Father, we ask that you would gently but powerfully pour out the Holy Spirit upon us.
Father, you know that we're afraid to talk about certain things.
You know that we're afraid to think about certain things.
You know that we're afraid to speak about certain things.
And Father, some of those things we shouldn't say are things that we shouldn't say.
But others are that we need to learn, Father, how to talk about them and how to think about them.
And so we ask, Father, that we would receive the healing medicine, the healing sustenance, the healing food that your word is.
That as we think about Jesus and his death and resurrection, that your word would enter deep into our hearts, deep into the center of who we are.
And that your word would rule there and form us so that we might live free lives for the good of others and for your great glory and the furtherance of your kingdom.
And we ask this, Father, in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
I'm going to talk about death.
I'm going to talk about death this morning.
And it's not because I have a fixation about it or anything, but it's because the Bible text talks about it.
And we preach through books of the Bible.
Is this mic all right?
It seems closer to something than usual.
Anyway, we're all fine?
Okay.
I'm going to talk about death.
And so just before we get into it, and I want to just, I mean, one of the things about being here, and not only those of you who are here and those of you who are online,
I have no idea whether just this week you've gotten very bad news about a very serious illness, maybe cancer.
Maybe you have had that over the last little while and you haven't even told anybody about it.
And so I just want to let you know that even though we're going to talk about some things here, and I acknowledge that I don't know your situation, and it might be hard to hear about death.
Maybe you've had the death of a loved one just recently, and you're here this morning or you're watching online.
And some of this might be very difficult to think about and hear.
But one of the things that we at Church of the Messiah are trying to do is that we're trying to learn more and more to trust the Bible and to trust Jesus and to walk towards those difficult things that he raises with us,
rather than walking away from them or sticking our head in sand like an ostrich, to try to walk towards it with him and to get wisdom from it.
And if you are here today or online and you have had some very, very bad news, I mean, this is the best place to be able to share it.
And if you're online and you have no one you can share it with, contact us and we'll see what we can do to try to help.
But Jesus wants you to know his presence and power in the midst of the very hardest times in your life.
I personally take great comfort in the words of the 23rd Psalm.
That go ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
And we have a good shepherd who walks with us in those hard times, even to the very point of death and beyond.
But it was an odd text. It was a text about death. We're looking at the gospel.
Let's see what Jesus has to say about this.
It's Mark chapter 12, verses 18 and following.
Mark 12, 18 and following. If you're using one of these, it's on page 74.
And the Bible text is going to say something which is also, I mean, not only is it a bit hard because it talks about death,
it's hard because he blows up the way that the average Canadian talks about death.
So what happens? Let's see.
Verse 18,
And Sadducees came to him.
Now just Sadducees, by the way, were one of the sort of groups or denominations, if you want to call it,
that existed in Judaism at the time of Jesus.
This isn't an anthropology lecture or archaeology lecture,
so I'm not going to bore you with all of the things that they believed and didn't believe.
The two main things, one of them is that Mark himself lets you know the important piece of information,
that they didn't believe there was life after death.
They believed that when you died, you died.
That was it.
The other piece which isn't in here, which we know from ancient sources,
is that most, if not all, priests at that time were Sadducees.
And that's going to become relevant towards the end of the sermon.
So I'll read it again.
And Sadducees came to Jesus.
They're the ones who say that there is no resurrection.
In other words, you die and you die.
You die and that's it.
Nothing else.
And they asked Jesus a question, saying,
Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child,
the man must take the widow, in other words, his brother's widow,
and raise up offspring for his brother.
In other words,
Mary entered into a type of marital relationship with her to get her pregnant,
so that she can have a child.
And this is while he's also potentially married to his own wife.
Now, just sort of pause here again.
For many of us, there's a yuck factor to this.
And for some of you, there's a bit of a,
that is really weird.
George, is that really in the Bible?
Yes, it is in the Bible.
It's in the book of Deuteronomy.
And the other thing, in case some of you are wondering,
does that mean Christians are supposed to be keeping this law today?
And the answer, very briefly, is no, they're not.
But here I have a bit of a decision.
I could talk about this law,
as found in the book of Deuteronomy,
or we could go on with the argument as Jesus develops it,
and we're not going to talk about Deuteronomy.
When we preach through Deuteronomy someday,
we'll talk about this for now.
Now, actually, what you need to really get from this,
the Sadducees, in a sense,
were the typical Canadian atheists.
They're just the same.
I mean, obviously, they're different.
I mean, the average Canadian atheist wouldn't be a priest.
Well, maybe in some denominations,
but we're not going to talk about that.
But so just to make it in terms of where Canada is,
in a sense, what the Sadducees are
is they're the modern Canadian atheists.
And the Jewish people at the time, believe it or not,
actually had similar views to most contemporary Canadians.
And so that's the point.
The Sadducees are the gadflies here in this case,
and they're trying to puncture the common belief
of the average Jewish person.
And so just listen to the rest of this,
and then I'm going to show you how this is actually
a very, very Canadian question.
Like, it's...
Don't get sidetracked with this odd law in Deuteronomy.
Just if you listen to the rest of it,
you'll realize this is as if Christopher Hitchens was among us.
This is as if a group of Canadians were to get...
have a full-blown discussion about issues
that Canadians all have opinions on.
So verse 20, here's how the argument goes, right?
So in verse 19, you know,
man's brother dies, leaves no child,
so the man must take the widow
and raise up offspring for his brother.
Verse 20, there were seven brothers.
The first took a wife, and when he died,
he left no offspring.
And the second took her and died,
leaving no offspring.
And the third likewise.
And the seven left no offspring.
Last of all, the woman also died.
So all seven of them had been married to the woman.
Here's the question.
In the resurrection, ha, ha, ha, they think,
when they rise again,
whose wife will she be for the seven had her as wife?
Now, how is this a very Canadian thing?
Well, I've gone to lots of funerals.
And I've led some funerals, obviously,
quite a few over the years.
The average Canadian,
what does the average Canadian believe?
When you die, you go to a better place.
That's what the average Canadian says.
I've been to piles of funerals
where they say,
not only do you go to a better place,
what else do they say?
They'll say,
mom is now reunited with dad
or with the brother or the sister
in a better place.
It's a very, very Canadian thing, isn't it?
In fact, average Canadians sort of believe
very similar to Jewish people.
It's sort of,
I'll not really define what that better place is,
but fundamentally,
it's sort of like earth,
only maybe, I guess, a bit better.
And you're not going to die again.
And that's sort of what happens when you die.
You go to a better place,
which is better than here.
You're not going to die again.
And, well, the husband,
the novel I'm reading right now,
a constant refrain,
as the guy is,
the hero is thinking he might die,
but it's not going to be a bad thing
because he will be reunited with his wife,
who's dead,
and his daughter, who's died.
And that's a very Canadian thing.
So, think about it then.
We now have these,
in a sense,
ancient atheists
who believe that when you die,
you die.
That's it.
And they now are talking
to the average Canadian,
and they're doing something
that in Canadian culture
is considered to be rude
and ill-mannered.
And so, maybe only stand-up comedians
would talk about it,
or me on this particular Sunday morning.
And only because
it's what the Bible says.
So, what happens
if you have a woman,
and she's married to a man,
and the man dies of a heart attack,
and then she marries another man,
and he dies of cancer,
and then she marries another man,
and he dies of a stroke.
She has very bad luck, obviously.
And then finally, she dies.
Well, at the funeral,
when they say she goes to a better place,
what's she going to do?
Is she going to have three husbands?
It's not going to be a better place
for the husbands,
and if only she picks one of them,
sucks to be the other two.
How's that a better place?
Now, let's just sort of
press into this argument a little bit,
since we've opened the door
of rudeness in Canadian culture.
Imagine that there's a man and woman,
and they're married.
They have a couple of kids.
The woman, the husband,
in very, very typical manner,
after the kids have gotten a bit older,
he finds a younger, prettier model,
in quotation marks,
and he divorces his first wife
and marries his second wife.
And then, three years later,
or five years later,
the man and his new wife,
they die in a car accident
out in the west end of the city,
and the wife,
she dies of some other reason
in the east end of the city,
and there's separate funerals.
And at the funeral,
at the first wife's funeral,
the priest or the minister
or the officiant says
she's gone to a better place.
At the other funeral,
of the man with his second wife,
they say she's gone to a better place.
They've both gone to a better place.
Well, how is it exactly a better place
for the woman in the east end
because she hates the guy's guts
and despises the trophy wife?
How is that a better place?
You can multiply.
As you can see,
there's profound problems
with the average Canadian view.
Now, just as an aside,
obviously this is going beyond the text,
but this is how I think
the Sadducees would argue
or the average Canadian atheist.
Many Canadians would say,
okay, well, the better place
isn't a physical place.
It's sort of more of a spiritual place.
In fact, that's actually how most people,
many Canadians would think about it.
It's like a spiritual place.
You go to a,
you're just like a spirit now.
Well, some of you are big hockey fans
and you know that you've heard of
Borea Salming,
who was a famous defenseman
for the Toronto Maple Leafs
for many years.
I think he's in the Hall of Fame.
And he just recently had
a very emotional time in Toronto.
He has Lou Gehrig's disease,
very, very far advanced.
He's only 71 years old.
There was a very emotional ceremony
at Maple Leaf Gardens
when he was wheeled out onto the ice
with some of his former teammates.
And a long ovation,
he went back to Sweden
and he just died a couple of days ago.
And Chris Selle,
a columnist for the National Post,
he's written, interestingly enough,
he wrote a column yesterday in the paper
arguing for medically assisted dying,
as they have in Canada.
And here's how he begins his column.
There probably isn't any good way to die
from ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease.
The cruel motor neuron disease
that gradually renders its victims
unable to speak,
eat, move,
and even breathe independently.
It's among the most chilling diagnoses,
surely.
The idea of losing one's physical functions
while one's mental functions remain mostly intact
is the stuff of nightmares.
And we would all agree.
All agree.
But he's also just described heaven
if it's spiritual with nothing physical.
The average Canadian envisions a life
that's like having ALS for all eternity.
A soul or a spirit with no physical connection.
I guess some average Canadians would go,
okay, but the other very typical way,
and we'll move into the text
to see what Jesus has to say about everything.
It's a very, very common thing to hear at funerals
and in movies at funerals.
People say something like,
don't grieve for me when I die.
I am in the wind.
I am in the flowers.
I am in the sunshine.
I am in the mountains.
And they go a range of very, very beautiful things
that they're going to be into.
So don't grieve because that's where they've gone.
To which the Sadducees would say this,
really?
You don't have the power to keep yourself alive
and you have the power to do all that?
Like, how does that work?
You don't even have the power to keep yourself alive,
but you think you have the power
to go in all the wind and all the flowers
and all the sunshine?
In fact, all that is is,
sorry if I'm offending,
it's a type of deep pride.
Unmoored from thinking.
So the Sadducees are probably giving each other high fives
because they think that Jesus
has the average Canadian view of the afterlife
and that as such,
he'll have no answer to their question.
Now just sort of a pause here.
One of the things that this text
has really helped me to remember is,
and it's an important thing for us,
many of you will notice
if you've come to the church before
that I often don't use just the word God.
I mean, sometimes I say the word God, obviously.
I mean, it's a church service.
But increasingly, I try to use the word triune God.
And that's because we need to remember
that the average Canadian doesn't believe
in the same God that the Christian believes in.
That we as Christians have a fundamentally different view
of what God is or who God is than most Canadians.
I try to remember when people say
they have problems with the idea of God
or they don't see why it matters whether God exists,
I try to remember to ask them,
well, who or what do you think God is?
And if I remember to do that
and then they try to describe it
and then I tell them, well, I don't believe
that God exists either, they're very surprised.
Because the average Canadian thinks
that I'm going to agree with them,
that we're going to agree with them.
And the mistake that the Pharisees make
is they think that Jesus has the average view
of resurrection as he just has that average view.
But Jesus is going to show them that he doesn't.
Look how Jesus now answers this particular issue.
And what he does, he's going to sort of give
three different fundamental images.
They're all very briefly written.
They need to be unpacked a little bit.
But what they are is an outline of reason,
an outline of hope, and an outline of grace.
They open a door to something which is both fully reasonable,
but is also fully grounded in a good reason to have hope
and an understanding of God's grace.
So let's see what happens.
Verse 24.
So Jesus said to them,
Is this not the reason you are wrong?
That's how he begins.
And as we're going to see in a moment,
he's not only saying that they're wrong,
but he's saying that in a sense
the average Jewish belief is wrong as well.
He's saying both are wrong.
Is this not the reason you are wrong?
Because you know neither the scriptures
nor the power of God.
So he set before them that they're wrong.
Second thing then is that the next thing
is he gives the first of these three key sort of insights
that we could meditate upon for a moment.
The first one is this, verse 25.
For when they rise,
that is when people rise from the dead,
they neither marry nor are given in marriage.
But are like angels in heaven.
Now just pause here for a second.
It's a very, very short phrase.
It's a very powerful and deep phrase.
But it's easy to misunderstand it.
He is not saying that when I die,
I become an angel.
Or that when you die, you become an angel.
He's not saying that at all.
He's saying something different.
He's saying...
Well, here is...
Hear about it for a second.
If you think about it,
basically what he's saying is
what happens after death
is going to involve a world
where our categories
have next to no ability to comprehend it.
I'll explain a little bit in a moment.
So we know a few things about angels
for devout Christians.
We know they exist.
We know they're pure spirit.
We know that God can send them
and that they can do some things
in this physical world.
And they can somehow or another
communicate with human beings.
But beyond that,
do we know if they have friends?
Do we know if they have anything
corresponding to what we understand
as sex or gender?
Do we know how they communicate?
Do we know what life is like for them?
We don't know anything about them, really.
We just know they exist.
And the fact of the matter is
is that God couldn't even communicate to us, really,
anything about angelic existence
because it's in a completely different category.
Like, we don't have any categories
for creatures that are pure spirit.
Like, we just don't.
I mean, that's just using our reason.
And so Jesus is saying
that whatever is going to be
in the new heaven and the new earth,
and there is going to be
a new heaven and new earth,
there's going to be a resurrection.
You have to understand
that it's going into a realm
where we don't have the categories
to comprehend it.
I'll give you another example,
which is a biblical example,
not the one that Jesus uses.
And I'm going to circle back,
I think, as to why Jesus doesn't use this one.
If you...
I got this one from Sam Albury.
A carrot seed doesn't look anything like a carrot.
And an acorn doesn't look anything like an oak tree.
And if you imagine a world of, you know,
somehow vaguely sentient,
like carrot seeds it could think,
and maybe they get some rumors
from some divine being
that there's something called carrots.
Well, they wouldn't have anything at all,
they wouldn't have any way at all
of understanding how when they die,
they don't just become like a bigger seed,
they become a carrot.
Carrot.
Like, carrots like water.
Seeds don't, because it'll kill them, right?
Like, they don't have the categories for that.
It's just completely different.
Acorns and oak trees are so different,
and an acorn can be carried around.
They think, okay, that must mean oaks are better,
so they get easier to carry around.
No, no, no, no, you can't carry oak trees.
No, no, that just doesn't make,
they have no place to understand it.
And so that's what Jesus is saying,
that human beings do not have the categories
to comprehend what the resurrected life
is going to be like.
Now, here's the second piece,
because he doesn't just say this,
he says this thing,
and this is a very puzzling piece,
and so you need to take a step back,
and then you'll see how wonderful it is.
Look at what he says next in verse 26.
So, by the way, back there,
he doesn't say,
the first thing that he's saying
doesn't mean that there's no connections
between husbands and wives,
or kids and children, or parents.
He's just saying,
whatever's going to be there,
there's no category in our experience
for what that means.
That's what he's just saying.
I can't answer it.
Verse 26,
and as for the dead being raised,
have you not read in the book of Moses,
in the passage about the bush,
how God spoke to him, saying,
I am the God of Abraham,
and the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob?
Now, how does this prove anything at all?
Well, it's a very subtle type of argument
that he's making,
that you only really understand
if you understand all of the book of Genesis,
and Exodus,
and all those first five books,
and it's this.
We use a human analogy.
Imagine for a moment
that your dad lives in another country,
actually,
and you've been promising,
or just lives very far away,
and you've been promising for a long time
that you're going to return to that country
to visit your father,
or you're going to go to return
to visit your mother,
and then, I mean,
apart from COVID,
you're busy with jobs,
you're busy with your kids,
there's some financial crunches,
you always mean very well,
and you continually promise
that you're going to come back,
and you're going to see your parent,
but then the parent dies,
and you didn't keep your promise,
right?
For some people,
it can be very, very hard.
It doesn't even have to be another country.
It could be something as simple
as your grandfather,
or some other loved one,
really wants to return
to the cottage that they grew up in,
and experience just one more time,
maybe,
being able to be up there
and have a campfire,
or just enjoy the cottage,
and you keep promising them
you're going to take them,
and you just never get around
to taking them,
and then they die,
and everybody would say,
and you yourself would feel
that you did not keep your promise,
and it's the stuff of books and movies
about how people wrestle
with the guilt
of not keeping their promise.
Now, when we were reading
through the book of Genesis,
the story of Abraham,
earlier on in this year,
one of the things,
if you notice,
and if you don't remember,
you can go back
and you can read,
that God made a series
of promises to Abraham,
but at the end of the book,
many of those promises
weren't kept,
or were they?
If they weren't kept,
does that mean
that God didn't keep his promise?
Does God,
the triune God,
have regret
that he didn't get
to keep his word to Abraham?
Well, the answer is,
if Abraham is still alive,
if Isaac is still alive,
if Jacob is still alive,
then you can't see
that God didn't keep his promise.
And that's what's significant
about the quote.
And here's the thing
which is very important for us.
And this is maybe
part of the reason
why Jesus uses the example
of angels rather than seeds.
See, the problem
with the seed analogy
is that we human beings
might think,
well, seeds turning,
a carrot seed
turning into a carrot
is just a natural process.
If you plant the carrot seed,
unless the dogs dig it up,
and so there's no,
it doesn't grow,
or unless a bunny rabbit
comes as the green leaves
are coming up
and eats it
and kills the carrot,
that it's just
a natural process.
And we human beings
might think
it's just a natural process.
In fact,
that's what the average
Canadian thinks,
that it's just
a natural process.
You live,
you die,
and then you live
in this new type
of resurrected life,
although you don't know
how to answer
the questions
of the Sadducees,
of the Canadian atheists.
And Jesus is saying
it's not a natural process.
People are kept alive
after death
because of
the promise
of God.
You and I
are dependent
on the promise
of God.
It's not natural.
It's dependent
on his promise.
It's his promise
that gives you life.
See,
this actually
is going to talk
about another thing
which is undergirding
the average way
that we Canadians
think about things
like this.
We tend to think
of it in terms
of either
I defeat death
and live
or death defeats me
and I die.
I defeat death
or death defeats me
and Jesus
is saying
there's a
that's not the right
way to think about it.
It's not whether
you defeat
you're not going
to defeat death
you're just not
going to defeat death.
It is going to win.
But there's another option
that there can be
a promise from God
that you can share
in the defeat
of death of Jesus.
But to do that
requires
humbling yourself
and letting go
of your proud
determination
that unless you
defeat death
you want death
to win
and Jesus says
no, no, no, no, no, no.
What you really need
is the promise
of God.
And then the final
piece of the puzzle
is the third thing
that he says
that's verse
27.
He is not
the God
of the dead
but of the living.
You are quite wrong.
And note here
how he says
wrong at the beginning
and wrong at the end.
And why is this interesting?
This is a very powerful
emotional
not only is it
an intellectual statement
but it's an imaginative
statement
and an emotional statement.
And we all
intuitively understand
that.
That there's a radical
difference between
the God of the dead
and the God of the living.
They're radically
different images
of God.
Those of you
who like movies
and books
about drug cartels
out of Mexico
you'll know
that there's a
apparently
if the books
are accurate
there's sort of
a cult
of a worship
of a particular
type of
sort of
Mexican type
of goddess.
I think she's called
Santeria
and she's the goddess
of death.
And you go there
and there's skulls
and there's
and it inspires them
to kill
and to rape
and to loot
and to do
complete and other
atrocities.
And you all
would understand
that if you were
to go to a temple
devoted to the
God of death
it would look
very different
than going to
the temple
devoted to
the God of life.
That they're
emotionally
intellectually
completely and
utterly different
images.
And what Jesus
is saying is
the God
the triune God
who does exist
is not the God
of death
he is the God
of life.
He is living
alive
the God of life.
And our
entering into
a life after
death
a resurrected
life that we
have no
categories for
in our mind
is dependent
not upon
anything that
you have
done
but upon
the promise
of God.
It is based
on the promise
of God.
And then of
course
in a couple
of days
see what
I didn't tell
you and some
of you do
know is that
this incident
in this story
happens a
couple of
days before
Jesus dies
on a cross
and happens
then a day
or two
before Jesus
will rise
from the
dead.
He will
physically
literally
rise from
the dead.
He will
enter into
death
taste all
there is
to taste
of death
and he
will emerge
on the
far side
of death
having
defeated
the sin
the rebellion
against God
which causes
death
and have
defeated
death
itself.
And the
good news
and see
by the way
that's the
power of
God.
Earlier on
when Jesus
says you
know neither
the scriptures
nor the power
of God
he's not
talking about
the fact
that God
is omnipotent.
He doesn't
say you do
not know
the scriptures
you know
neither the
scriptures
nor divine
omnipotence.
In the
Bible the
power of
God is
the death
and resurrection
of Jesus
which is
available for
you to
receive by
faith.
I am not
ashamed of
the gospel.
Why?
For it is
the power
of God
for salvation
to all
who believe.
That's the
message of
the Bible.
The message
of the Bible
is the
power of
God is
the gospel
the good
news that
Jesus lived
the life
you could
not live.
He died
the death
that you
deserve.
He takes
upon himself
the doom
you deserve.
He is
your substitute.
There's an
active exchange
and when you
put your
faith and
trust in
Jesus
that which
keeps you
far from
God
that which
means that
death will
triumph over
you justly
that
Jesus
takes all
of that
and he
emerges on
the far
side of
death
and he
speaks to
you and
me today
on the
far side
of death
saying
come to
me
all who
labor and
are heavy
laden and
I will
give you
rest.
Take my
yoke upon
you and
learn from
me for
I am
gentle and
lowly of
heart and
you will
find rest
for your
souls.
That is the
constant message
of the gospel
the promise of
God that if you
put your faith
and trust in
Jesus you are
united with
Christ in
his death and
resurrection and
you get to
share in his
resurrection.
salvation.
Just a couple
of things in
closing.
First of all
one of the
things which is
really interesting
about this
text you see
Jesus in a
sense says
that both the
Sadducees and
the average
Jewish belief
are wrong
but at the
same time he
fulfills them
in a surprising
way in a far
deeper way than
they could ever
have possibly
imagined.
In Acts
chapter 6
verse 7
there is a
very small
little verse
which says
that many
priests came
to believe in
Jesus after
his resurrection.
In other
words what he is
saying is that
many Sadducees
came to believe
in Jesus after
his resurrection.
I mean he
physically
literally proved
that resurrection
was true.
He physically
literally proved.
See the
Sadducees
wanted to
emphasize reason
and the
average Canadian
what they
want to
emphasize is
intuition.
And for
Canadians there
is no way to
reconcile reason
and intuition.
Reason tells
you that all
die.
Intuition tells
you that death
can't win.
And so we
have these two
different desires
and there is no
way to reconcile
them within the
categories of
Canadian thought
but in the
gospel.
Jesus says
there's good
historical reasons
to believe that
Jesus rose from
the dead.
And reason
itself points
to the
reasonableness
of how Jesus
has described
what this new
life, the
resurrected life
will look like.
And to
Canadians he's
saying your
intuitions are
true.
They don't come
from anywhere.
I'm telling you
your intuitions
ultimately come
from me.
Love is
stronger than
death.
I defeat
death for
you.
This text is
also telling
us that your
body matters.
In the
resurrection I
will have a
body and so
will you.
See a human
being, there's
two ways to
look at a
human being.
I mean every
human being is
made in the
image of God
and every
human being is
on one hand
looked at
from one
angle.
I am an
embodied soul.
And looked at
from another
way I am an
ensouled, sorry,
looked at from
one way I am an
embodied soul,
looked at from
another way I am
an ensouled body.
We are meant to
be soul and
body, mind,
heart, will, and
body in a
unity.
That's how we
were meant to
be.
That's how God
designed us to
be in his
image.
And what this
text is telling
us is that the
body matters.
We in our day
and age we tend
to think that
what really
matters is that
the mind matters
or that the
feelings matter
or our desires
matter.
As if somehow
or another I am
a set of desires
trapped in a
body, sometimes
not the body
that I want or
I'm a mind
trapped in a
body.
But the Bible
says no, no,
no.
God made you to
be body and
soul.
You're to live
now as a body
and soul.
You are to be
redeemed as a
body and soul
and you will
live forever as
a body and
soul, as an
ensouled body
and embodied
soul.
That is what
it, you matter,
your body
matters.
And just as
death is the
separation of
the body and
soul, and so
to do things on
this side of
the grave as
if you can
further that
separation of
body and
soul and have
either the
body despise
that which is
of the soul
and the mind
or the soul
despise that
which is of
the body,
that that is
wrong.
That is not
the direction
of redemption.
That we
are to learn
through the
gospel to be
at peace,
to have
peace.
And it's
also a
profound
message of
hope.
Sam Albury
talks about
this very
movingly.
When I
look at my
hand,
and this
hand will
die.
Okay.
Come to the
new hambriны.
Let me
I'll have a new body.
And the new body will be connected to the new me,
and it'll still be me.
And it will be a soul and a body, a me,
that can fully enjoy the fullness of God,
to drink deeply of his love and of his beauty and of his goodness,
and to see deeply and sing wondrously and dance
and think deeply and profoundly of the beauty and the glory
and the splendor and the love and the goodness that is God.
And there will be no disharmony or fight
between my inner thoughts and my body.
My soul can drink deeply forever,
and the body is a fit body for my soul and my body to drink.
And that is my destiny, and my hope of glory is Christ.
And so we remember the words of Jesus at the beginning,
you were wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
And this is a call for us to be people who have the habit
and the discipline of reading God's word
and thinking upon God's word deeply, continually,
and to think about God's word in light of the gospel
and to understand the gospel in light of God's word,
that we are to be people of the book,
people of truth, people of life,
people of justice, people of goodness,
people of resurrection,
that we are to be people of all of these things
as we reflect upon God's word in light of the gospel.
Let's bow our heads in prayer.
Actually, please stand and bow our heads in prayer.
Father, there's a songwriter by the name of Crowder
who said,
Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal.
And Father, we ask that you help us to hold on to this great hope
that you have made promises to us
who put their hope and trust in Jesus,
that you have made a promise to us
to have a resurrected body,
to be received and accepted by you,
to be yours forever.
And you have made a promise to us
and you never break your promises.
You only keep your promises.
And we ask, Lord, that you would help us to live as people,
remembering your promises to us
and that you will never fail to keep or break your promise.
And Father, if there are any here or any who are watching
who have not yet come to believe or accept your promise,
we ask that even now you would help them to turn to Jesus
and accept this promise that he can be their Savior and their Lord
and that he will share his resurrection with all who put their faith and trust in him.
So we ask, Father, that you help us to set our mind on Christ,
on Christ crucified and Christ glorified,
that he would be, Father,
this would be more and more real to our heart
as we live our day, day by day.
And we ask this in the name of Jesus,
your Son and our Savior.
Amen.