Glory Days

Our glory days are not behind us; our glory days are now

A few years ago our softball team was gracious enough to allow me a little batting practice.

I hadn’t touched a bat in 30 years.

Hadn’t swung a bat at a ball since I started wearing glasses.

I stood in the batters box and the bat felt so good in my hands - you never forget that grip.

The stance came automatically

And the swing - I strode into the ball like I have hundreds of times in my glory days.

For a minute, I could smell the field, feel the sweat, feel the sensation of a ball hitting the sweet spot on a bat.

If you’ve played ball - there is nothing like it..

But those were glory days and this is now.

There is a sadness that is common to our experience.

The feeling we all get when we start thinking our best days are behind us.

Maybe it hasn’t happened to you yet - it will.

Sooner than later probably.

In the last year, I’ve been privy to two young girls - very, very young girls who have attempted suicide.

Their best days were yesterday they thought.

I listened to a podcast the other day

Their guest was a psychologist who just wrote a book

But he said a bunch of stuff that really resonated in me

But it was his last point.

His premise is, we live in the most stressed time in human history.

He rattled off a number of reasons why and I agreed with everyone one of them.

But then he gave his last reason.

We have disconnected from God.

Disconnected from God.

Here is a psychologist - a scientist - stating before a half million people who regularly listen to this podcast

You need God.

You need to know that there is something out there that is bigger than you.

That you have some responsibility towards

And someone out there who is doing heavy lifting that you can’t do yourself.

Our goal today is for us to answer a question that might help us reconnect ourselves.

Is there really something left to look forward to?

Our text today is 1 Corinthians 15:35-49.

While you look it up, let me remind our younger kids of your three words for this morning.

Your kids guide has three words on it.

Every time you hear one of those words, you need to make a mark beside that word on your sheet.

And today's words are: seed, glory and heaven.

Seed, glory and heaven.

And when you go home today, maybe you can talk to your folks a little about what you have heard.

If you are our guest, we thank God for leading you here today.

We pray the Lord will take this time to give Him glory and to lift your load.

Hear now the word of the Lord from 1 Corinthians 15:35-49

1 Corinthians 15:35–49 ESV

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Paul answers a question for us here that, if we simply study it - it will make us smart

But it won’t change anything for us.

The question is, “What does a resurrected body look like?”

Remember all of chapter 15 is talking about the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

We know some of the Corinthians have trouble with that - dead things tend to stay dead.

But Paul is adamant - Jesus was bodily resurrected from the dead

And if he wasn’t then there is no such thing as Christianity.

Christianity doesn’t work without the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

So he’s made his case - but they aren’t satisfied so they asked, “What does a resurrected body look like?”

That’s a good question - but let’s make it personal.

What will we look like?

What is ahead for us?

Here’s a better question

In this miasma of chaos that we all live in now - is there something for us to look forward to?

And the answer to that is yes. Yes!

What we see now is just a glimpse of what we will see then

1 Corinthians 15:36 “You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.”

You know Paul is almost quoting Jesus here, right?

John 12:24 ESV

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Now we are educated 21st century people and if we are listening - we’ve got an objection here.

A seed is not dead.

You know I’ve said Google knows everything but I’m trying something new lately.

Chatgpt - have you heard of it.

It’s an AI something or other that let’s me ask questions and it scours the internet and answers me.

So I asked it, “Are seeds dead?”

By the way kids, there is your first word - seeds.

And it said, “No.”

It said that a seed is in kind of a suspended animation state.

And then it hedged it’s answer

It said, “under the right conditions, the seed will germinate and produce fruit.”

So I asked Chatgpt to clarify for me, I asked, “so if the right conditions are not met, the seed dies, right?”

And Chatgpt summoned all of the powers of the internet to say to me, “Yes, you are correct.

“If the right conditions are not met, the seed will die.”

Let that thought hang there for a few minutes - we’ll get back to it.

1 Corinthians 15:37 “And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.”

When is the last time you’ve considered a seed?

I know you don’t do it because I don’t do it - but right this minute we will do it.

You do realize, when you eat green peas, you are eating seeds, right?

Green beans, those little things inside the green bean - seeds.

Do you know something I absolutely love in the summertime?

Grill hamburgers, fix them with mayo, ketchup, a fresh tomato slice, a couple of pickles and maybe even a thin slice of onion.

Get a large spoonful of potato salad and a few potato chips to dip in the potato salad - Ruffles are best.

Get either a large slice of ice cold watermelon or a bowl full of ice cold watermelon balls.

And complete your plate with a large ear of piping hot corn on the cob dripping in butter with salt and pepper.

Just shoot me.

Now if you can quit salivating for a second

Think of the corn on the cob - think of what you see - those yellow, juicy, sweet little plump powerhouses of flavor.

If instead of boiling or grilling that corn cob

If you had instead let it dry and then rubbed one of those kernels off into your hand.

If you took one kernel and buried it in the ground, under the right conditions, it would produce a plant right.

Now, let me ask you this?

Does the plant it produce look like the kernel of corn?

The correct answer is no.

Can you find a kernel of corn on a corn stalk - under the right conditions, yes you can.

Here’s the point - right now, Paul is saying we are a seed - we are a mere kernel of what we will be.

Remember hearing this? 1 John 3:2 “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared;

We don’t know what we will look like after the resurrection.

We can know that “what we will be has not yet appeared.”

What we are is but a seed, a kernel of what we will be then.

But let’s finish the verse 1 John 3:2

1 John 3:2 ESV

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

We can see but a trifle now of what we will be then

But then - we will be like Him, Him being like Jesus

If the right conditions are met - we will be like Him.

And while we can’t say what a picture of the bodily resurrected Jesus looks like, there are some things we can know about the resurrected Jesus - and us.

Kids, your second word is glory - get ready, here we go.

We will be raised in glory

Now I really want you to pay special attention here - 1 Corinthians 15:40-42 “There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead.

Verse 43 says we are bodily raised “in glory.”

Let’s lay the bad out, so we can see just how good the good is.

Verse 42, “What is sown is perishable.”

How many of you have racing stripes - that’s what I call my hip replacement scars - my racing stripes.

Some of you young folks - I’ve seen you post surgery in your braces and crutches - you have racing stripes too.

Some of you are members of the zipper club - you have a scar that looks like a zipper from having open heart surgery.

You’ve worn casts.

You’ve been sick, you take medicines - maybe you take medicines now just to keep you alive.

That’s what perishable looks like - and you know what

If you dwell on it too long, it’s depressing.

Remember me mentioning batting practice.

There was a time when I could blister a line drive into a 300 foot fence regularly.

That day I couldn’t hit the ball out of the infield.

That will remind you that you are perishable.

Verse 43 says we are “sown in dishonor.”

Sown - buried.

Dishonor - yeah, because of the curse.

Genesis 2:17 ESV

but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

And we ate - to our shame

We’ve been disobeying and dishonoring God every since

And we’ve been dying ever since.

If you think about dying, well, you can’t get more perishable than that.

Verse 43 says we are “sown in weakness.”

I’ll tread carefully here - but does anyone in here feel trapped?

Does anyone feel like you aren’t good enough?

That you are ugly or plain or fat or skinny or not as smart as everyone else - or too smart

Or just plain awkward?

Or you just don’t feel like you think you ought to feel?

The Lord didn’t design us to be this way.

He created Adam and Eve to live with Him in the garden forever

And never have a thought about any of those things.

Weakness means we are unable to do what we were designed to do.

I believe that is one of the biggest curses of our time

We are overwhelmed.

We live in the most prosperous, the most well fed, the most educated time and place in history.

And we don’t know what to do with it.

Life is too much for us.

We all know people who life was too much for them.

We don’t want to be one of them.

But we don’t know how to stop.

That’s pretty dark isn’t it?

The world is a dark place right now.

The evil one has mastered how to pour the weight of the world on our shoulders.

The pile is deep - we can’t see the light - all of us feel at some point like we are going down for the third time.

That’s the bad news, let me give you the good.

We will be raised “in glory.”

Glory is a church word, isn’t it?

The glory of God, right?

The glory of angels, remember Luke 2:9

Luke 2:9 ESV

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.

What is glory?

Glory is splendor - listen to me - young girls, young men who are struggling with your identity, with your looks - with everything

You will be raised in splendor - that means “magnificient and splendid appearance.”

I’ll explain this in a moment - but listen - you are right now already magnificent and splendid.

Glory is brightness and radiance

We’ve seen tiny glimpses of this.

Sometimes a pregnant woman is radiant - they have this look that they don’t even see.

But we do - She is doing what she was designed by God to do.

Sometimes a dad is radiant - when he’s holding his newborn child.

He doesn’t see it - but we do.

He’s doing what he was designed by God to do.

But these are such infinitesimal glimpses of radiance.

When we are raised, we’ll blaze like the sun.

Glory is amazing might.

Let that lay in your heart for a second.

Amazing might.

Men - you’ve felt powerless, right?

Women?

Students?

Kids?

Grandparents?

Parents.

My young girls who tried to remove themselves from this life

That’s the only power they felt like they had left - but that’s not true.

You have that glory now - you have amazing might now.

Here’s the good news.

Ephesians 2:4–7 ESV

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Kids, get ready, here is your third word - heaven

We are already in heaven

The first time I heard this, Charles Stanley preached it and I thought he was nuts.

I am both here and in heaven simultaneously - that makes no sense.

But now it does - Jesus says in Matthew 12:28 that the “kingdom of God has come upon you.”

We have the Holy Spirit living in us.

We know because Paul told us that we have been crucified with Christ and we’ve been raised with Christ.

And we know - we know don’t we - that if we can stop for a moment, and speak Jesus’ name

That He hears us.

God is not a part of me.

I am in God - I am in Christ.

I am already in heaven.

I know it sounds strange, it sounds strange to me too, but look at what knowing this does for us.

If I am already with Christ, truly, who can come against me?

If I am already with Christ, what thought, idea, feeling, situation can separate me from him?

If I am already with Christ, what power do I lack to - listen

When Jesus went to the cross, he did it deliberately knowing that it was going to be the worst thing that could ever happen to a human being

Physically, mentally and spiritually.

But he walked the road to Calvary one step at a time with nothing but brute determination

And a hope - a hope - an unrealized certainty - that the Father would resurrect Him

And the Father would save all who would be saved because of the determination of Jesus to be obedient to death on a cross.

Because we are with Him, we have the strength, the power, the determination, the ability - the glory that the Father Himself has given to us

So we can endure, we can persevere, so we can conquer anything the evil one or any person can lay in our path.

We are truly, more than conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord because the Father made us that way.

Remember, I’ve said several times that this happens like a seed - only if the right conditions are met.

Here are the right conditions.

Do you know that sin is an affront against God?

Do you know that God said because we have sinned, we must die?

Do you know that you are a sinner - of the worst sort - no matter who you are?

And do you know that means you will be swept up in God’s justice unless someone saves you?

You do know that Jesus took God’s justice on the cross, right?

That he died - what you are destined to do - but he was bodily resurrected on the third day?

Do you realize if you will change your mind about what is important in life and realize that the most important thing is following Jesus

And you will cry out to Jesus to save you - that He will save you.

That the Justice God poured out on Jesus becomes your justice

And Jesus’ glory becomes your glory.

Those are the right conditions.

If you believe, you are with Jesus in heaven right now.

If you do not, I beg you, don’t let this day pass without asking Jesus to save you.

Let us pray