Let's pray to let the Lord bless this time. Heavenly Father, we again come before you with grateful hearts and with joyful hearts that we continue to learn and grow in you. Lord, speak to our hearts today and help us to have understanding and recognize the joy of our salvation in this time. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So we're gonna, looking at question 38 of the catechism, which I will read that to begin with here. So what benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection? At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. So last week we talked about what do, the previous question was what benefits do believers receive from Christ at his death? And so now we look at what benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection? So we know that obviously Christ died and was resurrected. And this is a core of our faith. If Christ did not raise from the dead, our salvation is not complete. He did not do what he said he was going to do. So this is a heart of our belief system, that we believe that we will also be raised with Christ on that last day. And because Christ did that, we also will be raised again. So when we look at this, we cannot overlook the fact that Christ was resurrected. Early in the early church, this was a very big point of contention. And it appears to have shifted and gone different ways in more recent history. But what does resurrection really even mean? Resurrection means to stand up. literally means to stand up, as obviously from the dead in this case. And so it's simply put that we stand up. And the physical body, which is laid in a grave and rots away, will one day rise again and stand on the earth. So as we stand up, we stand up with our salvation. Even though we have died in body, our spirit, again, we talked a little bit about this last time, goes and is with the Lord. But our bodies die. They rot. They go into the grave. They return to the dust, from ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That is commonly told at many a funeral. And it's true. Our bodies rot away. But it's something that we can see in scripture here that this has to happen. This is a part of our process of this life, that our bodies crumble away, or they dissolve into dust, but God, in his great strength and glorious power, raises us up again. And he gives us, it's these bodies. And that's something that's kind of an interesting, as I was looking into this a little bit further, I think we can take great encouragement from the fact that in this life, with our bodies the way they are, we're often pretty disappointed. We often wish for better bodies, one free of disease, free of sin, free of corruption. And that's what that dying process does. That dying, God purifies that out of us. And so that when he raises the softball again, that is the point. We have died, and the corrupted becomes uncorrupted. The impure becomes pure. And so that's the process as we stand before the Lord on that day of judgment when he calls us all. So we do, this is obviously a big, a pivotal part of our faith. If we don't believe in this, we don't understand the gospel. Christ had to be resurrected. We are also resurrected with him. we get to that point. So I wanted to read a section of scripture here that kind of helps us illustrate this a little bit. In 1 Corinthians 15, it says, but someone will say, how are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? foolish one. What you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be but mere grain, perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as he pleases, and to each seed its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh, one kind of flesh, of man, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies, but the glory of the celestial one and the glory of the terrestrial one is another. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon. and another glory of the stars. For one star differs from another star in glory. So also in the resurrection of the dead, the body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, 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. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. So there we have it. Right there, it shows us that there's those two natures of who we are, our spiritual being and our physical, natural being. And that corrupted, natural being gets purified upon our death. And so all the things, that total depravity that we are born into is resolved. Our natural being is made pure before the Lord. And this is something that we can take comfort in. This is something that, I don't know if you've pondered that much, especially in light of the sufferings that we have in this day and age, in our own self and in our own recognition of the things that we struggle with as human beings. We can take hope in this future glory. that he raises up in glory. We start participating in the glory of God when we are resurrected on the last day. And so we wanted to kind of think through that a little bit. So at the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted So the acquitted part, obviously, is the forgiveness of our sins. If you are in Christ, you'll have been acquitted of your sins. Again, a key distinction of the gospel. This is a central theme. Apart from Christ, our sins are not forgiven. We are not acquitted. We then spend an eternity, our natural bodies and physical, physically in hell. And so we are acquitted, openly acknowledged and acquitted. in the day of judgment and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. In this question, we do see a culmination of the gospel. We see all the benefits that we get to enjoy as believers in Christ. This is the good news, that no matter what happens in this life with this body that we currently possess, it will be made new. And I remember thinking about that and talking about that with my mom. She had Parkinson's disease for 25 years. She really hated her body for 25 years. It kind of kept closing down, closing down, closing down. And by the end of her life, she was essentially just bedridden and couldn't do anything. And before she lost the ability to speak, she was looking forward to this resurrected body. This body that had basically rejected her, she was looking for that future glory, that future hope. And that was an encouragement to her through those years. That can be an encouragement to us as well. And though we struggle, we all have all manner of sicknesses and diseases and troubles with this body. It's a corrupted body. We live in a fallen world. And it gets, but this is the beautiful thing, we get that new body. And so my mom, I remember her talking about this, like she's looking for that future glory, that glory with the Lord, with a body that's been remade. It's interesting that, I mean, throughout the generations, they speculated on whether or not God could bring bodies back that were burned. I like the Roman Catholics would burn some of the early martyrs, they'd dig up their bones and burn them just as if that was insulting them more perhaps. And it seems to me that that's kind of a silly thing. I look at that as, well, if God can create something ex nihilo or out of nothing, If we have but our dust left, I think he can do it. And so our dust is all he needs. He doesn't even need that. And so whether we are burned or simply laid in the ground, our bodies do rot away. We see that. throughout all of the bodies of flesh in this world. We talked about there's animal bodies, there's celestial bodies, there's all kinds that God does give distinction to. But ours, with an immortal soul, has a eternal aspect to it. And so he raises up these bodies that are now pure. So kind of the same way, kind of a good illustration of this is if you wrecked a car, and all the metal in the car is taken and crushed and melted down, and then it's remade into a new car. Using the same steel, make something new, something better. That's just in the same way we will be crushed down and rebuilt. remade in glory. And that's kind of a cool illustration, I thought, as we think about this life and the life to come. I think that it can, again, I take great encouragement from that. So the essential points to keep in mind and in our faith is that the resurrection of the body will be the same body. and the same substance and identity, but it'll be of a different nature. It will have quite different qualities and powers, it says, but God will not make us a new body out of nothing. So our dust will always remain. God takes that dust as he formed Adam out of the dust, that first created human, and he will rebuild us in glory. So this is an instantaneous perfection. We can't understand it. We've never met anyone that has been there and come back. A lot of this has to be taken on faith. This is the faith that God gives us. This is this faith that we ask is, Lord, increase our faith. Like, no one has been to dust and come back yet. So no, we don't, we can't know for what that's, apart from what scripture says is true. And so we take faith in that. That's something we have to see with our faith-filled eyes because we cannot see it in human, in our human senses. And so, The whole human race will then be assembled before the judgment seat, and everyone will be then given an account of the things that they have done. I'm gonna read 2 Corinthians here, five, verses six. Again, this says, so we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well-pleased, rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well-pleasing to him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad, knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord. We persuade men, but we are all well known to God. And I also trust are well known in our consciences. So Paul's talking there a little bit about that judgment aspect, that we will all give an account. And that's kind of the next aspect here. It says, we will be acquitted in the days of judgment and made perfectly blessed. We will all stand before a judgment seat, all of humanity. The dead that have passed on before us, as we will one day pass on as well. And that's something that, as this passage indicates, we will all stand before that judgment seat. And we will be given an account. So that's an interesting thing that we need to ponder. What will be the account on that day for you? I can't answer that. Only you can. What is the account? What are we accounting for? Whether done good or bad? Well, we obviously do both in this life. We are corrupted, we are fallen. Lots of times we do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. We do our best, but ultimately we all fall short of the glory of God. But what is the account? I mean, what are we doing with our lives? That accounting. That's something that I was pondering this last week, and how do I respond to the stresses of this life, the frustrating things, which I'm sure I'm not the only one that has those things. We all do. How do I respond? How do I give an account for my attitude, my thoughts, my actions? We are called to stand before that throne, but we will give an account. So we can talk a little bit about works. Man is judged according to his works, not that our works will save us. Let's be clear on that. Our works do not save us. But out of our salvation and the joy of the Lord that we have, we want out of that outflowing, out of that heart, we want to do good works. We want to serve him. We want to honor him with our bodies, and even in this life, and our actions and attitudes of our hearts. And so as we ponder that, I think there's that legalism side and the antinomial side, whereas there's no law, there's no rule, there's no right, no, I mean, it's all, I'm all Christ, I'm all forgiven. Yes, you are. But out of that joy of your heart, we are spurred on to do good works, which we will give an account for. Those things that we've done in this life will be tested. Another place in scripture talks about the testing of that, the things that we've done, the works, they will be purified, they'll be tested, and the things that are shown to be true will stand. All the other things will be burnt up. And so we can... ponder this. This is something that I think this helps us to kind of grasp our mortal bodies in this time, looking forward to the future glory. But how do we live now? I don't know what's going to happen right after. I mean, you should know. We talked about assurance this morning. Are you assured before God that your works and your salvation is sure? And out of that, your works will be good. Through Christ, those works are good. Through yourself, even the best things you do are not worth anything if it's apart from Christ. Something that we wanted to talk about a little bit. Any questions that you guys have at this point? Maybe I can try to answer. Have you ever pondered the resurrection aspect of your faith? Anybody? No? Because we know that, and James talks about, without works, our faith is dead. And so how do we join those two things? We don't need to do them to save us. We are saved, period. As a body of believers, we work together. We all have different aspects of this body. I kind of talked a little bit about that the other week when I preached, is we're all members of a body. And those works incorporate with each other. We're meant to work together. And those things that are of the Lord, they will grow, they will prosper. And sometimes, you know what, we are meant to struggle. I think that that's something that a key aspect of when we look at works in relation to salvation is it's not gonna be easy. It is not. But I think that God in his great sovereign plan, we do need to strive. It sometimes will be very easy. Those works will be flow and it will just, you'll be awestruck by what God's doing. And other times, I think that we will be struggling, striving, and that's part of God's sanctification of us and our growth in us, that we are to plot away, work hard. It's not going to be easy. God never said it's going to just, a bed of roses and everything is gonna work out just fine. Well, in the end, yes. At the end, the judgment day, if you are in Christ, assured of your salvation, it will work out okay. It will work out gloriously, for his glory. That he's saved you, set you apart from birth. From before the foundations of the world, he's set you apart. And then you stand before him. And that will be a bad day for many. I think there'll be a lot of surprises. We see that in scripture. Many of you, me that says, Lord, Lord. The Lord will say, I've never known you. And others that, like the tax collector that was praying, and it's like, I'm a terrible, corrupted, terrible person. I can't even come before you, oh God. Like that man walked away justified. That man, we can be that man. If we look at ourselves rightly and the things that we do, Our best works are not worth comparing to the glory of God. So yeah, something else to think about is in regards to that resurrection, we will receive a reward, it says. We receive rewards for our works. And at that resurrection day, there will be rewards. And through that purification process, yes, some will have great rewards, and others will have just the reward of salvation, which is glory enough. That's interesting. I've pondered that a little bit as well this last week. And it talked a little bit in some of the study guides with these questions. And we won't have envy. in our purified states. We won't have a degree of, oh, they got that, I want that. No, the glory will be that we will be with God and enjoying him forever. That is glory enough. But he also says he adds rewards to those things. Those works that we've done and accomplished through Christ, are tested and purified. And the way I look at that, those works are attached to human souls. Those are attached to human beings that will be one day raised in glory. That work that we do in Christ for the Lord, that's imperishable. Those are the works that God honors. Those are the works that he gives rewards for. And we all have a duty to serve the Lord in every capacity, maybe not just as an evangelist or as a pastor, but just as someone that comes in through a door of a church and lifts up his brother and sister in Christ. Those are good works. We can recognize the need for that in this dark world, this world where it seeks to kind of stomp us down every day. And that's why we're a body. We have smaller members, older members. We all have a different needs that are part of God's sovereign plan that we are there to do that good work. He says he's prepared good works beforehand so that we would walk in them. You can't avoid it. He's preparing you now for works. He's preparing you now for things that you will do, that you've not even considered or thought about. And those things will have an eternal impact on both that person, whoever you're serving, and eternal glory with the Lord. And so what benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection? A lot, is the short answer. But at the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory shall be openly acknowledged. As we talk about acknowledging, God says, if you acknowledge me before man, I will acknowledge you before my Father in heaven. And acquitted. Justified. It's a legal term. You're acquitted. You're guiltless. You've been set free from that guilt and shame and acquitted. by the judge that says you are holy and righteous. I don't know who else would, anyone would want to stand before a judge without the assurance of knowing you're gonna be acquitted. The few people I've known that have been before a judge, usually you know you're guilty. I think I had a speeding ticket one time. I knew I was guilty, but I had to go to the judge. Not a lot of fun, and it was only a speeding ticket. for the God of the universe, who knows all, who's omnipotent, knows every attitude of your heart, to stand before that judge and know you will be acquitted. That's the best news ever. And it says, so we were acquitted in that day of judgment and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. And that last part, to all eternity. As you think about eternity. We often get lost in the here and now, the next five minutes, the next five days, the next trouble. When we look in the light of eternity, I mean, there's no end, but we got 70 to 100 years on this world, on this planet, and that's such a small slice of eternity. When I think of eternity, I kind of ponder space. I don't know how astronomers don't see God when they look up into the sky, because it doesn't end. It goes on for eternity. We can't find the edge of space. There's no stopping point. And I wonder if that's the whole reason that we can look up in the stars and the heavens and ponder the glory of God, because we can see eternity. and beyond the Milky Way and beyond the Nexus, there's planets and stars and stars and stars and more planets and more, like, it should blow an astronomer's mind. I don't know how the NASA cannot be godly. And they must have to, there must be something, they're completely blind to the things of God, to be able to keep looking, and they keep getting bigger and bigger telescopes to look even farther, and it still doesn't end. That is eternity. Talk about the finite cannot grasp the infinite. We can't hardly grasp that. We're in this narrow slice of now in our lives, this small slice of eternity. We have that eternity in glory with the Lord. And so what we have in this time, in this short period of time in our lives, is to recognize eternity. And as the first question says, what is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever. Forever. And that's something that's worth pondering. That's something that's worth considering as we look at this question and grasp or attempt to grasp the glory that this is. Does anyone have any questions? Thoughts? Considerations? Have you ever pondered this sort of thing before? Have you ever looked up into the heavens and thought, wow, eternity. All right. Well, that's all I have for us today. Let me pray for us, and we'll head on home. Gracious Heavenly Father, omnipotent, almighty God, you knew each of our hearts before the foundations of the world. Lord, you've promised great things to those who you've chosen to save. Lord, help us to rest in those things, to consider those things as we go through our days and struggles Temporal things that we know don't last, but you last forever. You've been there before time, and I've created time. Lord, eternity is something that we cannot grasp as finite beings. But let us glimpse into that future, that eternal hope of glory with you. This is the joy of our salvation. This is the reason that you sent your son Jesus to die for our sins, that we could enjoy you forever. Lord, we cannot be grateful enough, we cannot be humble enough, we cannot be good enough, but your goodness has transferred to us. You've given us that gift of salvation when we deserved it not. Lord, help us to glorify you this day and all the days to come. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.