The Resurrection of the Body

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. All right, today's our last message in the series on foundations, the building blocks of faith. And in some ways, I'm happy because it's been a long 12 weeks of doing this. But in other ways, it's like, oh, man, it's been so good. At least I've gotten a lot out of it. I hope you have, too. But I'm looking forward to God never said that, because I think that's going to be nice and a little snarky, etc. God helps those who help themselves. I'm sorry, God never said that. That's not one that we're going to actually do. We're doing four others for the month of February. But I think it's going to be good. It gives us a lot of clarity in that. Today, we get to the end of the creed, and the end of the creed is filled with such hope and such joy. I'm just amazed at it. I love this. It says this. The resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen. Do you know what the word amen means? So be it. For sure. For sure. Certain. So it's basically the word for foundation. It's the word for steadfast. Sure. Rock solid. This is it. And let me tell you, when you can believe that, when you do believe that, when you know that that's what God has in store for you, that hope, you can live with freedom and peace and purpose in this life. OK, so the text we're looking at is very short today. We've actually got a number of texts. The chapter 15 of First Corinthians is this huge resurrection chapter that Paul speaks on. So I've preached on it before for Easter. Can you imagine that? And so we're choosing a couple other verses, verses 42 to 43. This is what Paul says about it. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. 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. So here's kind of a major point. I probably should have made a slide for this. I didn't. And that is this. What you believe about your future will greatly affect how you live today. And the flip of that, OK, how you live today shows many ways how you believe your future is going to be. OK, what you believe about your future will affect the way you live today. And how you live today reflects what you really believe about your future. That's what we're talking about today. OK, so the Bible says that we had had a definite, wonderful beginning. A middle that we're in the middle of, and we've got a glorious end goal in front of us. So the creed actually is followed along with that. I don't realize that, but it's like a grand story, a grand narrative. We said that becomes our identity, our destiny, our everything. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Right. Or I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. That's the glorious beginning that in love God created. And there was a purpose and a plan. Then we get to the messy middle as what I call it. We're living in the midst of it. But it says, and I believe in Jesus Christ is only son, our Lord. That God comes into the middle of our messy middle and changes everything by the way he interacts with it. Loves us, forgives us, dies for us and changes all history through his resurrection. And then we finally get to the end, the glorious and we have the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen. That's the way the Bible. Do you realize that that's basically unique? Unique among most of the world's religions and unique in the world philosophies that many people in many religions basically believe. We don't know much about the beginning. It was kind of happenstance or it just was there. The middle's messy. They agree with that. But we have no idea where the end is. And if there is an end at all or we just kind of keep going around and around and around, we're not quite sure. So we're kind of caught up into this chaotic confusion. And can you imagine if you live that way? I don't think you have to imagine that. I think you see people that live that way. OK, I think you do. An example of that is kind of having this kind of modernist philosophy, which is behind some behind a lot of people's living today. An example, I think, is Carl Sagan. I might have used this before. I've used this and a number of times. But Carl Sagan, he said this. He said, I'm a collection of water, calcium and organic molecules called Carl Sagan. You're a collection of almost identical molecules with a different collective label. Don't you love that? You've got a collective label. Yeah. But is that all? Is there nothing in here but molecules? Some people find this idea somehow demeaning to human dignity. For myself, I find it elevating that our universe permits the evolution of molecular machines as intricate and subtle as we. Huh. Where does that leave you? You know? So if you think you're just kind of a collection of atoms and a happenstance that it just happ...