Sunday's Message: Good News for a Change - The Resurrection Can Change Our Expectations

We live in a world where there seems to be a lot of bad news. In fact, there are times when it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all those things that seem to tap our strength and drain our spirits. But as we move through Easter and remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there’s good news. And if we allow it, this good news can change us in some very profound ways.

For six weeks, we’ll focus on these changes during our worship service. In other words, we’ll talk about how the resurrection can change us in six ways. We’ll follow the following schedule:

• April 24 – The Resurrection Can Change Our Faith
• May 1 – The Resurrection Can Change Our Expectations 
• May 8 – The Resurrection Can Change Our Values 
• May 15 – The Resurrection Can Change Our Relationships 
• May 22 – The Resurrection Can Change Our Response 
• May 29 – The Resurrection Can Change Our Message 

During the second message, we considered how the resurrection of Jesus Christ can change our expectations. A copy and recording of this message is below:

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Well, here we are, the beginning of May. And I don’t know about y’all, but this was really the first week that felt like Spring, at least to me. For example, this last Monday, I cut my lawn for the first time this year, and not only was it all even, it had that wonderful mowed grass smell, you know, that just makes you feel good to be alive. And every morning, as I’m walking Coco, we pass tulips and daffodils, and the trees are starting to get that green hue on branches that have been grey for months. But maybe, most important of all, we’ve entered what I think you can call the Nirvana of professional sports, with baseball and basketball and hockey and even football kicking it. And I haven’t even mentioned golf tournaments and horse racing and, for the sake of my wife, the Indianapolis 500 coming up. I think we can safely say that Spring has most definitely sprung. 

But I think one of the clearest signs that we’re in the season of Spring is the simple fact that we’re on the far side of Easter, something we celebrated a couple of weeks ago. And in keeping with that focus, we’re using the six weeks between Easter and Pentecost to consider the resurrection of Jesus, and in particular, how this single event can change us. And we started this off last week by talking about how the resurrection can change our faith, because it reminds us that God, the one we trust, has authority and that he also shows love. Now that’s what we looked at last week. 

And this morning, we’re going to consider another way the resurrection can change us, and now I’m talking about how it can change our expectations, you know, what we expect to happen as we look into the future. Of course, when it comes to how we see our ultimate destinies, Americans are pretty much on the same page. Yesterday, as I was working on the sermon, I read some research published in November of last year by the Pew Research Center. And they found that 82% of Americans believe in some kind of afterlife and according to what they found, this was the majority view in every single group with two exceptions: atheists and agnostics. And so, it doesn’t matter whether they’re male or female, young or old, rich or poor, democrat or republican, an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that something follows this life on earth. As a matter of fact, 73% percent believe in the existence of heaven, what’s more, they believe that in heaven we’re free from suffering (69%) and we reunited with loved ones who’ve already died (65%); we’ll meet God (62%) and we’ll all have perfectly healthy bodies (60%). Now, according to the research, that’s what Americans expect. 

And even though this sounds fine, there may be a few issues with some of these expectations, and I’m talking about the ones involving what I think you could call a popular view of life after death. I mean, for one, I think there are some issues with the vision itself. Personally, I’ve never been very comfortable with that Family Circus view of heaven, with people in robes, floating around on clouds, killing time before their friends and family to join them. I’ve always found that vision kind of confusing. In fact, it’s sort of that old joke about a couple who absolutely loved golf, but since they never had much money, they couldn’t play very often and the equipment they used was always either old or really cheap. But you know, even though they didn’t have much money, they really took good care of themselves. I mean, they ate right and got plenty of exercise, and so they lived well into their nineties. And as fate would have it, they died about a month apart. And when they got to heaven, St. Peter showed them this beautiful golf course and all this great equipment, and he said, “This is yours for eternity. Enjoy.” Well, after Peter had gone, the wife looked over at her husband, and he was really mad. And she said, “Darling, this is wonderful. We can play golf on the beautiful course with this great equipment forever. It’s a dream come true. Why are you so mad?” And her husband said, “That’s it. Do you realize that, if we hadn’t taken such good care of ourselves, we could have been up here thirty years ago?” You see, that’s one problem I have with this vision. And two, this idea of disembodied spirits floating around, well, it’s really not Biblical. Now I’m sorry to say that, but it’s not. You see, the ancient Jews believed that, even though we all had souls and bodies, they couldn’t be separated. In other words, you couldn’t have a living soul without a body anymore than you could have a living body without a soul. And for that reason, any kind of life after death had to involve both. And since it was written by Jews, that’s what the Bible teaches. And for me, that’s issue number two. And three, I think a purely spiritual view of heaven confuses the meaning and actually drains a lot of the power from the resurrection of Jesus. I mean, if our bodies are shells and souls are released when we die, why did God cause Jesus to rise, body and soul, from the dead? It just doesn’t make sense. Of course it would still be a great miracle, but it really doesn’t effect our vision of the future, and why should it? And for me, that’s issue number three. Simply put, given what most Americans believe, we really don’t need a resurrection to have eternal life, right? And I’ll tell you, this conclusion is the result of our expectations concerning life after death.

And you know, for that reason, we’re going to spend some time this morning talking about how the resurrection of Christ can change those expectations. You see, we’re going to look at what the Apostle Paul said about the resurrection in his first letter to the Corinthians. And when we do that, I think we’re going to see that the resurrection of Jesus can change our expectations in three pretty important ways.

For example, first, I believe the resurrection of Jesus can change us by challenging our expectations, you know what I mean, by encouraging us to rethink some of those things that we may have been taught, in other words, by giving us the chance to look beyond what we think right now so that we can be open to something even better. Now, that’s what I’m talking about when I say challenge. 

And I’ll tell you, I think that was something the Apostle Paul did when he explained the importance of the resurrection to the Corinthians. Now, in case you don’t know it, Corinth was a city in Greece, and it was the Greek philosophers who taught about the radical division between soul and body. And for that reason, it appears that there were Greeks in the Corinthian church who didn’t believe a resurrection was necessary to have eternal life. And this must have been a big problem for Paul, one that involved a fundamental truth of Christianity, because after giving them the good news in a nutshell, this was what he said: 

If we preach that Christ was raised from death, how can some of you say the dead will not be raised to life? If they won’t be raised to life, Christ himself wasn’t raised to life. And if Christ wasn’t raised to life, our message is worthless, and so is your faith. If the dead won’t be raised to life, we have told lies about God by saying he raised Christ to life, when he really did not.

So if the dead won’t be raised to life, Christ wasn’t raised to life. Unless Christ was raised to life, your faith is useless, and you are still living in your sins. And those people who died after putting their faith in him are completely lost. If our hope in Christ is good only for this life, we are worse off than anyone else. [1 Corinthians 15:12-19, CEV]

Now that’s what Paul wrote, and I’ll tell you, in my opinion, it’s pretty harsh. But I think that shows just how important it was to him.

And I’ll tell you, I think it can also be important for us. You see, sometimes, what we believe about the future, man, it’s all over the place. I mean, it really seems scattered, with bits and pieces taken from a lot of other religions and philosophies, some with a tenuous connection to the Bible and others with no connection at all. Sadly, for a lot of Christians, their expectations have been a hodge-podge. And as Paul reminded the Corinthians, it’s hard to get much comfort from something like that. And that’s why he offered them and offers us a consistent vision, one that’s not only inline with the rest of scripture, but also one that offers all kinds of comfort and just, plain makes sense. But to get there, well, some of those old expectations just have to be challenged. And I think that’s the first way the resurrection can change what we expect. 

And second, along with challenging some of our expectations, I think the resurrection of Christ confirms others. You see, while our vision of the future may have gotten a little muddled by a lot of ideas we were taught to believe but that have actually become sort of distracting, there’s one thing that we can trust, something that’s both fundamental and true and profoundly biblical; and brothers and sisters, here it is. Regardless of how we see the resurrection of Christ much less our own, there is life after death, and that life is in the hands of God. Let me say it again; there is life after death, and that life is in the hands of God. And this is something we can believe, we can trust, because it was confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus. At least, that seems to be what Paul believed. Just listen to what he wrote:

But Christ has been raised to life! And he makes us certain that others will also be raised to life. Just as we will die because of Adam, we will be raised to life because of Christ. Adam brought death to all of us, and Christ will bring life to all of us. But we must each wait our turn. Christ was the first to be raised to life, and his people will be raised to life when he returns. Then after Christ has destroyed all powers and forces, the end will come, and he will give the kingdom to God the Father. [1 Corinthians 15:20-24, CEV]

As I’ve said before, because Christ’s tomb was empty, we can be confident that one day, ours will be too. And I’ll tell you, that’s confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus.

And you know, this is something else I think we need to remember, and I’ll tell you why. Although I believe it’s possible to gain confidence from an idea or a concept, I think we’d all agree it’s a whole lot easier to do when you can rely on something concrete and real. For example, it was one thing to hear about how good Joe’s Pizzeria is, it was something else to chow down on chicken parm and some fettuccine alfredo. Then you know. And I think that same sort of thing applies to us as we look into the future, and I’m talking about our ultimate future. If we want to be confident about life after death, even though the ideas and the concepts are nice, something a little more tangible, you know, something we can actually see and hear would be better. And you know, maybe that explains why all those detailed descriptions of heaven offered by people who’ve died and come back to life are so popular and meaningful now-a-days. They seem to give us a solid reason to be confident. But as Paul reminded the Corinthians and reminds us, we don’t need this kind of stuff, because we have something tangible, as tangible as an empty tomb. And we have something concrete, as concrete as an angel telling three women, “Don’t be afraid! I know you are looking for Jesus, who was nailed to a cross. He isn’t here! God has raised him to life, just as Jesus said he would. Come, see the place where his body was lying. Now hurry! Tell his disciples he has been raised to life and is on his way to Galilee. Go there, and you will see him. This is what I came to tell you.” [Matthew 28:5b-7, CEV] And we have something solid, as solid as Jesus standing with his disciples on a mountain in Galilee saying, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth! Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world.” [Matthew 28:18b-20, CEV] You see, we can be confident, because that empty tomb confirms our expectations. And I think that’s the second way the resurrection can change what we expect. 

And third, along with offering a challenge and a confirmation, I believe the resurrection of Jesus can change us by clarifying our expectations. You see, if we believe the Apostle Paul, our ultimate future isn’t floating around on clouds and learning to play the harp nor is it merging into the universe or haunting a house or coming back as a slug. Instead, it’s grounded in something spiritual and real. Paul wrote, 

Some of you have asked, “How will the dead be raised to life? What kind of bodies will they have?” Don’t be foolish. A seed must die before it can sprout from the ground.

That’s how it will be when our bodies are raised to life. These bodies will die, but the bodies that are raised will live forever. These ugly and weak bodies will become beautiful and strong. As surely as there are physical bodies, there are spiritual bodies. And our physical bodies will be changed into spiritual bodies. [1 Corinthians 15:35-44, CEV]

And a little later, he wrote,

I will explain a mystery to you. Not every one of us will die, but we will all be changed. It will happen suddenly, quicker than the blink of an eye. At the sound of the last trumpet the dead will be raised. We will all be changed, so we will never die again. Our dead and decaying bodies will be changed into bodies that won’t die or decay. The bodies we now have are weak and can die. But they will be changed into bodies that are eternal. Then the Scriptures will come true,

“Death has lost the battle!

Where is its victory?

    Where is its sting?” 

[1 Corinthians 15:51-55, CEV]

You see, this is our future; this is our ultimate destiny.

And for that reason, our expectations can be clear. You see, according to Paul, the time will come when the dead will be raised and we’ll be changed. And we’ll be raised into something real and something glorious, a new world grounded in God’s authority and love. As John of Patmos wrote in his Revelation:

I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth had disappeared, and so had the sea. Then I saw New Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down from God in heaven. It was like a bride dressed in her wedding gown and ready to meet her husband.

I heard a loud voice shout from the throne:

God’s home is now with his people. He will live with them, and they will be his own. Yes, God will make his home among his people. He will wipe all tears from their eyes, and there will be no more death, suffering, crying, or pain. These things of the past are gone forever. [Revelation 21:1-3, CEV]

I’ll tell you, when we’re frustrated by the future and when we’re worried about what lies on the other side of death, we don’t need to be confused, much less afraid. You see, our destinies are grounded in the one who started a process when he caused Christ to rise. And because of that our expectations can be crystal clear. And I think that’s the third way the resurrection can change what we expect. 

As I said a little while ago, I think spring is breaking out all over. And I’ll tell you, right now, for me, it’s so inviting to just sit back and let all the smells and colors sort of wash over me. Ain’t it great? Of course, we all know it won’t last. As a matter of fact, in the next four months or so, we pretty much know that a lot of the colors are going to fade and the smell of cut grass will just be sort of background noise and a another reminder that the stupid lawn has to be mowed every week, regardless of the heat. You see, those things we can expect to happen, because that’s just the way it is. But as we consider how we see life after death, let’s intentionally look past what we’ve been told and allow the resurrection of Christ to challenge and to confirm and to clarify our expectations. And in that way, the resurrection can change us.