The Resurrected Body

Father, we ask that you would gently but powerfully pour out the Holy Spirit upon us.

Father, you know that we're afraid to talk about certain things.

You know that we're afraid to think about certain things.

You know that we're afraid to speak about certain things.

And Father, some of those things we shouldn't say are things that we shouldn't say.

But others are that we need to learn, Father, how to talk about them and how to think about them.

And so we ask, Father, that we would receive the healing medicine, the healing sustenance, the healing food that your word is.

That as we think about Jesus and his death and resurrection, that your word would enter deep into our hearts, deep into the center of who we are.

And that your word would rule there and form us so that we might live free lives for the good of others and for your great glory and the furtherance of your kingdom.

And we ask this, Father, in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.

Please be seated.

I'm going to talk about death.

I'm going to talk about death this morning.

And it's not because I have a fixation about it or anything, but it's because the Bible text talks about it.

And we preach through books of the Bible.

Is this mic all right?

It seems closer to something than usual.

Anyway, we're all fine?

Okay.

I'm going to talk about death.

And so just before we get into it, and I want to just, I mean, one of the things about being here, and not only those of you who are here and those of you who are online,

I have no idea whether just this week you've gotten very bad news about a very serious illness, maybe cancer.

Maybe you have had that over the last little while and you haven't even told anybody about it.

And so I just want to let you know that even though we're going to talk about some things here, and I acknowledge that I don't know your situation, and it might be hard to hear about death.

Maybe you've had the death of a loved one just recently, and you're here this morning or you're watching online.

And some of this might be very difficult to think about and hear.

But one of the things that we at Church of the Messiah are trying to do is that we're trying to learn more and more to trust the Bible and to trust Jesus and to walk towards those difficult things that he raises with us,

rather than walking away from them or sticking our head in sand like an ostrich, to try to walk towards it with him and to get wisdom from it.

And if you are here today or online and you have had some very, very bad news, I mean, this is the best place to be able to share it.

And if you're online and you have no one you can share it with, contact us and we'll see what we can do to try to help.

But Jesus wants you to know his presence and power in the midst of the very hardest times in your life.

I personally take great comfort in the words of the 23rd Psalm.

That go ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

And we have a good shepherd who walks with us in those hard times, even to the very point of death and beyond.

But it was an odd text. It was a text about death. We're looking at the gospel.

Let's see what Jesus has to say about this.

It's Mark chapter 12, verses 18 and following.

Mark 12:18

Mark 12, 18 and following. If you're using one of these, it's on page 74.

And the Bible text is going to say something which is also, I mean, not only is it a bit hard because it talks about death,

it's hard because he blows up the way that the average Canadian talks about death.

So what happens? Let's see.

Verse 18,

And Sadducees came to him.

Now just Sadducees, by the way, were one of the sort of groups or denominations, if you want to call it,

that existed in Judaism at the time of Jesus.

This isn't an anthropology lecture or archaeology lecture,

so I'm not going to bore you with all of the things that they believed and didn't believe.

The two main things, one of them is that Mark himself lets you know the important piece of information,

that they didn't believe there was life after death.

They believed that when you died, you died.

That was it.

The other piece which isn't in here, which we know from ancient sources,

is that most, if not all, priests at that time were Sadducees.

And that's going to become relevant towards the end of the sermon.

So I'll read it again.

And Sadducees came to Jesus.

They're the ones who say that there is no resurrection.

In other words, you die and you die.

You die and that's it.

Nothing else.

And they asked Jesus a question, saying,

Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child,

the man must take the widow, in other words, his brother's widow,

and raise up offspring for his brother.

In other words,

Mary entered into a type of marital relationship with her to get her pregnant,

so that she can have a child.

And this is while he's also potentially married to his own wife.

Now, just sort of pause here again.

For many of us, there's a yuck factor to this.

And for some of you, there's a bit of a,

that is really weird.

George, is that really in the Bible?

Yes, it is in the Bible.

It's in the book of Deuteronomy.

And the other thing, in case some of you are wondering,

does that mean Christians are supposed to be keeping this law today?

And the answer, very briefly, is no, they're not.

But here I have a bit of a decision.

I could talk about this law,

as found in the book of Deuteronomy,

or we could go on with the argument as Jesus develops it,

and we're not going to talk about Deuteronomy.

When we preach through Deuteronomy someday,

we'll talk about this for now.

Now, actually, what you need to really get from this,

the Sadducees, in a sense,

were the typical Canadian atheists.

They're just the same.

I mean, obviously, they're different.

I mean, the average Canadian atheist wouldn't be a priest.

Well, maybe in some denominations,

but we're not going to talk about that.

But so just to make it in terms of where Canada is,

in a sense, what the Sadducees are

is they're the modern Canadian atheists.

And the Jewish people at the time, believe it or not,

actually had similar views to most contemporary Canadians.

And so that's the point.

The Sadducees are the gadflies here in this case,

and they're trying to puncture the common belief

of the average Jewish person.

And so just listen to the rest of this,

and then I'm going to show you how this is actually

a very, very Canadian question.

Like, it's...

Don't get sidetracked with this odd law in Deuteronomy.

Just if you listen to the rest of it,

you'll realize this is as if Christopher Hitchens was among us.

This is as if a group of Canadians were to get...

have a full-blown discussion about issues

that Canadians all have opinions on.

So verse 20, here's how the argument goes, right?

So in verse 19, you know,

man's brother dies, leaves no child,

so the man must take the widow

and raise up offspring for his brother.

Verse 20, there were seven brothers.

The first took a wife, and when he died,

he left no offspring.

And the second took her and died,

leaving no offspring.

And the third likewise.

And the seven left no offspring.

Last of all, the woman also died.

So all seven of them had been married to the woman.

Here's the question.

In the resurrection, ha, ha, ha, they think,

when they rise again,

whose wife will she be for the seven had her as wife?

Now, how is this a very Canadian thing?

Well, I've gone to lots of funerals.

And I've led some funerals, obviously,

quite a few over the years.

The average Canadian,

what does the average Canadian believe?

When you die, you go to a better place.

That's what the average Canadian says.

I've been to piles of funerals

where they say,

not only do you go to a better place,

what else do they say?

They'll say,

mom is now reunited with dad

or with the brother or the sister

in a better place.

It's a very, very Canadian thing, isn't it?

In fact, average Canadians sort of believe

very similar to Jewish people.

It's sort of,

I'll not really define what that better place is,

but fundamentally,

it's sort of like earth,

only maybe, I guess, a bit better.

And you're not going to die again.

And that's sort of what happens when you die.

You go to a better place,

which is better than here.

You're not going to die again.

And, well, the husband,

the novel I'm reading right now,

a constant refrain,

as the guy is,

the hero is thinking he might die,

but it's not going to be a bad thing

because he will be reunited with his wife,

who's dead,

and his daughter, who's died.

And that's a very Canadian thing.

So, think about it then.

We now have these,

in a sense,

ancient atheists

who believe that when you die,

you die.

That's it.

And they now are talking

to the average Canadian,

and they're doing something

that in Canadian culture

is considered to be rude

and ill-mannered.

And so, maybe only stand-up comedians

would talk about it,

or me on this particular Sunday morning.

And only because

it's what the Bible says.

So, what happens

if you have a woman,

and she's married to a man,

and the man dies of a heart attack,

and then she marries another man,

and he dies of cancer,

and then she marries another man,

and he dies of a stroke.

She has very bad luck, obviously.

And then finally, she dies.

Well, at the funeral,

when they say she goes to a better place,

what's she going to do?

Is she going to have three husbands?

It's not going to be a better place

for the husbands,

and if only she picks one of them,

sucks to be the other two.

How's that a better place?

Now, let's just sort of

press into this argument a little bit,

since we've opened the door

of rudeness in Canadian culture.

Imagine that there's a man and woman,

and they're married.

They have a couple of kids.

The woman, the husband,

in very, very typical manner,

after the kids have gotten a bit older,

he finds a younger, prettier model,

in quotation marks,

and he divorces his first wife

and marries his second wife.

And then, three years later,

or five years later,

the man and his new wife,

they die in a car accident

out in the west end of the city,

and the wife,

she dies of some other reason

in the east end of the city,

and there's separate funerals.

And at the funeral,

at the first wife's funeral,

the priest or the minister

or the officiant says

she's gone to a better place.

At the other funeral,

of the man with his second wife,

they say she's gone to a better place.

They've both gone to a better place.

Well, how is it exactly a better place

for the woman in the east end

because she hates the guy's guts

and despises the trophy wife?

How is that a better place?

How is that a better place?

You can multiply.

As you can see,

there's profound problems

with the average Canadian view.

Now, just as an aside,

obviously this is going beyond the text,

but this is how I think

the Sadducees would argue

or the average Canadian atheist.

Many Canadians would say,

okay, well, the better place

isn't a physical place.

It's sort of more of a spiritual place.

In fact, that's actually how most people,

many Canadians would think about it.

It's like a spiritual place.

You go to a,

you're just like a spirit now.

Well, some of you are big hockey fans

and you know that you've heard of

Borea Salming,

who was a famous defenseman

for the Toronto Maple Leafs

for many years.

I think he's in the Hall of Fame.

And he just recently had

a very emotional time in Toronto.

He has Lou Gehrig's disease,

very, very far advanced.

He's only 71 years old.

There was a very emotional ceremony

at Maple Leaf Gardens

when he was wheeled out onto the ice

with some of his former teammates.

And a long ovation,

he went back to Sweden

and he just died a couple of days ago.

And Chris Selle,

a columnist for the National Post,

he's written, interestingly enough,

he wrote a column yesterday in the paper

arguing for medically assisted dying,

as they have in Canada.

And here's how he begins his column.

There probably isn't any good way to die

from ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease.

The cruel motor neuron disease

that gradually renders its victims

unable to speak,

eat, move,

and even breathe independently.

It's among the most chilling diagnoses,

surely.

The idea of losing one's physical functions

while one's mental functions remain mostly intact

is the stuff of nightmares.

And we would all agree.

All agree.

But he's also just described heaven

if it's spiritual with nothing physical.

The average Canadian envisions a life

that's like having ALS for all eternity.

A soul or a spirit with no physical connection.

I guess some average Canadians would go,

okay, but the other very typical way,

and we'll move into the text

to see what Jesus has to say about everything.

It's a very, very common thing to hear at funerals

and in movies at funerals.

People say something like,

don't grieve for me when I die.

I am in the wind.

I am in the flowers.

I am in the sunshine.

I am in the mountains.

And they go a range of very, very beautiful things

that they're going to be into.

So don't grieve because that's where they've gone.

To which the Sadducees would say this,

really?

You don't have the power to keep yourself alive

and you have the power to do all that?

Like, how does that work?

You don't even have the power to keep yourself alive,

but you think you have the power

to go in all the wind and all the flowers

and all the sunshine?

In fact, all that is is,

sorry if I'm offending,

it's a type of deep pride.

Unmoored from thinking.

So the Sadducees are probably giving each other high fives

because they think that Jesus

has the average Canadian view of the afterlife

and that as such,

he'll have no answer to their question.

Now just sort of a pause here.

One of the things that this text

has really helped me to remember is,

and it's an important thing for us,

many of you will notice

if you've come to the church before

that I often don't use just the word God.

I mean, sometimes I say the word God, obviously.

I mean, it's a church service.

But increasingly, I try to use the word triune God.

And that's because we need to remember

that the average Canadian doesn't believe

in the same God that the Christian believes in.

That we as Christians have a fundamentally different view

of what God is or who God is than most Canadians.

I try to remember when people say

they have problems with the idea of God

or they don't see why it matters whether God exists,

I try to remember to ask them,

well, who or what do you think God is?

And if I remember to do that

and then they try to describe it

and then I tell them, well, I don't believe

that God exists either, they're very surprised.

Because the average Canadian thinks

that I'm going to agree with them,

that we're going to agree with them.

And the mistake that the Pharisees make

is they think that Jesus has the average view

of resurrection as he just has that average view.

But Jesus is going to show them that he doesn't.

Look how Jesus now answers this particular issue.

And what he does, he's going to sort of give

three different fundamental images.

They're all very briefly written.

They need to be unpacked a little bit.

But what they are is an outline of reason,

an outline of hope, and an outline of grace.

They open a door to something which is both fully reasonable,

but is also fully grounded in a good reason to have hope

and an understanding of God's grace.

So let's see what happens.

Verse 24.

So Jesus said to them,

Is this not the reason you are wrong?

That's how he begins.

And as we're going to see in a moment,

he's not only saying that they're wrong,

but he's saying that in a sense

the average Jewish belief is wrong as well.

He's saying both are wrong.

Is this not the reason you are wrong?

Because you know neither the scriptures

nor the power of God.

So he set before them that they're wrong.

Second thing then is that the next thing

is he gives the first of these three key sort of insights

that we could meditate upon for a moment.

The first one is this, verse 25.

For when they rise,

that is when people rise from the dead,

they neither marry nor are given in marriage.

But are like angels in heaven.

Now just pause here for a second.

It's a very, very short phrase.

It's a very powerful and deep phrase.

But it's easy to misunderstand it.

He is not saying that when I die,

I become an angel.

Or that when you die, you become an angel.

He's not saying that at all.

He's saying something different.

He's saying...

Well, here is...

Hear about it for a second.

If you think about it,

basically what he's saying is

what happens after death

is going to involve a world

where our categories

have next to no ability to comprehend it.

I'll explain a little bit in a moment.

So we know a few things about angels

for devout Christians.

We know they exist.

We know they're pure spirit.

We know that God can send them

and that they can do some things

in this physical world.

And they can somehow or another

communicate with human beings.

But beyond that,

do we know if they have friends?

Do we know if they have anything

corresponding to what we understand

as sex or gender?

Do we know how they communicate?

Do we know what life is like for them?

We don't know anything about them, really.

We just know they exist.

And the fact of the matter is

is that God couldn't even communicate to us, really,

anything about angelic existence

because it's in a completely different category.

Like, we don't have any categories

for creatures that are pure spirit.

Like, we just don't.

I mean, that's just using our reason.

And so Jesus is saying

that whatever is going to be

in the new heaven and the new earth,

and there is going to be

a new heaven and new earth,

there's going to be a resurrection.

You have to understand

that it's going into a realm

where we don't have the categories

to comprehend it.

I'll give you another example,

which is a biblical example,

not the one that Jesus uses.

And I'm going to circle back,

I think, as to why Jesus doesn't use this one.

If you...

I got this one from Sam Albury.

A carrot seed doesn't look anything like a carrot.

And an acorn doesn't look anything like an oak tree.

And if you imagine a world of, you know,

somehow vaguely sentient,

like carrot seeds it could think,

and maybe they get some rumors

from some divine being

that there's something called carrots.

Well, they wouldn't have anything at all,

they wouldn't have any way at all

of understanding how when they die,

they don't just become like a bigger seed,

they become a carrot.

Carrot.

Like, carrots like water.

Seeds don't, because it'll kill them, right?

Like, they don't have the categories for that.

It's just completely different.

Acorns and oak trees are so different,

and an acorn can be carried around.

They think, okay, that must mean oaks are better,

so they get easier to carry around.

No, no, no, no, you can't carry oak trees.

No, no, that just doesn't make,

they have no place to understand it.

And so that's what Jesus is saying,

that human beings do not have the categories

to comprehend what the resurrected life

is going to be like.

Now, here's the second piece,

because he doesn't just say this,

he says this thing,

and this is a very puzzling piece,

and so you need to take a step back,

and then you'll see how wonderful it is.

Look at what he says next in verse 26.

So, by the way, back there,

he doesn't say,

the first thing that he's saying

doesn't mean that there's no connections

between husbands and wives,

or kids and children, or parents.

He's just saying,

whatever's going to be there,

there's no category in our experience

for what that means.

That's what he's just saying.

I can't answer it.

Verse 26,

and as for the dead being raised,

have you not read in the book of Moses,

in the passage about the bush,

how God spoke to him, saying,

I am the God of Abraham,

and the God of Isaac,

and the God of Jacob?

Now, how does this prove anything at all?

Well, it's a very subtle type of argument

that he's making,

that you only really understand

if you understand all of the book of Genesis,

and Exodus,

and all those first five books,

and it's this.

We use a human analogy.

Imagine for a moment

that your dad lives in another country,

actually,

and you've been promising,

or just lives very far away,

and you've been promising for a long time

that you're going to return to that country

to visit your father,

or you're going to go to return

to visit your mother,

and then, I mean,

apart from COVID,

you're busy with jobs,

you're busy with your kids,

there's some financial crunches,

you always mean very well,

and you continually promise

that you're going to come back,

and you're going to see your parent,

but then the parent dies,

and you didn't keep your promise,

right?

For some people,

it can be very, very hard.

It doesn't even have to be another country.

It could be something as simple

as your grandfather,

or some other loved one,

really wants to return

to the cottage that they grew up in,

and experience just one more time,

maybe,

being able to be up there

and have a campfire,

or just enjoy the cottage,

and you keep promising them

you're going to take them,

you're going to take them,

you're going to take them,

you're going to take them,

and you just never get around

to taking them,

and then they die,

and everybody would say,

and you yourself would feel

that you did not keep your promise,

and it's the stuff of books and movies

about how people wrestle

with the guilt

of not keeping their promise.

Now, when we were reading

through the book of Genesis,

the story of Abraham,

earlier on in this year,

one of the things,

if you notice,

and if you don't remember,

you can go back

and you can read,

that God made a series

of promises to Abraham,

but at the end of the book,

many of those promises

weren't kept,

or were they?

If they weren't kept,

does that mean

that God didn't keep his promise?

Does God,

the triune God,

have regret

that he didn't get

to keep his word to Abraham?

Well, the answer is,

if Abraham is still alive,

if Isaac is still alive,

if Jacob is still alive,

then you can't see

that God didn't keep his promise.

And that's what's significant

about the quote.

And here's the thing

which is very important for us.

And this is maybe

part of the reason

why Jesus uses the example

of angels rather than seeds.

See, the problem

with the seed analogy

is that we human beings

might think,

well, seeds turning,

a carrot seed

turning into a carrot

is just a natural process.

If you plant the carrot seed,

unless the dogs dig it up,

and so there's no,

it doesn't grow,

or unless a bunny rabbit

comes as the green leaves

are coming up

and eats it

and kills the carrot,

that it's just

a natural process.

And we human beings

might think

it's just a natural process.

In fact,

that's what the average

Canadian thinks,

that it's just

a natural process.

You live,

you die,

and then you live

in this new type

of resurrected life,

although you don't know

how to answer

the questions

of the Sadducees,

of the Canadian atheists.

And Jesus is saying

it's not a natural process.

People are kept alive

after death

because of

the promise

of God.

You and I

are dependent

on the promise

of God.

It's not natural.

It's dependent

on his promise.

It's his promise

that gives you life.

See,

this actually

is going to talk

about another thing

which is undergirding

the average way

that we Canadians

think about things

like this.

We tend to think

of it in terms

of either

I defeat death

and live

or death defeats me

and I die.

I defeat death

or death defeats me

and Jesus

is saying

there's a

that's not the right

way to think about it.

It's not whether

you defeat

you're not going

to defeat death

you're just not

going to defeat death.

It is going to win.

But there's another option

that there can be

a promise from God

that you can share

in the defeat

of death of Jesus.

But to do that

requires

humbling yourself

and letting go

of your proud

determination

that unless you

defeat death

you want death

to win

and Jesus says

no, no, no, no, no, no.

What you really need

is the promise

of God.

And then the final

piece of the puzzle

is the third thing

that he says

that's verse

27.

He is not

the God

of the dead

but of the living.

You are quite wrong.

And note here

how he says

wrong at the beginning

and wrong at the end.

And why is this interesting?

This is a very powerful

emotional

not only is it

an intellectual statement

but it's an imaginative

statement

and an emotional statement.

And we all

intuitively understand

that.

That there's a radical

difference between

the God of the dead

and the God of the living.

They're radically

different images

of God.

Those of you

who like movies

and books

about drug cartels

out of Mexico

you'll know

that there's a

apparently

if the books

are accurate

there's sort of

a cult

of a worship

of a particular

type of

sort of

Mexican type

of goddess.

I think she's called

Santeria

and she's the goddess

of death.

And you go there

and there's skulls

and there's

and it inspires them

to kill

and to rape

and to loot

and to do

complete and other

atrocities.

And you all

would understand

that if you were

to go to a temple

devoted to the

God of death

it would look

very different

than going to

the temple

devoted to

the God of life.

That they're

emotionally

intellectually

completely and

utterly different

images.

And what Jesus

is saying is

the God

the triune God

who does exist

is not the God

of death

he is the God

of life.

He is living

alive

the God of life.

And our

entering into

a life after

death

a resurrected

life that we

have no

categories for

in our mind

is dependent

not upon

anything that

you have

done

but upon

the promise

of God.

It is based

on the promise

of God.

And then of

course

in a couple

of days

see what

I didn't tell

you and some

of you do

know is that

this incident

in this story

happens a

couple of

days before

Jesus dies

on a cross

and happens

then a day

or two

before Jesus

will rise

from the

dead.

He will

physically

literally

rise from

the dead.

He will

enter into

death

taste all

there is

to taste

of death

and he

will emerge

on the

far side

of death

having

defeated

the sin

the rebellion

against God

which causes

death

and have

defeated

death

itself.

And the

good news

and see

by the way

that's the

power of

God.

Earlier on

when Jesus

says you

know neither

the scriptures

nor the power

of God

he's not

talking about

the fact

that God

is omnipotent.

He doesn't

say you do

not know

the scriptures

you know

neither the

scriptures

nor divine

omnipotence.

In the

Bible the

power of

God is

the death

and resurrection

of Jesus

which is

available for

you to

receive by

faith.

I am not

ashamed of

the gospel.

Why?

For it is

the power

of God

for salvation

to all

who believe.

That's the

message of

the Bible.

The message

of the Bible

is the

power of

God is

the gospel

the good

news that

Jesus lived

the life

you could

not live.

He died

the death

that you

deserve.

He takes

upon himself

the doom

you deserve.

He is

your substitute.

There's an

active exchange

and when you

put your

faith and

trust in

Jesus

that which

keeps you

far from

God

that which

means that

death will

triumph over

you justly

that

Jesus

takes all

of that

and he

emerges on

the far

side of

death

and he

speaks to

you and

me today

on the

far side

of death

saying

come to

me

all who

labor and

are heavy

laden and

I will

give you

rest.

Take my

yoke upon

you and

learn from

me for

I am

gentle and

lowly of

heart and

you will

find rest

for your

souls.

That is the

constant message

of the gospel

the promise of

God that if you

put your faith

and trust in

Jesus you are

united with

Christ in

his death and

resurrection and

you get to

share in his

resurrection.

salvation.

Just a couple

of things in

closing.

First of all

one of the

things which is

really interesting

about this

text you see

Jesus in a

sense says

that both the

Sadducees and

the average

Jewish belief

are wrong

but at the

same time he

fulfills them

in a surprising

way in a far

deeper way than

they could ever

have possibly

imagined.

In Acts

Acts 6:7

chapter 6

verse 7

there is a

very small

little verse

which says

that many

priests came

to believe in

Jesus after

his resurrection.

In other

words what he is

saying is that

many Sadducees

came to believe

in Jesus after

his resurrection.

I mean he

physically

literally proved

that resurrection

was true.

He physically

literally proved.

See the

Sadducees

wanted to

emphasize reason

and the

average Canadian

what they

want to

emphasize is

intuition.

And for

Canadians there

is no way to

reconcile reason

and intuition.

Reason tells

you that all

die.

Intuition tells

you that death

can't win.

And so we

have these two

different desires

and there is no

way to reconcile

them within the

categories of

Canadian thought

but in the

gospel.

Jesus says

there's good

historical reasons

to believe that

Jesus rose from

the dead.

And reason

itself points

to the

reasonableness

of how Jesus

has described

what this new

life, the

resurrected life

will look like.

And to

Canadians he's

saying your

intuitions are

true.

They don't come

from anywhere.

I'm telling you

your intuitions

ultimately come

from me.

Love is

stronger than

death.

I defeat

death for

you.

This text is

also telling

us that your

body matters.

In the

resurrection I

will have a

body and so

will you.

See a human

being, there's

two ways to

look at a

human being.

I mean every

human being is

made in the

image of God

and every

human being is

on one hand

looked at

from one

angle.

I am an

embodied soul.

And looked at

from another

way I am an

ensouled, sorry,

looked at from

one way I am an

embodied soul,

looked at from

another way I am

an ensouled body.

We are meant to

be soul and

body, mind,

heart, will, and

body in a

unity.

That's how we

were meant to

be.

That's how God

designed us to

be in his

image.

And what this

text is telling

us is that the

body matters.

We in our day

and age we tend

to think that

what really

matters is that

the mind matters

or that the

feelings matter

or our desires

matter.

As if somehow

or another I am

a set of desires

trapped in a

body, sometimes

not the body

that I want or

I'm a mind

trapped in a

body.

But the Bible

says no, no,

no.

God made you to

be body and

soul.

You're to live

now as a body

and soul.

You are to be

redeemed as a

body and soul

and you will

live forever as

a body and

soul, as an

ensouled body

and embodied

soul.

That is what

it, you matter,

your body

matters.

And just as

death is the

separation of

the body and

soul, and so

to do things on

this side of

the grave as

if you can

further that

separation of

body and

soul and have

either the

body despise

that which is

of the soul

and the mind

or the soul

despise that

which is of

the body,

that that is

wrong.

That is not

the direction

of redemption.

That we

are to learn

through the

gospel to be

at peace,

to have

peace.

And it's

also a

profound

message of

hope.

Sam Albury

talks about

this very

movingly.

When I

look at my

hand,

and this

hand will

die.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Come to the

new hambriны.

Let me

I'll have a new body.

And the new body will be connected to the new me,

and it'll still be me.

And it will be a soul and a body, a me,

that can fully enjoy the fullness of God,

to drink deeply of his love and of his beauty and of his goodness,

and to see deeply and sing wondrously and dance

and think deeply and profoundly of the beauty and the glory

and the splendor and the love and the goodness that is God.

And there will be no disharmony or fight

between my inner thoughts and my body.

My soul can drink deeply forever,

and the body is a fit body for my soul and my body to drink.

And that is my destiny, and my hope of glory is Christ.

And so we remember the words of Jesus at the beginning,

you were wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.

And this is a call for us to be people who have the habit

and the discipline of reading God's word

and thinking upon God's word deeply, continually,

and to think about God's word in light of the gospel

and to understand the gospel in light of God's word,

that we are to be people of the book,

people of truth, people of life,

people of justice, people of goodness,

people of resurrection,

that we are to be people of all of these things

as we reflect upon God's word in light of the gospel.

Let's bow our heads in prayer.

Actually, please stand and bow our heads in prayer.

Father, there's a songwriter by the name of Crowder

who said,

Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal.

And Father, we ask that you help us to hold on to this great hope

that you have made promises to us

who put their hope and trust in Jesus,

that you have made a promise to us

to have a resurrected body,

to be received and accepted by you,

to be yours forever.

And you have made a promise to us

and you never break your promises.

You only keep your promises.

And we ask, Lord, that you would help us to live as people,

remembering your promises to us

and that you will never fail to keep or break your promise.

And Father, if there are any here or any who are watching

who have not yet come to believe or accept your promise,

we ask that even now you would help them to turn to Jesus

and accept this promise that he can be their Savior and their Lord

and that he will share his resurrection with all who put their faith and trust in him.

So we ask, Father, that you help us to set our mind on Christ,

on Christ crucified and Christ glorified,

that he would be, Father,

this would be more and more real to our heart

as we live our day, day by day.

And we ask this in the name of Jesus,

your Son and our Savior.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.