Don't Get Stuck on the Previews Sermon

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sweating that is one thing i do not have to worry about today so did anyone have an iguana fall on them this morning apparently that's something else we're supposed to be worried about here in southwest florida we are so incredibly spoiled if you are new here among us my name is gene i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor i'm going to teach you some greek this morning you know how to say i'm cold in greek like that that's it same in every language we all understand that i wonder does anyone else here have a home theater do you have a special place in the house where you have like an extra big tv or maybe a projector and a surround sound system do you enjoy that kind of stuff i think it became really popular when things started to close down for a little while evidenced by all the big screen tv boxes in my neighborhood on the street everybody started doing that and i think we realized some of the benefits of that one the tvs nowadays you can get them for a fairly good price affordable they're big they're bright and they have a great picture usually better than the movie theater if you're like me it's in a room that is too small so the screen looks really huge i'm sitting way too close to it i started doing this before i knew i needed glasses so huge screen surround sounds pretty good nowadays you can just crank it up it feels like the movie theater like the intro video that we had which is kind of nice food cheap at home popcorn pretty cheap at home not like the movie theater where it's like eight hundred thousand dollars to eat there streaming services what 10 20 bucks a month not too bad less than the price of admission so there are lots of benefits the pause button that's nice you can't tell the projector guy hey i have to go to the bathroom now right so at home you just pause it you can go to the bathroom come back it's convenient i think we realized this but when things opened up again i went to the movie theater and i realized all of these benefits very quickly and there are some others here in naples we have fancy movie theaters where you can reserve the seats before you go and inevitably even though this is an option even though the theater is in full there will be someone who decides to sit right next to me i know oh you're a pastor you're supposed to evangelize give me two hours where i don't have to be a pastor i don't want to talk to you for these two hours that's not what going to the movies is all about also in naples they allow drinking alcohol at some of the theaters and this can be a very bad thing because the person sitting next to you who already came in with voice modulation disorder now is drunk and they're whisper talking right so they do that hey this movie's gonna be great right that's fun and now because they've been drinking they have to get up and go to the bathroom now when you do this at the movie theater especially if you're around my height it's a little difficult anyway it's dark it's disorienting especially if there's things flickering on the screen and i feel like i'm going to fall into the other row i don't know about you right so i'm like trying not to touch anybody because that's not allowed anymore and i'm walking along and trying not to fall but now try that drunk forget it right so you're now a human banister for this individual you know like excuse me right might as well just put out my arms here hold on to me everybody help the drunk guy get across the seats the other thing i thought everybody knew this opening the bag etiquette you don't open the bags like candy bags especially they're very noisy during the quiet dialogue no you wait for an explosion or something like that right you do it really quick but when you're drunk you forget that etiquette so what did we learn today don't go to the movie theaters drunk it's not polite it's terrible here's my remedy don't go drunk and also what i do if i know i'm going to the movie theaters i hold it until i have to go to the movie theater until the movie's just starting then i go to the bathroom right right away don't want to be that guy now you may be thinking oh wait a minute you could miss the movie not a chance previews is it just me or the previews getting longer and longer and longer in fact if you don't like using public bathrooms here's what you can do you can get to the movie theater buy your tickets send everybody in with your snacks go back home use your own bathroom and come back and i promise you you won't miss any of the movie have you ever gotten through maybe the third fourth or fifth preview and then thought to yourself what did i come here to see again is that yes it's clearly happened to a lot of you we're going to talk about previews today today we find ourselves in the rest i had to tell a lot of jokes today because we're going to talk about dying so that's like never happy i gotta like loosen you guys up a little bit so we're good everyone's okay we're all alive i think all right previews we find ourselves in our series last week was awesome we had glenn come out and talk to you he's from wings of shelter tough ministry tough topic i thought he handled it really really well glenn carver so he's become a good friend of mine and we partner up with ministries like that because we can't do absolutely everything especially difficult ones like that lots of moving parts you're not only dealing with like a housing type of thing but also very very deep counseling and so we try to do what we can here as a church but our primary mission is the gospel and we feed people we try to do other things for the the community but when it's really difficult we bring on ministry partners when you give to us you are also supporting them today we find ourselves back in our series the rest of the story so two weeks ago we learned about the samaritans so i'm trying to do here is i'm trying to point out things that most people aren't looking at but these things unlock other parts of the bible so now by understanding that king omri and the purchase of samaria that becomes the capital city in the north for the israelites there you have judah in the south it's kind of like the civil war going on at this time now you know why jesus is saying certain things about samaritans the parable of the good samaritans and things like that it helps you to understand the gravity and the social or cultural climate going on there we're going to continue picking up in first kings 16 and look at some other stuff into first kings 17. so we learned briefly that omri has a son named ahab so let's pick up there first kings 16 29 ahab son of omri began to rule over israel in the 38th year of king ace's reign that's in the south in judah he reigned in samaria 22 years but ahab son of omri did what was evil in the lord's sight even more than any of the kings before him as though it were not enough to follow the sinful example of jeroboam he married jezebel the daughter of king ethbal of the cydonians remember that and he began to bow down in worship of baal first ahab built a temple and an altar to baal in samaria then he set up an asherah pole he did more to provoke the anger of the lord the god of israel than any of the other kings before him tip don't name your kids ahab or jezebel not not great names you don't want to do that so a lot of you know about that but we're gonna get a little more insight if you keep reading in that chapter there's something kind of interesting lonnie probably just found it it's about jericho throws this little thing in there if you remember in joshua the fall of jericho happens right and then what does joshua do he pronounces a curse on jericho so this is way back and he says may the curse of the lord fall on anyone who tries to rebuild the town of jericho at the cost of his firstborn son he will lay the foundation at the cost of his youngest son he will set up the gates so first king 16 34 said it was during his reign ahab's reign that heil a man from bethel rebelled jericho when he laid its foundations it cost him the life of his oldest son a byram and when he completed it and set up its gates it cost him the life of his youngest son sega this all happened according to the message of the lord concerning jericho spoken by joshua son of none if we turn the page enter the prophet elijah now elijah doesn't have his own book like some of the other prophets but he's kind of important it's kind of a big deal so we're going to stop here and read about him first kings 17 1. now elijah who is from tishbe in gilead told king ahab as surely as the lord the god of israel lives the god i serve there will be no do or reign during the next few years until i give the word then the lord sent to elijah go to the east and hide by kirith brook near where it enters the jordan river drink from the brook and eat what the ravens bring you for i've commanded them to bring you food so elijah did as the lord told him and camped beside kirith brook east of the jordan the ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening and he drank from the brook but after a while the brook dried up for there was no rainfall anywhere in the land so punishment for ahab you're experiencing this really really bad drought so we're going to read more about that later next week we'll learn a little bit more about what's going on there why elijah's hiding is hiding from king ahab now maybe weird ravens are bringing him bread and meat like what is that all about if you know the word well you might know that in leviticus they talk about a lot of disgusting things but they also talk about what kinds of animals you can and can't eat including birds ravens are one of these birds you cannot eat according to the law of moses if you want to eat a raven that's fine or an iguana fine but according to the law of moses apparently you can just harvest them they're all over the ground right now stop okay somebody thought that was funny anyway you can't eat ravens don't eat them they're no good for you they're what are called unclean animals so this is interesting you have unclean animals bringing food to elijah this is a preview of something so now the lord tells elijah go to zarephath there's going to be a woman there who will feed you zaraphath is near sidon that's kind of important it ties in here so he goes to the town and he sees a woman she's gathering sticks like for firewood he says get me a cup of water to drink so she's on her way to do that for him you know what get me some bread too she says listen i only have a little bit of flour left a little bit of water i was gathering these sticks to make a fire to cook a last meal for me and my son and we're going to die and he's like famine right do what i told you this is what the lord says there will always be enough flour and olive oil in these containers she has these containers that she would be filling these things up storing the stuff to make the bread okay so it happens it says they have enough to eat for several days they're just continually eating this stuff multiplication of the oil and the flour now this is interesting because this woman is a foreigner she's a gentile remember we talked about the ethni right the ethnicities she is not jewish she's not in israelite so she is unclean like the ravens so you see what's going on here like the ravens fed elijah now she's going to feed elijah but now elijah through the power of the lord multiplies this food and now the lord is feeding a gentile it's a preview we'll keep reading so some time goes by her son gets really sick she's a widow but she has a son her son gets sick so sick that he dies now she gets freaked out what have you come here to do to judge my sin and kill my son having a prophet around could be a dangerous thing because they can pronounce judgment on anybody maybe you sometimes that's what she's thinking right i'm being judged for this why did this happen so elijah says give me the boy takes the boy brings him up to an upper room where he's staying lies the boy out and does something really weird first he says well why have you brought tragedy lord upon this house then he lays out over the boy three times it says that's really weird it is to us but in ancient cultures they had this belief that you could transmit like your spirit for healing by touching a part of your body to their body so maybe mouth to mouth like resuscitation but spiritually is gonna put his breath into the boy's body mesopotamian cultures other cultures like that had this belief so don't do that now it's weird i've seen someone actually try to mimic this and do this in church the person they did it to who was not healed and they never came back again so just please we've learned like jesus can heal from afar just sit there quietly and pray for the person that's all you need to do right you don't want to freak people out so we'll look at that mimicking things that maybe you shouldn't mimic but he does it he prays like bring this boy to life and it happens the woman she says now i know for sure that you are a man of god and the lord truly speaks through you it's a miracle he brings the boy back to life now sometimes a preacher or teacher will stop there at the preview and maybe they'll say oh god will always provide for you that's the lesson right or you'll always be healed maybe maybe they'll say well we can be like elijah and here's how one two three if you've been in church for a long time you've probably heard something like that well just stop at the preview but here's the thing we've learned this in the series we don't want to draw conclusions before we read the rest of the story it's very important we talked about drawing conclusions before finishing the book there's more to it we shouldn't stop here and develop theology until we've read to the conclusion when someone presents the gospel they shouldn't stop short whether it be here at elijah commonly done with david and goliath i bet you've heard that one before they'll just stop there you see when someone presents the gospel it should always point to jesus always it's not about us it's about jesus the purpose for all of these accounts is to point to jesus whether it's elijah we'll read elisha whether it's david all points to jesus these accounts are all previews pre-figures of christ very important to remember a lot of people don't get that and so this is what jesus says to the religious leaders of his time when he was here in the flesh who don't get it john 5 39. he says you search the scriptures because you think they give you eternal life but the scriptures point to me you refuse to come to me and receive this life eternal life jesus says the scriptures point to me every message every presentation of the gospel should point to jesus or it's not the gospel when someone cuts the gospel short we get the tourist trap gospel we get the half gospel we get stuck on the preview and miss the main feature we need to keep reading a lot of people don't understand this so it's worth kind of saying the new testament clarifies the old testament and even within the new testament paul's writings for example as we'll see today clarify the gospels not everything is said not every little issue is dealt with so paul will clarify these things saying whether he has a command from the lord or whether he's filled with the holy spirit and this is what i think is right but it all clarifies it remember we talked about james and john the samaritans the samaritan town they didn't welcome jesus and his disciples in the town and so we're going to read about elijah they had a preview and they thought they knew what they should be doing they're like oh well what did elijah do well he rained down fire on people so let's do that these samaritans aren't letting us in so we're going to rain down fire on them jesus rebukes them no he clarifies you know say this explicitly but yeah it's great elijah did that like you know the mouth-to-mouth thing don't do that it's not good we're supposed to love everyone jesus clarifies that we saw in the sermon on the mount you have heard it said all right love your neighbor hate your enemy but i say to you love your enemies yup may have said that but now i say to you jesus clarifies very important to keep reading when we cut the word of god short we become short-sighted we miss the point so these old testament accounts give us pre-figures so for example there are kind of many of them here elijah it's his first miracle the multiplication of the food right so jesus's first miracle wedding at cana john 2 multiplies the wine it's just a pre-figure of that and others like it interesting elijah going to a phoenician woman near sidon prefigures jesus's healing of the syrophoenician woman's child daughter's been possessed it's a pre-figure of that elijah's food multiplication as i said prefigures wedding at cana the wine also other food multiplications like the feeding of the five thousand interesting miracle we see it john chapter six significant it's almost a passover he's got a lot of people following him around goes up on a hill notices 5 000 men so scholars will say could be like 15 000 people women and children too right so 5 000 men a whole bunch of people there he decides to test one of the disciples phillip where are we going to get food for all these people so he starts calculating he said this is going to be 200 denarius so it's like some versions will say we got to work for months to get all the food so you got to work for about 200 days wages for all this food huh so andrew thinks he's smart simon peter's brother and he goes we've got five loaves two fish wait a minute that's not enough so jesus blesses them mark 6 but john 6 says he gives thanks to god for feeding everyone and sure enough everybody gets fed food multiplication miracle not just that there are 12 baskets one for each one of the apostles 12 baskets of leftovers amazing but we need to keep reading even within that account there's more to it than that so it says they want to make jesus their king so he kind of escapes he gets away the disciples don't know where he is so they get in a boat to go to the other side of the sea jesus then appears to them it's stormy wind and waves they see jesus walking on the water they freak out at first of course and he says don't be afraid in the greek i am so it's going back to exodus i am what moses says do i say to the people you are i am and so jesus is proclaiming his deity he gets in the boat and they're right there where they need to be instantly people keep following around it says they're following him just because of the miracles it's the only reason they're following him because of the previews they want to see a sign so jesus says this he replies i tell you the truth you want to be with me because i fed you not because you understand the miraculous signs but don't be so concerned about perishable things like food think about it don't be so concerned about these miracles i'm doing spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the son of man can give you for god the father has given me the seal of approval signs signs are signs of things to come but the people they get stuck on that instead of the things to come instead of what it is pointing to oh look at that and they just get stuck there instead of what is to come they're just there for the temporary things they don't have their minds set on the eternal things that jesus is always pointing to don't be so concerned about the perishable things so the people they mention the manna from moses stuck on these perishable things they're like well moses gave us manna from heaven jesus says no the father gave you the manna from heaven but it's just a preview so jesus replied i am the bread of life whoever comes to me will never be hungry again whoever believes in me will never be thirsty if we keep reading for it is my father's will that all who see his son and believe in him should have eternal life and we'll raise them up on the last day like the woman at the well a couple of weeks ago jacob's well this is great how can you have anything better than this jesus says if you drink from that well you're just going to get thirsty again but i have the living water that will give you eternal life now i am the bread of life he gives a really hard teaching after that about eating his flesh and drinking his blood and loses pretty much everybody except the 12 disciples they're like that was a hard teaching right so it's like me preaching something very difficult in the next week nobody's here i have 12 people here and they're like gene what are you doing don't preach about people eating you it's weird you know what jesus says you too you're gonna leave too go ahead door's open he's serious so this whole thing it's about a focus on heavenly things not earthly things this is where jesus is always pointing heavenly things you see we serve the king of heaven not the king of this world it's important to understand this is what jesus says to pilate in john's gospel right he has to tell him now my kingdom is not here if it was well all my servants would come and basically save me i have an army but my kingdom's not here it's in heaven in mark 8 when peter confesses jesus is the christ the anointed one the chosen one the messiah he at first gets it right who do you say i am peter well you're the messiah oh very good so then jesus shifts the focus jesus starts predicting his suffering and his death think about it who do you say i am you're the messiah great so here's the thing i'm going to suffer and die what that's crazy so peter tries to rebuke him like don't say those things that's crazy jesus turned around mark 8 33 and looked at his disciples then reprimanded peter so this is interesting turn around look at his disciples so somebody says something stupid right and then i don't just go here no he makes sure i want everybody to hear this i want everybody to hear this he says to peter get away from me satan that's crazy calls him satan he said you are seeing things merely from a human point of view not from god's then calling the crowd to join his disciples he said i want you to just let this sink in if any of you wants to be my follower you must give up your own way your version might say deny yourself take up your cross and follow me if you try to hang on to your life you'll lose it but if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel the good news you will save it and what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your soul what think about that that is a crazy jesus is really not interested in keeping large crowds around just let's just read that again right worth the 30 seconds gonna say if any of you wants to be my follower you must give up your own way deny yourself take up your cross then you can follow me you must die you must die wow this is jesus but if you give up your life well there you go you'll save it what does it benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul wow it's like the parable of the sower the ones that fall amongst the thorns concerns of this life and wealth and riches choke out the plant there are many many people unfortunately who end up serving the god of this world satan a lot of people don't realize that second corinthians 4 4 satan who is the god lowercase g of this world has blinded the minds of those who don't believe those who don't believe they aren't able to see the glorious light of the good news they don't understand this message about the glory of christ who is the exact likeness of god a lot of people don't know that so let's take a look at second corinthians in that context on our topic today second corinthians is pretty interesting there's correspondence in between first and second corinthians these letters going back and forth paul has previously had to reprimand them on several topics now he's writing to them for two main reasons the church in corinth one there are false teachers a lot of people don't realize that they're like oh it's all good don't worry about the false teachers well they worried a lot about false teachers in the early church a lot and so paul is going to have to say some crazy things he calls them super apostles right he's mocking them false teachers coming through they're only focused on the things of this world they're out there trying to get money from everybody so he's going to do a lot to prove his ministry how hard it is the other reason is they're dragging their feet on a collection for the church in jerusalem he's kind of got to deal with that like hurry up it's going to make him a little jealous there but in this context he begins by talking about his suffering and how god gives him comfort in the suffering he addresses some practical issues he didn't want to come again and give them a painful visit there's the man who is forgiven i like to think this is the first corinthians 5 guy who got kicked out of the church just forgive him let's reconcile then he starts talking about the glory of the new covenant versus the old covenants all right so the old covenant it was glorious so glorious that moses had to wear a veil over his face it would shine for the people that whoa moses your face is shining but yeah even so though it was still veiled it was behind a veil but now through christ it is unveiled we have access to the son of god to god it's wonderful and glorious he starts talking about these false teachers again suffering for the gospel being a slave for the sake of the gospel he's trying to put down these false teachers he's talking about the fragility of their bodies through the suffering talks a lot about dying these dying bodies though they're decaying we're looking forward to the glory that is in christ jesus not like these other teachers because these guys they're just concerned about material stuff and physical stuff and the stuff of this world we're concerned with the glory of christ and so he says this second corinthians 4 5. you see we don't go around preaching about ourselves we preach that jesus christ is lord and we ourselves are your it says servants ain't wrong slaves in greek for jesus's sake for god who said let there be light in the darkness has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of god that is seen in the face of jesus christ so remember the veil in context we now have this light shining in our hearts but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure this makes it clear that our great power is from god not from ourselves he talks about the weakness of these dying bodies versus the eternal life that they're really striving for suffering like jesus said in mark 8 but they have the hope of eternal life so second corinthians 4 16 that is why we never give up though our bodies are dying our spirits are being renewed every day for our present troubles are small and won't last very long yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever so we don't look at the troubles we can see now rather we fix our gaze on the things that cannot be seen for the things we see now will soon be gone but the things we cannot see will last forever there are no chapter breaks or numbers in the originals so we turn the page but he just keeps going to second corinthians 5. now there are a lot of bad teachings that come out of a verse in particular in second corinthians 5 when someone doesn't give you the context that i just gave you when they don't understand what's happening they just take one line out like imagine doing that taking a one line out of a movie like let's say it's just some horribly sad movie and then making it about something funny it wouldn't be funny but that's what people do paul's gravity here is immense people will do this second corinthians 5 17 this means that anyone who belongs to christ has become a new creation and then they'll apply that to healing i'm a new creation i don't experience any of these things anymore now not only did they take the verse out of context they cut the verse short too because when we look at it second corinthians 5 17 says this means that anyone who belongs to christ has become a new creation a new person the old life is gone a new life has begun this is about not sinning so much you're not the old person you were you are a new creation in christ guided by the holy spirit it's not about healing our bodies it's about our sin not being in sin being reconciled to god that's a big word in second corinthians 5. i'm not going to try to say it in grace in greek but i can read it she knows that's funny because if i try to say it i'll destroy it we're ambassadors of christ reconciliation we'll talk about that later so they cut even the verses short if we read this in light of what we saw in chapter four we're like fragile clay jars paul he's gonna now refer to our bodies as tense tense something very temporary second corinthians five one for we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down just in case you didn't understand that is when we die and leave this earthly body when we will have a house in heaven an eternal body made for us by god himself and not by human hands we grow weary in our present bodies and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing for we will put on heavenly bodies we will not be spirits without bodies we will live in these earthly while we live in these earthly bodies we groan inside but it's not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us rather we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life god himself has prepared us for this and as a guarantee he has given us his holy spirit so we are always confident even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the lord for we live by faith not by sight believing not by seeing yes we are fully confident and we'd rather be away from these earthly bodies for then we will be at home with the lord let that sink in it's a lot like what paul is saying in philippians 1. i would rather he's in prison i would rather just die because then i can get to go and be home with the lord but for your sake i think i'll stick around for a little while that's an interesting perspective but it's his perspective over and over and over again let these verses sink in i would rather be away from this dying body so that i can be home with the lord why don't we hear this in church a lot nowadays it's weird because the bible talks about it a lot from jesus to paul this isn't it why why is it a tent we're just passing through we're sojourning fancy word right we're just passing through we're kind of like traveling salespeople selling the gospel we don't want to get too fixed here this is not our permanent home it's a temporary residence first peter read that it says it over and over and over and over again side note on this journey or our passing through it's okay to appreciate the things of this world that's fine but not like the thorns so a few things we don't want to get too attached to things here we don't want to let them trap us the thorns we don't want to worship them that's important what we spend our time seeking is what we really worship it's important to remember that we should be seeking first the kingdom of god at all times so we coexist with these temporary things but we can't let them trap us we have to stay within god's guard rails so to speak our anticipation should be in the eternal life in christ if we put our hope in the things of this world we will always be disappointed always always our hope should never ever be there but christ will never disappoint never that's where the hope should be so on this note of passing through i want to give you a proverb there's a little bit of wisdom on this proverbs 37 oh god i beg you two favors from you let me have them before i die first let me never tell a lie second give me neither poverty nor riches give me just enough to satisfy my needs for if i grow rich i may deny you and say who is the lord and if i'm too poor i may steal and thus insult god's holy name proverbs very practical we're ultimately headed home to the lord that's why paul calls the body a tent a fragile clay jar now we saw that elijah raised a boy from the dead why it's interesting then he's going to die anyway why raise him well we saw that it was a pre-figure for what jesus was going to do well then why did jesus raise anybody from the dead well he did look at john 11 lazarus an interesting account when we look at that account there's a lot going on there so i don't have too much time for that this morning but i'm going to simplify it for you martha and mary his sisters lazarus's sisters they send word to jesus because they know he can heal people right lazarus your friend he's sick come heal him is what they want so jesus doesn't and so there's some dialogue going on and then jesus lets him know he's sleeping and they don't get it they're like well he's sleeping he's going to get better what jesus is doing is waiting till lazarus dies think about that for just a second he lets lazarus die he says i'm going to do this essentially so that now you can see the glory of the son of man so that people will believe but think about it he lets lazarus die well so finally he decides to go the disciples are a little bit worried because in judea and bethany we're either going to stone him to death as they tried to do and he says now let's go dialogue between mary and martha going back and forth finally gets to the tomb and he says roll away the stone martha being very practical she says it's gonna stink he's been in there four days she's practical isn't she four days he's been dead roll away the stone he prays to god out loud makes funny comment he's like father i know you always hear me but for these people's sake so that they believe this is what's going to go down they roll a stone away lazarus come out and lazarus does he's wrapped up like a mummy and he comes out unwrap him it's a miracle unbelievable dead four days raises this guy up but the circumstances are interesting he lets lazarus die as great as this was it's just a prefigure it's just a preview for what's to come in christ within this text there's something very interesting and depending on what version if you listen to it it's funny they render it in a funny way it can be funny but it's dead serious they're worried that they're going to get stoned in judea not that kind of stone they're going to get hit so drunk you guys are terrible they're worried they're gonna get stones thrown at them and die so thomas he's like okay john 11 16 thomas named the twin or didymus said to his fellow disciples let's go too and die with jesus interesting so if you rendered it seriously well let's go too and die with jesus it's not about this life here you see you have to keep reading jesus clarifies on this point to martha jesus told your brother will rise again yes martha said he will rise when everyone else rises on the last day jesus told her i am the resurrection in the life i am i am the resurrection and the life anyone who believes in me will live even after dying it's a preview we too will be raised from the dead if we are in christ jesus as great as it was it's just a preview you see we're going to be raised into eternal life we have to think about that if we're a tent that's great we can pray for healing we do here at c3 church we have a prayer list we start the staff meeting that way we don't do anything before we pray and we pray for your needs we pray for healing yes but no matter how many times god patches this tent it's still a tent that's it you see we put our hope in eternal life if you put it in the tent you're gonna be disappointed a lot all your doctor visits all these other things constant disappointment it's just a tent that's it so we need to put our hope in the resurrection we need to put our hope in the kingdom of heaven i'll wrap up here i want to wrap up with scripture the way paul did first corinthians 15. i want to give you this focus this morning give you this hope as we go out we do our things in the world i want you to remember this paul talks about the resurrection first corinthians 15 it's a very very very important chapter he just gives you a preview a little rundown of the gospel and this question is raised we're going to have new heavenly bodies that's what it says right in the bible we're going to get a new heaven and a new earth we're going to die but guess what so is the whole world if you read to the end of the story and you read the rest of the story if you get peter between that and revelation you'll understand that the whole earth is just going to be like melted in fire that's it it's over then those in christ well everyone's going to get raised up and if you've been bad you're a goat well you're going to get judged it's going to be bad but if you're in christ yeah you'll get judged but it's okay you get to go into the new heaven and the new earth beautiful paradise wonderful the questions raised though when i get raised up what is this new body going to be like so paul he answers this question in a beautiful way he makes kind of a comparison between like planting a seed in the ground you see we have to die like that if we want the plant to grow up you can't get a beautiful plant to grow up if you don't bury the seed in the ground so in the same way our dying bodies need to go in the ground in order to we need to die in order to experience this new heavenly body and he continues with something beautiful i want to leave you with this morning first corinthians 15 50 what i am saying dear brothers and sisters is that our physical bodies cannot inherit the kingdom of god these dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever but let me reveal to you a wonderful secret we will not all die but we will be transformed it will happen in a moment in the blink of an eye when the last trumpet is blown from the trumpet sounds those who have died will be raised to live forever and we who are living will also be transformed for our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies then when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die this scripture will be fulfilled death is swallowed up in victory o death where is your victory o death where is your sting for sin is the sting that results in death and the law gives in its power but thank god he gives us victory over sin and death through our lord jesus christ amen you

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