A Preview of Coming Attractions

I have not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. If you've ever wondered what's waiting for you on the other side of this life, you've come to the right place. In just a few moments, Pastor Paul shares his message, a preview of coming attractions.

But first, he joins me from his studio in California. Well, here we are at the beginning of a new year. And Pastor, this is always a time of reflection and setting new goals. Are you ready for a new year after 2020?

What do you think? I can't wait to get into 2021. Boy, this has been some year. Tell our listeners what God has put on your heart as we start 2021. Well, as we begin the broadcast year, they'll hear me open with a couple of messages where I'm just kind of setting our focus and helping us to realize that we must keep eternity in view. And I go back to the resurrection of Christ.

The reason why he was raised from the dead was to give us life abundant and eternal. And I set our focus there. And then you'll hear me begin to teach on the matter of prayer, because if we're going to get through 2021, we're only going to do it through prayer. We got to get through the rest of this pandemic and all of its fallout, and it's going to take prayer. And we need to make sure prayer is always firing the winning shot, saying, Lord, we don't have the power, but you have the power to help us get through this.

And so I'm looking forward to helping people refocus and helping us center ourselves in things that are most important. Prayer and keeping an eternal perspective are among them. I'm reminded of the words of 20th century Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, aim at heaven and you'll get earth thrown in.

Aim at earth and you'll get neither. Thanks, Pastor Paul, for those words of wisdom as we head into a brand new year. This is one of the reasons that we hope you'll start the year off by giving your most generous gift to Destin for Victory so that we can continue to help listeners all over the world refocus their perspective on Jesus. And when you give this month, Pastor Paul would like to send you a copy of his booklet, It Pays to Serve Jesus. In Mark Chapter 10, Jesus tells us that all those who follow him will receive 100 times more than they give up. Yes, there will be tough times and sacrifices along the way.

But as you'll discover in this outstanding resource from Pastor Paul Shepherd, following Jesus is always worth it in this life as well as the one to come. That's Pastor Paul's booklet, It Pays to Serve Jesus. And it's our gift to you by request for your generous gift to Destin for Victory this month. Please call 855-339-5500 to give over the phone or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online.

You can also mail your gift to Destin for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. The state of your life now is not what it is going to be when the Lord comes again. He says we're going to be transformed. We are going to be completely transformed. When sin entered the world, so did sickness and death.

Our bodies became fragile, temporary, no longer able to live forever. But the day is coming when every believer in Christ will be transformed in body, mind and spirit. The full mystery will not be revealed until that great and glorious day when Christ returns. Today, Pastor Paul Shepherd gives us a glimpse of things to come. Here now is today's Destin for Victory message, a preview of coming attractions. As we look in the second part of this chapter, Paul's going to continue to discuss the matter of the resurrection of the dead, but he shifts his attention from Christ's resurrection to the resurrection that will take place with all of us who are here on earth. So I have entitled this part of our study a preview of coming attractions. Paul gives us a preview of coming attractions and he opens this section by giving us a general rule, a general principle that he is going to expound through the remainder of the chapter. Here's the rule, here's the rule, what you see now is not what you will see later. In essence, what he says is what you see is not what you will get, but there is something coming that is far greater than what we can see now. Let's look at the way Paul expounds this point. Beginning in verse 35, he says, some of you may ask, how are the dead raised?

With what kind of body will they come? How foolish. What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed perhaps of wheat or of something else. So he begins this section by saying, look at the law of the harvest, the law of sowing and reaping. He says when you put a seed in the ground, the farmer does not expect a giant seed to come forth, but there is something that the seed contains that will come forth. And he is saying, if you want to understand what God has in store for our future, just realize that just as a seed comes forth in a fuller, different form after it is harvested, so you and I are going to die, but when we come forth, we will come forth in a different form. And then he makes the next point, verse 38, God gives the seed a body as he determined. To each kind of seed, he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same. Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another, and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies, there are earthly bodies, but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another.

The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another, and the stars another, and star differs from star in splendor. So it will be with the resurrection of the dead. So Paul begins to help us understand what's going to happen by saying, just look at the law of the harvest. Then he says, look at the law of diversity. Look at the fact that God was intentional in diversifying creation so that not everything has the same purpose. Now he makes this point because he's about to explain what's going to happen with you and I, which is very different from all of the rest of creation. Our God loves diversity.

He created the entire universe just to let us know how big he was, which is why I often say it makes no sense to look at an orderly universe and conclude no one ordered it. You can't reach that conclusion logically. If you see order, someone had to order it. Just look at your house. Your house doesn't get in order by itself.

Someone has to order it. And the heavens declare the glory of God. And he says, look at diversity. God was intentional about diversifying his creation and he created us in a unique way because he wanted to show us his glory and he wanted to make us like himself, which is why we need to learn to honor God's diversity, the law of diversity. When God makes people who have different temperaments than you, honor the fact that they're different than you. Don't complain about the fact that they're different than you. It's by God's design if everybody was like you, the world would be in bad shape.

Bad shape. Everybody can't be loud. Somebody has to listen to the loud folk. Everyone can't be quiet.

Somebody's got to speak up. Everyone can't have a strong opinion. Someone's got to be willing to follow the opinion of somebody else. And not everyone can be unopinionated because somebody's got to make up their mind.

See what I mean? And so God was intentional about giving us different temperaments and different traits and different characteristics and what we need to learn to do is honor God by honoring one another and celebrating the fact that not everyone looks at the world exactly the way you look at the world. But as long as their life conforms to the will and the purpose of God as expounded in his word, we need to celebrate it. And even when people's lives are out of compliance with God's word, don't beat them up, pray for them and love them and lovingly point them the way.

And that way we can honor God's law of diversity. Now all of that is his foundation because he's about to give us the preview of coming attractions and specifically Paul was going to tell us in the next several verses that when the Lord returns, there is something miraculous that is going to happen with mankind. And what I want to do is help you see what is going to happen in all of our lives. What I'm about to explain is not just some figment of a theologian's imagination, but rather it is what is actually going to happen in your life. First of all, one day you're going to die unless you happen to be here. When the Lord returns, you are going to die. I know you didn't come to church to hear you're going to die, but oh well. If you live, you die. You're not meant to stay here. If you're fortunate enough to be alive when the Lord comes, that's the only way you won't taste physical death, but all other people are going to die. At least you're going to leave the planet. Everyone who ever came to the planet left the planet unless they are alive at this very moment and everyone alive now is going to leave. In fact, the Bible only records two people who didn't leave earth the traditional way of death.

Isn't that right? Do you know your Bible? What's their names? Elijah and Enoch. Enoch in the book of Genesis. The Bible says the man walked with God until he was not.

It's wonderful. What that means is he walked with God, fellowship with God and one day the Lord just got so enthralled in the fellowship he was having with Enoch. They were just walking and talking one day, hanging out and they looked up. Their conversation got so good and so long. They looked up and God said, you know what? We're closer to my house than your house.

Why don't you just come on and go to my house with me? And Enoch walked with the Lord until he was not. Just walked right out of this world. Family never did get to say goodbye. And Elijah, the prophet of the Old Testament, Elijah, one day the Lord caught him up. The Bible says he went up in a chariot of fire and his successor Elisha was standing there on that occasion and saw the Lord catch him away and grabbed the prophet's mantle and continued to be prophet in his stead. And Elijah just got caught up and went to be with the Lord.

Everybody else died, died, died. That is the great common denominator you are going to check out. You're going to leave young or old, you're going to leave. Rich or poor, you're going to leave. Doesn't matter what class you're in, what socioeconomic level you're in. Doesn't matter how healthy you are.

Doesn't matter how much you jog and pop pills and drink juice. And you ought to do that. We ought to fight the good fight. I'm in this stage of life. I just had my 49th birthday this week and so I'm now on my countdown. I told one of my friends I'm going to get a calendar and just tear off every day, 365 till 50. I'm on my great countdown but I'm fighting the good fight. I'm fighting the good fight.

I'm trying to learn some new habits at this stage and drink all the water and take the vitamins and do everything. I know death is after me but I'm going to try to give it a run. And it's after you but give it the best run you can but know that you're not going to outrun it forever. And you don't have to be sick to die. You don't have to be old to die. And so death is the great common denominator.

The mortality rate for human beings is 100%. We're all leaving. Now you say, I thought you were going to preach good news.

I'm about to. But you got to tell the truth in the course of preaching the good news. In fact, that's what makes the good news so good. So Paul gives us a preview of the coming attractions and here's what he says. He says that all of us are going to experience a miraculous transformation.

The state of your life now is not what it is going to be when the Lord comes again. And he gives us some specifics that I want to share with you so that you can know exactly what to look forward to. Next, the second half of today's Destined for Victory message with Pastor Paul Shepherd. Listen to the broadcast on demand at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net where you'll find a host of great resources at our online store.

You can also listen and download the podcast at Google Podcasts or wherever you get yours. Now, here's Pastor Paul again with the rest of today's message, a preview of coming attractions. He says we're going to be transformed. We are going to be completely transformed. And what are going to be the characteristics of this transformation?

There are four that I want to share with you. Number one, your body is going to change instantaneously. Your body is going to change instantaneously. Look at verses 44 and 51 and 52. Verse 44 of 1 Corinthians 15 says this, what is sown is the natural body.

That's the earth suit that you live in now, the natural body. He says, but what is going to be raised is what he calls a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, he says, there is also a spiritual body. Verse 51, he says, listen, I tell you a mystery.

We will not all sleep. That means some people may be fortunate to be alive when the Lord comes again. He says, but we will all be changed in a flash. Here's the instantaneous part. In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed. First thing you can look forward to regarding this transformation is it is going to be instantaneous.

You're going to go from having a natural body to having what he calls a spiritual body and that change is going to happen in an instant. That's why you got to live ready to meet the Lord because you don't know when he's coming. In an instant, in a flash, in the twinkling, everybody bat your eye real quick. Boom, just that fast. No time to beg pardon, no time to make calls and send emails and oh, I'm sorry and I shouldn't have treated you that way and please forgive.

You don't have time for that. When Jesus shows up you can't say, wait, wait, I got some business to take care of. Instantaneous. In a moment, boom, everything is different in a moment.

In a moment. You know, life can change suddenly. Even in the sense of our life here and now, sudden changes. Most of us can remember a crisis point in our lives where your phone rang and your whole life changed.

As you heard a loved one is gone or of some tragedy that impacted you or someone you love. In an instant it changes. So you got to live ready.

You can't live planning to get ready one day. You got to live ready because the transformation that's coming is instantaneous. Look at verse 42. Your body, this spiritual body that he talks about is one that will not die. Verse 42, so it will be with the resurrection of the dead, the body that is sown, watch this, is perishable but it's going to be raised imperishable.

You know what that means? That means the second one that's coming, the one that's on order will not die. Do you know that you will be in conscious existence one million years from today? You'll be in conscious existence. You're not going to be in oblivion.

Why? Because we saw earlier God has different purposes for creation. He created us as eternal beings. The stars and all of that will vanish one day. There's going to be a new heaven and a new earth. All that you see now will vanish but you and I were created living souls and we're going to be alive. We're going to have conscious existence a million years from now. Whether you were in Christ when you died or out of Christ, you will have conscious existence a million years from now. The body that is coming is a body that will not die. That's why it's not physical in the sense that this body is because you know this is like cars.

This isn't going to last forever. And you know you're getting the signs now. Aches and pains and little funny things that go on in your body. Something you never felt before.

Just signs that the car needs to be traded in sooner or later. Are you feeling me? Now see some of you all are young and fit and you don't know what aches and pains are. I got a word from God for you. Just keep on living. Just keep on living.

You're fast and you can just jump up and go and do whatever you want. I know. My life was like that. I used to hear my father when he got in his fifties and what have you start talking about.

You know, I got up this morning and I sat up on the side of the bed and I had to sit there and kind of gather myself first. And I remember hearing him say things like that and I was a little young boy. I said, oh, daddy, I'll tell you something else. You know, I just thought my father just loved complaining. Just loved finding something to complain about, something to, you know, and what have you.

I just thought it was just jokes. And then one day I sat up on the side of the bed. And I said, wait a minute, hold on now. Couldn't just jump up and bound into the bathroom and just do, you got to kind of take your time some mornings. Get yourself together. You hear little bones that you didn't hear before. Come on somebody. It's just signs that the car is going to have to be traded in after a while.

Just little signs that things aren't the way they used to be. And you got to work with yourself. You just got to be more deliberate. That's all the Bible says. Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. That means get smart as you get older.

Ask God to help you figure out how to live in every season of your life. And quit trying to act like you're 20 and you're 50. You had your 20.

Thank God for your 20. This is 50 now. Act like you know. You are 60. Act 60. Be a cute 60, a fine 60, but be 60. You're 70, you're 70.

Thank God you made your three score in 10. But don't go out in the street trying to race somebody 25 years old. You just got to act like you know. Young folk have things on you but you have things on them so it's a tie. They got strength. Hopefully you have a little more wisdom.

And so it's a tie. God blesses you in every season. But these are reminders. These things are going in our bodies, the transformation in our body. Your hair starts turning colors. You don't have to go buy the color in the store. You just wake up and there is the color. Isn't that the truth?

And you say, where did all this gray come from? Well, you earned it. You earned it in life. And so we just got to understand that the body we're now in is not one that's going to stay. You're going to check out of here. All of us are going to go and understand that death for the child of God simply means God is going to give you a body where you can enjoy his goodness and his blessings without any restriction of death. The next one we get, we are never going to die. For the child of God, death is just a promotion into that everlasting realm where we enjoy God throughout eternity.

It's a transition that is coming. Your body, your body will not die. The one that is on the way will not die.

The third point, not only will it change in an instant, not only will the second body not die, but the third one is that the second body will be unrestricted regarding physical limitations. Here's what he means. Look at verse 43. In verse 43, he says, it is sown, talking about the natural body, in dishonor, but it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, but it is raised in power. When he uses that word power, what he means is, just as weakness is characterizing your physical life now, that is, you get physically older and you eventually get weaker, he said, but the body that is coming is not only going to be able to live forever, but it's going to live forever without the problems that characterize your earth body.

Let me break it down for you. The second body will never get sick. Oh, isn't that good news? Imagine a world with no more sickness, no more pain, no more goodbyes. God has promised all that and more to those who put their faith in him. Be encouraged, for the day is coming when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes and death shall be no more. Thanks so much for joining us for today's message, a preview of coming attractions. If you'd like more information about the Destined for Victory ministry, or this month's special offer, Pastor Paul's booklet, It Pays to Serve Jesus, be sure to stop by our website, pastorpaul.net.

That's pastorpaul.net. When the devil tells you about your stuff, tell him about his stuff. Tell him you don't even have the right to talk to me. I know you're not talking to me. I'm a child of God. You who have the devil always throwing your past up in your face and what you did. If the devil reminds you of your past, remind him of his future. That's tomorrow in Pastor Paul's message, a preview of coming attractions. Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.