Theme of the morning here as we finish up our series on the Creed. I love the line in that song, the cry of every longing heart. At the end of the day, all that God is and all that's been promised us is the fulfillment of our deepest longings. And I hope that we have those promises will not disappoint. Amen. Amen. So today, like I said, we finished our series on the creed, and let's do this together one more time. I ask that you read along with me, and then we'll draw our attention to the end here. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. God, we're so thankful this morning for your truth. Thank you for revealing yourself to us. Thanks for giving us a truth that will not disappoint, that we can place our confidence in and our hope in, because it's not sourced in us. It's not sourced in anything earthly or anything human, God. It's sourced in you. So these statements, God, that we've been studying over the past several weeks, we know that this creed is not scripture, but we know that it's derived from what you have declared in your word. So we're thankful, God, that we can take our place with people who are part of something bigger than ourselves, clinging to a truth that has been passed down through the ages. God, this isn't something that man created, and we are so thankful for who you are this morning, and we're so thankful for the truth that you've given us, where we can find our hope, and our joy, and our fulfillment, and a reason to serve, and a reason to go on being faithful. I pray now, God, that you would take words that we're gonna look at here, these final couple statements, and drive them deep in our heart and encourage us and build us up as your church this morning. Through power of your Holy Spirit, His work, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. You ever long for something? No? Yes, yes. We long for a lot of things. Some things are shallow that we long for. Here's a shallow thing. You all know I grew up in New England, Massachusetts. Seafood is one of the major food groups in Massachusetts. And this is called, and you have to say it right, it's called the Fisherman's Plata. All right. And just a little public service announcement as well. If you're ever in New England, do you notice what the platter is served on? That's actually a paper plate. So here's a little insider. If you're in New England, and you go to a restaurant to get seafood, and they're serving the seafood on a paper plate, you are at the right place. All right, paper plate, not paper, paper plates, I gotta say, right. So yeah, I know to you this is like a big pile of brown, but there are scallops on that thing, and there are shrimp on there, and yeah, so I was raised on this. Red lobster just doesn't, no, you know. And there are clams on there. Now here's the thing, it's not just clam strips. but the whole clam, like the bellies, you know it's awesome. And every once in a while, you put that thing in your mouth, sometimes you're gonna get a little grain of salt, or salt, sand in there, and that's when you know. Get the real thing here, baby, you know. On our sabbatical, we went to New England, I had way too much of this. But, right, we long for shallow things. The Lions winning a Super Bowl, I'm sure, is the deepest longing of some of your hearts, right? Some longings will remain unfulfilled, I'm sorry. We long for more serious things, too, don't we? We long for wholeness, peace. We long for no more death, no more sickness, right? How hard is it to watch loved ones struggle with physical illness, with mental illness, and just long for the day when that's made right again. Long for the day when we see loved ones who've gone on, right? We long for these things. We long for righteousness. We just long for goodness. We long for a world made new with no more sin and no more brokenness. Every good thing that we long for. Every good thing that we long for. I believe it's because in our heart of hearts, we know things aren't the way they're supposed to be. We were wired to live in a perfect world with God and perfect fellowship with him, and that's been broken, and we don't have that. Every good thing we long is bound up in that, and here's the promise that the Creed addresses, based on the authority of God's word, that those longings will be met. Because one day we will rise, and one day, Our king is going to split the sky, and he's going to come riding on a white horse with his people, us, behind him. And the game at that point is over as he declares victory with a little word, evil is wiped out and all things are made new. And we live on a world as God intended in perfect fellowship with our King for all of eternity. My brothers and sisters this morning, you need to be assured based on the authority of God's word that that will happen and that longing will be met. And that's our hope. Hope that will not disappoint. But for now, we live in a gap. There's a gap in the creed, is there not? Forgiveness of sins, resurrection. And in the middle, there's a world of pain and suffering and sorrow, brokenness. And even in the midst of living as followers of Jesus Christ, We have the gospel. We have the truth. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit. We know of the cross. We know of our hope. It's okay for us to still feel like something's missing. Because it is. Something is still not right. And in the midst of the knowledge of truth that we have, it's okay for us to acknowledge this. God, I'm still looking for something. I'm not home yet. There's something missing. And Paul, he acknowledges this. He felt the same way in Romans 8. He says, for we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first roots of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." I find it fascinating, in the middle of the book of Romans, this great treatise of the gospel where we're told about justification and adoption and the forgiveness of sins, that even in the midst of that proclamation of truth, Paul says, I am still groaning. because things aren't quite right. I'm waiting for when this great gospel has its complete and total fulfillment at the consummation. So we sit here today in that gap, and we groan, but we don't groan as those who have no hope. And that's the difference, and that's where the creed directs our attention. I want to read, and Natalie read for you a little bit, I want to read a few more passages or verses out of 1 Corinthians 15. And there's lots of places in scripture actually that address the resurrection and life eternal, even in the Old Testament. This whole concept is even very much put out there throughout the Old Testament. There's a lot of places in the New Testament. But 1 Corinthians 15 is by far the most thick and intense treatment of the resurrection. have our focus and attention in there today. And we're gonna kinda pick up where Amelia left off. I want you to turn to verse 35, and we're not gonna read the whole chapter, okay? But we're gonna read enough of it for you to get a sense of what's going on there. And then the verses and points we make that aren't, I'll reference them. Did I say the wrong name? Natalie, I'm sorry. It's always disconcerting when you're speaking and you see people smirking, and I'm like, and you're always like, There's a series of things you start thinking through. Is my shirt buttoned up, is it? And then the curtain, so I'm glad it's just that, all right? Verse 15, verse 35, it says, but someone will ask, how were the dead raised? With what kind of body did they come? You foolish person, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. Let's skip down to verse 42. So is it with the resurrection of the dead, what is sown perishable, is raised imperishable. When it's sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown in a natural body, it is raised in a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, the first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. I tell you this, brothers. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, Then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then Paul does a great thing for us. He shows us exactly how this truth of the resurrection and the life to come has application for today. He says, verse 58, therefore, in light of all of this, my beloved brothers, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. The reality of the resurrection and the life to come is to have direct impact on how we live and order our lives today. So Paul puts out this argument, of a resurrection. And he starts it quite interesting as he puts forth his argument. You would think he'd start by saying, because there's a resurrection, we have our resurrection. But he almost does it backwards. He says, listen, if there's no resurrection of our bodies, if I am not raised, Christ isn't raised either. There's no resurrection for me, there was no resurrection for him. It's amazing, it's three times in 1 Corinthians 15, in verses 13, 15, and 16, three times he makes this statement. If we are not raised, Christ is not raised. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is so profound and so powerful that it must have the ripple effect of our resurrection as well. It's like throwing a rock into a completely still pond, right? If you see ripples, you know that a rock was thrown into the pond. If you don't see ripples, and I say, I threw a rock in there. There's no ripples. You didn't throw a rock in there. There's always ripples. That's kind of Paul's rationale here. There has to be, if there's ripples, there has to be a rock that was thrown. Then he goes on and he kind of has this cascading effect then. So he says, okay, let's follow that logic. If I'm not raised, Christ wasn't raised. And if Christ wasn't raised, things are a mess. Everything is off, nothing makes sense. First of all, he says, if Christ isn't raised, my preaching, Paul, my preaching is in vain, it's useless, it's worthless. And by extension, then so is ours. And what we've done here at Forest Hills for the past, whatever, 70 years has been worthless, has been in vain. He goes on to say, and along with that, our faith is useless. Our faith is in vain. Our faith is futile. And in verse 15 he says, there's no resurrection. Paul says, then I have misrepresented God. I have preached untruth. And verse 17, if there's no resurrection, if Christ isn't raised, we're still in our sins. Because the resurrection of Christ defeated death and validated Christ as the substitutionary atonement of our sins. If Christ doesn't rise, then death isn't conquered and we are still lost. And lastly, just adding to that, there's just absolutely no hope in verse 18. He says, and if Christ is not raised, then all those who've died before are just gone. So he kind of argues backwards here. Don't miss the point, he's saying our resurrection is sure, it's a guarantee. He says if there's no resurrection, we are to be pitied above all else. In verse 19 he says, if only in this life we have hope, then we are to be pitied above everyone. Why? Because we've sold out for a lie. I've sacrificed for nothing. I've trusted in a false hope. Everything was for naught. This would be the ultimate of all disappointments. I remember, I've talked about how, you know, the war in Ukraine, it really struck me, because my time I spent over there, and I remember, especially in the early days of the war, there's all the pictures that were flooding, and seeing these pictures of these children, and I would look at them, and I would just weep, and what really got me, there's pictures of these dads who were talking about, I watched my four-year-old die. And I remember watching that, just feeling this sadness, and this pity. And Paul's saying if the resurrection isn't true, that's how you should be felt about. That's true, that level of pity. You've lived for nothing. It's all a lie. And he says then, if death is the end, then everything's meaningless, right? He says this in verse 32. Eat and drink, but you die, who cares? Brothers and sisters, listen. You are not to be pitied. Because what you have attached your hope to, the resurrection, is true. And it's real. And so the sacrifices that you make, the service that you give, it is worth it. You're not selling out for a lie. The choices that you've made to do hard are worth it. You're not to be pitied. Some of you in the next few weeks, you're gonna be like, oh my word, Wednesday nights, I signed up to teach these kids every week. Worth it. You're not to be pitied. Because you've given yourself to something greater. Right? I remember someone talking to me and saying, or saying, not just me, but they were talking about adopting a child, a special needs child, and I remember them making the statement, they said, this life is too short to not do something like this. I never forgot that, and that was impactful on our own decision. Why do you do something like that? Because you understand there's something beyond this that's worth it. And making that sacrifice and that investment You have to be pitied. There's joy waiting for you. There's hope waiting for you, not pity. Pity is for those who've sold out the things of this world that are just gonna disappoint. You have to be pitied because the resurrection is true and it's real. Death is not the end. So our first resurrection is certain in verses 20 and 23. We read this to you. Verses 20 and 23. Right away in verse 20, it's like Paul saying, okay, so we have this argument about whether or not Christ has died or not, died of resurrection, listen. Christ has been raised from the dead, so the question is settled. He's the firstfruits of our resurrection. We don't have time to unpack this concept of firstfruits, but it's an Old Testament concept, and Israel observed it as part of their giving, as part of their celebrations. And here's what firstfruits was. It indicated the nature and quality of the rest of the crop. It indicated that there is more to come. So that nature and quality, He'd see it, you know, they'd bring in the grapes or whatever, and be like, oh, yeah, the first fruits, look, look what's coming, you know. Zach's all about our garden this year, you know, brought in that first big tomato, and he's like, now we're a poor example of that, because it kind of all went downhill from there. But that's what first fruits was, right? It's a guarantee, like, look, this is just a sampling of what's to come, and brothers, just listen, if Christ, If Christ is my first fruits and he's an indication of what's to come, I'd say we're in a pretty good place this morning. I'd say we have quite a bit to hope for. I get to be that, not in the deity sense, but his resurrection glorified body, I'm getting one of those? I'm looking at this one, all right. First fruits. 1 John 3-2, beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. We don't even get all that's coming with this. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him. We shall see him as he is. It's an astounding statement. The brokenness, I'll be changed, be like him. Just as being in Adam has brought me death, so being in Christ will bring me life. We read that in this passage. Look over in verse 49 where Paul says, kind of repeats this in a similar sense in verse 49. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. I think what Paul's doing here is he's giving us confidence. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust. None of us have to be convinced that that's a thing. Right? Like, he's using an imagery and a frame of reference that we know. Like, I know I'm broken. I know I bear the image of the man of dust. I know this body is heading the wrong direction. We see the sickness, we see the suffering, we see the pain. So, no one has to talk us into that. I don't think I have to convince anyone in here, like, you're getting old, dude. You know, your body's going wrong. And Paul's making a connection here, he's like, just like that is true, just like you're feeling and sensing and experiencing that, the other is real as well. That's real, so is this. And just as you have experienced this, you're gonna experience that. Really? Like that's gonna be as real as this? And all that I feel in this, I'm gonna feel the exact opposite in that, yes. Man, that's hope. That's the promises, part of the promises we've been given. The resurrection destroys death and delivers those in Christ from the corruption and groaning brought about by sin. I love these verses here that Natalie read for us earlier. Verse 24, then comes the end. When he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, after destroying every rule and every authority and every power, for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet, the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Like, I love that. After destroying every rule and every authority and every power. I mean, he has just leveled everything. And after that, he looks at death, the last one standing, I'm coming for you too. and it's not even a fight. Christ wins everything, complete and total annihilation of every enemy, including death. Death has been powerful, right? Death has 100% success rate against humanity. It's never been able to be defeated by humans. We've never been able, all our medical technology, we can't put it off, we can't stop it. We lose to death every single time, except for the one man, who didn't, and that enemy that has had such overwhelming success and power over the centuries will be tossed one of these days and completely and utterly defeated. We need to be reminded of that message of victory in the midst of the darkness and chaos that we live in, church, right? Last week right before Christmas, we went back to school. We had a little family vacation. We went to Chicago. And I had a great time. And I'm just struck, as I always am, walking around, especially Michigan Avenue and that part of Chicago. It's a lot of cool stuff, a lot of fun stuff. But you're also very aware of the darkness. the worship of wealth and materialism and prestige. It's there. The open declarations of lifestyles and views of sexuality directly oppose God's truth. And then the other thing that you see as you're looking around is what you don't see. You don't see a cross. You don't see truth. You just see emptiness and lies and the glitter and glamor of Babylon. The only people we saw down there kind of standing up against that was a couple of ladies who were warm, and that really didn't make me feel much better about the whole situation either, you know? And then up in the left-hand corner there, that's Sao Paulo. Most of you know that John Kimball and I got a bonus date in Brazil this past summer, and we walked around one afternoon. We walked around Sao Paulo, and it was a very different darkness. You felt the darkness. John and I would go to this mall, And we're right there in the city center, and we go to this mall, and man, unlike our malls here, there are these stores, remember, John, with occult paraphernalia? I mean, like, tons of them. You felt the darkness, you know, angel of light may be here, but you saw the darkness there, and just the evil. And in both those settings, as a follower of Christ, you probably feel this in the workplace, and you feel this in school sometimes, and you're like, is this really true? Like, do we really win? because this tide of evil just seems so great. The media's controlled by people who don't love God. It seems like everyone at work doesn't love God, and at my school, and I walk around these cities, and you don't see the presence of God there. The truth of the resurrection reminds us that every knee will bow to Jesus. Jesus is not gonna bow to Michigan Avenue. that the church of Jesus Christ has a hope that won't disappoint. Christ has conquered the darkness. Christ has conquered our enemies. And we need to grasp that and hang on to that as the people of God. The resurrection, oh, I kind of said this earlier. I just wanted you to see this. It's so certain, it's so sure, and it's just throughout Scripture. Job 19, even in the Old Testament, they're very much aware of a bodily resurrection. Job clinging to that truth. Isaiah, your dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy. For your due is a due of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead, the certainty of the resurrection. I'm sorry, why don't you go back to that? Anyways, the resurrection will result in the redemption and transformation of our bodies. Okay, we'll get to this point here in just a second. This whole section in here where Paul's talking about the seed going in the ground. It's one of those places that's hard in developing a sermon like this, and that's where you can start getting into the weeds a little bit. And what's the connection between our current bodies and the bodies that will come? I can't answer that completely. But here's the illustration that Paul uses. He says, you put a seed in the ground. That seed dies. Like our bodies that grow in the ground. And he said this plant grows out of that seed. It comes out of the ground. And that's the promise. Paul says our bodies also will come out of the ground. And the body is different from the seed. The plant is different from the seed. But it's still the same. God is going to redeem our current bodies. That speaks to, first of all, it validates God's creation. It validates our physical being. And it also, you've heard us say this so many times before, it's also just a statement that Satan doesn't win. God doesn't have to throw out plan A and start over with plan B. This body will be redeemed and resurrected. Paul says here in 1 Corinthians 15, he uses the terminology changed. Not replaced, but changed. The body will be changed. Wayne Grudem writes, whatever remains in the grave from our physical bodies will be taken by God and transformed and used to make a new resurrection body. You think about Jesus as the first fruits. Jesus still bore the scars. from his earthly, from his life, right? From the cross. He bore the scars, and yet there was also this weird thing, too, where people didn't always recognize him. So you have a sense where he maintained aspects of his pre-resurrection body, and yet there were aspects of his resurrection body that they're kinda like, wow, is that? And honestly, I don't 100% know what that is. Here's my best guess. And John can tell me afterwards, dude, that was terrible. But here's my best guess. I think our resurrected body somehow will kind of be made at this ideal age. Most likely not the one I'm at now, right? And that's how we will come and that's how we will appear. And I think that's probably what's going on to Jesus. You know, you think about it, maybe it's 20 years old, I don't know, just throw that one out there. These guys didn't know Jesus when he was 20. Last time they saw him, he was 33 and he was weathered and had been living out in the, and so when they see this new body of the resurrected Christ, it's kind of like even us, right? You see someone for 10, 15 years ago and you're like, You know? Oh, it is. It is. Like, okay. And I think there's part of that. So you have this renewal, and yet there's still aspects of the old. What does that renewal look like? Paul lays it out here for us. In 1 Corinthians 15, he says these new bodies will be imperishable in verse 42. They will not wear out. They will not grow old. They will not experience sickness or disease. No signs of aging. We'll have the strength and vitality of youth. We will be the pinnacle of creation as we were intended to be. Do you understand what this means? It means that Jeanne McHenry won't be sitting in a house all by herself anymore, unable to leave and come fellowship with her brothers and sisters in Christ. It means the same for Rick Cleaver. It means no more back surgeries. It means no more special needs. Imperishable. Sin can't touch it anymore. Raised in glory. There's a beauty and attractiveness. Several passages of Scripture speak of radiance that we'll have. I don't think that means we'll be glowing in the dark, but there's a radiance, a vitality, a brightness. The fact that some of us will be made attractive is evidence of God's miraculous power, right? In glory, in power. This is contrast weakness, fullness of strength. Think of Adam naming the animals. The intellect. I'd be tired after like 53 of them. Like can I take a break now? Maybe pick this up next week. That mental capacity. Our bodies and minds functioning at their fullest. to be raised spiritual. It doesn't mean, I don't think it doesn't mean non-physical. We've already established Jesus has a physical body. It doesn't mean that. In Paul, the word spiritual almost never means non-physical. More often it means in keeping with the character and qualities of the spirits. So I believe that we'll have a physical body, but it's spiritual in the sense that it is now after the pattern of Jesus rather than Adam, and also that it is now capable to be completely subject to the will of the spirits. It's a perfect body. This is meant to create anticipation in us. We're getting something new. I can deal sometimes with the old crummy thing that I have when I know it's going to get replaced, whether that's a car or whatever. I have to kick it now to get it started. But we're getting a new one in a week, so I can deal with the old one for a little bit longer. That's what this is meant to incite in us. You can hang on. You're broken. It's wearing. You're tired. You're dealing with trials. You're dealing with temptations. But it is going to get better. It is going to go away. To be like a kid on Christmas morning waiting to get the new, because you're gonna get that in so much more. This is the promise of the resurrection. Everyone live for eternity. We do a disservice this morning to talk about the resurrection in the eternal state without talking about the ominous side of it as well. Everyone lives forever. You just have to choose where. And that's the reality that goes with this as well. There's several passages in Scripture that deal with it. John 5, there's some who have done good, they will rise to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgments. Daniel 12, two, many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. Matthew 25, 46, and these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. It's not super popular today to talk about, but hell and eternal punishment is real. Hell and eternal punishment is real. And that's a very real part of the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. And the Bible tells us about it in Revelation 20. There's the judgments, okay? God will judge those who are outside of Christ and they will be condemned to life eternal in hell separated from God. And it's a place of awful torment. Okay, keep in mind again, it's real. It's not just an imaginative thing that God put in the Bible to scare us. This is a real thing. At the end of Mark 9 here, it's a place where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And to be honest, I don't understand that worm part, but it doesn't sound very pleasant, okay? And the fire isn't quenched, it doesn't go out. Matthew 25, there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And I believe that what this communicates at some level is a sense of despair and regret. You think about that all of eternity, you will live with the regret of not bowing the knee to Jesus Christ. that conscious punishment. We see that in Luke 16, the rich man and Lazarus, right? Where the rich man is able to see across. And he's very conscious of what's going on. And I think the fact that he can see across the chasm makes it even worse. And it's in this passage where we're told there's no way back after death. Besides all this between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us. Hebrews 9.27, and just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after this comes the judgment, which should be our response to this. Well, first of all, if you are sitting in this room today apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, that's the life that awaits you on the other side of eternity, on the other side of death. The good news is there's still time to repent and bow the knee to Christ and experience the forgiveness of God. But if not, make no mistake, that is your destiny. For those in Christ, this isn't there for us to say, great, the evil wicked people will finally get what they deserve. Because that's an incorrect posture as well to We need to share Paul's heart in Romans nine, verse two, when he looks out and understands that Jerusalem is rejecting their Messiah and he knows where that leads. He knows where that will take them as far as being under God's judgment. And Paul says, I have anguish in my heart for them. Matter of fact, Paul goes so far as to say that anguish is so great that I wish myself damned in their place if that could be possible. That kind of burden for the lost. Those are the people you go to school with. Those are the people you work with. Those are the people who, while we've been preaching this message, have been driving by on Fulton Street. Every single one of them who don't know Christ are condemned to that future. That should awaken in us a greater desire to share the gospel and live for what matters most. I'll ask the worship team to come back up. We're gonna close with a couple songs here in response, and as they do, I want us to think about this last point, okay? Like I said, there's two sides to this, and here's the other side. The eternal state for believers will be beyond anything we can imagine. 1 Corinthians 2.9, as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. This is what waits. For us, brothers and sisters, in spite of how bad things seem, we'll witness a new kind of unification of heaven and earth, right? Revelation 21.2 says the city comes down, and in the Old Testament, heaven and earth met in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle and in the temple. And in the New Testament, heaven and earth met, Jesus called himself the temple, and that's where heaven and earth came together. On the new earth, it's an entire city temple that comes down. And where God dwells with us, we will have the presence of God with us. He says this in Revelation, now the dwelling of God is with men. There'll be this fusion, unification of heaven and earth unlike anything else. We will reign with Christ. Revelation 22, 5 will reign forever and ever. Hebrews 2, 8, everything will be subject to us. Matthew 5, 5, we will inherit the earth and reign over it as God originally intended. We'll see and do some earthly things that we do now. This is gonna be a place of joy and fun and service to God. We're gonna eat and drink, right? The marriage supper of the lamb, which may or may not have a fisherman's platter. Luke 22, 18, Jesus says, I will drink of the fruit of the vine with you again in the kingdom. There are flowing rivers and streets in Revelation 21. There are trees with fruit. There's time on the new earth. We're finite creatures and we're gonna live life in sequence like we do now. We see in Revelation 22 too that the tree of life brings forth its fruit month after month after month. There's gonna be a lot of similarities to this world that we live in now, but it's gonna be infinitely better. We will experience unmatched beauty and joy. the descriptions in Revelation, words like holy, it uses the description of a bride. There'll be no crying or pain and we'll drink from the fountain of the water of life. There's radiance, there's descriptions of jewels, it's immense in its size, it is colorful, it's free from all evil, and most of all, our deepest longing will be met because God will be there. So a question I want you to think about as we close, right before we sing, is where will you spend eternity? Where will you spend eternity? Jesus said in John 11, he that believes on me, though he die, will live. You can face death. Matter of fact, you don't have to, it's not just you don't fear death, you can defy death. And you can release your loved ones. I remember, I'll never forget being in the hospital room when Don Smith died, and I was there with the family, and I had that joy and that privilege, and I remember Jackie and Greg and Brenda standing there going, Dad, go home. Go home. It's okay. It's okay. We'll see you on the other side. How awesome is that? Go home. We can defy death. We don't have to fear it. Brothers and sisters, remember there's more beyond this present life. So Jesus says lay up treasure in heaven. What are you living for? And like I said earlier, Paul gives us the application to remain steadfast, immovable, always abounding, knowing that your labor is not in vain. So it's worth it. It's worth showing up. It's worth doing the hard work of discipling your kids. It's worth going overseas to serve. It's worth coming and showing up Wednesday night after Wednesday night and giving God's truth. And I can say that because when a little boy in my house whose brain doesn't totally work the way it's supposed to and he can come home and say, hey, Miss Jodi talked about King David today. That's worth it. It's worth it. It's worth it when it gets hard. I don't always know how to parent. I'm always not a parent. Sometimes it's tiring. And sometimes some of you have physical, right? Sue Austin, she's just tired. She's in pain all the time. We lament so many things in this life. Listen, it's a hopeless situation. I'm gonna see Kelly cook again, right? It's all worth it. It's our hope, church. Stay faithful, immovable, always abounding.