The passage that we read earlier will be our text, and you might want to have your Bibles open, because we will walk through the verses one at a time. Sometimes a couple at a time, but we will go through the entire passage. What will heaven be like? What do you think of when you picture heaven? close to where I grew up on Niagara on the lake or in Niagara on the lake there's this a large festival theater for plays called the Shaw festival theater and it's named after the famous Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw who passed away in 1956 well this is what George Bernard Shaw thought of when he imagined heaven listen to this he once said He said, heaven is a place so inane, so dull, so useless, so miserable that nobody has ever ventured to describe a whole day in heaven. Though plenty of people have described a day at the seashore. So he's saying if I could pick one or the other, I'd pick a day at the beach rather than heaven forever. Or, if you've ever read the book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, you'll know in there there's a woman named Miss Watson who tries to teach young, rebellious Huckleberry, as it were, and she tries to persuade him at one point in time in her schooling to behave by teaching him the difference between heaven and hell. And so she describes hell as a warning, and then Huckleberry responds with this, he says, Then she went on to tell me all about the good place. And she said all a body would have to do there was go around all day long with a harp and sing forever and ever. So, I didn't think much of it. So, what will heaven be like? I mean, will it be that, as we've just heard? Is it a place that you only think of once you become old and sick, perhaps, and so death seems more inevitable then, and then you think of it. But now, when you're young, when you're healthy, then it's second best. And you don't think of it. Is that heaven? Unfortunately, for many people, this is. the popular cultural view of heaven. You know, a place where you're floating all day long with harps in your hand. A boring place that's only virtue is that it's better than the opposite, than hell. Well, if this is your thought of heaven, if you can't picture much more than that, then you haven't studied enough of God's Word and the promises there about what heaven will be like for us. And this is what R.C. Sproul says. He's a man who has studied lots in God's Word and in his old age has as much wisdom to share. And this is what he says after studying the Word of God for most of his life. He says, I don't look at heaven as only going to church for a hundred thousand years that we would just sit there and worship and contemplate God I think that will be the heart of our moment by moment existence and that will be the greatest delight of our souls but I also think that we will continue creaturely life life like we have it God has not just appointed our creaturely life for the present but he has built us for relationships with other people and for relationships to this planet, to creation. And God doesn't just redeem our human souls, He's going to redeem human bodies and redeem creation. And so I look for an eternity of enjoyment of God, He says, yes, but also of the splendor of the majesty of His creation and my body. So, I want us to have a look then this morning. Not just what is heaven, that's a broad question, but particularly this morning, one question, what will I be like in heaven? What will my body, what will we be like in heaven? And you can imagine, you sit here for a second, there's a lot of questions under that question like, what will my body be like, but what will it be like to live in heaven? If we die when we're 90, are we going to be stooped and old and grey forever? Will we even have bodies? Well, one of the passages that best answers many of these questions is 1 Corinthians 15 that we read. If you've ever, even for a moment, contemplated, wondered, you know, what's it going to be like after this world ends? Or after I'm gone? You know, is there something? You're not the first to ever think of it, because 2,000 years ago, Paul wrote this letter, the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to this little church in Corinth, and they were asking the same questions, wondering the same things, just like us. So, 1 Corinthians 15. Let me first give a real brief introduction. is a chapter where Paul gives this marvelous defense of the historicity of the real, historical, physical resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says that if Christ is not risen from the grave, really historically, then our faith is useless. It's vain. And Christians of all people ought to be the most pity, but he says, and he argues, Christ is really risen. And he gives his defense in this chapter, but it's after this, after he gives his defense of Christ's resurrection, that he goes on to say that even as Christ was raised from the dead, so too will all those who believe in Him be one day raised from the dead. Not just Christ then, not just Christ, but everyone who believes will be raised. And then, there's a question that's raised, or he's anticipating is going to be raised, and this is where we start in verse 35. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 35. He says, but someone will say, He's either heard this or he's anticipating it. Someone will say, how are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? Now this is how our minds work, right? The Corinthians are not all that different than we are today. Because Paul has just been arguing doctrine with them. Theology. Right? He's just argued with them, or defended doctrine, and said Christ is really raised. He argued the resurrection of Christ with them. And someone who has faith says, good, wonderful. Right? Okay, that's great. But then Paul turns to the more practical. Turns from the The heavy doctrine, as it were, to the more practical, and he says, well, just as Christ was raised, you too are going to one day come out of the grave. Right? And all of a sudden, there's questions. Right? You can almost see the first arm shooting up in the middle of that Corinthian church. Paul. Paul. How am I going to be raised from the dead? What do you mean with this body, Paul? Right? I mean, what are we going to look like, is the question. And what follows here then, in the middle of chapter 15, the passage that we read, is Paul's answer to this main question. What will our bodies be like? If heaven is real, heaven exists, resurrection is real, what's my body going to look like? Or as he says it here, with what body do they come? So that's the question. Now here begins the answer. Verse 36. He says, Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. Now, that may not be the way that we're going to answer people. If Pastor Rob is downtown Pulaski and someone asks him a question, Rob's not going to turn around and say, foolish one, what are you asking? But, it's the Apostle Paul, and he can do it. The point is though, he knows where it's coming from. Right? Whether this is a young man or not. Someone's asking about what happens to your body in the grave. Right? How can I go to heaven with this body if it's going to decompose in the grave? And you can think of countless other things that happen to bodies. I'm sure the men here could gather at lunch and talk about a thousand things that happen to bodies, like bombings, burnings, martyrs in the ring, in history. We read they were fed to lions. I mean, our bodies don't stay together in the grave, do they? Not forever, as they sit in the grave. So maybe I will be like some floating spirit, right? Just some mindless existence, ethereal existence for eternity. Or what, Paul? What? What am I going to... How can I be anything? And so Paul answers, foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And he's starting here, he's going to take an analogy from creation. that if you take a seed and you sow it, you plant it in the ground, and then you pour water all over it, and you make sure it gets enough sun, and you keep watering it, that soon you're going to see new life coming out of the soil, right? If you've ever started a garden, you'll know what this is like, to see finally new life coming. If you want to produce a flower or a vegetable, you need to plant it in the ground and you water it. But, here's the question. Why do you water it? Who's here studied biology in high school, maybe college, university? Why do we water seeds right after we plant them? Is it because we want to give them new life? No, that's not it at all. In fact, it's the opposite. It's because it kills the seed that we've planted. It makes it split open and die, as it were. Because in order for germination, in order for new life to take place, the seed has to soak up the water, has to swell up, has to split open and die, as it were. The old seed has to make way. Just like in the metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly, what's old has to move away and die off and what's new, so what's new can come. The one has to die so the other can come. And this is what Paul is saying. Now, he's saying what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. Sow, he says foolish one, but sow Corinthian man with your arm in the air with all your questions. and decomposing in the grave does not create a problem for our God when He goes to raise us. In fact, not at all. It's a necessary part of the process, even, for what's going to happen next. Well, what's going to happen next? Well, He continues. Let's keep going. Verse 37. And what you sow, he says, you do not sow that body that shall be. Okay? So again, he's continuing with his analogy of this plant seed. He's saying what you sow in the ground is not what you're going to get. And this is what this means. Let me ask you, boys and girls, if you want grass to grow in your yard, How do you go about doing it? Let's say you move to a brand new house or your daddy does a lot of work and he wrecks the whole lawn, you've got to replant it. It's only dirt. How are you going to get grass in that lawn again? Are you going to go behind your lawnmower and grab a whole bunch of grass clippings and just throw it all over the grass, hoping that that grass will grow? Well, no, not at all, are you? How do you do it? You're going to take a seed, right, or a whole bunch of seeds, and you're going to plant the seeds on the lawn. Right? So, Paul is saying that's what we do here with the body. So, let me ask you this. Is Paul saying this? Is he saying you want to know what your body is going to look like? Just look at yourself in the mirror. That's what you're going to look like. Is that what Paul is saying? No. Not at all. That's not what he's saying. In fact, he's saying what you plant, the seed, is not at all what you get. It's going to look completely different. I mean, of course he knows you plant grass seed, you're going to get grass. You plant a tree seed, you're going to get a tree. You plant a body seed, you're going to get a body. So nobody here is going to be an elephant in heaven, or a rhinoceros in heaven. But, grass seed, as wonderful as the seed itself is, It's not grass, is it? Grass is so much more, so much better than the grass seed. And he says, what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be but mere grain. And that could be translated, but a mere seed. Or as some translations translate it, but a bare kernel. You're sowing. What you sow when you die, when you put your body in the ground and bury the body, what you sow is not the body that will be, but it's just a mere seed, a bare kernel. So is this what I'm going to look like in heaven? No. No, you're just a seed of what's to come. He's just a mere seed. Are you starting to get where Paul's going with this? Well, he continues, so let's keep listening. Verse 38, now. He says, but God gives it a body as he pleases, and to each seed its own body. Now, that's incredible. I want to say something about it, but not just yet. So hold on to that. Keep listening. Let this sink in. what Paul is saying to us. So verse 39, and now he's going to say the same thing again, but he's going to say it in a different way now. He's going to come at it from a different angle, as it were. Or you could say he's fleshing it out. He's explaining it a little deeper now, or filling it out fuller. So he says, verse 39, all flesh is not the same flesh, but there's one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, another of birds. Verse 40, There are also celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies. But the glory of the celestial is one, the glory of the terrestrial is another. There's one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars. For one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. Okay, stop right there. So Paul is saying, with this huge list, He's saying stop for a moment. Just stop and look around you. If you were outside you could. But think of all the wide diversity of life that exists in this world. All the different shapes, sizes, forms, colors, smells of created things and creatures in this universe. There are stars, and there's moons, and there's trees, and there's rivers, there's oceans, and there's flowers, there's elephants and hippopotamuses, and there's bugs and viruses. I mean, in other words, he's saying, he's getting us ready. With this huge list, he's setting us up for his main answer, for his main point. He's saying, do you think, in your life, in your experience, that you've seen every kind of created possibility, created thing there could possibly be? Have you seen everything of life yet? And the answer has to be no. I mean, we've seen a lot, haven't we? A lot of variety, but not everything. I don't know if you pay attention to the news when this comes on the news, but do you know how many new species they have found in the ocean alone in the last couple of years? I mean, it's mind-boggling! Thousands! You know, these are creatures that for the whole history of the universe have existed and we never knew anything about. God knew, they were there for his glory, but we've never known about them, seen them, and we're just discovering them. And some of them, if you see pictures, are the strangest looking creatures you've ever seen in your life. And you look at them and you wonder, and you say, I would never even imagine creating something like that, much less doing it. Right? That looks so funny. And Paul's saying then with all these lists of different types of bodies in heaven and earth, he's making us think. He's opening your eyes. He's trying to say, have you seen every kind of conceivable type of life there is? And you have to say, no, I haven't. But you're thinking perhaps, but Paul The main question. I mean, that's nice, all that life, but what am I going to look like? The main question, Paul, what's my body going to be like? And Paul's leading us to this conclusion that there is a kind of body that no one has ever seen before. What you sow in the ground, he says, you're going to sow only the seed. You're not sowing what's going to be. So look at yourself, your hands. Think of what you look like. All dressed up, maybe you combed your hair today, special. You're only the seed. You're just a bare kernel, as dressed up as you are, of what you're going to be. In other words, you ain't seen nothing yet. back up to verse 38 this is where we read it again but God gives it a body as he pleases and to each seed its own body so God knows right God knows what he's going to give but think of this even as we don't know God knows we don't know we have to trust but think of this is what grows out of the seed less than the seed or is it more Boys and girls, you have a front lawn, remember? Your dad tore it all up for some reason, and it's all dirt. Would you rather have a lawn full of dirt to roll around in, have a picnic in? Or, would you rather have a lawn full of lush, green grass that you can sit down in, put out the picnic blanket? I think I know the answer, right? Grass is much better. Or, ladies in this room, would you rather stop with a lilac seed in your hand and smell the lilac seed? Or would you rather grab a lilac flower, pull it to your nose and go... I think I know the answer to that one too, right? What grows out of the seed is always so much more, so much better than the seed. And so he continues, verse 42, so also is the resurrection of the dead. The body, the seed, is sown in corruption. It is raised in corruption. Verse 43, 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. So, Paul, still got my hand up. What am I going to look like, Paul? And his answer ultimately is, I don't know. Not exactly. But I do know this, that you're just the seed, you're just the beginning of what's to come. Now think for a minute of the tallest trees in the world. You know what they are? We're told they're the California redwood tree, the biggest and the tallest trees. I read that they can grow up to almost 400 feet tall and over 26 feet across. That's really big. This is the kind of tree where you stand in front and underneath it and you just go, wow. But do you know how big the seed is of a California redwood tree? Nope. That big. It is three millimeters tall, half a millimeter wide. That's the size of a grain of rice, just a bit smaller even. So can you imagine something so great, wow, coming from something so little? Think of that and then let me ask you this. What do you think God has planned for our bodies in redemption where he has sprinkled us not just with water but with the blood of his precious son? So what will we look like? Well in a way Paul doesn't know and he's not saying other than he's saying God will give it a body as he pleases. So that's a call for you and I to trust. But that's also a call for hope. But even as he's not saying here, he is saying a lot, isn't he? Right? He's saying there's going to be something familiar. Right? Grass seed always sprouts grass. Rose bushes always sprout seeds. Always sprout rose bushes. Right? People... Timbergs in the seed will always sprout Timbergs. So he's saying that there's something familiar. But he's also saying this. There's going to be change. there's going to be something that will change as great as the seeds that you see change when they sprout and break forth out of the earth and grow so too will we change in heaven you're not going to be what you are now you're going to be different so look at this list in verses 42 to 43 let's go through it he says, Paul says I don't know exactly what we're going to be like, but he says, I know there will be no more corruption, so your new body will have no corruption. That means it will be invincible. It won't age, it won't decay, it won't break, it won't rot, it won't wear out, it won't get sick, but no corruption in your bodies. And he says, I know it will have no dishonor, but only glory, so no Think of that. If you know what it is to have sin in your life and in your heart. No more sin. No more shame. No more ugly blemishes. No crooked teeth. No pimples. Nothing. Only glory. No dishonor. And he says, I know it will have no weakness, so no getting tired, no sore back again, ever. No arthritis. No cancer. No ability to catch even the common cold. No bones that will break no matter how high I jump. No weaknesses. And he says, I know it won't be natural, but spiritual. Now, what does that mean? I don't know. That's our main question, right? What does a spiritual body look like? We haven't seen one. But maybe, perhaps, just trying to interact with the text here, figured out maybe it won't be dust. Right? Verse 47, he says this. He says the first man was of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust. Now he's talking spiritually, but we also know in the context he's talking physically. It seems. And so he says, as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also in heaven bear the image of the heavenly man. So, what will we look like? Well, I don't know. And Paul doesn't know. And neither does the Apostle John know. Listen to this. 1 John 3, verse 2. He says, Beloved, now we are children of God. But what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him. So we know for certain this. We won't be floating mindlessly. Right? We won't be spirits or ghosts. with no mental existence, I'm going to be me, but much better me. I imagine, I'm blind right now, if I take off my glasses, I can't see. The first row is even a blur to me. But I imagine that in heaven I'm going to have the eyesight of an eagle. No weakness, no dishonor, no blemishes. And in the work that I do, sitting behind the desk often, reading books a lot, you don't usually get so buff, as men like to do. But in heaven, I imagine I'm going to be as strong as a lion. And I'll be able to run like the wind. And if you think my imagination is getting away from me, just blame it on Martin Luther, because I was reading him and he carried my mind down this track. But mostly, In all of that, mostly I know this, I will be like Christ. Paul says we will bear the image of the heavenly man. Now he's talking of course, not just to everyone, but he's talking to those who put their faith in Jesus Christ. Now, today. Who look at him as their only hope in death and in life to come. Those who are crucified with him now. who give up on themselves now and will be raised with Him then, Paul says, and then we will bear His image. This should make us shout for joy. This should make us shout hallelujah in our worship. My wife, Jen, and I, we watched a video clip a little while ago on YouTube of a man, a comedian, and he was talking about how he had recently taken a plane flight. And he was talking about how flying on planes, airplanes, is not that big a deal anymore, right? It's so, everyone takes it for granted. But he said he was flying in an airplane that had high-speed internet. So internet, as he's flying through the air, however many hundreds of kilometers an hour at 40,000 feet. This is the latest technology that exists in the world today. But, he said, in the middle of this flight, the internet broke down, stopped working. Soon the flight attendant came over the speaker and said, we're sorry, but the internet will not be working for the rest of the flight. And this man was sitting in his chair and he said, the guy next to him, when he heard that, slammed his laptop shut and went, this airline's awful. And he sat there, and he said, as I looked at him, I thought, you know, are you not flying? Right? Through the air, are you not partaking in the miracle of human flight? And then he said this, everybody who ever gets in any kind of plane should be sitting there all the time, constantly going, oh, wow! I'm sitting in a chair in the middle of the air! And yet, he said, we complain. You talk to someone who's come home from Jamaica, Bermuda, overseas, and you ask them, how was your flight? What do they say? We had to wait for like 20 minutes before we could board the plane. It was just terrible. And he said this, that comedian, and hearing him say that, I thought of this passage. Listen to this, back in our past. No more corruption. No more dishonor. No more weakness. No more dust, perhaps. And then this one, to top it all off, we will be made like Christ. And so many people are thinking, I don't even know if I'll like heaven. Won't it be just so boring in heaven all the time? I mean, have you never read this passage before? Hallelujah! Praise God for grace given to undeserved sinners in Christ, that through Him, the death that He died in our place that we deserve, we can now participate in the miracle of the human resurrection. And then, then let this sink in. Have you been thinking at all about what you might be like in heaven? You're just the seed of what's to come, so what are you going to be like? Have you been trying to picture it? What am I going to be like in heaven? Well, if you are now, try and grab a picture and then listen to this. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 9 says, I have not seen nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love them." So what are you imagining with your body? Big things? You're not even close. Keep imagining. This is big. Randy Alcorn, he writes a big book on heaven. A lot of good things, a lot of repetitive things, but in there he writes this. He says, for the Christian, death is not the end of adventure, but rather it's a doorway from a world where dreams and adventures shrink to a world where dreams and adventures forever expand. Now, I don't think biblically that he's exaggerating there at all. Jesus said to his disciples, and therefore to all who follow him, He said, I go to prepare a place for you. And I read that and I say, yes! Yes! Because this seed is dying. This seed is corrupt. I feel the sin, I feel the weakness, the old age growing in, already getting out of bed in the morning, I feel creaks and groans. And I'm not that old. This seed is passing away. And Christ is there preparing a place. even now. So this is what eternal life will be like. Part of what eternal life will be like. New bodies, not just floating mindlessly. We will have bodies. Plus there's so much else we haven't talked about yet this morning. So much more we haven't even thought about probably. There will be a new heaven. There will be a new earth. new perfected relationships, new sinless sight of all that is good and glorious and beautiful. And one day also we will see the Lord Jesus Christ Himself face to face. So now I hope that when you confess the Apostles Creed or you hear The words of the Apostle's Creed that say, I believe in the resurrection of the body and in the life everlasting. I hope that you now fill up those words with as much meaning as they deserve. We don't spend enough time thinking about heaven, contemplating what heaven will be like, or studying these things. And when we don't, we're letting our culture rob us. of this joy and of the hope that God has given to us. And we're tempted even to believe that it might be a little boring when it will be nothing of the sort. What happens when you're driving down the road? Now, there's no kids taking driver's ed here, I don't think, but there's a couple about to, soon, a couple of years. This is what I learned from my driver's ed teacher. Remember this. If you're driving down the road, if you stare to the left a lot, you're going to drive to the left. If you stare to the right, you're going to start driving. So wherever you're looking, you tend to steer towards, slowly. Any warming, as I was learning to drive. Stare straight ahead. To this, and this I say to all of you. Stare straight ahead. That is, set your mind on things above. Not on the things of this world. The Lord Jesus died and suffered the payment for our sin upon himself so that he might give us eternal life. And his greatest desire as he prays, John 17, is that one day we might be with him where he is. If our heart is set on Jesus, our heart is also going to be set on heaven because that's where he is. Look up ahead. For to be in heaven is to be with him. Think much of heaven then. Not of the little things in this world. Let it persuade you to turn away from sin when sin is tempting you. Let it give you hope when you are discouraged. Let it give you perspective when you're going through big trials. Let it give you joy when tears are falling. Allow me to end with a quote from Kevin DeYoung. And he's talking here about the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. And it's a fairly long quote, but it's worth it. And then I'll end. He writes this, he says, life everlasting means reward, inheritance, blessing, rule, feasting, security, no pain, no mourning, no disappointment, no struggle, no fear. It means a lush garden, a beautiful city, a lasting foundation, a street of gold, a sea of crystal and a wall of precious stones. It means a wedding celebration, a tree of life, living water, manna from heaven, unending life, and unceasing worship before Him who sits on the throne and unto the Lamb. The blessedness of eternal life is like savoring your favorite food, drinking your favorite drink, laughing with your favorite friends, It's like seeing your wife on your wedding day, sparkling in her overpriced dress and grinning from ear to ear. It's like holding your newborn baby in your arms or watching your grandkids play. It's like standing on a dune of sand overlooking Lake Michigan on one side and seeing a sea of green treetops on the other. It's like the peaceful majesty of corn blowing in the breeze in July, or watching an afternoon storm roll over the Front Range. It's like being awed by a visit to the Great Wall of China, or the skyline of New York City, or the York Minister Cathedral in Northern England. It's like that rare moment when you know in your bones that God is with you, And you know you really love Him. And you want to sing and shout and tell everyone how you feel. It's like all these moments, except the moments in heaven never stop and never fade. Life everlasting is like all this power, beauty, delight, truth, and sweetness rolled into one experience, then multiplied by ten, then by a hundred, and then by ten million. Let me ask you, are you ready for that? No, that's the wrong question. The question is, Are you trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ who gave His life to give you all that? Let us pray.