R494 I Will See Dad Again, Pt.1

We all have dealt with loss in our life, and today our pastor, Dr. Don Wilton, begins a powerful message, I Will See Dad Again. In just a few moments, we'll be diving into 1 Corinthians 15 as Dr. Don Wilton shares an encouraging message for each of us that have dealt with the loss of a loved one.

It's called I Will See Dad Again. Over these next two days, we'll not only be studying God's Word about what we know about what is to come with regard to life and life everlasting, but also encouraging scripture that will help us as we encourage one another in these times of loss. Know that we're here to encourage you as well. If you need to talk with someone or pray with someone, you can reach us at 866-899-WORD.

That's 866-899-9673 or online at www.tewonline.org. Now today's message with Dr. Don Wilton. Our most gracious, loving Heavenly Father, you are indeed God. You are the King, the Lord of the universe, the Creator, the Great I Am, the One in whom we live and move and have our being, and we stand in awe of you today. Thank you for your goodness to us. Thank you for your grace and for your mercy.

Thank you for the way in which you encourage our hearts. Thank you most of all for the Lord Jesus Christ, the gift of your only Son, in whom we have life and we have it more abundantly. Our Father, we gather collectively today as God's people, people from every walk of life, people from every circumstance. We come together to worship you, to sing praises to your name and to lift high the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. In honoring our earthly fathers, we honor you because you are our Heavenly Father and we seek you today. And we want to know the mind of Christ.

We want to walk circumspectly. We want to understand what is the height of your love and the depth of your grace and the marvelous extent of your glory. We want to be lifted up by the might and power of your Spirit in the inner man.

We want never to be the same again. And so our Father, our prayer today is that you would harness our souls, that you would gather us together, that you would love us and exhort us, that you would rebuke us and chastise us, that you would teach us and direct us and that Lord Jesus, we as God's people would never be the same again because we have found ourselves in the presence of an awesome and a wonderful and a sovereign God in whose name we pray all these things. Amen. Would you take your Bibles this morning please and turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

Now friends, as you are turning there in your Bibles, I'm going to say something to you. We're going to be looking at a subject that I believe to be absolutely vitally significant in our lives. It's one that brings to mind major questions.

It requires intense Bible study. It has to do with life after death because it involves the issues that we know so little about. Questions like, where am I going to go when I die? What happens to me? What happens to my body? What happens to my soul?

What's the difference? When I get to heaven, what am I going to look like? Now that's a good question, isn't it? I think some of us are going to breathe a sigh of relief, don't you? Am I going to speak? Will I eat anything? And of course to me, perhaps the most important question of all, is are we going to know one another when we get to heaven?

And so I have entitled my message today, one of the most salient and most wonderful of all timeless truths in a changing world. Here it is, I will see Dad again. I do know this, that I will see Dad again. Now the question is going to be this, what is he going to look like? What am I going to look like? Where are we going to live for that matter? Are we going to live in houses? Are we going to go and visit each other? Are we going to walk around? Are we going to go fishing?

I certainly hope we're going to play golf. What are we going to do when we get to heaven? Does the Bible throw any light on these things? They're important questions, yes.

They are questions that pertain to our curiosity, but they're important and I think that you and I could say quite comfortably this morning that it doesn't matter some of these things whether we go fishing or golfing or where we stay. The most important part is whether or not we're going to see one another again and whether we're going to know one another again, whether we're going to recognize one another, and indeed how identifiable are we going to be? You see friends, all of this finds its heartbeat in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And God gives to us His Word, the Bible. And God gives to us His Word designed by His Spirit to help people like you and me come to a sense of understanding even from a human limitation of what God has in store for us because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. This is our inheritance. When the Bible says that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not die but shall receive everlasting or eternal life, herein lies the significance of the eternal life which I have been given by God's grace. I have become a recipient of everything that God has done for me in Christ Jesus.

What a timeless truth. Why look forward to death? How can these things be amongst others because we're going to be with the Lord Jesus Christ, but also because we're going to be together, you and me, all of those of us who love the Lord Jesus Christ forever and forever and forever and forever. We're going to begin today and I'm going to do this in two parts. I will confess to you in the early service today I had intentions to do this in one service.

I got less than halfway through my message and realized just how extensive and how wonderful this is. And folks, I'm not going to rush through something like this. It is too important. There is so much that God teaches us and I want you to have your Bibles open. I expect everybody here to have a Bible in their hand. This is not what I'm saying to you. This is what God says.

You need to see it for yourself. So follow along with me and we're going to begin in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and I'm going to read a passage to you and I will of course stop rather frequently so be ready for it. This is just a small part of what God's Word teaches us concerning the resurrection of the dead.

I'm going to invite you in your own private time to go back to verse 1 of chapter 15. This entire verse pertains to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember that if we want to come to an understanding of these things, we need to understand that everything that we know about life after death is inextricably intertwined into the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. None of these things can take place outside of Jesus Christ. They are all because of Jesus Christ. They are bound into the very work and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I'm going to begin this morning just at verse 35 of 1 Corinthians chapter 15. But someone may ask, how are the dead raised? That question is asked because we read it frequently. You can even go back into Daniel chapter 12 and you're going to read about the resurrection of the dead. But look at the next question.

With what kind of body will they come? Well, I'd like to know that myself. How foolish. What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. Now friends, just listen here for a minute.

This is very important. We're going to be laying some groundwork here from God's Word and it's important for us to understand what God is trying to teach us here. We're going to understand that the graveyard of mankind becomes the seed plot of Christ's eternal life. We've got to understand that it is in Adam that we all what? Die, but in Christ Jesus we are what? Made alive.

Now I want you to notice this. And the Spirit of God, speaking through the Apostle Paul here, is going to begin to present an illustrative proposition to us. God is going, by His grace, He's going to begin to show us some of the most incredible of all timeless truths in a changing world and what God is going to do is He's going to take us in our humanness and He's going to impact our lives through things that we are perhaps a little more ready to understand because they are things that happen to us on a day-by-day basis. So the question has been asked here, how will the dead be raised and second of all, what will our bodies look like? What am I going to look like when I get to heaven? The first thing He does is He begins to use an agricultural metaphor or illustration.

He begins to take us back to something that we are familiar with, verse 37. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else, but God gives it a body as He has determined and to each kind of seed He gives its own body. All of us are different, aren't we? I'm going to be, if I could just be honest with you, I've asked God, I wouldn't mind being just a few inches taller because I've always wanted to beat my sons at basketball.

I know it's not going to happen. We are born as we are. Now just think about how we come to be.

A tiny little seed called a sperm unites with a tiny little egg in the mother's womb and the two become fused together and that begins to grow and to multiply till eventually after nine months a beautiful little baby is born. And as that baby begins to grow, that baby begins to develop the human characteristics that enable us to be clearly identifiable to one another. I can look around the congregation and I see people here today that are clearly identifiable to me.

I just take one look. You see, we look at one another, we are identifiable and what God is about to say to us is, listen friends, listen. The same truth that is applied to our natural state, and we're going to read about this, is the same truth that is going to carry over and be applied to our spiritual state. Now let's see how this works.

Pick up with me here. I'm going to go back to verse 38. God gives it a body as He has determined which kind of seed He gives its own body. Verse 39, all flesh is not the same. Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds have another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind and there are also earthly bodies but the splendor of the earthly bodies is one kind.

The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another and star differs from star in splendor. Well, alright, let's do it now. Everybody, where's heaven?

What did we learn last week? Everybody point at heaven for me, come on. It's up there, how do we know that? The Bible said so. Let me tell you, heaven's floorboards are the stars of the firmament. When you go outside in the evening, you look up and you see that marvelous array of stars and you look at all those stars, they all look the same to an untrained eye but you know that astrologers and people who are qualified in these areas, astronomers, they'll look up and they will tell you that every star hung there by God in His sovereign grace is equally different from another. Every star is completely unique.

Completely unique. Well, what is God doing here? He said, listen, I know that you folks who love me, you've got questions about things that are difficult to understand. What am I going to look like? How am I going to be raised from the dead?

Let me do this. First of all, I want you to think about a seed. You put a seed in the ground and something grows.

Everything that grows begins at a seed but it takes shape according to the design that God has put into, if you please, the soul of that seed. It's no different. Animals have a different look and men have a different look, fish have a different look, birds have a different look but it's like the stars in all their glory. They look the same.

They are clothed in the splendor of the Shekinah glory of Almighty God but each one of them is uniquely made in the eyes of Almighty God. Now look at verse 42. So will it be. You see that? That phrase there? So will it be.

Just the same as I'm trying to show you about your differences and yet your sameness as human beings. So it will be after you die. So it will be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable. Now why is my body perishable? Folks, I'm here to tell you that it is. My body is perishable.

My arthritis and my joints and my teeth and my hair and everything, we are born to die. What God is doing is God is just simply confirming what we know to be true. Listen to how he puts this in to help us to understand.

He says the body that is sown is perishable but it is raised how? Imperishable. Now hold on a minute. Watch me. Watch me. Very important. We're going to discover in a minute the theological significance of the imperishable body which God calls our spiritual body.

In fact, I'm going to go back in just a minute to the great love chapter. I'll show you how God connects these things to us. He says the body that is sown is perishable. It is raised imperishable.

It is sown in dishonor. Why? Because of the sin of Adam. It is raised in glory.

Why? Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is sown in weakness.

It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body and it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body so also there is a spiritual body. So it is written on this basis the first man, Adam, became a living being.

In the Hebrew text the word is nefeshkayah. It means the very breath of God. It means the very soul and the heartbeat of the one who was and who is and whoever will be was breathed into the very being of man who was encased by this perishable body. The first man became a living being and the last Adam who is Christ Jesus became a life-giving spirit.

Now folks, listen. When Jesus Christ died on the cross he became a life-giving spirit. It is because of his death that we have life. Now watch how this all ties together. Verse 46, the spiritual did not come first but the natural and after that the spiritual.

All right, let me backtrack there for just a minute. What God is saying to us in His Word is that we cannot be raised to our spiritual state excepting that the natural occurred first. We are born or conceived in sin and then we are set free by the grace of God in Christ Jesus and because of His resurrection we are raised to our spiritual state to walk in newness of life with Him forever and forever. Anyone want to say amen to that this morning?

Now listen. The first man, verse 47, was of the dust of the earth. The second man, Jesus Christ, from heaven. Why did they call him the second man? Is that disrespectful?

No. Because Jesus Christ became flesh for us. He is the God-man. That is the deity of Christ. That's why we preach Christ Jesus and Him crucified. The first Adam being Adam in the flesh. The second Adam being Christ Jesus in the spirit. And the Word of God tells us that the first man went back to dust. The second man rose from the dead, ascended to be seated at the right hand of the Father where even to this very day He is making intercession for you and me. Forgive the interruption.

We'll be back with the rest of today's message in just a moment. But as we've been studying the Word together, perhaps the Lord has pricked your heart and you'd like to have someone to pray with you and for you. We stand ready to do that right now at 866-899-WORD. Jot the number down.

Store it in your cell. 866-899-9673. We'll connect with one of us 24 hours a day happy to talk or listen or pray.

Or meet us online as well at tewonline.org. Now back to today's great teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. Verse 48. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth.

That's you and me. And as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Paul is about to lay it on the line and he's going to say to us, listen friends, I've told you that it is in Jesus Christ that we live and move and have our being.

If you want to know the answers to these things, look to Jesus. And in fact, just in case we weren't listening, look at verse 49. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.

Alright? One of the things we're going to have to do in these next two short weeks is we're going to have to look at the likeness of the man from heaven. That's what Paul says. Is there any way that we can know what Jesus Christ looks like now that he's in heaven?

I submit to you that we do. And if we want to know how we're going to look, we're going to have to look to him because God says to us, look to him and you'll know what you're going to look like. And so it is in verse 50, I declare to you brothers that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery. Are we talking about the rapture of the church? We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will all be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then it is that the saying written will come true that death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is law, but thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm, let nothing move you, be encouraged in your hearts, always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Why? Because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. May God write His word upon our hearts.

How do we know these things? Yes, I will see Dad again. What a marvelous thought. Just as that thought encourages Dr. Wilton, I pray that it would encourage you to know that when you trust Jesus Christ, you have a look-ahead perspective on life and death. You've heard Dr. Wilton as he's been teaching and preaching from the pulpit. Now, as he steps into the studio, open your heart to what he wants to share next. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ?

I'm so happy to hear that. Why don't you pray this prayer with me today? Dear God, I know that you love me very, very much, and I know that the Lord Jesus Christ came and died on a cross so that I might be forgiven of my sin. Today, I repent of my sin. I confess my sin to you, and I invite you to come into my heart and into my life by faith. In Jesus' name I pray. If you've prayed that prayer, let me be the first one to welcome you to the family of God.

This is wonderful. I hope that you know how much I'm going to be praying for you and how very important this is for me. Call us so that we can talk to you and connect you in the right place so you can begin this wonderful journey.

Perhaps you just prayed along with Dr. Wilton to give your life to Christ for the very first time or to rededicate your life. We want you to know that we stand ready to encourage you, to pray with you, and put resources in your hands that will help you grow in that decision. Just give us a call. Our phone number is 866-899-WORD. And again, Dr. Wilton has prepared specific resources he wants you to have if you'll call us.

The number is 866-899-9673. Or meet us online at tewonline.org. And many are asking, how can you get involved with the ministry? Prayerfully and financially supporting the ministry?

Well, it's by becoming an encourager. 1 John 4.16 says, And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love.

Whoever lives in love, lives in God, and God in them. We want everyone to know and be filled with the love of God. We want to proclaim the love of God to all who will listen. Will you join us in this mission?

We need your support. Become an encourager today. Call us at 866-899-WORD.

That's 866-899-9673. To request information on how you can help support the work of the Encouraging Word. The Encouraging Word is a viewer and listener supported ministry.

Thank you for listening today. Tomorrow we pick up where we left off today with more of this powerful message called I Will See Dad Again with Dr. Don Wilton. I hope you'll join us and bring a friend in between now and then. Let's connect on our website. That's www.tewonline.org. Meet us there today. www.tewonline.org.