That Will Be Glory!

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.”