An Encouraging Reminder

Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. Today's program helps you prepare for Easter. Remind yourself of what you have to look forward to as a born-again child of God. If you had a friend who was facing death, what would be the two things that you would be most concerned about? Would it not be their relationship to Jesus Christ?

And secondly, would you ever see them again? That is the cross and the resurrection. Upon those two basic truths, the truth of the cross and the resurrection, all of Christianity stands upon those two. And no matter what people may say or what they may believe, those two are the foundational truths. The fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into this world for the primary purpose of dying for the sin of mankind.

And that would not be sufficient. For unless there was proof, living proof, eternal proof, why not place Him in the same category with all other prophets? But the Bible says that on the third day He rose from the grave. That He was seen by five hundred at one time. And then finally, that as He ascended to the heavens to sit at the Father's right hand, He was seen by multitudes. And that the angels said, Why do you stand here gazing, looking at this? This same Jesus whom you see here now rising will one day come again.

Do you believe that? The truth is the crucifixion and the resurrection are the foundational truths without which, if you'll think about it, we're just passing through life. Think about the confusion that would be here if there were no crucifixion and no resurrection. Then the questions would be, Who is this God we serve?

What are these promises He makes? What is the purpose of life? When you remove the cross and the resurrection, answer the question, What is the purpose of life? Answer the question, How am I to spend my life? Answer the question, What am I to do with those resources that God has placed at my disposal?

What is it all about? The cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ are not just important, not just paramount, they are the two foundational truths. And when the Apostle Paul was writing the wonderful little book of Philippians, Epistle to the Philippians, he wrote it from a jail cell. So he wasn't writing it from someone who was very wealthy and had all the answers to everything in life. He was writing it from a person who had a personal experience with this Christ for whom he was suffering. And in this particular little book, all of which is encouraging, there is a single passage that I want us to look at because it deals with where all of us are and it answers some questions about how we ought to be living. So I want you to turn, if you will, to this third chapter of Philippians, beginning in the seventeenth verse. Because here he challenges us to follow his pattern of life and then he tells us about those who do not.

And then he gives us three wonderful things to think about. He says in verse seventeen, Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite, whose glory is in their shame, and who set their mind on earthly things.

So he sort of described the world system in which you and I live. Then he says, on the other hand, for our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion or the expression or the exercise of the power that He has even to subdue all things to Himself. Now, when he says, for example, in this passage that we have a citizenship, this was very, very important in Paul's day because Philippi was a very special colony of Rome.

And because they had been supportive and loyal in times of war, people who were citizens of Philippi were automatically citizens of the Roman Empire, which gave them great, great opportunities and protection. So when the Apostle Paul, writing to the Philippians, they understood what citizenship was about. So he begins, if you'll notice here, in this particular verse. He says, for our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, so I'll ask you a question. How do you become a citizen of heaven? Well, some people are trying to become a citizen of heaven by working for it, by their good deeds, by their giving, or by their service in some way. In other words, their idea is, if I'm good enough, I will become a citizen of heaven. That is, I will get to heaven one way or the other.

The Bible is crystal clear, very specifically clear about this. There is only one way to become a citizen of heaven, and that is to be born into it. And it's interesting that when Nicodemus, one of the rulers of the Jews, was talking to Jesus that night, he asked Him, he said, in their discussion about life and death and all the rest, and Jesus said, Except a man, or a woman, be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God, nor can he enter into the kingdom of God. Which was his way of saying, the way you become a child of God, and the way you get to heaven, the way you become a citizen of heaven is that you are born into it. And so, ultimately it all boils down to this. Good works won't get you to heaven.

Good deeds of any kind, no amount of giving, no amount of promising, no amount of culture, nothing that a person can do. And this is what caused Jesus to say, among many other reasons, He said, I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by Me. That is, to come to the Father is to come into the kingdom. To come into the kingdom, of course, is to have a place in heaven. Look in First Peter chapter one for a moment.

And look, if you will, in verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Listen to this, to obtain. Obtain what? To obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven to you.

Think about that. The Bible says we have a reward, we have an inheritance. And it's not an inheritance that we can lose.

It is an inheritance that is imperishable, that is eternal. It is there. You say, well, how do I get rewards in heaven? Here's how you get them there.

You're listening carefully? Say, Amen. Amen. By investing your life in three things. Loving other people, giving, and serving. Those are the three things that build inheritance in the kingdom of God.

So, think about this. The fact that Jesus Christ is living inside of us, we have the capacity to love people who are lovable and unloving. We have the capacity to give to other people to the Lord's work here and around the world. We have the wonderful opportunity to every single one of us to serve the living God in some fashion. How do we serve Him? By serving other people. You do have capacities. You do have abilities. God has gifted you to serve Him. It would be totally out of the character of God to so make you and to so build you and to so create you and give you absolutely no way to serve Him. Because loving and giving and serving, that's who we are. That's what we're about.

Followers of Jesus Christ. Then He said something else He wanted us to remember, and that's this. He said, Our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, I ask you this. When's the last time you thought about Jesus coming again? Until this Easter.

Where is that in your thinking, in your daily thinking, in your lifestyle? And this is how He describes who we ought to be and who we are. He says, We eagerly await His return. And, if you'll think about it, when He left, Jesus didn't just leave after He died. He was seen by numbers of people in five hundred and then the day He ascended, very interesting, that when He ascended, the angels were there and asked this question, Why do you stand here gazing at the Son of God? Because this man, this Jesus, this Son of God, will come in like manner. That is, we have evidence that He lived, that He died, that He rose again, and we have evidence that He's coming back because, listen, He has never lied to us.

There's not a single promise in the Word of God that God has not kept and will not keep according to His time schedule. And so, Paul is saying to the Philippians, writing from a jail sale, he says, You know, thank God that we're citizens of the kingdom of God. And we ought to be looking for, and you can, listen, you can tell what a person is by where they spend their time, what they spend their time thinking about, what they spend their money on. All of these things are indications of who we are.

We can say that we believe this or we are that or the other. But how much of your time is given to thinking about Jesus and how you can serve Him? Wake up on Monday morning, for example, you wake up tomorrow morning and you've got a lot of things on your mind already. You were thinking about it before you even woke up again.

You're not even out of a bed and you're thinking about it. Where does Jesus fit on any given morning of your life? So, here's what Paul says. He says, first of all, we're citizens of heaven. But not only that, he said, being a citizen of heaven, he says, we eagerly wait for His return. And then he says, speaking of Jesus, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory by the exertion of the expression, demonstration of His power that He has even to subdue all things unto Himself.

Now, there are no challenges to Jesus Christ. You will be the ultimate of what God intended. And so, when we talk about changing our bodies, go back to the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians for a moment because here's where Paul really spends time in his letter describing what's going to happen to our bodies. And so, if you'll look at the forty-ninth verse of this fifteenth chapter, he wraps it up in one verse here when he says, just as we have borne the image of the earthy, that is the way we are now, we will also bear the image of the heavenly. And so, we don't have to be worried about our looks when we get to heaven. He says we're going to be like Him. Can you beat that?

You can't match that with anything. So, look if you will in this fifteenth chapter now and let's start with verse forty-one. There is one glory and one sun and another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars for stars different from stars and glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. Speaking of the bodies now, the body is sown a perishable body.

We have sickness and death and so forth. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body. It has raised an imperishable body. It's sown in dishonor with all the things that have happened to us. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness.

It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there's also a spiritual body.

So also it is written. The first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam, speaking of Jesus, became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy.

The second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy. And as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Then he says in verse fifty, look at this. Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep. That is, we'll not all be dead when Jesus comes. But we will all be changed.

How's that? In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised, that is these bodies, raised imperishable and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable. This mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable and this mortal will put on immortality, then we'll come about the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your sting? Where is your victory?

Where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. That is, our body will be the body that our Lord determines that we're going to look like when we get to heaven. But in essence of what it's composed of will be like the Lord Jesus Christ. He walked, He talked, He ate, and somebody says, Well, He walked through doors. Well, the Bible doesn't really say that He walked through a door necessarily. I know what you're thinking about. It doesn't exactly say that, but He could if He wanted to.

The issue is there's no limitation. And think about this, where is heaven going to be? Is it not going to be partly on this earth and partly what God is working on even now? And the Bible says, calls God an architect and builder. But then I want you to notice, Paul in the fifty-eighth verse says, On the basis of who we are, on the basis of what God is working in our lives, here's what he says, Therefore, fifty- eight, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, be immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. So, we call ourselves Christians, followers of Jesus Christ.

How would we be described? People who love, who give, who serve. And the way we serve the most effectively is by our life, demonstrating the life of Jesus Christ. By the way, we give ourselves a way to share the gospel, the people who do not know the gospel. That's what Jesus told us to do. He sent His disciples out as messengers, as those with truth that transforms people's lives, that opens their hearts and minds to truth, that transforms their life, that makes it possible for them to have eternal security through the blood of Jesus Christ, through the cross, and through the resurrection. So, as we begin, the two major truths in all the world upon which everything stands is the cross of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ for the power in which we can live our life day by day. Now, the Bible says it is important that the man wants to die, and after this the judgment. If He were to call you today, would you be ready? Then I would ask you this question.

How did you get ready? There is only one right answer. You say, you mean to tell me there's only one way to get to heaven?

That's right. Why was Jesus so narrow-minded? Because in His awesome wisdom, think about this, in His awesome wisdom, He made one way, and that way would be possible for every single person. For here's what He says, if you confess with your mouth Jesus Christ is Lord, and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

There are not a thousand different ways. There's only one way, and you can have the gift of eternal life if you're willing to acknowledge that He's your Savior and your Lord. That you've sinned against Him, rebelled against Him, and had your way. And as you think about it for just a moment, heaven, God's awesome place of eternal life for all of us. He's made a place for us. There's a place in the book of life that your name could be inscribed there. But until you come to the cross and believe in His resurrection, that space will be empty.

It is my prayer that you will make that decision to trust Him as your Savior and your Lord. That your name will be inscribed as a citizen of heaven. No one can erase it.

It can never be changed. And you'll have eternal security. That's my prayer for you. Thank you for listening to an encouraging reminder. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.