I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body
The Essentials: Why Truth Matters • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 2 viewsBig Idea: Resurrection is coming! Key Question: How should we live knowing believers will be raised? 1. Grieve with hope (1 Thess 4:13-14) 2. Anticipate Christ’s return (1 Thess 4:15-17) 3. Comfort one another (1 Thess 4:18)
Notes
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What’s the one thing that no one wants to acknowledge, but everyone will experience?
If your answer was “taxes” you are technically correct.
But if you thought “death” you’d be thinking about the same thing I am.
Death is the one thing no one wants to acknowledge or face, yet the one thing for sure all of us will experience.
We don’t want to acknowledge death because it carries such pain and uncertainty for us.
This man is Ralph. If you think that he looks a little bit familiar it’s because Ralph is my grandfather.
He was married to my grandmother for 56 years. Had 3 daughters. 8 grandchildren.
He and I were close. I think that one reason for that was because he was 45 when I was born, and not only was I the first grandchild, but I was the first boy on my mothers side of the family.
Practically a son.
I have so many fond and good memories of him and the life that we shared together.
He was a professional firefighter. He knew how to cook.
He was a skilled worker, a humble servant, and a comedian of the highest order.
He loved Jesus, taught the Bible as a Sunday School teacher and deacon in his local church.
I love my grandfather. I’ve probably picked up more from him that I can tell you, both his good characteristics and his flaws.
On January 21, 2010, Ralph died.
There are often days when I think about him, want to talk and laugh with him. I miss him.
Death brings a pain that is hard to articulate.
And yet, my grandfather was a faithful follower of Jesus.
He had a hope that although death would separate us, death would not have the final word.
He believed what the Apostle’s Creed teaches in it’s final two affirmations:
“I believe in… the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.”
You see my grandfather’s faith, which I share, and which I commend to you today was a faith that believed what God did in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he will also do for everyone who believes and trusts in him.
And this faith is established upon what Jesus said, and what the Bible teaches about our future.
The Christian faith isn’t just a faith about the here and now, but it has a future hope… we believe that death isn’t ultimate but that:
Big Idea: Resurrection is coming!
The Bible is clear that there is a future resurrection from the dead to eternal life for everyone who believes.
Jesus said in John 5
28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Resurrection is coming!
But that doesn’t negate the experience that death is a certainty.
If anything, Jesus’ words challenge us to think about that future Resurrection Day and to consider how we should live in light of that day.
Because one of the essential teachings of the Christian faith is that Christians will be resurrected and live forever, we should really think about how our belief informs our view of death and how we live today.
So I want to answer a key question this morning:
Key Question: How should we live as Christians knowing resurrection is coming?
Let’s go to one of the Apostle Paul’s earliest letters, 1 Thessalonians, and examine death and resurrection together:
Stand for the reading of God’s Word
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Paul gives us three approaches to life and death because resurrection is coming
Grieve with hope (1 Thess 4:13-14)
Grieve with hope (1 Thess 4:13-14)
Death is hard, it separates and destroys.
Death is result of sin and has a heavy-handed power over each of us.
But for the Christian, death isn’t the end.
It seems that there were some questions in this young church, and even some false teaching about Jesus’ Second Coming and what happens to those who die before Jesus comes again.
So Paul says we don’t want you to be uninformed or ignorant about those who are asleep.
He is teaching this so there is clarity and faith about God’s promises.
When he talks about those who are asleep he’s not pointing out the people in the church who take a nap when he preaches.
He uses this expression as a metaphor for death. He’s talking about Christians in the church who died.
He says “I don’t want you to be ignorant of what’s happened to the fellow believers who died… so that you may not grieve as others do, who have no hope.”
Paul is acknowledging something important. We should grieve when someone dies.
Death is hard, it’s sad, Christians are right in crying and mourning over the death of a loved one.
But it’s a different kind of grief when a Christian dies - it’s a grief with hope!
Death isn’t the last word.
In the pagan Roman world death was horrible. It was final and total. Hopeless even.
I’ll paraphrase one letter from a Roman citizen in the second century:
Irene to Tammy and Phil, good comfort. I am sorry and wept over the death of your departed one, Benny. I did anything and everything I should, as did the rest of family, to mourn, but nevertheless, there’s nothing we can do against death. Comfort one another with these words.
How encouraging and hopeful is that? There’s nothing there to really offer comfort and hope!
But for the Christian there is hope in our grieving and here’s why: (v. 14)
14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
“We believe” - so there’s a creed going on here.
“Jesus died and rose again” - that’s the event and work of Christ coming for us, living perfectly on our behalf, dying on the cross in our place for our sin, and then on the third day being raised, or resurrected, to life again.
Jesus did that and
Through Jesus' finished work, God will bring with him [Jesus] those who have fallen asleep.
Paul is telling us that when Jesus comes again, everyone who has died “in Christ” or as a believer in Jesus will be raised again.
Death isn’t the final reality for the Christian - it’s just the beginning.
Death is but a passage out of a prison into a palace.
John Bunyan
So yes, death is hard and sad and disruptive. But it’s not the last word.
I miss my grandfather Ralph… but I don’t have to grieve his death like a non-Christian because my hope is because Ralph trusted Jesus, he will be made alive fully and bodily again one day.
Jesus is coming again, and Ralph will to be raised, and that encourages me!
But this also encourages how we live here and now.
If those who believe in Jesus will be raised to life again when Jesus returns, then it matters what people believe.
It matters what you believe.
Jesus taught that those who do not put their faith in Jesus will face eternal judgment, hell.
Those who have put their faith in Jesus will receive eternal life.
There are only two roads… and one is to eternal judgement.
So Church, we have some urgent work to do. Many are headed to death without Christ.
We want them to know and trust Jesus as well!
This life is when we must decide what we are going to do with Jesus, after death is the result of what we’ve determined.
Do you want your loved ones, your family, your friends, to be raised to have eternal life? Then someone has to share Jesus with them!
We should be praying for the salvation and conversion of our friends and family who don’t know Jesus.
We should tell them and encourage them to trust Jesus.
If they know Christ, then we can grieve the death of believers, but with hope.
Because resurrection is coming the first approach to life and death is to grieve with hope.
The second approach to life here because resurrection is coming is to:
Anticipate Christ’s return (1 Thess 4:15-17)
Anticipate Christ’s return (1 Thess 4:15-17)
Paul here does some instruction to the church about what Jesus has already taught.
Remember he is answering some false teaching and questions or concerns that some in the church have regarding their dead loved-ones who were Christians.
It’s likely someone was saying that if you died before Jesus came again, well you miss the party!
Nope!
Paul says this we declare to you by a word from the Lord - this has Jesus’ words all over it.
I want you to be careful with this passage. Paul is not writing a complete and exhaustive timeline of end times events.
He’s answering the very practical concern about what happens to our dead loved-ones who believed in Christ? Are they gone for good?
The answer is nope! Jesus is coming again and he’s going to raise them from the dead too.
He uses an important cultural word in verse 15 that the Thessalonian believers had a vivid experience of in their city.
The word in English is “The Coming” — it should probably be capitalized in our English translations.
It’s like saying “The Super Bowl” or “The Presidential Inauguration” - everyone knows what that is.
The Coming, or parousia in Roman culture was “the official term for a visit of a person of high rank, especially of kings and emperors visiting a province.” [BDAG]
Huge festivities and ceremonies would take place at this visit. Lots of feasts and parades, even minting of special coins.
One important note here is that:
1–2 Thessalonians 1. Paul’s Concern over His Absence from the Thessalonians (2:17–20)
On such visits, a delegation of leading citizens would typically meet the coming dignitary outside the city and formally escort him for the remainder of his journey
So Paul say Jesus has his Coming and when that happens the dead in Christ won’t miss the party.
In verse 16 he shows what it will be like.
The Lord will descend from heaven - so Jesus will come down from heaven and his Coming will be announced very clearly:
With a cry of command
With the voice of an archangel
With the sound of the trumpet of God.
The Thessalonians would complete understand this because this was how Roman officials came to cities.
A loud command - the emperor is coming! a herald/messenger’s announcement/trumpet fanfare.
And, the resurrection! - the dead in Christ will rise first.
The dead in Christ will be the first to get up and go out to Jesus the King and his Coming!
Then - verse 17 - those who are alive and in Christ… will be “caught up together with them”
Those alive who are believers in Christ will get swept up into the Coming party, in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Again the word here “to meet” is a very specific word that was part of a Parousia or Coming of a Roman dignitary:
The leading members of the city would go out of the city, meet the honored dignitary, and the come back to the city in a big parade of welcome.
God’s people will be party of the welcoming committee going out to meet Jesus as he comes again to establish his forever kingdom and make all things new!
The movement described in this passage isn’t a movement of Jesus coming, raising the dead in Christ to life, picking up those those who are alive and then going back to heaven.
It’s of Jesus coming again to earth, his followers, dead and living, being raised up to meet him in the air, and then descending back to earth as the King sets up his kingdom.
That’s going to be an awesome day!
And we should be eager for that day.
That day should be the deepest of our longings - when Christ comes again and makes all things right and new.
Let me put it like this, we all have future dates on our calendar that excite us, and we live preparing for and in light of those dates.
Right now I have September 13 on my calendar as the day I, hopefully, summit the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States, Mt. Whitney.
I am living and preparing myself for that day, doing some training, making sure I have the right gear, making travel plans… all the stuff.
But the day that should really important and most ultimate is the day of Jesus’ Coming.
Jesus said no one knows the day or hour… but that day is certain. It’s coming!
So we need to live anticipating and readying ourselves for that day.
Peter reminds us in 2 Peter 3:14
14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
Pursue holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
Get ready! The day of Jesus’ Coming is drawing near.
Because resurrection is coming we can approach life and death by grieving death with hope.
Secondly we must live anticipating Christ’s return.
Third we live in order to:
Comfort one another (1 Thess 4:17b-18)
Comfort one another (1 Thess 4:17b-18)
One of the problems with talking about the Second Coming is that we’ve got a culture full of dumb books and YouTube videos and podcasts with all sorts of speculative teaching and wild goofy guesses about Jesus’ Second Coming.
Some of these teachers make greater jumps and leaps and twists with the Bible than the world’s best gymnasts do at the Olympics.
It’s crazy and it misses the point completely.
Do you know why Paul wrote this to these Christians? Not so they could bunker down, get some crayons and write an End Times Timeline on an ammo canister waiting for the “Rapture”
His purpose in writing it is verse 18 -
18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Encourage - or comfort.
He’s writing to a church that has just had many of their friends and loved ones persecuted and murdered by the government because they proclaimed Jesus is Lord instead of worshipping Caesar as Lord, and they are sad and even anxious about what the future holds.
They aren’t thinking about the End Times and “88 reasons Jesus will return in 2088.”
They want to know if their friends and family in the church are safe in Christ.
So his point is to encourage them.
And how does he do that - the last words of verse 17 are those words:
“And so we will always be with the Lord.”
Friends, that’s the Christian’s hope! We will forever be with Jesus.
When we say “I believe in the life everlasting” we mean that the life everlasting is life with Jesus forever.
We’ll never be separated from him. Never alone from him. Always in the presence of our Lord and Savior!
That’s the great comfort.
Yes, we will be with all those who believe and trust Jesus as well.
But we. will. be. with. Christ. FOREVER!
Charles Spurgeon the famous 19th century English pastor put it this way:
The Spurgeon Study Bible: Notes Chapter 4
Whatever else you draw comfort from, neglect not this deep, clear, and over-flowing well of delight. There are other sources of good cheer in connection with the glory to be revealed, for heaven is a many-sided joy, but still none can excel the glory of communion with Jesus Christ
Friends, our joy is to tell each other when life is hard, when things are difficult, when suffering comes, when death appears, “We will always be with the Lord.”
Our future in Christ is incredibly bright.
Consider how much we need to encourage each other this way… it’s the motivation that fuels our race.
Brother, it’s hard… but look up! the day is coming when we will always be with the Lord.
Sister, I know you grieve, and I grieve with you, but remember the day is coming when we will always be with the Lord!
He will wipe every tear, death will be no more, and we will be with the Lord forever.
24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Is that your hope, is that your ultimate desire?
So let me remind you of the three ways we should live now knowing that Jesus is Coming
We should grieve with hope.
We should anticipate Jesus’ return
We should comfort one another.
I have one of my grandfather Ralph’s Bibles at home. He wrote a lot in his Bible.
When I took the other day and turned to this passage I noticed one word that he had circled.
Comfort/Encourage.... that’s what we see here!
Let’s believe in Jesus!
Let’s believe resurrection is coming for all who trust in Him!
Let’s comfort each other and encourage each other all the more
Amen.
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