Up From the Grave

Towards the end of that song, I um had my microphone on and I thought, wait a minute, I better not sing too loudly.

During the first service, after the first service, somebody said, Walt, you didn't end with the benediction, and you didn't begin with, and I'm going to do it at this service.

Today is Sunday, the 2nd of October, and God is still on the throne.

He really is.

All week long, today, tomorrow, the week ahead, forever and ever and evermore.

He is good, he is faithful, he is worthy, he cares about us, he goes with us through the week.

He can be trusted.

He is still on the throne.

I may forget to say that.

It's foundational for us.

So I just didn't want you to think that I had decided it wasn't true.

Well, if you've been here the last several weeks, you know that uh we are in the middle of a series of messages on an incredibly important biblical topic: Old Testament, New Testament, all the way through.

Life, death, and life after death.

I fear, and I've said this before, I fear that somehow or another we have an unconscious, perhaps, tendency to not want to deal with this.

We don't quite know how to handle it.

We don't quite know what to say about it.

It's okay to talk generally about it, but I mean personally and practical.

Practically.

I'm going to die, you're going to die.

My friend has died, my son has died, and on and on it goes.

And there's something right about saying that.

It's true.

And because we're perhaps uncomfortable with it, we probably don't use the word death as often as the scriptures do, or as naturally as the scriptures talk about life, death, and life after death.

And maybe because we're uncomfortable with that, we probably aren't really aware of how pervasively and how practically God talks about that in the scriptures.

We must not go to other sources to get our knowledge and to shape our understanding of life, death, and life after death.

We must not go to popular media.

We must not go to our culture.

We must not go to mythology.

We must not go to testimonies of near-death experiences.

There may be some truth to some of that, but I know one person who died and rose again and who talks about life, death, and life after death, and that's Jesus.

And we want to allow what God has to say to us to permeate and penetrate and shape our thinking.

There is a great deal which has been revealed.

This morning we're going to be talking about the fourth of these different subjects.

They're all interrelated.

These are not separate thoughts.

They are different aspects of the same reality.

We started by talking about the elephant in the room, the reality of our mortality.

Has a good ring to it, doesn't it?

The reality of my mortality.

That's what we don't want to really talk about.

We talked and we tried to get an understanding of the nature of what death is, and death, as revealed in the scriptures, is always a separation of some kind.

There's physical death, there's spiritual death, there's eternal death.

We're going to be talking today about the solution that God gives to physical death, the separation from our body and the immaterial, the non-tangible, non-physical aspects of who we are.

We looked last week about some of that which is to come as to be unfolded in the outworking of God's plan between when we lay in the grave and what we would call the eternal state.

And today we're going to look specifically at the resurrection of the body.

Next week, we're going to go into the nature of the resurrection body.

You know that body, the body you would die for, the body you will die for.

The only way we get the resurrection body is by dying.

We're going to spend all next Sunday morning talking about that.

But today I really just want to do two simple things.

I'd like to say and explain simply and I trust clearly from the scriptures what the Bible says about resurrection and its certainty.

If we're not careful, we just go to one chapter in the Bible that we hear about on Easter morning, 1 Corinthians 15, the controlling, dominant chapter on resurrection, and rightly do we turn to that.

But throughout the scriptures, Old Testament and New, there are clear references to the resurrection.

So I'd like us to just spend some time seeing in the breadth of Scripture what God says so clearly and pertinently and importantly about the resurrection.

And then I want to make sure that we will spend some time thinking about what that reality does for us.

In all of these messages, I'm really trying to do two things.

I'm trying to hit the cognitive, the analytical, the biblical teaching, the truth that we find there, but I don't want to leave it there.

Particularly as it relates to the future.

Particularly as it relates to the future of our resurrection, your resurrection.

I die, you die, he, she, and it dies, but I will be raised, you will be raised, he, she, and it will be raised.

All men everywhere, believers, unbelievers, saints, sinners, all categories throughout history will be raised.

All shall be raised.

No man anywhere will live forever, anywhere without a resurrection body.

And I want us to just spend some time talking about that.

But, but the scriptures puts this in a context of longings, desires that we have, that we're often not sufficiently in touch with, where we are longing for that which is to come, and we are to nurture, we are to stimulate, we are to relish the longing that God has placed within us, not just for this life, but for the life to come and for the resurrection body.

So I want to take some time as well to say what does this mean to us?

How do we feel about this?

Because scriptures are pretty clear.

We're not just cognitive people, we're deeply emotional people as well.

And there are feelings and desires and emotions that will only come to fruition in the resurrection.

And when we don't deal and allow those to transform us, then we are missing a good deal of what God has to say to us.

So that's what we're going to do this morning.

So I'd like to begin with the first of those two, and that's just the clear biblical teaching of the resurrection, and then the longing and the groaning and the eagerly anticipating of that reality.

Like I said, sometimes we think the teaching of the Bible and resurrection is limited to 1 Corinthians 15, our Easter Sunday passage.

Hopefully, there's not an Easter Sunday that goes by that we don't look and look seriously at 1 Corinthians 15.

But there's a whole lot more to it than that.

I want to begin by looking in the Old Testament.

In Jesus' day, there was a major debate because there were a whole group of people who didn't believe in the resurrection.

They were a sect or a denomination or a grouping within Judaism in Jesus' day.

They were the Sadducees.

And the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection.

And you may remember, if you're familiar with the gospel account, that at one point in Mark chapter 12, Jesus was interacting, and the writer says, the Sadducees came to him.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

Who uh the Sadducees came to him who say that there is no resurrection?

That was one of the distinctives of this major group.

And we have many believers, many Christians in any case, today, who take the resurrection very lightly or certainly don't put any emphasis on it.

And there would be plenty in the church out there that doesn't really believe in a literal resurrection.

That was confused in Jesus' day.

In the Old Testament, it is revealed, and it says very clearly that Jesus rebuked and rebutted their spurious, specious denials of the resurrection, and he turned to the Old Testament.

Now, the fact of the matter is that there's many things that are mentioned somewhat lightly in the Old Testament that are then picked up and explained much more fully in the new.

There is a progressiveness to revelation.

God did not reveal everything that there is that he wanted us to know all at once.

He did that over the course of the scriptures.

God doesn't reveal to you everything that you ought to know all at once.

Thankfully, God doesn't put his divine, gracious, yet sometimes painful thumb on every single area of your life all at once that you need to deal with.

We wouldn't be able to handle that.

Nor does he reveal everything all at once throughout the scriptures.

Particularly when it comes to the resurrection.

As we will see, the Old Testament clearly teaches the resurrection, but it doesn't say all that much about it.

And then the New Testament picks up on that and expounds on it much more fully.

But lest we fall into the error of the Sadducees, let's make sure we understand that the Old Testament does teach resurrection as well.

One of the clearest examples of that is Job chapter 19, verses 25 through 27.

Job 19:25–27

I'd like to ask you to actually turn in your Bibles with that.

Now, frankly, finding Job I find easier in my favorite Dead Tree Bible than in my digital Bible.

To find Job, all you have to do is go to the middle of the Bible and turn left.

Job, Psalms, Proverbs.

You go to the middle of the Bible and it's basically Psalms, it's before that.

Job, Psalms, Proverbs.

Job 19, verses 25 and 27.

Job 19:25

When we turn to the book of Job, an account, I believe, of a real man who really lived and narratives that are true, we are taken back to some of the earliest accounts of mankind.

The story of Job is very, very, very old.

In the chronological Bible, it would appear very early in the chronology of the scriptures.

And what we have is a man, just like us, a man, a man who went through all kinds of things, a man who suffered greatly.

In fact, the sufferings of Job probably make the things that we get upset about and we find difficult and painful in life to pale in comparison.

Not completely.

No, the suffering was what happened when he called out and he said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Where God the Father turned away from him and he experienced the horrors of God's condemnation.

In that sense, I think we can rightly say he experienced the terrors of hell.

But Job, he didn't experience that, but he experienced deep trauma at a physical, at an emotional, and I believe at a spiritual level as well.

And how Job processed that.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful story.

If you haven't read the book of Job recently, go back to it.

Pull it out, read it.

Job struggled with his sufferings.

No surprises there.

In this case, in Job chapter 19, in the middle of his sufferings, he says, verse 25, for I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the last day he will stand upon the earth.

Job 19 · chapter mention

And after my flesh has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.

Now it's very interesting that in the midst of his trials, what he finds is encouragement, confidence, hope, perseverance in his knowledge of who God is, not just his intellectual knowledge.

It went from here down to here.

He didn't go on a long, year-long journey into his past.

He focused on who God was.

He didn't call himself a victim, although he was a victim.

He focused on God who knew what he was doing, the God who was still on the throne.

His dealing with his own suffering found its focus in God.

And so he says, I know that my Redeemer lives.

And that's where I begin.

And then he says, verse 26, after my skin has been thus destroyed.

What's he saying?

He's saying, after his body lies in the grave and his flesh is destroyed, his skin rots away.

After that, after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold my eyes and not another.

He's saying, I know that he lives, and I know that a time will come when my flesh has been destroyed, that I will see him in my flesh.

Now, if this was the only reference in all of the scriptures, we might not derive our understanding of the resurrection.

But when we put that in the whole context, he's saying, I myself, with my eyes, while I'm in my flesh, after my flesh has been destroyed.

And I love the way he closes this off at the end of verse 27.

When he reflects on this, he says, My heart faints within me.

I'm almost overwhelmed.

I am deeply touched by this reality.

There's something about this that overwhelms me.

Woe is me, I am undone.

When Isaiah said that, it was because of his awareness of sin when he says, My heart faints within me when Job says that.

He is caught up in the glory and the reality of the resurrection of his resurrection.

And see, even in this verse, there is an emotional response.

Because we are not just rational, we are a total person.

And God has given us deep emotions.

And true theology touches us at deep levels.

If it doesn't, we're not thinking straight.

Alright, so there's one example.

Let me just turn to two more in the Old Testament.

There's many more than that.

Turn to Isaiah.

Isaiah chapter 26, verses 17 to 19.

Isaiah 26:17–19

The prophet Isaiah.

Hundreds of years, written hundreds of years after Job.

Isaiah chapter 26, verses 17 to 19.

Isaiah 26:17–19

So Isaiah speaking the word of the Lord says, like a pregnant woman who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, parenthetically, I mentioned before that there is a frequent connection in the Bible between what we experience when we pass from life before birth to life, that dark passage.

You know, life did not begin when you were born.

Life began before you were born, and life does not end when you die.

There was life here, real life here, and then there was this painful dark passage to this phase of life.

This is not the totality of life.

If we only see the here and now as life, we miss an incredibly significant understanding of life.

And then we have a dark passage.

We call it death.

We have a dark passage to go through which we do not anticipate with joy.

The process with dying we have an aversion to, and well we should, but what death brings is better by far.

And yet this parallel between the longings and groanings of a woman delivering a child, longing for that which is to come, to get this baby born and to get on with this baby's next phase of life, and to get freed from these pains of this life.

The same reality faces us as we think about the transition from this life to the transition of the life to come.

And there are forces at work that push us forward.

And as we reflect on life, death, and resurrection, there ought to be things that grow within us that cause us desires to get beyond this, to get to the next phase of life.

But it's interesting to me, like a pregnant woman who writes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, so were we because of you, O Lord.

We were pregnant and writhed, but we gave birth to wind.

We've accomplished no deliverance in the earth.

The inhabitants of this world have not fallen.

And so he's reflecting and describing circumstances in life now.

And then he says, verse 19, Your dead shall live.

Their bodies will rise.

Another, in the light of the New Testament in particular, and other verses, a clear picture that the bodies of those who have gone in the grave will rise.

And he goes on and he says, You who dwell in the dust, you who dwell in the dust, as it were, poetically calling to those who are still in the grave, awake and sing for joy, for your due is the due of life.

Light and the earth will give birth to the dead.

Again, that parallel between birth, the transition from pre-birth life to this life, and a parallel between the transition from this life and the life to come.

The earth will give birth to the death, to the dead.

All shall rise.

Your dead shall live, but their bodies shall rise.

Just one more of many other Old Testament passages we could look at.

Psalm chapter 16, Psalm 16.

Psalms 16 · chapter mention

Psalm of David reflecting on his own mortality.

And so David declares, and this psalm is picked up in the New Testament, especially in the book of Acts, and is applied to Jesus and Jesus' resurrection.

But he says, Psalm 16, verse 8, I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand.

Psalms 16:8

I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices.

My flesh also dwells secure.

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, an Old Testament reference to the place of the dead, whole different subject, nor let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life.

In your presence there is fullness of joy.

In your right hand are pleasures for evermore.

You shall not abandon my soul in the place of the dead, or let your holy one see corruption.

And he's reflecting on his own mortality.

And this, as I said, is picked up in the New Testament in Acts 2, as the Apostle Peter is talking about the resurrection of Jesus.

And that confirms that this is an actual Old Testament reference to resurrection.

There's many more Old Testament passages, but let's go on to the New Testament.

One that I'd like to have you turn to as well is John chapter 5, verses 25 and then 28 to 29.

John 5:25

We have seen this passage before.

This is another one of those central passages on resurrection.

So Jesus is spoking, is speaking, he's in the middle of a discourse, we're jumping into the middle of his thought, and he says, verse 25, Truly, truly I say to you, and when Jesus says that, it's a cue for listen up, truly, truly, I say to you, pay attention now.

I'm going to say something significant.

An hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

Talking about a future event of what will happen.

The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

Go down to verse 28.

Don't marvel at this.

Don't be surprised.

Shouldn't take you by surprise.

For an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice.

When he's talking about the dead in verse 25, he's talking about those who have physically died.

They're in the tombs.

So in the next breath he says, An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice.

And they won't just hear his voice, they will come out.

Those who have done good will come out to a resurrection of life.

Those who have done evil will come out to a resurrection of judgment.

All people will rise and their bodies that have been laying in the grave, and the immaterial parts of who there are, their soul, their spirit, their consciousness, their heart, their inclinations, their passions, their conscience, all of that immaterial part will be rejoined with the physical part that is laid in the tomb.

So don't marvel at this.

All who are in the tombs will hear his voice, and all will come out, some to a resurrection of life, and some to a resurrection of judgment.

As we will see, there are different orders of resurrection.

It's not just one general resurrection that happens at a point in time.

It's richer and broader than that.

There is a resurrection of the just, and there is the wreck which is a resurrection to life, there is a resurrection of those who have done evil, and that is a resurrection unto judgment.

John chapter six, verses uh thirty-nine to forty, and forty-four, and fifty-four.

John chapter six, for I have speaking, Jesus speaking once again, for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given to me, but raise it up on the last day.

So people have been given to Jesus.

In this context, it is believers who have been given to him, and Jesus promises that none of those who have been given to him will be lost.

It's a tremendous promise of encouragement and confidence as we look forward.

But then he goes on to say, not only that I shall lose none of them, but I will raise it up on the last day, for this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day.

Jesus is talking here about believers, and he makes it crystal clear.

God will not let them go, and Jesus will raise them up.

Verse 44, no one can come to me unless the Father who sends me draws him.

Verse 54.

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks on my blood, and this is again in the middle of a context, really talking about whoever experiences the reality of Christ's death, the blood and the broken body of Christ.

We celebrated communion last week, pointing to the flesh and the blood of Christ.

Whoever feeds on this, I will raise him up on the last day.

Clear, undisputable, indisputable, I think is the proper word, reference.

Luke 14.

Just make note of it.

I'm not going to take the time, but it's well worth it.

I just have some other things I want to talk about as well.

1 Thessalonians 4, 13 to 16, a passage we will come back to in a minute.

And Revelation 20 verses 4 and 5.

Revelation 20:4

Let me just cite that one for you.

Revelation 20, verses 4 to 5, and then verse 13.

Revelation 20:4–5

Speaking in this point about future events, he said, I saw thrones, and seated on them were those who have the authority to whom to whom the authority to judge was committed.

I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and the Word of God, and those who had not worshipped the beast or his image, and had not received its mark on his forehead in their hands.

So this is at the end of what we would call the tribulation, and it is before the millennium that we talked about last week.

And he says, They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.

So he's talking about different series of resurrections, but clearly teaching the reality of the resurrection.

So let me talk a little bit about what I made reference to, the order.

It's very interesting if we look in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

1 Corinthians 15, verse 23.

1 Corinthians 15:23

It's in a broader context of verse 20 or 22 to 26.

He says to us if I could get 1 Corinthians 15, not Acts 15, I think it would help.

1 Corinthians 15, verse 23.

1 Corinthians 15:23

Beginning with verse 20.

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.

The first fruits, the the prototype, the foretaste, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For as a man, by one man death came, so by a man also the resurrection of the dead.

Verse 22, for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.

But, verse 23, but each in his own order, Christ the first fruits.

Then it is coming those who belong to him.

Then at the end, when he delivers the kingdom, there will be yet another resurrection.

Now I could chase this through.

I want to keep it an overview and really simple.

There is an order, each to their own order in the resurrection.

Sometimes we think incorrectly of one general resurrection.

On that great getting up day, something will happen, and all of the dead will be raised from all times, all places, the unrighteous, the righteous, uh, those who have been martyred, those who are faithful, everyone all along, believers, unbelievers, they'll all come and stand before the throne of God.

And I don't know how to picture that.

If I did picture it, it would probably be poorly.

But I picture this mass, this millions upon millions of people of all the ages who are there before this throne.

And going from the throne, there are two lines, those who are going to life and those who are going to the second death, condemnation and of hell, as though it's all one event.

We're going to be talking about judgment in the last message in this series, if you still have the courage to come.

But that is not the way the resurrection is portrayed, not all at one time.

Each in his own order.

So all will be raised.

I don't have time to go into those verses.

We did see the John 5 passage.

All shall be raised.

Acts 24, 14 to 15, when Paul defends himself and takes the unashamed stand on the universality of resurrection.

The righteous raised to life, the unrighteous raised to condemnation.

But each in his own order.

There is a sequence, there's different phases to the resurrection.

If we know anything that God has revealed about future events, then we know and we should know a lot because God has revealed quite a bit.

But if we'll just take, for the simple sake of argument, this picture that I painted last week, 30,000 foot view from creation to eternity, from the Garden of Eden to the new heaven and the new earth.

Two major events on earth in between, the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ, each in his own order.

The first fruits of the resurrection was Jesus' resurrection himself.

And that happened 2,000 years ago.

There were also, if you read carefully in the gospel account, some of the tombs were opened and people came out of the tombs.

I'm not going there this morning.

But the first instance of real resurrection, of someone who had died and was raised again, never to die again, was Christ himself.

And then at the end of the tribulation, at the beginning before the beginning of the thousand-year reign of Christ, as it says clearly in 1 Corinthians 15, 23, and that's what the 1 Thessalonians passage is referring to, then we, we, if we're still alive at that point, will be taken to be with God, but those who have already died, they will be raised.

And I kind of suspect, although it's possible you and I could live until then, I rather suspect that I'll already be in the tomb by the time that event takes place.

And what I anticipate is being raised at that red arrow.

That red arrow.

And then just as eternity begins, there is another resurrection of the dead, those who died during the time of the millennium.

Now, all I'm trying to say is that resurrection is real.

It is clearly taught in Scripture.

It's a rich, broad, sometimes complex, but at the other hand, pretty simple.

Our bodies at one point go in the grave and they rot.

And one day, one day, we may look forward with great and eager anticipation to the resurrection of our bodies.

All men live forever somewhere.

And if we're believers in Christ, the best is yet to come.

And what happens at that point is something to be highly desired.

So much so that I believe it's fair to talk about a desire, an almost, almost longing, that almost hurts for that which is to come.

Because we were not made for this phase of life alone.

And just as before we were born, we were still in our mother's womb.

I don't have any active recollection of that.

Perhaps sometime when we get to heaven, somebody will hit the play button on some celestial DVD player, and we'll be able to hear some of those sounds.

Fetuses respond to sounds in this world.

There's not much that they seem to know about it, but but there is some awareness of this next world.

They pass through the dark tunnel and the pangs of birth, and then they come into this life.

And we don't know a whole lot about that life to come.

We're so preoccupied with this life.

But what is revealed to us is to cause us, I believe, to be hungry and long and anxious for this.

Many things about this phase of life don't really have their fulfillment, maybe don't even have much to do with this phase of life.

Because this is not all there is.

There is the life to come.

And when we ignore that, we can't live aright in this phase of life.

Now, to get a hold of this at a kind of an emotional level is uh it's not real easy for me.

I'm not uh an emotional guy.

I'm kind of cognitive, linear, propositional.

I love theology, blah, blah, blah.

That's not the way the Bible approaches theology, blah, blah, blah, linear, cognitive.

The truth of God moves us at a deep level.

And what we experience now is meant to make us hungry for that which is to come.

Poets and philosophers help even me get in touch with some of that.

For me, frankly, the biggest help is C.

S.

Lewis.

C.

S.

Lewis said, for example, if I find in myself a desire, a longing, something that I want, which no experience in this life will satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

In this life we have desires and longings that do not, cannot find their ultimate fulfillment now.

They were never intended to.

They were to be a pointer to life to come.

That's why there is this anticipation of what is ahead.

If we don't anticipate what's ahead, we're missing out in this life, and we're trying to find in this life that which only will find its true fulfillment in the life to come.

I want us to look briefly.

I want to point you to two passages, make note of these.

But these are passages that are talking about these desires for what is ahead, these longings.

2 Corinthians 5, verses 1 through 8.

2 Corinthians 5:1–8

Paul talking about, I know that if the tent that is our earthly home, and he's talking about its physical body, if that earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, for in this tent, listen, in this tent, in this phase of life, we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.

If indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked, not be found without our bodies.

For while we are still in the tent, we groan, being burdened, but not burdened to be unclothed, but to be further clothed.

So that which is mortal will be swallowed up by immortality.

What he's saying is that our longing is not to lie dead in the grave.

It's not even only to be in heaven with Jesus, but to be in heaven with Jesus with a resurrected body.

We were meant to live in a body forever, the resurrection body.

And what we long for, if we get a sense of what's to come, we long for that, and that changes the way we live now.

The Romans 8 passage, Paul says, when I consider the sufferings of this present age, they're not worthy to be compared with the glories that are to come.

And he says, uh, all creation, we along with all creation, we groan, we long for, we anticipate the full revelation of the children of God, when we will be all that we should be.

And Scripture ties that to the resurrection, because we will not live forever without a body.

So there is this anticipation and longing and groaning.

We were created and designed to exist in the physical earth was a physical body.

As a result of sin, the earth as we know it has become something that it was not and something that it is not yet what it will be, the new heaven and the new earth.

With a new, could I say, resurrected new earth, we with new, renewed resurrection bodies will dwell forever, and God will dwell with us.

Heaven will come down.

That's Revelation 21 and 22.

We touched on it last week and we'll see more about it.

In the meanwhile, we are born as humans with what, again, C.

S.

Lewis, most helpful for me, a lifelong nostalgia.

It's an interesting phrase.

A nostalgia is a yearning for something past.

But C.

S.

Lewis says that past is only a foretaste, and our nostalgia moves forward, an inconsolable longing.

Longing to be reunited with something in the universe for which we now feel cut off.

I'm speaking, uh giving C.

S.

Lewis uh his due.

We feel cut off.

We feel to be, we long to be on the inside of some door that we have always seen from the outside, this inconsolable longing.

We are made for heaven.

The desire for our proper place is in us.

It's just not yet attached to the true object.

That's why I use the illustration of a trailer that's got the tongue that's going around looking for something to be hitched to.

There's longings and desires, and we keep trying to find what's going to satisfy, what's going to fulfill.

And so we attach it to power, we attach it to sex, we attach it to food, we attach it to success, we attach it to all kinds of things, in and of themselves not inherently wrong.

They just never satisfy.

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Louis XIV, 15th, 16th, 14th, who had everything that her culture could offer, she said, Nothing tastes, nothing tastes.

And so we keep going along, we try to find something that tastes.

And so we attach our trailer onto an object that will never satisfy, but is only a foretaste.

So all of the good things in this life, good as they are, children, beauty, enjoyments, the created realm, all of the good things in life.

They are good.

And yet if we attach ourselves to those, we will be dissatisfied, we will be disappointed, because none of that is what we were created for.

They're a foretaste, a foretaste of glory divine, to use a word of the old hymn.

And that's what we're looking for.

And C.S.

Lewis spoke about a desire for a long, far-off country, echoing the words of Hebrews 11.

He says, a desire for our own far-off country in which we've which we find in ourselves even now, a desire for something that has never yet appeared in our experience.

The scent of a flower we've never found.

He talks about the scent of a flower we have never found.

He talks about the melody of a song that we've never heard.

That you know very well in the depths of your soul, there is more to it than this around us.

As good as this is, this is not what it's all about.

It's only part, and this will never satisfy.

And when we begin to allow ourselves at a deep level to long for that which this world does not provide, it will transform the way we live now.

Then we live as those in Hebrews lived, as pilgrims and aliens here, not being satisfied with the passing pleasures of sin for a season, but on a journey, pilgrims on our way home.

The people of God, of whom God is not ashamed.

I had a real good friend who died.

I walked with him the last uh six months of his life.

Very, very difficult, very, very painful, very, very tragic.

Dieter for years, that was his name.

Dieter for years, not Dieter for years, it was Dieter Hoppel.

Anyway, for years, Dieter had signed his emails with this statement, and he got it.

I'm just a temporary resident of planet dirt.

Now that's not meaning to despair the beauty of the world around us.

It's just to put it in the right perspective.

My friends, you were not meant for this life.

You were not destined for this life.

Your fulfillment will not be found in this life.

And all of the mud pies that we make when God offers us a day at the beach, another phrase of C.S.

Lewis, beautiful understated 1950s British terminology.

We're content to make mud pies in the dirt where God offers us a day at the beach.

This is not our home.

And as we get in touch with that, that will transform our lives now, and it will encourage perseverance through suffering and difficulty.

It will change the way we view the world around us, the deterioration of our bodies, the tsunamis that destroy millions of people.

When we're looking for things in this life that we will not find in this life, we should be looking forward.

And that looking forward transforms us.

I love eschatology, future events, not because I'm driven to get it all straight, but because there is a future and a hope, and we may know with a certainty that we will be raised to resurrection life, and we will find the fulfillment of every impoverished desire that we're so fascinated with now, will find its heavenly fulfillment with Christ in heaven.

And that's where we need to be heading.

We need to be the people of God, like the Hebrews 11 people, looking forward, not just content with here and now.

I'm gonna pray.

I'm gonna stop being lathered.

I'm not gonna pray with the benediction.

I'm just gonna pray.

So would you stand and let me pray?

Heavenly Father, it is my prayer that I first of all, as I spout off all of this stuff, that I first of all will have a deep, deep hunger for heaven.

It's growing, Lord, but it's not yet full and rich.

And I pray that we as a church, we as a church, we who know so much in many ways, that we would be longing to experience fully that which is ahead, which is better by far, where we eagerly long to be.

Would you, O Lord, detach us from all of the wrong things?

Help us, that's a lifelong process.

Would you wean us away from Mother Earth and grow us up for heaven?

May we be the people of God who are truly moving forward with deep desires for the land across the Jordan.

That which you have promised us, a new heaven, a new earth.

And we will look back, and we will look back one day and we'll understand, may it not be to our chagrin, that this is not what it's all about.

Lord, lift our eyes, lift our hearts, transform our longings, place them where they belong, in you and in you alone.

I pray, Father, in Christ's name, that you would do that.

Amen.