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The Imperfect Church – 29
The Eternal Church
Introduction
Sam Leith is an English author and literary editor of the British Newsmagazine The Spectator.
He spends most of his time reading great pieces of writing.
However, he enthusiastically makes the case for playing video games, which are supposedly mindless and a waste of time.
Leith asks if the time spent playing video games is pointless.
“Well, possibly—but it’s … pointless in the same way meditation is pointless … and playing or following sport is pointless.
It’s a pointless thing that fulfils a foundational human need.
Not being able to bear very much reality, and all that.”
Leith’s main point is that these games offer an escape from the often grim, harsh, and mundane experience of real life.
Life can be cruel and often doesn’t give you second chances.
“Out here … things fall apart.
Time runs only one way.
But in the game world, the resurrection of the virtual flesh is not a miracle but a routine occurrence.
There’s always another life, another try, the possibility of remaking the world of the game afresh.”
Why are video games so popular?
Is it only because they help us escape from reality?
Or is possibly because they offer at least a muted experience of resurrection?
Isn’t this why we learned Up/Up/Down/Down/Left/Right/Left/Right/BABA/Start to get 30 lives instead of 3 in Nintendo games?
Could it be that we crave the do-over, the mulligan, and endless opportunity to live?
Perhaps that desire is stamped onto our souls.
TS – As we continue in we find ourselves in the heart of Paul’s teaching on the resurrection.
In the early verses, Paul, a first-century church leader, establishes the gospel, the Good News of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.
That is the most important thing that matters more than anything else.
It is the one thing that defines our lives.
Today, let’s ask a simple question - so what?
Jesus was crucified, dead and buried.
He rose from the dead on the third day.
So what?
What difference does that make today for those who believe that?
TS - The Bible will now give us two guarantees because Jesus has risen from the dead.
Jesus’ resurrection guarantees…
1. OUR RESURRECTION
- 20 But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.
He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.
21 So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man.
22 Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life.
23 But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back.
Because of the truth of the gospel, we know that death is not the end for those who trust in Jesus.
Jesus’ resurrection, he says, is the first of a great harvest.
He rose first, so that the rest of us can rise later.
His resurrection guarantees our own.
Think maybe of Christ's resurrection as a store receipt.
If you're in a department store and you buy something, you always make sure you have the receipt.
Why?
Because if you're still walking around the store a security person could stop you and ask to see it.
Or when you are walking out of Wal-Mart and they have that little “security” setup at the exit to check your receipt.
And if you don't have a receipt you could get in trouble.
So you if somebody stops you, you want to be able to hold up your receipt and say, "Oh, dear security person, trouble me not because this receipt proves that this has been paid for and I do not have to pay it again."
The resurrection is a giant receipt stamped across history for all people to see, a receipt that allows you to know that your future is certain, you are all paid for and good to go.
Or maybe as Tim Keller puts it: "If someone goes into jail because the law says that ten years in jail is the punishment for the crime, the day that man comes out of jail he has paid for the crime.
That law doesn't have a claim on him anymore.
He's free man.
The wages of sin is death, and when Christ went down into death, he paid for our debt.
When he came up out of the grave that meant it was paid.
Christ's resurrection proves that it was fully paid."
The penalty for your sins has been paid for.
Jesus already died your death, so now that penalty has no claim on you.
You are paid in full!
His resurrection guarantees that.
To make his point, Paul will go all the way back to the very beginning of history in .
He reminds us that death came to the human race through Adam when he and Eve sinned against God in an event called The Fall.
God’s perfect creation, the innocence of humanity…all of it was broken and stained by sin.
Throughout the New Testament, Jesus and Adam are compared and contrasted, even going as far as calling Jesus ‘The Second Adam.’
- 15 But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift.
For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many.
But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ.
So now because of Jesus, death no longer reigns supreme.
It doesn’t have the be the final voice.
Forgiveness, grace, new life…those now reign because of Jesus.
Because of Jesus, we too will experience the resurrection from the dead.
Now let’s be honest for a couple minutes…we really don’t talk about this much do we?
This isn’t high on the topic list of normal conversation, even in church.
Very few sermons on this topic.
Why?
Because it can leave us with more questions than answers.
There is much we don’t understand.
We struggle with the idea of eternity, of never-ending time.
We struggle with the nature of Heaven.
What will it be like?
We chafe with this issue because some of our popular concepts of heaven and eternity sound awful.
Science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov expressed the attitude many have about heaven when he wrote, "I don't believe in the afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more.
For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.”
Sadly, a similar view of the afterlife is common even among Christians.
Our vision of heaven is often limited to an extended, boring, uninspiring church service.
Many see it as a place where we will mosey about among clouds in long white gowns while strumming on harps.
Somehow our image of heaven has become grotesquely distorted, and the prospect of life after death has not captured our imaginations or transformed our lives.
Apologist Sean McDowell wrote that he asked a room full of students what they would do if they had only three days left to live before they died and went to heaven.
How would they spend those few remaining days?
Answers included skydiving, traveling, surfing, and (of course) having sex.
He followed up with a simple question: "So, you think there may be pleasures and experiences in this life that if you don't do them before you die, you will miss out on altogether because they won't exist in heaven?"
All but two students answered yes.
He ends by writing this: “The prospect of heaven dismayed and disappointed them.”
I’ve heard well-meaning worship leaders coerce people into singing during their worship service because “that’s all we are going to be doing in Heaven, so we better get used to it.”
I’m sorry, but singing is not my favorite part of a worship service.
I love it, I enjoy it, but preaching is what captures my attention.
That’s why I’m a preacher, not a worship leader…plus the fact that I don’t have any talent whatsoever!
Perhaps the greatest question we have about eternity and the resurrection is one the Corinthians were already asking - what will we be like?
How does this even work?
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