Well, please take your Bibles and open them up this morning to the book of 1 Corinthians.
! Our passage this morning is the second half of chapter 15.
! It's 1 Corinthians 15, verses 35-58.
If you don't have your own Bibles, you can find that in the pew Bibles there in front of you.
1 Corinthians 15, verses 35-58.
And when you found it in your Bibles, let's stand in honor of the reading of God's Word this morning.
1 Corinthians 15, verses 35-58.
1 Corinthians 15, verses 36-58.
1 Corinthians 15, verses 36-59.
1 Corinthians 15, verse 37-58.
What is sown is perishable.
What is raised is imperishable.
It is sown in dishonor.
It is raised in glory.
It is sown in weakness.
It is raised in power.
It is sown a natural body.
It is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
Thus it is written,
The first man Adam became a living being.
The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
But it is not the spiritual that's first, but the natural and then the spiritual.
The first man was from the earth, a man of dust.
The second man is from heaven.
As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust.
And as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.
Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust,
we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
I'll tell you this, brothers.
Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
Nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Behold, I tell you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment.
In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable.
And we shall be changed.
For this perishable body must put on the imperishable,
and this mortal body must put on immortality.
When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality,
then shall come to pass the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?
The sting.
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord,
knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
The grass withers, and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever.
Father, we praise you for this word, and we pray again,
would you fix our hope on eternity with Christ resurrected in the new heavens and new earth.
We pray in Christ's name.
Amen.
You may be seated.
Well, this is week two of our mini-series on the resurrection.
Last week, Easter Sunday, we saw the glorious truth of Jesus' resurrection from the dead.
And the plan is, this week and Lord willing, next week,
we're going to continue exploring this truth of resurrection
as we look at the implications that Jesus' resurrection has for us.
And so I want to ask the question this morning,
is it possible to be too spiritual?
Is it possible to be too spiritually minded?
You may have heard the quote before.
It's often falsely attributed to C.S. Lewis.
It says, you don't have a soul.
You are a soul.
You have a body.
You don't have a soul.
You are a soul.
That's what you really are.
You're spiritual in nature.
You just have a body.
The soul is what lasts forever, but this body is kind of an accessory to the soul
that eventually will be discarded and done away with.
Apparently, C.S. Lewis never said that, not on record at least.
And to be honest, I'm not sure who originally said that.
But as we look at our passage here this morning,
it may as well have been somebody from the church in Corinth.
Now, apparently, as we saw last week,
the Corinthians are having some issues here in the church.
They're having some very serious practical, moral issues
that Paul addresses in this letter.
They're also having some doctrinal issues here in the church.
Some there in Corinth are trying to remove
a key fundamental piece of Christian doctrine.
You remember what it was?
They could not wrap their minds around the reality
of the resurrection from the dead.
As we saw last time in the first half of the chapter,
Paul confidently argued that if the dead are not raised,
then Christ is not raised.
And if Christ is not raised,
then this whole structure of Christianity
comes crumbling down to the ground.
They had such a hard time wrapping their minds
around a physical future for the people of God.
It seems as if the Corinthians were just so spiritual,
spiritual, so spiritually minded,
so spiritually focused, so spiritually oriented
that they simply could not conceive of a physical future.
The physical body for them was an afterthought
and the resurrection body was an absurdity.
Why in the world would we need or want a new body?
As I thought about this issue there in Corinth this week,
I thought, you know what, that's not just a Corinthian problem, is it?
I'd be willing to argue that many modern Christians
are far too spiritual in their understanding of eternity.
For many Christians, our view of eternity
and what happens after we die,
our hope for the future, ends with heaven.
It ends with us escaping from this world.
It ends with the separation of body and soul.
It ends with us getting rid of these old bodies
and going to be with the Lord.
And praise God, all of that is true for you in Christ, believer.
But here we see, Paul says,
our future hope is even greater than that.
The hope that we have in Christ,
the hope that Christ has purchased for His people
by His resurrection from the dead,
is that we too will be raised up like Him at the last day
with new, glorified, resurrected bodies.
So let's look at this this morning.
I want to look at our text.
I just want to ask five questions here this morning
about the resurrection.
This will be our outline if you're taking notes.
Five questions about the resurrection.
I'm sure you have way more than that,
and so do I.
But here's five.
First, what does the Bible say about our hope?
What does the Bible say about our hope?
Does this really match up with what the Bible says?
And if so, does our hope match up with what the Bible says?
Well, I want to go to just a few other places
outside of our passage here very quickly
and show this to you.
One place I think of is John chapter 11.
The resurrection of Lazarus from the dead.
You remember the story?
The Lazarus has died.
Jesus is not there.
That's intentional.
And by the time He does show up,
Mary and Martha are there, and they're upset.
You remember what they said?
Lord, if you had been here,
none of this would have happened.
And they're feeling, they're encountering the grief
and the weight of losing their brother.
And how does Jesus comfort them?
Do you remember what He said?
If it were you and I, we might have said something like,
well, Martha, Lazarus is in heaven.
He believed in Jesus.
He trusts the promises of God.
Lazarus has died, and now he's in heaven.
That would be the comfort that we would give them, right?
And when I preach at a Christian funeral,
often the comfort that we give is that
this departed beloved friend is now with the Lord.
But that's not what Jesus says.
What did He say?
Your brother will rise again.
Now, of course, Martha didn't know that he meant
in like five seconds he's about to rise again, right?
But even so, her comfort in the face of death
was not heaven, it was resurrection.
Your brother will rise again.
Philippians chapter 3.
Paul says to the Philippians,
our citizenship is in heaven.
And if we were to finish the sentence,
we might say something like,
our citizenship is in heaven,
and one day when we die, we get to go there.
What does he say?
Our citizenship is in heaven,
and from it we await a Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ,
who will transform our lowly body
to be like His glorious body
by the power that enables Him
to subject all things to Himself.
In other words, church,
we're not ultimately waiting to go there
without the body.
Ultimately, we're waiting for Christ
to come back here
and transform everything,
including our bodies.
That's what we have to look forward to.
But one more place,
1 Thessalonians chapter 4.
Again, we're dealing with death here
in 1 Thessalonians.
The Thessalonians are worried
about their dead friends,
their dead brothers and sisters in Christ.
And so Paul says in chapter 4, verse 13,
we don't want you to be uninformed, brothers,
about those who are asleep, dead,
that you may not grieve as others do
who have no hope.
So what's the hope, Paul?
What's the hope that we have?
Why should they not grieve?
And again, if we were to answer that,
we might say something like,
well, we don't grieve because we have the hope of heaven.
What does he say?
For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again,
even so, through Jesus,
God will bring with him
those who have fallen asleep.
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven
with a cry of command,
with the voice of an archangel,
with the sound of the trumpet of God,
and the dead in Christ will rise first.
He's coming back here.
And the dead will be raised.
Do you see it?
In other words, believer,
our hope is not just spiritual.
It is also very, very physical and tangible.
We will receive new resurrected bodies
at the return of Christ.
Praise God.
And so then my question is,
back to our passage,
question number two,
well, what then will it be like?
This is the question we all have, isn't it?
Tell us what this resurrected body
is going to be like.
And in fact, it looks like Paul,
he anticipates that question in our passage,
doesn't he?
Look there to verse 35.
He says,
someone's going to ask,
how are the dead raised?
With what kind of body do they come?
And how does he answer?
You foolish person.
Doesn't Paul just drive you crazy?
You foolish person.
It sounds a little bit harsh to me, doesn't it?
I think what this response shows us
is that Paul is expecting the Corinthians
just to write this whole thing off
completely as absurd.
He knows that they're just so obsessed
with being spiritual people
that the whole idea of resurrecting the body
is just ridiculous to them.
I mean, how are the dead going to be raised?
Paul, are you serious?
What kind of body are they going to get?
You actually believe this, Paul?
And Paul says,
yes, in fact, I do.
In fact, you already have all around you,
if you would pay attention,
you already have examples
of what I'm trying to talk about here.
If you will just look around you
at the world you live in,
you have examples all around you
of transformation.
Think of the seeds that you sow into the ground.
For the believer,
death is like sowing seeds.
Y'all know I'm not much of a gardener
or a farmer.
Amanda, my wife, likes to garden.
I like to eat what comes out of the garden.
That's about the extent of my involvement there.
But I know this,
the seeds,
when you buy seeds at a store,
they don't look like the final product,
do they?
In fact, you get a little packet
and it has a picture on the packet
for simple people like me
so that we know
what should come out of the ground
if it's successful.
The final product comes from the seed,
but if you were to hold up a seed
and the final product
hand by hand,
side by side together,
you can hardly believe
that this end product
comes from this little seed.
I mean,
you hold up a sunflower seed
next to a full-grown sunflower,
you can hardly believe
that this came from that thing.
Paul says,
so it is
with our bodies.
God has put into nature itself
examples of life,
death,
resurrection,
and transformation.
So don't write it off.
You see it every day.
Not only that,
he says you also see
examples of distinction
and different kinds of bodies
all around you.
You do have a point of reference
for this.
It's not as absurd as you think.
Look at all around you.
Not all flesh is the same.
Birds have wings
so they can fly in the air.
Fish have fins and gills
so that they can swim in the water.
They are fit for the water.
God knows
how to give each part
of his creation
a body that they need
for the realm
that they live in.
And you have an earthly body
that's fit for your life
here on earth.
And yes,
you will have
a heavenly body
that's fit
for your life
in eternity.
So if that's true,
Paul,
then again,
we need to ask,
well,
what in the world
will it be like?
And look there,
starting in verse 42.
Because here on,
he begins to describe
this new body to us.
He says,
your resurrected body,
the body that believers in Christ
have to look forward to,
he says,
your resurrected body
will be imperishable.
Look there at verse 42.
What's sown is perishable,
but what is raised
is imperishable.
Now,
we all know that
this present body
is perishable.
I don't have to tell you that.
Our bodies age,
they hurt,
they bruise,
they bleed,
they get sick,
they have runny noses
and sore throats.
They got to go to the doctor
and eventually,
for every single one of us,
eventually the time comes
when they simply cannot keep going
and they perish.
Paul says,
I got good news for you.
Our resurrected body
is going to be imperishable.
This body that we get to enjoy
for the rest of eternity
is not subject to pain
or decay
or deterioration.
The mind doesn't fade.
The body doesn't weaken.
Achy knees and arthritis,
bad backs,
bad breath,
carpal tunnel,
cancer,
all of it's gone.
Praise God.
God,
if you're suffering
physically,
and most of us are
in some way,
if you are suffering
physically,
Paul has good news.
Yes,
you who are in the Lord
get to go to heaven
and be done with it all,
but then
you will be made new
with a new body
that will be totally alive
for the first time.
No pain,
no suffering,
no threat of death.
D.A. Carson
says,
you're not suffering
from anything
that a good resurrection
can't fix.
Amen.
Our new bodies
will be imperishable.
Not only this,
Paul says,
your resurrected body
will be glorious.
Verse 43,
it's sown in dishonor,
but it's raised in glory.
When we rise,
our new bodies
will be perfect.
Are you in search
of the perfect body?
You want a plan
to get the perfect body?
Put your faith in Christ
and hope in eternity.
Our new bodies,
he says,
will be glorious.
We'll be finally free
from the presence
and the power
and the penalty
of sin in the flesh.
We will be
as the bride of Christ
presented to him
without blemish.
Spotless,
and pure
and glorious
and radiant.
We will be holy
as he is holy
at last.
Praise God.
In fact,
he says,
this new body
will be powerful.
Verse 43,
it's sown in weakness
and it's raised up
in power.
It will be raised
in spiritual power.
You think of the garden
as Christ went to pray
before his crucifixion?
What did he say
to the disciples?
You remember?
He tells his disciples,
stay awake
and pray
that you might not
enter into temptation.
Why?
Because he says,
the spirit indeed
is willing,
but what?
Help me.
That flesh is weak.
All of us experience this.
Paul agrees
in Romans chapter 7.
Paul says,
I know that nothing good
dwells in me
that is in my flesh,
for I have the desire
to do what's right,
but I don't have the ability
to carry it out.
That's the tension
that every genuine believer
in Christ feels
in their battle with sin
deep down
by the grace of God.
We desire to live
for the Lord,
but in our flesh
we're so weak,
but not in the resurrection.
In the resurrection
we will be raised up
in power.
Why?
Because ultimately
Paul says,
the natural body
will be put to death
and we will be raised up
a spiritual body.
Verse 44.
It is sown a natural body.
It is raised a spiritual body.
In other words, church,
our hope is that
because we are united
to Jesus Christ by faith,
in our resurrection
we will be made like Jesus.
Made like Him.
Like Him we rise.
We just sang.
That's an incredible hope,
isn't it?
Our hope is not just
that we can die
and escape all the bad stuff
in this life.
Anybody can hope in that.
In fact, non-believers
all over the planet
have hope like that.
That's why they rob
from our comfort
when death comes
at their door.
When death comes
around a non-believer
they say things like,
well, they're in a better place.
They're resting in peace.
Anybody can hope in that.
That's not the extent
of our hope.
Our hope is that
we will be with Christ.
Not only that we'll be with Him,
but that we will be made
like Christ.
Look there to verse 47.
It says,
The first man, Adam,
was from the earth,
a man of dust.
The second man,
the second Adam,
that's Christ,
is from heaven.
As was the man of dust,
so also are those
who are of the dust.
And as is the man of heaven,
so also are those
who are of heaven.
Here's the key.
Just as we have borne
the image of the man of dust,
so also we shall bear
the image of the man of heaven.
I know we just had Easter
last Sunday,
but we need to talk
about Christmas
and the glory,
the miracle of the incarnation
of Jesus.
The wonder of what happened there
at the birth of Christ
is that for the first time
in all eternity,
the Son of God
took on human flesh.
The Word became flesh
and dwelt among us.
We are made in the image of God.
Paul says in Colossians
that He is the very image
of the invisible God.
He took on flesh.
Why did He do it?
In order to redeem His people.
He came to be as we are.
He came to live in the place
of His people,
die in the place of His people,
and then rise up from the grave
bodily with a new,
imperishable,
powerful,
glorious,
spiritual body
so that we might be made like Him.
He came to be as we are
so that we might go to be as He is.
Made like Him,
like Him,
we rise.
Robert Candlish,
he says it like this.
He says,
He is risen for them.
Then they rise in Him.
They rise because He has risen.
They rise as He is risen.
They rise to be as He is
and where He is now that He is risen.
They rise as His body,
the fullness of Him
that filleth all in all.
Our hope
is not just that we get to be with Him,
but that we get to be like Him.
We who trust in Christ by faith
will be raised up from the dead,
physically,
in new,
glorified bodies.
That's our hope, church.
So third question,
why must it happen?
Never think about that.
Why is this whole thing even necessary?
Why do we need that sort of transformation?
Look there to verse 50.
Verse 50 tells us,
Paul says,
I tell you this, brothers,
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,
nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
In other words,
we are not currently in our present state
fit for eternity.
Something's got to change.
The kingdom of God itself
is imperishable
and glorious
and full of power
and spiritual.
And for it to be filled with citizens,
those who are made to enjoy it
for the rest of eternity,
well, then they too
must be made imperishable,
glorious,
full of power,
and spiritual.
This is the key issue, isn't it?
Our flesh and blood,
as it currently is right now,
cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
We must be transformed.
Our capacity
and our capability
is far too limited
in our current state
to enjoy all that God has in store
for us who believe.
Yeah, every now and then,
we have a meal around here.
It's about time for another one.
A potluck
or a Thanksgiving feast
and there's never once
been a shortage of food,
right?
Not in my time, at least.
Every time we go,
there are meats
and veggies
and casseroles
and pies
and cakes.
There's more food
than we could possibly
begin to enjoy.
And then we got that whole table
of desserts.
It's all there.
Now, I will never understand it.
Every time we do it,
I stand up right here
and I say,
if you don't have lunch plans already,
come and join us.
We want you to come.
There's a feast back there
for you to enjoy.
There's a seat at a table for you.
Come and enjoy it.
And every time,
there are people
who leave hungry
without eating.
I stay.
All right?
And every time,
as I stay,
I run into the same two problems.
For one,
my plate is always too small.
Miss Ann breaks out
the heavy plates.
We can't mess with the flimsy ones
for Thanksgiving meal.
We get the heavy plates out.
We know we got to hold some weight.
But even so,
try as I may,
even with a big plate,
my appetite can't handle all of it.
I simply,
as much as I might want to,
I cannot try.
I can't enjoy all of the feasts
that's laid out before me.
My capacity is too small.
Well, friend,
in the gospel,
we are called,
invited,
to come and to feast
on the goodness of God.
That's what I stand up
and do every single week.
I say,
come,
repent of your sins.
And by faith in Christ,
you get to enjoy
all that God
has to offer
now and into eternity.
I make that invitation
every week.
And every week,
there's some who walk away hungry.
But for those who
have come to faith in Him
by the grace of God,
what happens in us
is that we've been given
a desire for the Lord.
It's a hunger for Him.
Now,
that didn't come from us.
That came from Him.
And it's evidence of new life
that you've been born again.
We desire Him
and we love Him
and we lose our appetite for sin.
We gain an appetite for Christ.
But in this present life,
we simply don't have the capacity
to enjoy all that He has in store for us.
The feast is there,
but our plates are too small.
The desire in a believer is there.
Our appetite is limited.
One prayer that we all
ought to pray regularly is,
Lord, would You increase
my desire for You?
Lord, would You increase
my appetite for You?
Lord, would You increase
my capacity to enjoy You?
We pray that now.
But when we are resurrected,
guess what?
We won't have to pray
that prayer anymore.
Why?
Because we will be made
capable of enjoying God
in His eternal kingdom
for the rest of eternity.
That's what awaits us in Christ.
The more you spend time
thinking on that
and meditating on it
and putting your hope in it,
the more you desire it
and the more you ask,
well, when will this happen?
When will this come?
When can I come
and enjoy God forever
in the new heavens
and the new earth?
When will I eat and drink
with Christ Himself
in the kingdom of God?
And that's our fourth question.
When will it happen?
Look there to verse 51 with me.
Paul says,
Behold, I tell you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep,
but we shall all be changed
in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye,
at the last trumpet.
For the trumpet will sound
and the dead in Christ
will be raised imperishable
and we shall be changed.
For this perishable body
must put on the imperishable.
And this mortal body
must put on immortality.
When the perishable
puts on the imperishable
and the mortal puts on immortality,
then shall come to pass the saying.
Then shall come to pass
the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?
The sting of death is sin
and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God
who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now Paul is quoting here
from the book of Isaiah,
chapter 25.
I'll read the passage to you.
He says,
On this mountain,
the Lord of hosts
will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food,
a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food,
full of marrow,
of aged wine,
well-refined.
And He will swallow up
on this mountain
the covering that is cast
over all peoples,
the veil that is spread
over all nations.
He will swallow up death forever.
And the Lord God
will wipe away tears
from all faces.
And the reproach of His people
He will take away
from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
Behold, this is our God.
We have waited for Him
that He might save us.
This is the Lord.
We have waited for Him.
Let us be glad
and rejoice
in His salvation.
And believers have
hoped in this
for hundreds of years.
This is the days of Isaiah.
When will it happen?
When will death
be swallowed up?
When will the Lord
wipe away every tear?
When will we get
to enjoy this feast?
When will we be resurrected?
When will all things
be made new?
At the return
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's our hope, church.
Revelation picks up on this.
John says in Revelation chapter 21,
I saw a new heaven
and a new earth.
For the first heaven
and the first earth
had passed away
and the sea was no more.
And I saw the holy city,
New Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven
from God,
prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice
from the throne saying,
Behold,
the dwelling place of God
is with man.
He will dwell with them
and they will be His people.
God Himself will be with them
as their God.
He will wipe away
every tear from their eyes
and death shall be no more.
Neither shall there be mourning
nor crying
nor pain anymore
for the former things
have passed away.
And He who was seated
on the throne said,
Behold,
I am making all things new.
Church,
the realization of our hope,
the end of death,
the end of suffering,
the renewal of all things,
the full enjoyment
of the presence of the Lord
in His eternal kingdom
will come at the return
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ,
our hope
is not simply
that we would escape
from this world
and get away from all of it,
but that Jesus Christ
would come and finish
what He started.
That He would come
and finally put an end
to sin
and an end to death
and an end to the devil
and that we would be made
fit for eternity with Him
in the new heavens
and the new earth.
That's what awaits us
who believe in Christ.
Our hope is not just heaven
as good as that will be.
It is the new heavens
and the new earth
and we,
the new Jerusalem,
fully prepared
and adorned
for all eternity
with the Lord.
Friend,
is that your hope?
If not,
then you're called
right this moment
to turn
and to put your faith
in Christ
and receive this certain hope
of life forever with Him.
And if so,
if this is your hope,
then friend,
we need to ask
one final question here
as we close.
Fifth.
Fifth question.
So what?
You know,
Paul is never content
to just give us doctrine
without application.
He wants theology
that walks.
What difference
does all of this make?
God wants you to look there
to verses 57
and following.
And here,
Paul closes out
with four applications.
Application number one,
thank God
for the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
Thank God.
If this is what awaits us,
then we ought to live
a life of thankfulness
to God in Christ
right now.
Thanks be to God,
he says,
who gives us victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you,
God,
for rescuing me
from this body of death.
Thank you,
God,
for hope beyond the grave.
Thank you,
God,
for the hope of freedom
from the pain
and the aches
and the suffering
that I feel in this life.
Thank you,
God,
for the certain hope
of eternity forever
in a physical,
real,
tangible,
remade universe.
Second application.
Therefore,
my beloved brothers,
be steadfast.
In the midst
of an ever-changing world,
our culture
changes day by day,
ever-changing expectations
and norms
for what's wrong,
what's right,
what's acceptable,
what's not.
The certain hope
of eternity
with the Lord
in an unshakable,
unchanging kingdom
encourages God's people
to be faithful.
Life is just a vapor.
And then,
eternity.
Be steadfast,
believer.
Third application,
he says,
be immovable.
Be immovable.
You know,
when your heart
and your mind
and your soul
are so anchored
anchored in eternity,
you will not be
easily shaken
by the present.
When you're so full
of hope
and eager expectation
for the joys
of the kingdom
to come,
you will not
be easily uprooted
by the trials
of the present.
When your mind
is steadfastly
fixed on the truth,
you will not be
easily swept away
by every wind
and wave
of false doctrine.
Be immovable,
believer,
as you hope
in your certain future.
Application number four.
He says,
always abound
in the work
of the Lord.
Always
abound
in the work
of the Lord.
Church,
we have a mission
here in this life.
We have a mission
that Christ
has given us
as the church
here in this world.
So long as we have
life and breath
in this physical body,
we are to be
always abounding
in the work
of the Lord.
We have a mission
to accomplish.
Y'all know
the mission
of our church.
We exist
to magnify
the glory of God
in the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
Three ways
we do it.
As we enjoy God,
as we equip
the saints,
as we evangelize
the lost,
our hope
in our certain future
does not mean
that we just
check out
and wait for death
and wait for eternity
with the Lord.
No.
We know
that we ought
to always abound
in the work
of the Lord,
knowing that in the Lord
your labor
is not in vain,
but will echo
into eternity
to the praise
and glory of God.
Let's pray.
Lord,
God,
we thank you
for the hope
of eternity
with Christ.
We thank you
that Christ
has come to be
as we are,
that he might
make us
as he is
in resurrection
power.
We thank you,
Lord,
for the certain
hope that we have
that we get
to enjoy you,
feast forever
on all of
your glory,
all of your grace,
that we'll be made
fit for eternity.
Lord,
we pray that
in light of this
we would hope
in what you've given us
and that we would
always abound
in the work
of the Lord.
We pray this
in Jesus' name.
Amen.