MELVIN NEWLAND, MINISTER
RIDGE CHAPEL, KANSAS, OK
THAT WILL BE GLORY!
(This is my adaptation of an excellent message contributed by Rick Burdette to Sermon Central)
TEXT: 1 Cor. 15:42-58; Acts 1:9-11; Eph. 4:9; Rom. 5:8; Luke 24:39
It's just a normal day. You get up, take your shower, trying to be quiet as you get dressed so your wife can sleep a little longer. You head to the kitchen & put the coffee on. After your second cup you head for the car.
Suddenly there is a thundering trumpet blast unlike anything you've heard before. It’s a glorious sound that vibrates through every fiber of your body as an angelic voice announces, “The King of Kings & Lord of Lords"
You look to the sky as it opens. It sounds like the ripping of a million bed sheets all being torn at once. The light is glorious as Jesus appears. And at just that moment your body is transformed. In the blink of an eye everything changes within you. In that blinding flash of glory, your body has gone from temporary to eternal. It’s beyond anything you have ever imagined.
The apostle Paul writes in 1 Cor. 15:50-52, "I declare to you, brothers, that flesh & blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet…"
I HIS DEATH, BURIAL & RESURRECTION
What I have just read is all future. But now let’s go back to that first Resurrection Day. The story leading up to that day has all the trappings of a great Mystery: intrigue, shady characters, betrayal, murder, an ending that leaves things unfinished.
The Pharisees & Jewish leaders had developed a plot to kill Jesus. Judas, an insider is bought off, & agrees to deliver Jesus into their hands. There is a Kangaroo court & 2 witnesses who lie. Government officials are dragged into this terrible plot - both Gov. Pilate & King Herod Antipas.
Jesus is handed over, beaten, crucified & buried. But then there was his resurrection. He comes back, & for 40 days he is still on earth. Hundreds are witnesses of his resurrected body.
And then as many watched, including his disciples: "He was taken up before their very eyes & a cloud hid him from their sight.” (Acts 1:9)
They were looking intently into the sky as he was going when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. "Men of Galilee,” they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:10-11)
So when the Apostle Paul writes, "Listen, I tell you a mystery,” he is giving us a glimpse into a future that is out of this world.
II THERE WILL BE AN “INHERITANCE DAY”
For those who belong to Christ there will be an “Inheritance Day!” Our salvation isn’t earned. It’s a gift from God that not one of us deserves.
Eph. 2:4-9 says, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ & seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus: in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - & this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not of works, so that no one can boast.”
Eternity is purchased for us by the work of Jesus. We are purchased by His shed blood. You see, God who is rich in mercy sacrificed Himself through Jesus to pay for the sins of all mankind even while we are dead in our sins, bankrupt spiritually, & hopeless. Rom. 5:8 says, “God demonstrated His own love for us in this that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”
Faith is when we accept the gift. Faith is experiencing the conviction of our sin & turning toward God. Faith is uniting with Christ in His death, burial & resurrection at baptism. And faith is God’s Holy Spirit dwelling in you so you can live a new life.
Faith isn’t working your way to heaven. Faith is showing that heaven is at work in you through the presence of the Holy Spirit.
As we’ve learned, flesh & blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. The perishable cannot inherit the imperishable. So on the day Jesus returns for His bride, when the trumpet sounds & the archangel shouts, “The dead will be raised imperishable & we shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye.”
How will we be changed? Paul used the example of a seed being planted in the ground bursting forth into beautiful new life.
1 Cor. 15:42-43 says, “The body that is sown is perishable. It is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power.”
Just as God can make an oak out of an acorn or a tulip out of a bulb, He brings forth our eternal body out of an earthly one. A body that won’t corrupt, or be weak, & most remarkable of all, “A body like the body of Jesus.”
ILL. Joni Eareckson Tada was made a quadriplegic by a teenage diving accident. She, more than most, knows what it's like to live in a perishable body, but she also knows the hope of a resurrected body. Listen to her words.
“Somewhere in my broken paralyzed body is the seed of what I shall become. The paralysis makes what I am to become all the more grand when you contrast atrophied, useless legs against splendorous resurrected legs.
“I'm convinced that if there are mirrors in heaven, the image I'll see will be unmistakably "Joni" although a much better, brighter “Joni.” So much so, that it's not worth comparing. I will bear the likeness of Jesus, the man from heaven."
Jesus’ resurrected body was a real body. He didn't return as a ghost or a mist. He told his followers in Luke 24:39, "Look at my hands & my feet, it is I myself! Touch me & see; a ghost does not have flesh & bones, as you see I have."
He walked with them, ate with them, & touched them. Jesus had a real body, & yet Mark tells us it was radically different. So different that Mary Magdalene, his disciples by the sea, & his followers on the Road to Emmaus did not recognize Him at first.
He passed through a closed & locked door to be in the disciples’ presence. He invited Thomas to touch his body. What do we know about the resurrected body of Jesus? It wasn't like anything this world had ever seen!
Maybe that's why the Apostle John says, “Dear friends, now we are children of God & what we will be has not yet been made known. …but we know that when he appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (1 John 3:2-3)
This is our hope. Death doesn’t win. Death stings us with grief, but Jesus’ resurrection pulled the stinger out. “Thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
III OUR CELEBRATION IS FOR MORE THAN ONE DAY
As the Apostle Paul concludes the resurrection chapter he says, “Therefore, my dear brothers & sisters stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Cor.15:58)
“Therefore” is an important word in Scripture. It’s a call to look at the context of what’s been said - to look at what was just written - to see what the “therefore” is there for.
This challenge is at the end of a discussion on the resurrection. And basically Paul is saying, “Don’t quit…don’t lose hope…live in anticipation of your inheritance.”
The genuine follower of Christ celebrates his resurrection 365 & 24/7. We serve a risen savior. Jesus is alive to us, & His Spirit is alive in us. There is a huge difference in knowing about someone & having a real relationship with him.
ILL. Don Knotts passed away a few years ago. On a TV program called "Biography" Don was being interviewed shortly before his death. Don said at the age of 81 people still called him “Barney”, & they would approach him as if he was a close friend.
He said "People really believed they knew me because they'd seen & heard me as Barney for so many years. It was flattering, but it wasn't the truth.
“They didn't know I was born dirt poor in Morgantown, WV, or that my father had a nervous breakdown when I was born - the youngest of 5, because he didn't want to raise another child. They knew the character Barney. They didn't know the real Jesse Donald Knotts.”
One of the scariest scriptures in the N.T. is found in Matthew 7:21-23. Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven but only he who does the will of my father in heaven.
“Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, & in your name drive out demons & in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you…”
Christianity isn’t a religion with rituals to be performed. It’s a relationship with Jesus. And He’s alive. You have heard about His life. But to some He still remains a storybook character – someone you hear about on Sundays. Someone you think about on Easter & Christmas.
But you really don’t know Him. His death, burial & resurrection have little to do with your daily life. His name is one you’ll use when angry or in trouble, but talking to Him daily or spending time in His Word isn’t a priority.
Maybe you even try to do some charitable things because that’s what “good” people do. You believe – kinda - & you believe that’s enough. You want a “Savior” but you don’t want a “Lord.”
The saddest truth Paul addresses in this chapter is that some once had this intimate friendship, but now Jesus had become just a name & the resurrection sounded incredible. And the question arises, “Who enters the Kingdom of Heaven?” And Jesus tells us, “Only those who do the will of the Father who is in heaven.”
The Father’s will, before even the creation of the world, was that we be in an intimate relationship with Him through His son Jesus. And Jesus’ fervent prayer is for those who really believe & follow Him.
In John 17:20-24 Jesus prayed, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
“I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one - I in them and you in me - so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
The Holy Spirit doesn’t call us from our sin to be good & to work hard. He calls us to be one with Jesus, & only then can we be one with the Father. It’s important we not forget that Jesus is the way home. He is the truth that sets us free. No one comes to the Father except through Him.
That’s why Paul says, “Our victory is through our Lord Jesus Christ.” So stand firm. Give yourself fully to the work God has called you to do. Why? Because nothing you do to serve Him is fruitless.
ILL. A preacher named Rick Burdette wrote this about himself. Please listen to this reverently & carefully. “Jan. 17, 1979. It’s the day I finally surrendered. I didn’t just “join the church” or “clean up my act.”
“I surrendered my heart & will to a calling from the Holy Spirit. … It was all about Jesus. His calling & His love, & His desire to save me from death was at the very core of what was happening.
“Belief led me to repent - a decision to turn around - a change of heart & mind. I was buried with Jesus in baptism & I rose from that watery grave with the Holy Spirit living in me.
“That was more than 44 years ago. Both Jesus & I were there, & that truth has prepared me for life, death, & His return. My soul was transformed & it’s still being transformed by that same Holy Spirit.
“This is what Jesus did for a 17 year old High School dropout - a rebellious pothead, & what He has done for me, He can do for you!”
Let’s pray.
INVITATION
