Luke, The Ordery Account of Truth - Marriage and the Resurrection - Luke 20:27-40

But now we're going to get into today's message. So

once again, thank you so much for joining us. Whether

this is your first time or billionth time, it's awesome

to be gathered as God's people getting to go through

his word. And we've actually been in a series titled

Luke the Orderly Account of Truth, where we have been

following the carefully investigated account of the life and the

ministry of the Lord Jesus. Our hope in this series

is that as we go verse by verse through this gospel,

that everything that Jesus taught and did would grow and

build our faith more and more as we as we

get to have more certainty about what did he teach,

who was he? What did he command his followers, what

did his followers look like? We got to see all

of those things in these gospels, and so we're really

excited to continue to go through this have our faith

built up. And today we're finding ourselves in the twentieth

chapter of the Gospel of So if you'd please turn

there with me. Now, if you don't have a bible,

please go grab on. We have some out on the

resource desk for you to keep take home with you

have a bible, please it's super important. All right. So

we're gonna read this text, we're gonna pray over our

time together, and then we're gonna jump into it. Does

that sound good? Awesome? Thanks Jerry, all right. Starting in

verse twenty seven, there came to him some sadducees, those

who deny that there is a resurrection, and they asked

him a question, saying, Teacher Moses wrote for us that

if a man's brother dies having a wife but no children,

the man must take the widow and raise up offspring

for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first

took a wife and died without children, and the second

and the third took her, And likewise all seven left

no children and died afterward. The woman also died in

the resurrection. Therefore, whose wife will the women be? For

the seven had her as wife, And Jesus said to them,

the sons of this age Mary and are given in marriage.

But those who are considered worthy to attain to that

age and to the resurrection from the dead, neither Mary

nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore,

because they are equal to angels and are sons of God,

being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised.

Even Moses showed in the passage about the Bush where

he calls the Lord, the God of Abraham, the God

of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is

not God of the dead, but of the living, for

all live to him. Then some of the scribes answered, teacher,

you have spoken well, for they no longer dared to

ask him any questions. This is God's word. Let us pray, Lord,

do we lift you up in this place during this time?

And we just asked that your holy Spirit would be

enlightening our hearts so that we can read, we can

understand the word that you have for us today. Lord God.

I believe that none of us are here by accident,

and so I just asked that you would use even

me in this time to speak your word clearly, Lord God,

and help it be all about you, so that we

would be a church that is all about you. So

we love you, Lord, We lift up this time, and

we give you all glory and Gees's name. Everyone said

a men. So many years ago I used to go

to Gabby's Cards and Comics. Anyone else anyone else used

to go there from time to time. Yeah, some call

it the nerd barn. Yes. In my early teen years nights, specifically,

while my parents had Bible study, I was there to

play Yu gi oh i'ld do their yugioh tournaments. And

if you don't know what yugyoh it is, it's just

like another trading card game, kind of like Pokemon, a

little less popular, better in my opinion, but it doesn't matter.

That's how we're here to argue. In all of my

times of going, I lost every single time in the

first round except for once. And I was probably around

thirteen or fourteen, and I was playing someone who was

noticeably younger than me, maybe nine or ten. And I

was playing this kid and I finally got my trump card,

my card that I was like, this game is over.

And then I played the card and the nine or

ten year old pointed out that I had read the

card wrong. It didn't mean what I thought it meant.

And I started reading the card and I realized that

he was right and I was completely wrong. So this

card that I thought was my trump card because of

my miscomprehension, wasn't as powerful as I thought. Not today,

that's actually what we're going to be seeing as well.

Not the statusties are playing ugo with Jesus. That's all

what's going on here. But the statutes are bringing their

best argument, their trump card to Jesus to try and

show that Jesus and his beliefs are wrong. But Jesus

is going to very quickly show that these sadducees like me,

had a reading problem and we're sorely mistaken. If you

are taking notes, today's message is simply titled Marriage and

the Resurrection. Marriage and the Resurrection. Like we've been looking

at the last few weeks, Jesus has been throwing down

with the religious leaders of Jerusalem. We've seen the Pharisees

and other authorities come and challenge and try and trap

Jesus in his words, to get him in trouble with

both the religious and governmental authorities, But this all to

their own demise. Jesus every single time shows that he's

more powerful and wise than any of his crafty foes.

Last week we saw insincere seekers come and try and

get Jesus to speak against the Roman government by asking

Jesus whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar,

to which Jesus responded with rendered to Caesar, what is

Caesar's and to God, what is God's? This response, a

response silenced his enemies. But now another group wants their

turn at taking a shot at Jesus. And this group

is the Sadducees. And this is actually something I didn't

know this. I was looking this up and I noticed

this when I was studying this week. This is the

first and only mention of the Sadducees in the entire

Gospel of Luke. So we need a little bit more

context about who these are, who these people are. And first,

Luke tells us one of the key beliefs of the Sadducees.

We see that in our first verse today, in or

verse twenty seven, says, there came to him some Sadducees,

those who deny that there is a resurrection. So, like

I said, scripture only speaks about them, really a handful

of times in the Gospels, and once in Luke a

little and a couple times or at least once in

Acts as well. But from my study, here are a

couple of different things that are notable about the Sadducees.

First and foremost, as it was stated, one of the

biggest distinctions that the Sadducees had from the Pharisees was

the denial of the resurrection. You can think of the

Pharisees and Statisties kind of like different denominations within Judaism.

Most scholars consider the Statusties kind of more on the

liberal side and the Pharisees the more conservative side of Judaism.

But honestly, some could argue the exact opposite based on

what you think about their beliefs. Where's the Pharisees believed

all the Old Testament to be God's inspired word. The

Statutes only considered the first five, the ones written by Moses,

to be God's word. All the other books were basically

just like commentary on those first five. That's how they

viewed it. The Pharisees followed the traditions of the rabbi,

so the teachers who've gone before the oral tradition. The

Sadducees did not. The Pharisees believed in angels, the existence

of the Spirit, and the resurrection, whereas the Sadducees denied

the existence of all these things. And if you want proof,

let's look at Acts twenty three eight. So as for

the Statusties, say that there's no resurrection, no angel, no

or a spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledged them all. The

statutes also had more political and religious authority than the

Pharisees at the time. So the statutes basically believe that

when you died, that was it. Your life was over,

you went back to the dust, and you ceased to exist.

Are we kind of starting to get a picture of

who the Statusties are? This is important for us. They

believed only the first five books of the Old Testament,

those written by Moses, to be God's word, and they

denied the spiritual side of things like angels in the resurrection.

This is very important because now it's the statutes turned

to try and drip up Jesus. And I've actually heard

it said that they're called statustes because they didn't believe

in the resurrection and that is why they were so sad,

you see. Anyway, they now come to Jesus with a law.

I didn't make that up. I just heard that, you know,

But yeah, it's an old joke. It just helps it

helps me remember that they were said because they didn't. Anyways,

they now come to Jesus with a law from Moses

and then a question of how that law fits into

the belief that there's a resurrection. We're gonna see that

on verse twenty eight, he said, says, and they asked

him a question, saying, teacher Moses wrote for us that

if a man's brother dies having a wife but no children,

the man must take the widow and raise up offspring

for his brother. So here we see them go to

the scriptures that they believe are authoritative, that were just

written by Moses to lay the ground where for their conundrum.

And this law, if you want to do more study

on it. I was going to read it, but this

message was getting long, so I had to cut it.

But you can find this in Deuteronomy twenty five, verses

five through ten, and what they summarize is basically correct.

And this was a law kind of designed to help

keep a family's name going. If your brother died and

had yet to have children with his wife, you would

kind of take on that role to help his line

continue on. It's kind of an interesting law law, but

for the context, that is the law that the Strategties

are bringing up to Jesus. So then comes the question,

and remember that this is the Statuti's trump card, it's

most likely a hypothetical situation or a problem that was

made up to show an inconsistency or problem with believing

in the resurrection. So here's the situation that the Strategties

bring to Jesus, starting in verse twenty nine. Now, there

were seven brothers. The first took a wife and died

without children, and the second and the third took her,

and likewise all seven left no children and died afterward.

The woman also died in the resurrection. Therefore, whose wife

will the woman be? For the seventh had her as wife.

So here's the Statusties bring up this most likely hypothetical situation.

And the reason I say likely is because we don't

really know if this happened or not. But if it did,

that would just be crazy. That would honestly be really

a crazy situation. I think it's more likely that it's

a situation made up out of this law from Moses

to try and disprove the resurrection. Once again, they didn't

believe it, so they had to have reasons as to

why they didn't believe in it. And the reason that

this example could be used to disprove the resurrection was

because it is designed to show in their understanding the

ridiculousness of the resurrection, because obviously, if Jesus was to

say that she will be all the brother's wives, let's problematic.

Or if she's only to be the wives or a

wife of one of them in the resurrection, also problematic.

So both options look really bad for believing in the resurrection.

And this was supposed to make Jesus look bad by

not being able to answer, but in fact Jesus did

have an answer, which is what we're going to be

looking at. And Matthew's Gospel in Mark's Gospel, they both

start with Jesus saying something that I want us to

add here because Luke doesn't add it, and I don't

know why. I'm sure he had his reasons. But the

reason I want to show it is because I believe it.

It helps us set the tone for how Jesus is

talking to these statutes. And we see the first one

in Matthew twenty two twenty nine Jesus said, but Jesus

answered them, you are wrong because you know neither the

scriptures nor the power of God. Mark is very similar.

It says Jesus said to them, is this not the

reason you were wrong because you know neither the scriptures

nor the power of God. Jesus like, you're wrong, You're wrong,

You're just wrong. Now, although Luke doesn't actually add this

part explicitly, he still shows Jesus telling them that they're wrong,

and he does so through what he teaches them. And

we're gonna see Jesus kind of clear up and answer

basically two questions slash misunderstandings that these statuties had, and

that is about the resurrection and marriage. He's going to

speak to marriage, it's nature and its relationship to the resurrection,

as well as speak to how even scripture Moses's writings

specifically teach the resurrection. So we're gonna look at Jesus'

first answer this in verse thirty four, and Jesus said

to them, the sons of this age, Mary and are

given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy to

attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead,

neither Mary nor are given in marriage, for they cannot

die anymore because they are equal to angels and are

sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. Now, Jesus

actually does something really awesome here. He does something really cool.

Look at this, he first speaks to marriage while at

the same time speaking to the reality of the resurrection.

But not only that, he touches on a couple of

other things that the Sadducees didn't believe in. It's actually

kind of funny you see that in verse thirty six

also adds about how in the resurrection will be equal

to angels. So Jesus actually confirms that both the resurrection

and angels are real, both things that statuties didn't believe in.

But let's look at what he says here. First, Jesus

shows that marriage is for this age, not the next.

And what's the reason he gives us as to why

marriage is not in the next age? Do we see

that start of verse thirty six because they cannot die,

for they can no longer die. Now, I believe. To

understand this better, we need to look at what marriage

initially was made for, because that's kind of an interesting point.

So we need to look at what marriage was made

for initially, and we're gonna go all the way back

a writing of Moses Genesis. We read in Genesis that

God created Adam and Eve, and this is also where

he established the marriage covenant to be between one man

and one woman, and in marriage, the two are to

become one flesh. Genesis two twenty four says, therefore a

man shall leave his father and his mother and hold

fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

So God made marriage, and this is what he told

the man and his wife to do. See this a

little bit before that in Genesis one twenty seven and

twenty eight. So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God. He created them male and female.

He created them, and God blessed them. And God said

to them, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth

and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of

the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and

over every living thing that moves on the earth. So

God created Adam and Eve and established the marriage covenant

between the two of them, and he told them to

be fruitful and multiply so as to fill the earth

and take dominion. And just to be clear, every single

person who's ever lived ever has come from Adam and Eve.

This is what Paul tells us in Acts seventeen twenty

sixty says, and he made he, being God, from one man.

Every nation of mankind to live on the face of

the earth, having determined allotted periods in the boundaries of

their dwelling place. So one of the primary purposes of

marriage is to establish a covenant by which two people

are to be fruitful and multiply. Is to fill the

earth with more image bearers of God. Let me just

put that. Simply, have kids when you're married. That's how

God made it. That's kind of that's the order of things.

But we also know that Adam and Eve sometime after

sinned and rebelled against God, which brought death and decay

into the world. So now whether there was perfect paradise

where they we're going to fill the earth. So now

people die. Now people die, and in order to keep

the human race going, you gotta be fruitful and multiply.

But not only did death or did their sin bring

death into the world now where we die, but death

also brought an end to marriage. First Corinthian seven thirty

nine says a wife is bound to her husband as

long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she

is free to be married to whom she wishes. Only

in the Lord, Roman seven two through three says for

a married woman is bound by law to her husband

while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is

released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be

called an adulteress if she lives with another man while

her husband is alive, but if her husband dies, she

is free from that law. And if she marries another man,

she is not an adulteress. So death is the end

of marriage. It's why in our vows we say till

death do us part. But not only that, but in

the next age there will be no more death, which

means there will be no more need to repopulate because

God will have already populated heaven by his saving grace

in Jesus Christ. In heaven, we don't need to do

that anymore. Thus there will be no need for marriage,

as one of the primary purposes of marriage is to

be fruitful and multiply, and that will no longer be needed.

And I as a kind of interesting caveat, is like

the way that we get to be fruitful and multiply

in heaven as we share the Gospel. We go, we

make disciples, and we share the good news, and God

uses that to save people. And that's what's going to

be what populates heaven. It's pretty amazing. But not only

that tells us in his writing something even deeper about

the meaning and purpose of marriage. Paul, when writing to

believers in Ephesus, continues to compare and contrast how husbands

are to operate with each other in the same manner

and likeness as Christ does with his church. And then

he tells us why we're going to look at that.

And I promise you all of this is very relevant

and very important. It's not just a crazy bunny trail.

It is a crazy bunny trail, but it's relevant and important.

So thank you for keeping staying with me. And Ephesians

five it says, wives submit to your own husbands as

to the Lord, for the husband is the head of

the wife, even as Christ is the head of the

church his body, and is himself its savior. Now as

the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit

in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as

Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her,

that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the

washing of the water with the word, so that he

might present the church to himself and splendor, without spot

or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be

holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should

love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves

his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his

own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ

does the church, because we remembers of his body. And

this is interesting. Listen to this. He's quoting from Genesis.

He says, therefore a man shall leave his father and

mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two

shall become one flesh. Paul says, this mystery is profound,

and I am saying that it refers to Christ in

the church. However, let each one of you love his

wife as himself, and let the wife see that she

respects her husband. So Paul does something really, really incredible.

Paul shows us that marriage in this life is a shadow.

Marriage in this life is a picture to something even

greater that being. Marriage is supposed to be a picture

of the relationship between Christ and his Church. And I

honestly think that if we really listen to that, every

single married person should probably stop and think about that.

If my marriage is supposed to be a picture of

Christ and his Church, what message am I sending to

those who around me, who are around me who see

my marriage as a husband. What am I teaching my

wife about Christ in the way that I treat her?

What am I teaching my children about Christ in the

way that I treat my wife as a wife? What

are you teaching your family about the Church in the

way you respond to your husband? What are you teaching

your children about the Church's relationship with Christ in the

way you respond to your husband? And I think it's

truly sobering and profound for us to really actually take

that to heart and think about it. How we live

with our spouses is supposed to communicate the relationship between

Christ and his Church, and I think with that in mind,

a lot of us have some repenting to do. But ultimately,

this is another reason that there's not going to be

marriage in the same way it is here in heaven.

Is because marriage in this life points to a greater

marriage than the life to come. When Jesus comes again,

there will be a great wedding for Christ. In his

church Revelation nineteen seven through eight says let us rejoy

that's an exult and give him the glory for the

marriage of the lamb has come, and his bride has

made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself

with fine or linen, bright and pure. For the fine

linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. So for

us we need to know that marriage is for a

purpose in this time, one of them to be fruitful

and multiply, but then also for them to be a

picture of the great marriage that is to come. So

coming back to our texts, and I really want to

quickly clarify something that Jesus also says in that verse

thirty six, because Jesus says that we will be equal

to angels, and I need this to be understood. You

just got to listen to this right here, and that's

just very important. We don't become angels when we die.

That's not what Jesus is saying. He says we become

equal to angels. And what he's talking about, or it

needs to be understood, like angels are different creatures than

we are. But what it means to become equal to

them is in the sense of immortal, that is, we

will never die. That's the context there, so we see,

let's look at it again. In verse thirty six four,

they cannot die anymore because they are equal to angels

and our sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.

That's the relationship. They're saying, We're equal to the angels

in the sense of like we will not die. So

Jesus tells us that those who are worthy to attain

to that age and the resurrection will no longer be

given in marriage, for they can no longer die, being

equal to angels and our sons of God being sons

of the resurrection. But then Jesus goes on to deliver

the final nail in the coffin to the Sadducees. And

this is pretty awesome. As we said, the Sadducees only

took the authority of Moses's writing as scripture. So where

does Jesus go? Can you take a guess? He goes

to Moses. It's pretty it's a pretty smart, pretty smart move.

He goes to Moses to teach the resurrection verse thirty seven.

But that the debtor raised even Moses showed in the

passage about the Bush where he calls the Lord the

God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the

God of Jacob. Now he is not the god of

the dead, but of the living, for all lived to him.

So Jesus goes to the story of the burning Bush,

which can be found in Exodus chapter three, and that's

where Moses meets God in the form of a burning bush.

It's a pretty incredible story and something kind of crazy.

Jesus uses grammar to show that the Sadducees are wrong.

Jesus shows how the text uses the present tense and

not the path tense, that God is the God of Abraham,

Isaac and Jacob, not was, but is now. If you believe,

like the Sadducees, who practically had the same belief as atheists,

that when you die, that's it lights out. He ceased

to exist. If you believe that, then Moses should have

said that God, that he was their God. But in

fact Jesus shows that it still says that he is

their God. He is the God of Abraham. It's still

active in ongoing, and Jesus uses this to show how

they are wrong and that God is not the God

of the dead, but of the living. And I bet

that you didn't know that even Jesus could use grammar

in such a baller way, because I mean, it's cool.

Now what's the response to those around him? Well, it's

not an objection of well, that's just semantics, that's not

what they say. But instead Jesus had answered perfectly because

it's silence to them. They didn't have anything they could say.

The only people who did have something to say were

the scribes. And this is actually kind of funny Jesus

most likely because it differentiates them a little bit. It's

most likely some Pharisees who are like, yeah, Jesus, you

tell them because their opponents were the Saducees, so they

kind of had to give Jesus credit for shutting down

the Sadducees like this, and we see this verse thirty

nine and forty. Then some of the scribes answered, teacher,

you've spoken well, for they no longer dared to ask

him any question. So Jesus showed them that they were

wrong about their beliefs, and he did so by teaching

them the truth regarding marriage and the resurrection by using scripture.

But I believe, most importantly what Jesus was teaching them

and also is teaching us, can be summed up like this.

This is something I really I wrestled with for a

long time, because I was like, how do you fit

these things together without it just being a two point sermon?

How do you not to say, here's something to know

and here's something to know. How do you actually put

these two things together to make sense? This is the

best I could come up with. You come up with better.

Praise God and come tell me later. I'll write it

in summed it up like this. What Jesus is trying

to tell us is that marriage isn't forever, but that

the resurrection is. As we saw, a marriage was made

and given us for us to be fruitful and multiply.

But even deeper than that, it's an image of Christ

in his church. Our marriages won't last forever, but there

is a marriage that's coming that will last forever, and

that is the marriage of Christ and his people. And

this at the resurrection from the dead, and scripture is

very clear all over the place that there will be

a resurrection where everyone is going to be raised from

the dead so as to give an account and be judged. Now,

it's kind of interesting because I think Jesus had a

lot of places he could have gone to prove the resurrection,

but I think he went to Moses because of his

opponents specifically. But scripture very clearly speaks that someone will

be raised to go to everlasting punishment, but only those

in Christ will be raised to go into eternal life.

We see this in the New Testament John five twenty

eight through twenty nine. Do not marvel at this, for

an hour is coming when all who are in the

tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who

have done good to the resurrection of life, and those

who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. Daniel

in the Old Testament Chapter twelve, verse two that says,

and many of those who sleep in the dusts of

the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some

to shame and everlasting contempt. So there is a resurrection

that is coming. The question is which resurrection will it be?

For you? Are you worthy to attain to the resurrection

of life? But I think you should actually answer that

question for yourself, are you worthy to attain to the

resurrection of life? Because I hope and I pray that

you're honest with yourself, Because there is an answer to

that question that is, along with me, we're not worthy.

No one is worthy to attain to the resurrection of life.

There was only one person, and not only is he

the same person who proved the resurrection from scripture, but

he's also the same person who proved it by his

own resurrection from the dead. That is Jesus Christ. The

same Jesus who proved and defended the resurrection from scripture

would also go on to give the ultimate proof of

the resurrection, and that by his own resurrection from the dead. Jesus,

after dying on the cross for our sins, was buried

for three days and then was raised again to life,

showing that death could not hold him down and that

in fact he had defeated sin and death, that he

was triumphant. None of us are truly worthy, because every

single one of us has fallen short of the standard

that God has given us. But for those who are

in Christ, those who have received the righteousness of Christ

through faith in Him, they will be raised to eternal

life in the age to come. I think what's hard

is for how central the resurrection is to the faith,

or the religion, or the belief of Christianity. I think

it's lost a lot of press even amongst believers. We

think we die and we're gonna go to Heaven. That's

gonna be it if we believe in Jesus. We don't

think that one day we'll be raised bodily and stand

before our Maker. Whether you're a believer or not. If

you're not a believer, you'll stand before you're maker in

a body raised. And so I think it needs to

be said that if you're still in your sin and

rebellion towards God, you need to turn from your sin

and be reconciled to God and that there is hope

and life in the risen Jesus. Every single one of

us will be raised from the dead and stand before

a holy, righteous God. But it will only be those

who are covered in the blood and righteousness of Christ

who will inherit eternal life. Because as for those who

continue to reject God and his way of salvation, there

will be nothing left for you but the punishment do

your sin. Either you can take the punishment for yourself,

which will be experienced bodily forever, or you can put

your faith in Jesus and believe, trusting that He took

the punishment for you on the cross, and that instead

of punishment forever you will have eternal life. And I

think that this is something that we need to be

more sober minded about because as believers, I think what

happens is we picture, oh, yeah, well I'll die, and

if I don't love Jesus, I don't put my faith

in Jesus, I'm going to hell. And that's kind of

like my spirit's problem, or it's gonna be really nice

for my whatever my spirit self is like when I

die and I go to be with the Lord. But

we don't think about it in the same sense of

like the reality that if right now, as you experience it,

and I can only imagine, it's going to feel more

real than how life does now right now would experience

eternal torment and separation from God, not just in some

kind of that's my spirit's problem kind of way, but

that's no, that's my problem holistically, that every single person

we pass in the grocery store, in the coffee shop,

the soccer game, that those people are either going to

be in heaven with Christ as the Redeemer, or they're

going to be in hell and once again, not just

in some kind of ethereal spirity kind of way, but

that there's a resurrection coming where everyone will be joined

to some kind of body, one that's either made for

eternal life or one for eternal punishment. I think that reality,

like I miss that reality. That's a real thing. And

if I would like, if I go like, man, that's

gonna be, that's gonna probably be a bad time for

our spirit selves. We just we push it off. But

the hope of the resurrection and the reality of the

resurrection is so much more real than that. And I think,

like we read our Bibles and we go like, yeah,

Jesus rose from the dead. But I think if we

actually were like, no, Jesus was a guy that I

knew and he died and now he's alive, and people

don't do that, I think that that would shift how

we feel. I think it would shift how we live

our life. I think it would shift how we interact

with people and the opportunities that we have to share

what Christ has done, not only on the cross, because

once again sometimes that's where we stop. Jesus died for

our sins, and we go, yippie, I'm so glad that

that's is good news. I don't have shame or anything

like that, but Jesus rose from the dead. Bodily, I

just wonder how that would change us the more we

actually meditate on that fact. So for us as believers,

do we live in such a way that we're like

Sadducees denying the resurrection? And what I mean is, do

we live like Sadducees and atheists, living like this life

is the only one we have? Do we deny the

resurrection with the way we live our life like we're

living for ourselves before it's all over. I know I

live like that. It hurts because for the Christian when

this life is over, it's only just the beginning of eternity.

That's a long time. But I fear that too many

of us live functionally like they did. What this leads

to our lives that don't preach and profess the hope

of a resurrection, but lives that preach the same thing

that this world preaches. Live for today, get yours well

you so can, well only half so long. I'm getting older.

But that's not what we believe. We believe in a future, hope,

something that's coming that's actually good news. It's not just like,

oh that's good news for my spirit. It's good news

for something in the future. It's good news for me

it's good news for you, and it's good news for

people who without it will suffer eternally. We can't and

shouldn't deny the resurrection with our lives, nor actually deny

like the Sadducees did. Even Paul had to actually deal

with Christians who thought that maybe there wasn't a resurrection.

We're gonna look at this on first Corinthians fifteen, and

I need the band to come up, please, one Corinthians fifteen.

This whole chapter has to do with the resurrection, so

I encourage you to go read it once again. I

couldn't put the entire chapter in there, or I could have,

but I love you. So Paul starts off, Now, if

Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can

some of you say that there is no resurrection of

the dead. But if there is no resurrection of the dead,

then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ

has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain

and your faith is in vain. We are even found

to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that

he raised Christ, whom he did not raise. If it

is true that the dead are not raised, For if

the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile,

and you are still in your sins. And then those

who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in

Christ we have hope in this life only we are

all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ

has been raised from the dead by the first troots

of those who have fallen asleep. Whereas by a man

came death by a man has also come the resurrection

of the dead. For as an Adam all die, all,

so all, or in Christ shall all be made alive.

What Paul is saying is that if Christ didn't rise

from the dead, if there is no resurrection, there's no

point to our faith. And what's worse, we're still in

our sins. We saw have a sin issue to deal

with if there is no risen savior. But in fact

Christ has been raised, and every single person who believes

in Him will be made alive together with him when

he returns. So here's what we need from today. Marriage

is not forever, but the resurrection, resurrection is So do

we live like it? In thinking this week? I feel

like we read acts, or maybe we look at church

history and there's a lot of people who live like

the resurrection. It was real, that the resurrection is real.

It was talking to my wife about it this week,

just going like I think it was my wife or

Greg was someone. Here's someone I love. It was a

good conversation, that's all I know, same thing, here's someone.

But I was talking about this reality of the resurrection

and how throughout Church history to see people go singing

to their death for the name of Christ. You see

people who have no fear of death. You see that

in the Old Testament. What would cause someone to rejoice

in laying down their life. I think part of it

is knowing that, like this life, isn't it like we

actually have a life to give, which kind of goes

back to what last week was talking about rendering to God.

What is God's We have a I can give this

life for every single purpose that He's given me, and honestly,

no matter what comes in this life, persecution, sickness, death,

I have a better life coming, so I can submit

it to the Lord. I think as we go through

this text, I think it's also fair for us to,

as we got into the topic a little bit, ask

do our marriages point to the true marriage to that

is Christ and his Church. Do I, as a husband

represent Christ? Well? Do I, as a wife represent how

the church is supposed to respond to Christ? Well? Do

we live our lives in light of the hope of

the resurrection to come? Or do we live like atheists?

It's functionally, it's the same thing as a sadducees. Really,

what is getting as is your hope set on temporary

things or the eternal things. Jesus has made it clear

which is more important and which one will last. And

now my hope is that we, as believers, we see

that what marriage is meant to show and what it's for,

and that we would take stock of our own marriages

to make sure that our marriages reflect the truth of

Christ and his bride. But even more importantly, that every

believer here is clear that scripture teaches the resurrection and

that Jesus has proven the resurrection. That's a reality, it's

something real in our life, a driving force. Because of that,

I urge you, I encourage you to be found in

Him on that day, and so to not be living

for this life only, but to live this life with

our true life in view that true life that will

come on the glorious day when he returns. Amen. Would

you guys please stand