Rise and Shine! - Part A

Job spoke about his own future resurrection. One of the great passages of scripture is Job chapter 19. Listen to these verses.

Did you hear that? Centuries before there was ever a redeemer, centuries before there was even a hint of the gospel, centuries before there was any unfolding of resurrection truth, you got a guy from the patriarchal period of the Old Testament believing that though his body decays, that his body will be able to in the future with his own eyes see his redeemer. That's resurrection. For heavy sleepers, getting up can be the hardest part of the day. That's why there are special alarms that can help you do that more easily. One alarm clock on wheels rolls away if you hit snooze, forcing you to get up and find it. Another is shaped like a dumbbell and forces you to lift it up 30 times before it will shut off.

And another one forces you to solve an equation before it shuts off. Now today here in Connect with Skip weekend edition, Skip Heizig reminds us that one day waking up won't be hard for any of us. The day our bodies are resurrected. We'll talk about that more next as we continue this series from the edge of eternity.

And before we catch that, we thought you'd like to know what's going on at the Connect with Skip Resource Center this month. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus loves the devout and the doubters, priests and prostitutes, the diseased and the depressed. Jesus just loves people, all people, no matter what's their past or their present. Sadly, sometimes it's the people who need love the most, who feel the most rejected, even by the church.

But if Jesus loves all people, shouldn't we? We want to help you grasp God's relentless love for people by sending you the complete four booklet Jesus Loves People collection by Skip Heizig. These booklets look to scripture to demonstrate Jesus's love for people from every walk of life. Get all four Jesus Loves People titles, including Jesus Loves the Broken and Jesus Loves Addicts when you give a gift of $25 or more today to help expand this Bible teaching outreach.

To give, call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. The focus of today's teaching is First Corinthians Chapter 15. And if you have a Bible or a Bible app, I hope you'll turn there as we begin.

Now let's join Pastor Skip. There was a hospital waiting room in which a whole group of relatives had gathered because one of their loved ones was in critical condition. So the doctor came in and after a long while, the doctor came in and said, I have bad news. I'm afraid to tell you there's really nothing else I can do for your loved one. We've tried everything. The only thing possible is a brain transplant. They'd never heard of that before. And the doctor admitted it is quite risky and it's an experimental procedure, this brain transplant. And the other thing is you have to pay for the brain yourselves out of pocket. Insurance didn't cover it.

So they let it all soak in and finally a family member said, I've got a question. How much does a brain cost? The doctor said, well, it depends. If it's a male brain, it costs $5,000.

If it's a female brain, it costs $200. Well, yeah, the room immediately turned awkward and the men started smirking. They looked down.

They wouldn't even give eye contact to the gals in the room. And finally, one of the men had the guts to ask the question everybody was dying to have answered. Doctor, why is it that a female brain costs so much less and a male brain costs so much more? The doctor saw what was going on with the smirking and said, well, it is just standard pricing procedure. We have to mark down the female brain because it's actually been used.

I don't see a man clapping. You were wondering where that was going to go, I know. The truth is all of us have used brains and used bodies and some of them are more used than others. The question is, what happens to those used brains? What happens to those used bodies and why on earth would God ever want to resurrect them once they're used? That's sort of the question that's before us today. We want to answer that in 1 Corinthians 15. In this series so far, we've dealt with things like death, the death of a Christian, the intermediate state absent from the body, present with the Lord, the coming of Jesus Christ, and now we turn to the resurrection and we look at this very important question. I've gotten a lot of feedback on this after every service the last several weeks, things like thank you for going into such depth with this or it gives me great comfort.

I've gotten a lot of emails and notes to the same tune of that. But it's also generated a lot more questions. You see, once you start focusing on things like this and getting your minds around this, it brings up a whole new slew of questions, which I'm grateful for because it helps us use our brains in the right manner. Some of us have never thought about these things as we have before. Some of the questions that I've gotten on notes and in person is what about cremation? Is cremation okay for a Christian when somebody dies? What happens to infants when they die?

What about if you lose a limb, if you're incapacitated as an adult, you've had a surgery or you've had an accident? What happens in the resurrection with that? One of the questions I got is why does God want to resurrect our body if we get new ones anyway?

These are not new questions, by the way. Paul must have gotten similar questions because he devotes an entire chapter to dealing with the resurrection. This is chapter 15, 1 Corinthians, is the most extensive treatment on bodily resurrection in all of scripture.

So it only makes sense that we'd want to look at it in this series. Something before we start. When we talk about resurrection of the body, though for some of us we've never really dealt with it or thought about it quite like this and it might seem advanced and technical, here's something you ought to know. This is fundamental. This is basic. This is truly Christianity 101. Listen to what the writer of Hebrews writes in Hebrews chapter 6.

And God permitting we will do this, says the author. So it is basic. It is fundamental but we have to admit we're a bit hazy on the subject. It's a little hard for us to get our minds around some of these concepts and frankly I would say many churches don't do a great job in really teaching these principles through the Bible. Now the title this morning, Rise and Shine, actually comes from a favorite memory of my mother who used to come in my room and instead of being woken up by an alarm clock or by my mom pushing me out of bed, she would simply say in my ear, rise and shine. And I'll never forget that. And one day our savior will do as much as Jesus said, the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth. Speaking of the resurrection. So we're going to look principally at verses 20 through 28. We're really going to have time only to skim them this morning. We're going to go back and get a couple of verses before that.

But this is what I'd like to do. In setting the tone for this theme of the resurrection of our bodies, I want to look past, present, and future. The resurrection was anticipated.

Resurrection is presently activated. One of the great truths comes from this great passage of scripture on that. And then in the future, resurrection will be appropriated.

Let's go to the past. Go back with me in this chapter to verse three and four only. Paul writes, For I delivered to you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.

Let me sum up verses one through 19 because it'll be helpful. It seems that there were some people in Corinth who denied the resurrection altogether, not just the resurrection of Christ. I mean resurrection as a principle.

They just said dead people don't get up again. They denied resurrection. And so Paul in these 19 verses says, well, if there is no resurrection, that means Jesus Christ didn't rise from the dead. And that also means if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, that our preaching is in vain, your faith is in vain, you are still dead in your sins, and we are of all men most miserable. He counteracts that idea that there is no resurrection. You see, the gospel must have the resurrection. The gospel is Jesus died, was buried, rose again from the dead. There's no good news and Jesus died. The good news comes in Jesus rose and conquered death. So what Paul does in these two verses that I just read with you is he goes back to the Old Testament to say, look, resurrection isn't some New Testament idea.

It's been around for a long time. It goes way back and was anticipated back in the Old Testament. In fact, you ought to know that far back in the Old Testament, resurrection is spoken of. Some believe that the oldest book in the Bible is Job, that he lived during the time of Abraham pre-Moses. He was one of the patriarch figures.

He goes way, way back. Job, as you know, was sick, but Job spoke about his own future resurrection. One of the great passages of Scripture is Job chapter 19. Listen to these verses. I know that my redeemer lives and in the end he will stand upon the earth and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes, I and not another. Oh, how my heart yearns within me.

Did you hear that? Centuries before there was ever a redeemer, centuries before there was even a hint of the gospel, centuries before there was any unfolding of resurrection truth, you got a guy from the patriarchal period of the Old Testament believing that though his body decays, that his body will be able to in the future with his own eyes see his redeemer. That's resurrection. So it's as far back as the patriarchs. It's predicted in the patriarchs.

Move a little bit forward in the Old Testament. It was also predicted in the Psalms. Some people often wonder when the Bible says what we just read, that the Bible predicts the resurrection of Christ, they say, where in the world does it predict the resurrection?

Right? Show me those Scriptures where Jesus' resurrection is foretold. He's probably referring to Psalm 16. After all, that's exactly what Peter quoted in the book of Acts chapter 2 when he stands before the people of Jerusalem and he has to give validation for the resurrection of Christ. He quotes King David's words in Psalm 16.

Here's the words. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body will also rest secure because you will not abandon me to the grave nor will you let your holy one see decay. Now Peter pulls that out and says, gentlemen, David when he wrote that wasn't speaking about himself.

Here's the proof. Here's his grave. He died and his grave is still here today.

He's in it. So David must have been speaking as a prophet for telling the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So it's anticipated in the period of the patriarchs, in the period of the Psalms, and it's also anticipated by the prophets. Daniel chapter 12 verse 2, those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. So you get the idea. All throughout the Old Testament resurrection is anticipated both personally as well as for the Messiah.

Very, very important. Because some people will say, well, you know, the resurrection is some New Testament idea. It's never really been around but some disciple must have said, hey, let's add something really cool to our religion. We'll say that you get to live again. Paul's point is it's been around.

It's been anticipated all of this time. I heard a story about a four-year-old boy who went to a Sunday school class on Easter. Now this four-year-old boy was the son of an undertaker. He had never heard about the resurrection.

That was really weird to him. So you can imagine this four-year-old boy, Sunday school class, Easter Sunday, never been to church before, and they tell him about resurrection. So he goes, excuse me, wait a minute, are you trying to tell me that a dead guy, dead, really dead, got up again and was alive?

And the teacher said, that's exactly right. That's the gospel. And the little boy said, well, I know my daddy didn't take care of him after he died because he never would have got back up then. The truth is everybody's going to get back up good and bad, evil and righteous one day. That's resurrection. Something else about resurrection as evidenced by this chapter, the whole chapter is devoted to it. Resurrection is one of the center points of Christianity. When it comes to Christ, it's what makes it the gospel. Jesus died, was buried and rose again. And that's why almost every single sermon preached in the book of Acts centers on the resurrection of Christ.

It's at the heart of what we believe. But not everybody believed in it. Not everybody then believed in it. There was a whole group of Jews called Sadducees. You've read about them in the New Testament.

There were the Pharisees, the legalists, the Sadducees. The Sadducees did not believe in angels. They did not believe in spirits and they did not believe in resurrection. And I always like to say that's why they were so sad, you see. They had no hope for the future.

It was just here and now and it's over with. No resurrection. They weren't the only ones. The Greeks didn't believe in resurrection. Remember Paul? He was in Acts 17 preaching in Athens about the resurrection and they thought he was nuts.

Why? Because to the Greek mind, resurrection is abhorrent. The body is a prison. The idea is to escape the prison of the body.

Who would ever want to come back in this body? They couldn't fathom that. Then in the New Testament, as we mentioned last week, there were two teachers.

Paul names them Hymenaeus and Philetus, 2 Timothy, he writes. They have erred concerning the resurrection saying it's already passed. It's over.

Done. There's no future resurrection. Now we have a group of people in the church at Corinth denying resurrection altogether. All of that to say because it's the cornerstone of the gospel, no wonder Satan attacks it at every turn and tries to pull it out and extract it even from among believers.

So that's past. The resurrection was anticipated all throughout the Old Testament. Go to verse 20. Let's begin there with our second great truth. Going to the present, resurrection is already activated.

Look at what he says. But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, that's Adam, by man, capital M, also came the resurrection of the dead, that's Christ. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

But each one in his own order. Christ the first fruits, there's that word again, and afterward those who are Christ's at his coming. So here's what Paul is doing.

He went back. He went back and said, okay, this is predicted in the Old Testament. It's been anticipated. Okay. It's been anticipated all the way along. But the resurrection of Christ isn't just a past event, an isolated event.

No. It started a chain reaction of events that includes our resurrection. That's his point. As was the redeemer, Christ, so will be the redeemed at his coming, Christians. Do you notice that little word twice mentioned, first fruits? You think, what on earth is he talking about?

What kind of language is that? Jesus is the first fruits. It's a Jewish metaphor. Every year they had a feast, a feast of first fruits when it was harvest time. And first fruits was a sample of the produce that they would grow. They would bring a little sample called an offering of first fruits.

It was a first installment. And they would bring it as an offering before the Lord, before they would harvest all of their crops. Now, here's the point. And it's very, very important to me.

Exciting. If you bring a first fruit offering, it means by necessity, there will follow the harvest. If you have the first fruits, it means the harvest is about to come. So when Jesus rose from the dead, that was the first fruits. It must mean that the harvest, the resurrection of all of God's children must follow. It's already been presently activated at the resurrection of Christ.

Now, listen to this. Here's Paul speaking in Acts 26. And he says, I teach nothing except what the prophets and Moses said would happen, that the Messiah would suffer and be the first to rise from the dead as a light to the Jews and the Gentiles alike. There's that same thought. He's the first. And here again, first fruits indicating the harvest is about to come.

Now, some of you might be thinking, well, wait a minute. What do you mean the first? Jesus wasn't the first guy to get up from the dead, right? There were people in the Old Testament that rose from the dead, right?

And the New Testament before Jesus, right? 1 Kings 17, Elijah raises from the dead a widow's son. 2 Kings chapter 4, Elisha raises from the dead a Shunammite son. Turn to the New Testament, Lazarus gets raised from the dead.

Jairus' daughter gets raised from the dead. The son of the widow at Nain gets raised from the dead all pre-resurrection of Christ. So what does Paul mean when he says Jesus rose first and now he's the first fruit? That's what he means.

Very simple. Although they raised from the dead first, their resurrection is completely different than his resurrection because they rose only to die again. They didn't get raised in glorified permanent bodies. They rose from the dead, lived a while and had to do it all over again. So they were the exception to the rule that's appointed unto every man to die once and after this, the judgment. They died twice.

That was the exception to the general rule. Jesus was different. He rose in a glorified body, not just in the same human body. It was his body but glorified and it was permanent.

It would be forever. Thus he is the first fruits of that resurrection. You know, someday we won't be getting out of bed just to polish our boots. Someday we'll be rising up to heaven to live in the glorious presence of the Lord.

That's certainly a rise and shine to look forward to, isn't it? But if you can't say that that's something your future holds for sure, we can help you with that. Give us a call at 1-800-922-1888 and let us share with you how a life with Christ can provide a future where you will rise and shine. You can also learn more about that when you click on the Know God link at ConnectWithSkip.com. And remember, today's teaching, Rise and Shine, as well as the entire series, From the Edge of Eternity, are available for your home audio library.

You can listen again or even share it with a friend. Learn more and order today at ConnectWithSkip.com. And as we finish out today, I wanted to invite you to add Skip's teaching library to your television by adding the Skip Heidsek Roku channel for access to hundreds of teachings, live streaming of all teaching events, and more. That's the Skip Heidsek Roku channel, and all the info is at ConnectWithSkip.com. One day we will rise, and we'll learn more about that event next time here in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.