A Body Heavenly and Glorious
1 Corinthians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 4 viewsNotes
Transcript
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.
O God of wonder, God of might,
Grant us some elevated sight,
Of endless days. And let us see
The joy of what is yet to be.
And may your future make us free,
And guard us by the hope that we,
Within the light of candle three,
Your glory will forever see.
- John Piper, “Glorified”
It is a prayer that we might find joy now in the glorious life we will have at Christ’s return. It is my prayer that we will find that joy this morning as we again talk about our resurrection unto glory.
Welcome - 1 Corinthians
Paul has already addressed the reality of or resurrection and how the resurrection of Christ is proof positive that we will too be raised according to God’s promises
Here, Paul gets into some of the details of our resurrection. He addresses a question about the body with which we will be raised.
And while he is still answering the objections of the Corinthians, he is doing much more. He is holding out the hope - the sure hope - of the life to come. He is telling the Corinthians - and us - exactly what it is we have to look forward to.
As we saw - Paul wants the Corinthians to live now in light of then. What better way to do that, then tell us what it is we have in store for us and Who it is that has and will accomplish this.
So, as always, Paul brings this back around to Christ and what He has done and what has been accomplished through His resurrection. But there’s more, because he tells us that we will be like Him at His return. That our sure end is glory.
If that doesn’t excite you, I don’t know what will.
Now, Paul just concluded a section in which he showed that the Corinthians did, in fact, have every reason to believe in the resurrection of the dead. And so do we.
The problem that we saw was that in spite of those reasons to believe, the Corinthians were not living like they believed.
And I asked us to consider if perhaps we, too, though having every reason to believe, lived like we did not.
And Paul gave that literal wake up call to the Corinthians and told them to stop living as if they didn’t know God and His promises.
And now he is going to give them some details of those promises, to make sure they know.
And he begins by heading off the next objection.
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”
This “but” refers back to what Paul just said about the fact of our resurrection and how we should live in light of that. He expounded for the Corinthians how they were falling short of their calling. How they were not living their lives in light of the sure end that Christ has won for them.
And there are always “buts” when it comes to grasping the fact of personal failure, aren’t there? It’s our default reaction.
Like a child, when you tell them they have to apologize to their sibling or that they have to do something to fix what they did wrong, even if it just means cleaning up the mess they made… if you’re a parent, you know that the first word you usually hear when you rebuke a child is “but.”
We have seen throughout this letter that Paul treats the Corinthians like children. We already saw that he told them they were children in their thinking and he wanted them - and they needed - to think like mature people of faith - and his rebuke of them for not living out their calling shows just how immature they were.
And I don’t think this is a Corinthian problem. I don’t think this is a young child problem. I think it’s a human problem.
I think it is human nature to go to excuses before acceptance when we are told we have done something wrong. And the worse that “something” is, the more readily we want to accept the excuse over the responsibility.
But the day is coming when we will all have to answer for ourselves and what we’ve done. And God will not accept any “buts” on that day. No “but I didn’t know.” No “but I went to church almost every week.” No “but I’m a good person.”
The only thing He will accept is faith in Christ.
Paul wants to make sure the Corinthians have that faith.
Do we have that faith? Are we living it out?
Because there is nothing more convicting as Christians than realizing that our lives might not match our confession at times. And it’s hard to accept it even when it’s true.
And we have seen how Paul applies all that he says about our resurrection throughout this section. If we don’t believe God’s promises to us in Christ, we believe in vain. And if we don’t live like we believe God’s promises, then we really don’t believe God’s promises.
And it has been tough to see how Paul explains this because I see how far short I fall at times.
And it is all too easy to hear these things, and before repenting just cry out “but.”
But it’s so hard to separate myself from the world. I live in it. I work in it. I have to make a living and be around unsaved people. If I don’t play the game I’ll get nowhere in life.
But I can’t be one of those weird born-agains that my friends won’t want to be around. I’ll lose my opportunity to witness to them when the time comes.
But I don’t think what I do is really all that bad. Everyone sins - the Bible says so. God doesn’t really expect me to be perfect, and I could be doing much worse.
Let’s be honest, even if we sit here and listen to the Word of God on a Sunday morning and feel convicted - and I do - and even if we repent and we have every intention of making changes when we walk out those doors - sometimes, by Monday morning if not Sunday evening, the “buts” have already been worked out in our minds.
But this doesn’t really apply to me or what I did.
But in this or that situation I don’t have to be like that because… and fill in our lame rationalization.
I’m sure the Corinthians had all their “buts” worked out when they formed factions and divided the church. I’m sure they had their “buts” all worked out when they allowed sexual immorality among their members.
I’m sure they all had their “buts” worked out when they were unwilling to sacrifice for one another.
And I’m sure they all had their “buts” worked out for living as if they didn’t believe God’s promises.
And often, so do we.
And that’s why Paul ended the last passage with that call to wake up and realize that all our “buts” - all our excuses - all our rationalizations - are sin. They are a lack of faith.
And here he either anticipates what the immature Corinthians will say or perhaps this a question that was actually asked because they didn’t understand what our resurrection entails.
“Oh, OK, Paul, we will be resurrected and that is what should dictate how we live now. But if that’s actually true, how does it work? What kind of body will the dead be raised with?”
They think they’re clever. Instead of saying they don’t believe it enough to live it out, they say they don’t have clear enough teaching to believe it enough to live it out.
Did I say something about lame rationalizations?
“Well, if Scripture was clearer, then we’d know for sure and it would be different.”
“Why are there so many different interpretations of this or that? We can’t be sure what it means.”
Or as the Corinthians are saying: “But there are so many things we don’t know - things that God hasn’t revealed about the life to come. We don’t fully know, so how can we believe it?”
This is often talked about as a post-enlightenment way of thinking - I can only believe it if I see it. And I need to know everything about it before I make an educated decision.
But we see here, this is just a human way of thinking. If we can’t see it and know it exhaustively we can’t trust it. We can’t believe it. We can’t consider it a fact.
And yet we believe what we read on the internet if it confirms what we want to believe.
And while there are varying interpretations about some of the Bible’s teaching, and while we don’t and can’t know everything God knows, that is not the real problem.
The real problem for the Corinthians - and for many of us at times - is that we use those excuses, as an excuse to ignore all the clear teaching of Scripture.
For all the differing views on what will happen at the end, there is so much that is sure. So much that is clear:
Christ is coming back
Physical death is not the end - to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord
When He returns, Christ will destroy death forever and call us out of the grave and we will rise bodily
And we will live forever in the body, and in the presence of Christ forever.
If that is not enough of a promise to change how we live now, then we are like the Corinthians. We are utter fools.
And that’s what Paul says next:
You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
The Corinthians raise their objections as if to excuse how they were living. As if to say that they don’t know enough about the end to have enough faith.
And Paul calls them fools.
But understand, the foolish person isn’t someone that asks questions about the resurrection. There’s nothing wrong with that.
The foolish person is the one who questions the resurrection.
The foolish person is the one who disregards what the Bible is clear about because not everything is clear.
You can’t ignore the clear “what” of the Bible based on questioning “how?”
Paul has already said that a denial of the resurrection of believers is a denial of Christ’s resurrection, and that is a denial of Christ Himself.
And it is the fool who says in his heart that there is no God. This is what Paul just said of the Corinthians in verse 34 - some who were thinking like this have no knowledge of God.
Listen, God has not given us all the “what.” He has given us even less of the “how.”
But He has given us all we need, because He has given us the “Who.”
There is a God! And He came for us. He identified Himself with us and suffered for us. He lived perfectly for us. And He died for us.
And He was raised on the third day for us, and ascended to His throne for us, and He sent His Spirit for us, to dwell in us.
And He didn’t do all of that so we could know that He lived perfectly, and that He suffered, and that He died, and that He rose again, and that He reigns as King.
He did it so we could know Him.
It isn’t about knowing the what - it’s about knowing the Who.
So we don’t need to know any more than we do to live according to our calling. Because we know Him.
And yet, because knowledge of Him is spiritually discerned, as Paul said earlier, and because we have the Spirit Who knows the very mind of God because He is God, as Paul said earlier, we can know so much of the “what” for sure.
God is so gracious to reveal to us, His little children, what He has hidden from the wise and understanding of the world.
And He does this through His written Word.
And this is what Paul is really referring to next. When he says “what you sow does not come to life unless it dies” Paul is explaining the resurrection, using an agricultural metaphor.
It is actually an agricultural metaphor that Christ used. A seed doesn’t produce a new plant or flower or tree unless it is separated from the original plant, or flower, or tree - it dies as it is separated from what gave it life - and then it can give life.
Paul says: so it is with physical death for those of faith.
But like Christ, Paul is not speaking in purely physical terms. Christ used the metaphor to refer to His own death bringing forth spiritual life. That is the life we have now and will yet have at His return.
Paul here is using the metaphor to refer to our own death resulting in resurrected life.
He is using it to show how God will finish what he started.
This is about a new creation.
I’ll show you what I mean.
Paul says:
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.
This body. This physical life. What we are now. This is the kernel - it’s the seed - of what we will be. It is what dies to bring forth a new life.
And when that happens, we will be as different as a sunflower seed and a sunflower, or an acorn and an oak tree, or a kernel of wheat and a living stalk of wheat.
We need to think beyond what we see. What we are now is not what we’ll be then - we will be something greater - something more alive than we are now.
We will have a physical but spiritual body.
God will give us something new when we rise.
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.
Paul uses a physical example. Not all flesh is the same. There is a human kind of flesh. Then, there is an animal kind of flesh. Then there is a bird kind of flesh. And there is a fish kind of flesh.
There is also a difference between the earthly and the heavenly - a difference, Paul says, in glory.
But Paul is not giving us a biology or an astronomy lesson here. He is pointing back to the Scriptures.
He brings us back to creation - he has through this whole chapter, really. Did you notice that?
he has spoken of the creation (like when he quotes Psalm 8)
he has spoken of not just the creation of man but the fall of man through sin
he speaks of the heavenly and the earthly
he speaks of being given spiritual bodies as opposed to the creation of man from dust
he speaks of the trees and their seed, and also the different flesh of humans, animals, birds, and fish
he speaks of stars and the sun and the moon
Paul is pointing us to the end by pointing us all the way back to the very beginning.
In the beginning, God created...the heavens and the earth. The heavenly and the earthly. That was the first day.
God then separated heaven from earth except for the one place of His dwelling in the Garden. Heaven and earth then differed in glory. That was the second day.
God then created the land:
And the land brought forth herbage of fodder, sowing seed according to kind and according to likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit whose seed is itself in the tree, according to kind upon the land.
And that was the third day.
Then God made… the heavenly bodies. The sun, moon, and stars. The fourth day.
Then, God made the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, and told them to be fruitful and multiply according to their kind. The fifth day.
Then, God made animals:
And God made the wild animals of the land according to kind and the cattle according to kind and all the creeping things of the land according to their kind.
Paul references all of this here.
But God wasn’t done. There was another kind of creature to be made. And, as Paul said earlier in the chapter, from the dust God made man. And He made him, in His image. And He gave us dominion over all the other creatures. And He gave us a single positive command: to be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth.
And on the seventh day, God rested. There was a Sabbath. And that Sabbath rest pointed forward to the rest God would provide through His Messiah.
The Messiah Who is God, yet Who came in human flesh. He came according to our kind. And He died. And He was buried. And He was raised from the dead. From death, came life.
And on what day was He raised?
On the eight day. He began a new creation when He rose from the dead.
And we, brothers and sisters, are that new creation.
Only in this creation, God is working the other way.
In the first creation, God started with heaven and earth and ended with man. And that very good creation was corrupted when we sinned. Now He’s flipping the script.
First, He creates a new man at Christ’s resurrection - and through that remakes us in His image again. He undid our sin. The image of God was marred by sin. So He made Himself in our image so sin could be overcome and we could be remade - unchangeably - back into His image.
And we move now towards the remaking of the heavens and the earth with which God began the first creation. And this time, instead of separating them, God will make them inseparably one for all eternity.
And when He does that, He will raise us - those who have bodies of dust who have returned to the dust - He will raise us from the dead, and we will be glorified. We will be heavenly.
An that is what Paul talks about here:
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.
We are of an earthly kind of body right now. When we are raised, we will have a heavenly body. A glorified body.
This is why the heavenly beings - the angels, as we commonly call them - are equated with the heavenly bodies - the stars - in the Bible. They are heavenly.
They are the stars - the sons of God - that sang when God created the foundation of the earth.
And that is what we will like be at our resurrection. Glorified, heavenly, sons of God - in the kingdom of our Father.
We looked at some of the Old Testament teaching on our resurrection a couple of weeks ago. And what did we see?
This promise:
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
We will become like the stars - like the heavenly beings - in the life to come.
This is why Christ came for us. This is why, as we saw last week, we are to pray for the end - and we are to desire the end - the coming of the kingdom of our Father in all its fullness - first and foremost.
Because that is why Christ came.
Understand, we don’t get to be part of that kingdom because Christ saved us. We don’t get to live forever in the new heavens and the new earth in glorified, physical bodies because we have been saved.
That’s backwards. Christ saved us to make us part of that kingdom. He saved us to live forever and ever in the new heavens and the new earth in glorified, physical bodies. That is our ultimate end.
That’s why He came.
That’s what we saw in Paul’s reference to Psalm 8:
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
This speaks of Christ. He was made lower than the heavenly beings - lower than the stars - for a time in order to save us so that we would be raised unto glory and be - finally be - the crowning achievement of God’s creation.
Man in His image.
Risen.
Glorified.
Heavenly.
That is why Christ came.
So that even though we die, we would be raised unto glory.
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.
Paul says “so it is” with the resurrection of the dead. What is the “so” referring to? What is the resurrection of the dead like?
It is being raised to a life that is like comparing a grain with a fish with a bird with a human. Like comparing something on earth to a star. Like comparing the earthly to the heavenly.
We will be something different in the kingdom of our Father. The Corinthians asked: “how will we be raised? With what kind of body will we be raised?”
And Paul tells them - and us. We will be raised unto glory. We will be raised with a heavenly body. With an imperishable body.
We who are perishable and who will die and return to the dust of the earth - we will be raised imperishable to inherit our kingdom.
I hear people in their 30s complain about pains. About how their bodies don’t work like they used to. And at 50, I laugh at them. And then I complain to my 77 year old father about my aches and he laughs at me.
This body - this perishable body - it breaks down, and it doesn’t take long, and it doesn’t stop. We are all already moving towards going back to the dust.
And this is what the Corinthians saw in themselves. The temporary nature of life. The breaking down of the body. The perishableness of this life.
If you’re over 30, you’re seeing it. We are perishable.
Paul says that though we will perish, we will be raised imperishable. In the resurrection, there will be no more pain, and no more death, for the former things will have passed away.
And the former things are sin and all its effects - on us and on the world.
And we will be raised glorified. Perfected. Unaffected by sin ever again.
And we will be imperishable.
This is because, as will see in verse 50 next week, Paul says the perishable cannot inherit the perishable. We will be raised in bodies suitable for the consummated kingdom.
We will be raised in glorified bodies so we can dwell in the new heavens and the new earth. Because what we are now is not suitable for it. We can’t inherit it as we are.
Because one day - one glorious day - we will live in the very presence of God, and sin - perishableness - it cannot be in His holy presence.
So He will make us what we need to be, to live in His presence.
Hallelujah! Are you excited for it?
Now why does Paul point that out? Why does he tell the Corinthians of this glorious and remarkable future body that will be imperishable?
Because the Corinthians were walking by sight, and not by faith. They were not living in light of that glorious future.
They had their minds set on this world, and this life, and this physical body.
They were missing the point. The end was the reason Christ died, and rose, and sent His Spirit.
They had a very insufficient understanding of the salvation Christ died to give us.
Speaking broadly, there are three aspects or stages to this salvation. There is what is called our justification. It is our being declared righteous the moment we believe. By grace through faith, Christ’s perfect life and atoning death are applied to us by the Spirit, and we are born again.
We are considered righteous through His life, and we are considered paid in full for our sin through His death.
And now, through what He has done, even when we die, we will live. Our spirit will never die, and we will live on with Christ.
And there are so many Christians that focus on that as if it were the whole story. Too many Christians think that was the goal of Christ’s work. That our justification is the end. That avoiding hell is the purpose of it all.
But Paul is saying our being made righteous - the forgiveness of our sins - is just a means to the actual end. That’s just the start of our salvation.
The end, Paul says, is that day when Christ comes back. And we who perish are raised imperishable. And we are made heavenly because Christ is bringing heaven with Him when He comes.
The end, is when we put off this perishable nature and are given a new nature - a glorious nature.
That’s why this is called our glorification. That is the third and final part of our salvation - glory - the salvation that Christ is yet to give us.
And it is guaranteed because of the salvation He has already given us if we would but believe Him.
And if we believe Him, when the end comes - when Christ completes our salvation - our spirit will be joined to our bodies again, and we will be changed.
Talking about our physical bodies, Paul says:
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.
Paul makes all theses comparisons - and it culminates with natural vs. spiritual contrast.
Don’t confuse what he is saying. He is not making a distinction between physical and spiritual, because the spiritual body is a physical body.
It is a difference between natural and spiritual. It is a difference in the very nature of the physical body.
We, though born again spiritually, we are still in perishable bodies. Our bodies are still marred by sin. We get sick. We hurt. And we die, and return to the dust.
But if, by faith, we believe the promise of the imperishable body and life in the visible kingdom, we will live as members of that kingdom now.
As Paul says to the Philippians.
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
And, as we saw, everything is in subjection to Him. He is King.
And He is King because He died, and was raised, and ascended on high that through faith we might be raised with Him and be given new life.
And we have that life now. We are already changed. We already live. Our eternal life has begun.
We have moved from people of dust, to people of the Spirit, and one day, we will lose these natural bodies of dust and inherit spiritual bodies.
We will be changed because we are no longer of the man of dust, but we stand in Christ:
Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Paul quotes again from the creation account. This comes from Genesis 2:
then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
Remember what we already saw - first comes the natural, then the spiritual. At the creation of man, God first made the natural body out of dust, and then breathed into him his spirit.
First the natural, then the Spiritual.
And Who is it that God created the world and everything in it through? Christ. From the beginning He is the Creator of life.
This is Who God the Son has always been. The giver of life.
And we saw this comparison last week. Adam was given life, and then was the creator of death because of his sin.
But the second Adam - the Redeemer - Jesus Christ - He created life where there was death. He is the firstfruits of those resurrected. And just like He breathed the spirit into Adam, so He sent His Spirit into us to raise us to new spiritual life.
For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.
For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
It is Christ Who gives us life. And He has already.
And He will again. And when He does - from the dust of the ground into which we return - He will remake us into glorious, heavenly, spiritual people fit for the kingdom of heaven in every way.
But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.
Paul repeats this. We are now in natural bodies.
Our spirit has been reborn, but concerning our bodies, we remain natural and will return to the dust. And after the natural dies, the Spiritual will come to life.
We will lose this corruptible body, then be given an incorruptible, spiritual body
Because we have already gone from in Adam to in Christ:
The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
Again, Paul points out how Christ undid what humanity did. How He created the life we lost through sin. He undid what Adam did, and began the new creation by recreating us in His image.
And because He redeemed us, even though we are here physically, we are not from here. We are from heaven just like Him.
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.
We were of the man of dust - physically and spiritually. But we have been given new life. New hearts. Believing spirits.
Yet the body remains of dust. This is why we still hurt and suffer and die. Don’t let anyone tell you that if you had more faith you would be made physically well. Can God heal you? Of course.
Is that part of the healing Christ has guaranteed us if we believe? No.
Is that part of His promise to us in this life? No.
Is that part of the salvation He has already achieved for us? No. Not in this life.
But in Christ, we will be given new bodies, heavenly and glorious, in the life to come. He promises that all of this will happen when He completes our salvation.
And we can believe it, because we are already, spiritually, raised to the heavenlies! We are of heaven. We are not of this world. Our home is the new heavens and the new earth when we will become like Christ
And that is what Paul wanted the Corinthians to understand. This isn’t just about what they will someday be. It is about who they will someday be because of who they already are!
And that is where the second part of our salvation comes in. Between the justification unto salvation, and the glorification that completes our salvation, we are still being saved.
We are being made more and more into the image of the second Adam because we have already been given new life.
But whereas God makes us righteous, and He will make us glorious, and there is nothing we have done or ever could do to contribute to that salvation - when it comes to this life - the life we live as born again people in Christ, whose eternal life has begun spiritually - when it comes to our salvation that God is working now, we have a choice.
We can and must contribute to what God is doing in between Christ’s two comings when salvation was begun and will be completed. Because we are how He works salvation now.
He does it through us.
Because we already have that new life. We have already been raised with Him.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Once again, for Paul, this is about now in light of then.
We bear the image of Christ in this world. He became like us physically, to make us like Him spiritually, so that until the day we become like Him physically - He may be known.
So what will we do in these perishable bodies as we wait for our glorious inheritance?
What will we do as we wait for our glorious Savior to appear to complete what He has started in us?
We have to continue what He has started. We have to seek what is above. We have to set our minds on what is above.
We have to look to what will be, and let that make us truly free.
For we have died - we have died to sin and to the ways of this world.
And we live with Christ - we are already raised to new life.
And we will live in the next. We will yet be raised: glorious, heavenly, imperishable.
And it is that life - the world to come - that is already our home. We are not of the man of dust - we are of the man of heaven.
We are not of this world.
So I leave you with this question:
Which world will you choose to live in?
O God of wonder, God of might,
Grant us some elevated sight,
Of endless days. And let us see
The joy of what is yet to be.
And may your future make us free,
And guard us by the hope that we,
Within the light of candle three,
Your glory will forever see.
Let that be our prayer.
_____________________________________________________________________
Right Now Media Essentials of Faith - 1st of 12 studies on discipleship
Part 1 - Six week study led by Dave Howard and myself
9/28-11/2 9:00 AM
_____________________________________________________________________
Communion:
I believe in God,
the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
On the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the one true holy Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.
Amen.
Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
