What's Next? What Will We Be Like In Heaven? Series

INTRODUCTION

1. What’s Next? After We die – What’s Next?

2. From our Study -- we know – Hell is an Awful Place!

• Hades and Hell are far worse than anything we’ve known, or experienced or could even imagine in this life.

• AND No one in Hades would ever want anyone to experience what they are experiencing. No one in Hell would ever want anyone to know what they know.

3. From Our Study – Heaven is an Awesome Place!

• Heaven is far better than anything we’ve known, experienced, loved or even could imagine in this life. This life is good – but Heaven is far better and far more!

• In this Awesome Place – What Will We Be Like? What Will we look like? What will our new bodies be like?

4. 1 Corinthians 15…a key text in understanding what we will be like…

• Get this – the Bible talks about – being Raised from the dead. A Resurrection. We die, and at some point in the future, when Jesus Christ returns again, those who have died will be raised from the dead…

5. At the time of the Apostle Paul, there were many of that day who didn’t believe it and denied it – they would say -- no one could come back from the dead.

• There were even some followers of Christ who were more influenced by Greek culture and teaching than the teachings of Jesus – who said the resurrection of the dead is impossible.

• The whole first part of I Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul debates the reality of the Resurrection from this conclusion – If Jesus Christ has Risen from the dead – there will be a resurrection of the dead.

• As we’ve said – the Resurrection of Christ changes everything! What He said; Who He is – it’s All True!

• John 5:28-30 – 28 "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out — those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.

• When Christ comes again, there will be a resurrection of the dead…

6. 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 -- 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

7. Remember what Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 – 13 Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

• When the faithful die – our spirit goes to the Present Heaven… The Awesome Place where God is…

• I don’t understand fully what we will be like at that point – when we die, our souls are separated from our bodies. The part that makes us who we are – is separated from this earthly body and we are in the Presence of the Lord. but we don’t have a body.

15 According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

• Those who are with Jesus will receive their NEW and IMPROVED bodies

17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage each other with these words.

• So then, in the New Heaven and New Earth we will have New resurrected bodies.

So let’s now go back into 1 Corinthians 15, and explore what the Scripture says about this Resurrection of the dead and these NEW and IMPROVED Bodies…

1 Corinthians 15:35-53 -- 35 But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. 42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. 50 I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.