My four-year-old was sitting at the table, and as she was sitting there eating, She looked up at me and my wife. and said, We're all gonna die. And then she said this. But that's okay because Jesus moved the stone. What a great truth that is and out of the mouth of a four-year-old.
Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham and welcome to the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 19, If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. And then he continues in verse 20, But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Our hope isn't in this life only. We have a future hope. And that's what Gabe Fleur will consider with us today.
Well, this message is from his eight-part series, Alive. how the resurrection of Christ changes everything. and you can own the entire series on DVD. Along with digital access, when you give a donation in support of Renewing Your Mind at renewingyourmind.org. But be quick, as this offer ends at midnight and it won't be repeated next Saturday.
So what is our future hope? Here's Dr. Fleur. One of the things we like to do as a family is travel to the Low Country of South Carolina. And in South Carolina geography, the Low Country is roughly the lower third of the state that runs along the coast, a very distinctive geography with winding marshlands and rivers and looking out into the sea there.
And uh About a year and a half ago or so, we were down there with our family. And at the time, my four-year-old was sitting at the table, and we were having supper. And she was happy as she could be with chicken nuggets, don't judge us. And as she was sitting there eating, She looked up at me and my wife. and said, We're all gonna die.
Now, coming out of the mouth of a four-year-old, we kind of stunned and looked at each other. And then she said this But that's okay because Jesus moved the stone. And We both I don't know if it was just the the s the fading sunlight through the hanging moss there. overlooking the May River. And seeing the beauty of the landscape and just the gorgeous spring day and all of that coming together, but we both teared up and and realize, wow, she's actually listening.
To us and to what's going on at school. But I say that in service of as we conclude our time. To illustrate the fact that all of us are looking for hope. And if the resurrection offers us one thing, it offers us. Hope.
And that's what we'll look at here as we conclude. the resurrection provides us with unshakable hope. And as we think about hope, We need to think about The death of hope. in our day. consonant with other things that we've noticed to this point.
Hope has died. A slow death among us. Let me quote from Richard Dawkins in his book River Out of Eden. He says this. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom No design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.
Close quote. If that's where you think about the world and that's where you live, is it any wonder? that people have lost any kind of hope. Isn't that a a good term to describe what we see all around us? Hopelessness?
Now, not just materialistic atheism, but think about also the way that we are endlessly amused. Plenty of people want to work hard. But not so many people know how to rest well. And not so many people know what to do with no distractions around them. And it's a penetrating question to ask ourselves.
Do we ever have times of silence? Do we ever have times where there's no background noise? And if not, why not? And oftentimes, it's because we don't want to hear what God. is doing, and saying, and meditating on His word that He speaks to us in.
So we have endless amusement. We have endless scrolling. on social media. And by the way, we all know that's the goal of it, right? To keep us scrolling.
to keep us from ever being thoughtfully engaged with anything. I was talking with this about a friend recently about e-books versus hard, regular books. And he said, Where are you on that? And I said, So you kind of half in, half out? I said, nah, probably 80, 20.
I still love having a book in my hand and making notes in the margins and underlining and everything else, but. He said, you know, I think it's getting so hard for people to even read because of the amount of distractions. we have all around us all the time. Endless amusement, social media. What else takes away our hope?
What about Endless access. to plenty. One of the reasons that we don't see hope as vibrant as it was for our parents or grandparents generation is. We have so much here. We have such material abundance and plenty here.
And in one sense, we need to rejoice in that. I would argue that directly because of Christianity do we have such material abundance and plenty today. Plenty of other scholars have argued that as well. But for Christians... All of these things can combine to deaden our hope of heaven.
All the advertising, all the social media. It has a goal to make us discontent constantly. And instead of a holy discontentment of not being with the Lord. we have a discontentment with not having all that we want. And that deadens our hope of heaven.
One final thing is, as one author points out, there's been a shift. In the past fifty years, From naive optimism. To cynicism. And we all know what the cynic is, right? He's the person who gets the angle.
Everybody's got an angle, and he's going to keep himself aloof from that. He's going to show the irony of life. He's not going to commit to anything. He's not going to invest himself in anything. He's too good for that.
He sees what other people don't. In the cynic has always has for his cursed mother That of sh of optimism, naive optimism. And when you look at what's happened with that in recent years, it's people who've Who've been disappointed by life, and as that same author points out, the promise of secularism that has failed. This whole notion that people are basically good. And if you leave them alone with enough time and money and education, they'll basically do the right thing.
We've been trying that since at least the Greeks. And how's it working out for us? More recently, beginning in Renaissance humanism in the 15th century, we've been trying money and education as the solution for mankind's ills. And what has it left us with? Cynicism.
A hollowed out, burned out, as C.S. Lewis put it, chestless culture. That's what it's given us. Men without chests. No morals, no commitments, nothing but cynicism.
and despair and so it's little wonder that people Have no hope. When the predominant worldview is blind, pitiless indifference, like that which Dawkins speaks about. Yeah. Everything else has let me down. God probably will too.
If that's where we think, then hope. will be always fleeting, always elusive. And what the resurrection of Christ does, is resurrect hope in our lives. And how does that happen? Let's trace it out from the Scriptures from Second Corinthians five.
As Paul instructs us. On our hope. Verse 1 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God. A house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing.
to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent we groan, being burdened not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed.
so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God. who has given us the spirit as a guarantee. Here's what he's saying to us. I hope of new creation.
that we find in the Gospel of Resurrection. The hope of new creation. Did you notice that pregnant language again? that we might be further clothed. What does Paul have in mind?
Nakedness, of course. But that's not just not having any clothes on. It's a metaphor, isn't it? Because when mankind recognized he was naked, when Adam saw that he didn't have clothes on, it's because sin had entered the world. It's because shame became a reality to he and his wife that he'd never known before.
And therefore, ever since we could say metaphorically, Paul says to us, mankind has been searching for clothing. They've been searching for the way that death may be swallowed up by life. I was reading Yuval Harari, who's written a book called Homo Deus. Man the God or the God man. He also wrote a book called Homo sapiens, a history of the human race.
He's a transhumanist. And this is a movement that believes that man will be some kind of hybrid of man and machine, and the ultimate goal of it all. And he says this at the outset of Homo Deus. He says, let's take stock of where we are and see what the ultimate goal is. And he says, mankind has dev defeated its three great enemies by and large, famine, disease and warfare.
He says, sure, there's wars, sure, there's famine, sure, there's diseases, but nothing like the bubonic plague. Nothing like the World Wars. We're getting past that. We're getting better. And the ultimate goal, he says, is that What we'll see is death itself will be defeated by mankind's technology.
My friends, if you're looking where the Tower of Babel is being built, look no further. than the modern technological industry. And his point is this, we have hope. in our technology. In our ability as man, the Homo Deus, the God.
And what use would it be for gods to be humble, my friends? Why would you come to any other conclusion if that's what you believe about the world? But here's what Paul says: that kind of clothing will never work. Because death is not just something natural, which is the underlying assumption of Harari's argument. Because of evolutionary processes, death is natural.
No, death is part of the fall, as we've seen. It's a curse. That only is overcome when God clothes us, as it were. And once again, it's all the grace. Just think about Adam and Eve.
as God kills animals. to cover them. And showing them thereby that atonement has to be made by blood, and I will make it, God says to them. And then Paul picks up on that and says, yes, and resurrection reminds us, the resurrection of Christ rather, reminds us that one day all of our nakedness will be covered. That we will come into full possession of all that we were meant to be as a redeemed humanity.
in our heavenly dwelling. And he says, In this tent we grown and were burdened. Again, what a perfect description of daily life groaning and being burdened. But he says this groaning and burning is unto something. It's we're groaning and burdened because we've Caught a glimpse.
of how good what's coming really is. Having caught that glimpse, he says, We want it so badly. And he says the same thing in Romans 8: the whole creation is groaning until now. And this groan is a resurrection groan. It's a groan for life to the uttermost.
Life That is encapsulated in the event of Christ's resurrection. That is the first episode which will to be continued in our resurrection. And as we groan and long for that, he says, what we're asking for, what we're longing for, is that death might be swallowed up by that which is truly life. And he says, He who has prepared us for this very thing. is God.
Don't you love how Paul is? is so God-centered and so grace-centered. And he's saying to us, by nature we don't hope in these things. By nature all of us would want to say what Harari said. or what Dawkins said.
But instead, he says, because of what God has done, who's prepared us for this very thing, is give us a certain future, a certain hope. And that's what the the Greek word, by the way, that Paul uses elsewhere. means It's not hope in the sense that we think of it today. My wife calls me and says Are you going to be able to take the girls out hunting with you this weekend?
Well, I hope so, sweetie, but I don't know what the weather's going to be.
Now what does that mean? Likely I won't be able to. But we're going to try. That's not what the word means in the New Testament at all. It means a guaranteed certainty.
Which is why Paul says what he says here. God has prepared us for this thing, and he has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. A down payment. In the first fruits of the resurrected Christ come the first fruits of the life-giving Spirit in our lives. As he begins to make us groan and be burdened for that which is true life.
And that is why, when Jesus speaks about this, don't you love this scene in John 7? On the last, the great day of the feast, John tells us, he stood up and said in a loud voice, If any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink. For as it is written, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water. And John adds that editorial aside, this he said of the Spirit which he was to give, but he had not been given yet because Christ had not yet been glorified. Having been glorified, He does give the Spirit, and therefore we can stop being thirsty.
We can have true hope. And another metaphor there, isn't that what hopelessness is? It's a thirst that can never be slaked. A hunger that can never be satiated. Try as we might to fill it up with drugs or sex or pleasure or movies or just distraction.
And what Paul and what Jesus tell us, the Spirit speaking in his word tells us is: no, no, no, no, no, it's so much better. With Christ. And the hope you have in him, no matter what happens here, will be unshakable. It will be certain. It is as certain as the spirit who was outpoured.
It is as certain as the empty tomb. before the outpouring of the Spirit. And that's why if we turn to the end of the Bible, We read what we read in Revelation chapter one. CHAPTER twenty one, rather. The penultimate chapter of the Bible.
John says this. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven, and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, The dwelling place of God is with man.
He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning. nor crying nor pain any more, For the former things have passed away. What is the terminus?
What is the omega point, the end point of our hope? It's this And notice how John sees it. Going back to Babel, mankind builds his way to God. And it's so minuscule that Moses shows us as God speaks through him that God has to come down and see it. Not like God couldn't see it.
You see everything. He was just making the point, it's so minuscule, he came down from heaven to see the puny works of mankind and man building his way up with his puny city. And instead, in the true and lasting New Jerusalem, it comes down from heaven. It's a gift of grace is what God is showing John. And this imagery here is one of, as one scholar put it, a garden and a city and a temple all combined.
All these major biblical themes that come together in the New Jerusalem. And the centerpiece of it all is the fulfillment of the covenant promises of God. which are so tightly bound up with the resurrection of Christ and our coming resurrection. What is the great hope and promise of the Old Testament that God would dwell among his people? What is the book of Leviticus about following the last roughly 20 chapters of the book of Exodus, preparing an Exodus for God to dwell among his people, then instructions for God dwelling among his people?
And yet, even then, those were partial shadows. Undone by Israel's idolatry as it sends them into exile, and then Jesus comes and there is the true temple among us. John 1:14, the word became flesh and translated from the original tabernacle amongst us. God Himself will be with them. Matthew tells us that Jesus' name is God with us.
He tells us, Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And here is the end of the age. as it gives way into the ages that will last forever. And at the centerpiece, at the heart of it all, is the God who fulfills his covenant promise to dwell with his people. And what Does that mean But the undoing of all that was part of this present evil age.
dying, sickness, mourning, grieving, all of it's gone. And just consider the imagery. Just consider the imagery of God Himself will wipe away. They're tears. Before I came down here, my Daughter was very upset when my daughters, my youngest, was upset one night.
And I came into her room. And she had had had some kind of a bad dream or something. And when you see your precious child crying, what is the first thing you want to do? You want to dry her tears. and hold her and comfort her.
And that's the imagery that God chooses to speak to us in. of what he'll do for all of his dear children. He himself will wipe away their tears. He himself will undo all the sadness, the grief, the pain, the death, the destruction that we have caused. In other words, resurrection life.
always has as its goal the resurrection of all things The new heaven and the new earth. That is our hope. That is what we are pressing on towards. That is our goal. That is what is going to happen as certain as the tomb was empty that first Easter Sunday.
Molinio go. And so what we need to ask ourselves is very simple. What are you hoping in? My friend? Is it Is it anything other than Christ?
Because where your hope is is where you will find meaning. Security. Trust. Identity. And if it's anything other than Christ, your hope will be exposed as false, and it will wreck you.
And God will do that to us. He will He will wreck our false hopes, he will burn our idols, as it were.
So that he can give us true hope, that he can give us resurrection hope.
so that only the promises of God As we walk by faith, not by sight, as Paul would tell us in 2 Corinthians. Only the promises of God offer that life-giving sustenance that's spoken of in Psalm 1.
So that as we meditate on the law of the Lord day and night we become like trees planted by the river. We become those who can say with the psalmist, my flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the portion of my heart forever. And as he does that, as he removes all of our false hopes, he begins to replace it with the only hope that lasts, my friends. As we dwell on his word, as we walk with the Lord, as the Spirit-inspired scriptures which point inexorably, inevitably, and unfailingly to the resurrected Messiah, the Son of God, who poured out that selfsame spirit upon his people to give them the unshakable hope, as we walk with him, his promises sustain us. He's our manna in the wilderness.
He's our goal of heaven. He's the new and better Moses. He's the new and greater Aaron. He's the better Adam. He's the second and last Adam.
He's the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world. He is the terminus of all the promises, the fulfillment of all our hopes, and the end goal of all resurrection reality. And that is what is coming for us. And that is why Paul began for us. this afternoon.
Therefore we do not lose hope. Because we know In whom our hopes are vested, we say with Paul, I know whom I have believed, and I am confident that he is able to keep that which I've entrusted to him to that day. And so, what God would say to us as we Conclude thinking about the resurrection is Look up. for our redemption draws nigh. Yes, look up for our redemption draws nigh.
That was Gabe Fleur, and this is the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind. With what many people call Resurrection Sunday coming tomorrow, what a great reminder from Dr. Fleur today. You hear the heart of a pastor and of a father in this entire series. It's called Alive: How the Resurrection of Christ Changes Everything.
And if you'd like to own this eight-part series for the final time, we'll send it to you on DVD when you donate today at renewingyourmind.org. You'll have the DVD to use or give away because we'll also unlock the messages in the free Ligonier app. And along with the messages, we'll unlock the study guide so that you can use this as part of a Bible study or a small group. To respond now at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes before this offer ends tonight. And don't delay.
This offer won't be repeated next Saturday.
Well, from the resurrection to the return of Christ, next time RC Sprol will consider the end times here on Renewing Your Mind.
