombs are all about, is to make things nice for the pharaoh. It's provision for the pharaoh in everything that's painted on the walls that they find there in the tombs. Now, what they would do is, of course, they would mummify the body, and that involved taking various organs out. I think, however, they made a really big mistake.

It was standard procedure when they mummified the body to pull the brains out. I don't know what they were thinking. What's he going to do with his brains in a jar? I don't know. But anyway, that was the religion. And so when they have these mummies, these mummies are not only lacking certain key organs, but also the brains, which are kept in a separate jar.

And so it's not so cool. After all, as a matter of fact, you know, it really didn't work. Every year or every time they had the World Cup competition, none of the soccer players out there or any of these mummies, they don't come back. It doesn't work.

Hebrews 9, 27, and 28, this is not on your handout, but you might make note of it, is one of those passages that makes very clear what our perspective ought to be, and it stands in sharp contrast to reincarnation and to the Egyptian idea we come back to this life. Hebrews 9, 27, and 28, for inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once, to bear the sins of many will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him." Reincarnation again and again and again. Nope. Once. Okay? Coming back to this life? No. Taken to be with the Lord. Heavenly. Taken to meet Him in the air. Heavenly. Now, there are some explicit exceptions to this, because it says, die once. Now, we know biblically, for example, that Lazarus was brought back to this life.

So the Bible does recognize exceptions. This is the general statement. Even those who are alive when the Lord comes, well, I don't know what's going to happen to the clothing, whether it will be heaven-bound streakers, I'm not sure. There will be exceptions. Not everyone is going to die once. There are specific biblical exceptions. But the general statement is, people die once, not a whole bunch of times. And then when they die, they go to be with the Lord, or otherwise, and not otherwise.

Returning to this life. There's also another fantasy that many people have that they're going to keep this body going and going and going and going, right? People, I'll keep this thing going. I'm going to do whatever. I'm going to eat gobs of fruits and vegetables. You can live in fruits and vegetables. You can sleep on them. You're not going to live forever. Not going to happen. You can exercise yourself silly. And by the way, I recommend it. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables and exercise yourself silly. I try to do it myself. But it's still not going to make you live forever. There is value in it.

1 Timothy 4.8. Some value.

You're still not going to make this body keep on ticking. Not going to happen. You can take all the pills you want, whether it's from the doctor or from some store. It doesn't matter. Nothing's going to keep this thing ticking. You can even be a couch potato all your life and you're still not going to keep this body going. You can be Mr. Infinity. You can be some superhero if you want. But it's still not going to keep the body going. You can do all sorts of weird things with your skin. That's still not going to help. You don't have to look at that if you want. Okay.

There have even been some groups who call themselves Christian. Nancy and I heard about this when we were in the San Francisco Bay Area some years back. And their teaching was that if a Christian ever dies, that proves he wasn't a Christian. Yeah. Believe it or not.

And they wouldn't go to his funeral because obviously he wasn't a Christian if he died. The problem is the whole group died out. I don't know what happened. Anyway, the present body cannot be made to last forever. Do the things that are prudent to keep it in decent shape and all that, but carry no fantasies. You're not going to make this thing keep on ticking forever. Ain't going to happen. Okay?

Paul asked these two questions in a rhetorical sense. Earlier he had said, some of you say this. And so it's clear that some of the people in the church were saying that there is no resurrection. In this case, he doesn't say it that same way. He seems to ask it in a rhetorical sense. That is, these are questions to be asked in order for him to answer. It seems rather than some of them saying that they were asking these questions, it was apparent to Paul that they needed the answers, even if they weren't asking the questions. So Paul was responding to his perception as an apostle as to the answers they needed, not specific questions that they were asking. The answers to these two questions that Paul proceeds with in this passage sets the biblical belief apart from both the ancient and modern misunderstandings.

We're not going to be reincarnated and reincarnated and re-re-re-re-re-re-reincarnated. We're not going to be brought back to this life no matter what you do, even if you do like the Egyptians did and suck the brains out. It's not going to happen. So he makes it very clear what does take place. He wants to answer those questions and keep the ambiguity from settling in on their minds.

One of the problems that the Corinthians had is the same kind of problem we have now. Christians can easily start gravitating towards the world's ideas and pulling that into their Christian faith. And he says, wait a minute, we need to understand what God has revealed clearly and not let the world's ideas seep in. to our own thinking. So we need to get this one right.

Paul is rather emphatic here. As a matter of fact, in some ways, it might even seem shocking. After these two questions, he comes up with, you fool! Now, that might seem a bit of an overreaction, but I think his intent is to show how important it is to get this right. It is not simply a matter of Christians speculating. I think this. I heard somebody say that. Well, this seems reasonable to me. What do you think about this one?

No. He says God has revealed what is the truth. We don't need to go speculating. Our speculations will end us nowhere and end us up with falsehood. He says how important it is to get this right. It also implies that at least some of their thinking was foolish. Now, one of the things he makes clear here, death is not the end.

We're not going to avoid the issue by pretending that we get to keep this body. It doesn't matter how much duct tape you use. You can't duct tape this thing together and keep it going. That does not work. You can find some fountain of youth or pool of Shangri-La, that's not going to do it either. some of these resurrection alternatives, we've mentioned the reincarnation, some of the Egyptian religion belief, are going to be just as wrong.

Hey, wait a minute, that's not what I thought was going to happen, that's right. But we all do need true hope, which is one of the reasons he wants to make this clear. We need to have true hope, not a false hope. You know, when these eyes finally shut, How many of you want a nasty surprise the other side? No, I don't think very many people would like to sign up for that. You don't want any nasty surprises. You want the truth. You want the truth.

Our bodies, as we said earlier, are not buried. You cannot bury a Christian. Our bodies are sown. I'm not saying you can't bury a Christian, that's not quite right, but what I'm saying is it's not going to stay there. There is no final resting place for these things. There isn't any such thing. That's why we have this cemetery sign with a guest parking sign in front. No stopping.

You see, what happens to these physical bodies is not the end of the story, and no place on Earth will be the ultimate home. Oh yes, our life will go through undulations just like this road that you see here. I'm glad the road that you drove on wasn't quite like this. Our life will go through ups and downs, there's no question about it. But the end of the story does not end here on planet Earth. I hope you have homes that you like and enjoy here, but ultimately our home isn't here. We're citizens of heaven, are we not? That's my eternal home.

One of the things I was mentioning just before the service was that, you know, compared to eternity, the time that we spend here on planet Earth is really, really short. Ever think about that? If you add another decade onto your life here, compared to eternity, that's not very long. That's not much. Eternity is a long, long time.

A believer's body is sown like a seed. That's the picture that Paul clearly and repeatedly makes in this passage. It's sown like a seed for the next life to sprout a new life. That's the picture that Paul gives. That giving of a new body to us, like Christ's resurrection body, that's all God's doing. It's not something we earn. It's not something we accomplish. We don't suddenly come rising out of the ground of our own doing. God does the raising. That's what Paul makes clear here in these verses 36-38. One of the passages, and this is not in your handout, is 1 John 3, 1 through 2, I think is really relevant. And it's interesting about, oh, when was this? Almost eight and a half years ago. I was a candidate. I'd come to Holly Hills to candidate, and we'd gone back to Texas. And I forget whether we had quite made plans to come here or not.

But I was finishing up my Greek courses in seminary and I was at that point taking like several translation classes where I was taking several classes all at once and just translating from Greek just constantly. And it's interesting as I read through it, I mean you think that's a real academic exercise. When I got through translating these verses, I burst into tears. I burst into tears because so fantastic.

See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us. And the way I translated that, the Greek there means permanent love. He has permanently given us His love. Irretrievable. It's not going to get reversed. It's also gracious. See how great a love the Father has graciously, permanently given us. Isn't that cool? That we would be called Children of God, His children. You are to have graciously, permanently, eternally a relationship with Him. He grace gave it, you didn't even earn it. There's even no way to unearn it. Can you imagine that?

That we would be called the children of God and such we are. If you believe today, you are. For this reason the world does not know us because it did not know Him. doesn't know Him, therefore they look at us and they say, well I don't understand. Well that's quite clear. Beloved, now we are indeed, here's the statement of the fact, children of God, we have an eternal relationship with Him that's irreversible.

And it has not appeared as yet what we will be. What we look like now is quite different from how we'll look then. How will we look then? We know And that fits something that we said in the prior elective here in this room. We know, this isn't just a, I guess, I hope so, I think so, and most people think so.

We know that when He appears, we will be like Him. What was His resurrection body like? That's our best indication. Because we will see Him just as He is. Face to face. Face to face. Analogies, flesh and heavenly bodies. In these next verses 39 through 41, Paul gives analogies.

He takes things that are in the physical realm and notes that there are distinctions and the distinctions in kind. He uses that to give people a sense, an idea that this earthly body and this heavenly body are also a distinction in kind. How does he do that? He starts off with making a distinction between human flesh and that of the various kinds of animals.

These are all used as analogies to say that there exist in the natural world distinctions of kind. You of course see these things in the natural realm. That's the same kind of distinction, I want you to understand, between the physical realm, the bodies that we have now, and the spiritual realm, the bodies that we have. Is there something similar? Yes. Is there a difference? Most certainly.

Similarly, Paul moves to several categories of the astronomical bodies, show there are distinctions in each of these kinds of bodies. There's differences of scale, and we'll soon see big ones, of how things are made. And so those are analogies, a picture to help us understand. So let's look at some of these distinctions of kind. We have, for starters here, our own solar system. Here is a picture of the sun, and that little arrow is dangling and turning at a little dot called Earth. So our sun looks pretty huge in comparison to that little tiny Earth. And it takes us a while to get around on this thing, right? So just to get an idea of scale, this is pretty amazing. But we're not done. Sound like one of those late-night TV ads, but there's more, right?

Here is some larger stars compared to the Sun. But wait, there's more. Here are even larger stars than the ones we just compared to them, and by comparison our Sun is not visible. I've got an arrow pointing to nothing because you can't see it. So don't squint too hard.

So Paul's statement that yes, there are distinctions between these different stars is quite correct. He's got it right. Whether you talk about distinctions in the way we perceive them or the way they are objectively when we study them carefully. As we get into verses 42 through 44, He starts it off with, so also are the resurrection of the dead. There is a distinction between these physical bodies and the spiritual body that it's important to make. We're not going back into a body just like this one. So reincarnation is out. We're not going back to a body just like this one. So the Egyptian being resurrected back to a life like this one doesn't fit either. He says it's not like that.

So also is the resurrection of the dead. Those who are raised have a different, a distinct kind of body. So Paul's point is biological bodies and astronomical bodies of varying kinds. So natural bodies and resurrection body are of different kinds as well. You have this on page two of your handout, this poetic pattern that Paul used. He goes like this, it is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body.

The bodies that we have here are not going to last. They're bodies that are going to run out. I don't know what your expiration date is, and I don't know either what mine is, but somehow these bodies are going to run out. But we raise an imperishable body, a body with no expiration date. A body that doesn't give up, a body that doesn't quit.

There will be no need for a heavenly health care plan. No need for that. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. This body, if you're a believer, this body that you have is sown. It will be raised up. That's why he uses the word sown. It's not just permanently buried as a final resting place. It'll be raised up a glorious body. Why? It'll be like his. It'll be like Christ's. It is sown in weakness. When Paul says weakness, it's not just simply a matter of how much can you lift and how much can you bench press. But it also indicates vulnerability. As you have come to realize, this body is vulnerable to a lot of things.

When I was getting out of high school, I played high school football, and I had this, I'll call it a fantasy, that I was going to play junior college football. Uh-oh. Anyway, I went to the first day of practice, and it didn't turn out so good. That was my last day of practice. There was a guy who got across from me, and here's a guy of my own team, right, in practice, and he said, I remember through his face mask, I'm going to kill you. And you know what he did? He did kill me. Oh, it was terrible. Broke my breast bone, cut my Achilles tendon halfway through. It was terrible. All in one hit. Anyway, I did find that this body does have its vulnerabilities. This body is sown in weakness.

It is raised in power. In Ephesians chapter 1, the standard of maximum power in the universe is the resurrection of Christ. If you are a believer in Christ, you are identified with Him in that resurrection. That's the standard of maximum power in the universe, is the resurrection of Christ. There is no greater. That is the power of the resurrection that you also will experience. Maximum power. Sown in weakness and vulnerability, raised in maximum power. No way to exceed it. It's sown a natural body. You like things that are natural? You like to have things natural, like crunchy peanut butter and things like that? But the reality is that natural is as good as this gets.

He's saying the new body is better than that. It's a spiritual body. It's a body of spiritual character. A resurrection body. He concludes with a summary statement that sounds similar to, but not identical to, the last thing we just looked at here, in that if there is a natural body, and the assumption is yes there is, there is also a spiritual body. Why does he say this?

If you have a natural body now and are a believer, there will be, count on it, a spiritual body. You will have one. There is not going to be the circumstance where, sorry Vern, we ran out of spiritual bodies. If there is a physical body, a natural body, there will be, for every single believer, no exceptions, A spiritual body. Count on it. It's going to happen.

The contrast between the present body and the future body is what he covers in verses 42 through 44. In the next verses here, 42 through 49, all of that's in poetic form. We just looked at part of it. in each case to show the contrast of the present kind of the believer's body and the future kind of the believer's body. Each time Paul shows a variation in that contrast, Paul wants to bring together a greater understanding in his readers and in us, the nature of this present atom body and the Christ-like body.

Differences. The physical earthly body is so. We just get guest parking here, okay? Just get guest parking. The spiritual heavenly body is raised and God will do it. We have a chart here on page two of your handout similar to what we see up here. Two very different kinds of bodies. Perishable, imperishable. Dishonor, glory. Weakness, power. Natural, spiritual.

In the last verses, these are the ones that Courtney read for us here, verses 45 through 49, it's also, excuse me, so also it is written, the first man Adam became a living soul. Here's Adam who started off with a physical body that was given a soul, made alive because of that. This last Adam, Christ, is a life-giving spirit. Christ gives life to us. Adam, in order to be a living being, had to have a soul put in him. Christ, the last Adam, the second Adam if you will, the head of this new kind of man, is one who actually gives life himself. The spiritual is not first but the natural, not first in sequence. than the spiritual.

The first man is from the earthy, the second man is from heaven. So is the earthy, that is the kind of the earthy, are those who are earthy and as is the heavenly. So are those who are heavenly. As Adam was earthy, all those descended from Adam are earthy. As Christ is heavenly, so all those who are children of God, so all those who are in Christ are earthy. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.

You see, there's a process going on now among us as believers. And that process looks like this. In Romans 8, 28 and 29, it says, We know that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed by the circumstances. to the image of his son. There is a spiritual conforming process going on right now. God is using the circumstances to conform you to the image of Christ.

But that's not the only process that's going on. There's also the transforming process that is going on. That conforming is paralleled by the transforming as we behold the Lord through his word as we're doing here this morning. We are transformed. That is a miraculous process. We are transformed into the image of the Son. Both of those processes are going on here.

There will come a day when these bodies will also be transformed. We will be spiritually, at the soul level, and physically, when we go to meet the Lord, entirely conformed to the image of Christ. We will bear His image. The first man was Adam. The last man, last Adam rather, was Christ. The first man was the Adam of Genesis 1-3.

The one who said, yeah, that fruit looks pretty good to me. I think I'll have some. That fruit that God said, no, don't eat of that. I think I'll have some. As a result, he would experience both physical and also spiritual death, just like God told him. Exactly like God warned. exactly like Satan questioned.

The last kind of man is Christ. The first one of a kind of man who will experience both physical and spiritual resurrected life and conquer death. The first of a kind. The first man, Adam, and the last Adam, who is Christ, are each the first of a kind. The first of a kind. So we have the contrast between the first man, Adam, and the last Adam, who was Christ. Natural, spiritual.

From the earth, from heaven. And there's the title of the message. Where are you from? Have you ever heard somebody say that? Or maybe you've said it yourself. Where are you from? If you're a believer here this morning, where are you from? You've been identified with Christ.

You know, we've had experiences at times where we recognize somebody's not from these parts. One time years ago, I was walking out to the barn to milk the cows. And I was rather shocked to find this young man I'd never met. He said his name was Felix. I'm not sure. I'd never met standing out there by the barn. And he said somebody from Kansas, and he couldn't tell me who it was, said that they should come to the Petermans. Well, boy, I have no idea how that happened. Anyway.

When I went in to milk the cow, it was a mostly black cow. And he was absolutely shocked. He was stunned beyond belief. He said, what are you doing? I said, I'm milking the cow. I do it twice a day. What's the big deal? Well, what he had been told, apparently it's from New York City, is that if it's black, it's a bull.

And so I concluded that he wasn't from these parts. He wasn't from this area. And that's the same thing. We as believers, we're not from here. Yeah, we're not from here. Ultimately, because we've been identified with Christ, we're not from here anymore.

Of an earthly kind, of a heavenly kind. You, having been identified with Christ, are of a heavenly kind. And this body, that we have will ultimately be transformed into one that's a heavenly kind. We now are in the process of being conformed to bear the image of the heavenly. We're being transformed to bear the image of the heavenly. In the end, this body will be transformed to bear the image of the heavenly, Christ himself. You see, our hope doesn't just float. We who believe are, and this is all God's accomplishment, we are placed into Christ, we are baptized into Him, and we are eternally changed.

And I told you a story about my football history and meeting up with this fellow out at the barn, and those are earth stories. But in fact, we have a spiritual history that has now changed. We have a spiritual history that is not the one we were born with. but one that we now have through Christ. Our spiritual history says we were identified with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. That's now your spiritual history. We have a certain fixed and absolute and total hope in Christ from the inside out. Why do I say inside out? Because spiritually, soulishly, you are being changed. There will come a day I hope it's today. There will come a day when that will be physically true as well.

Our ultimate hope is in Christ in every single aspect. There will be no part of you that God does not address. Everything will be dealt with. And it won't get halfway done either. We have a hope that is certain. We have a hope that is fixed. We have a hope that is absolute. We have the most hopeful hope that there is possible in the entire universe. This is great, great news. Let's thank Him for the good news. Lord, as we look at this passage, what a hopeful passage we have.

How wonderful to see the sharp contrast and not be lost in the, oh, I wonder how many more reincarnations I have to go through, how many thousands. To think of how many more times must this body die? How many more times must I go through this misery? What amazing grace that when this life is done, you have another already waiting for us because of your son. We thank you in Jesus name.