Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Hope of Glory

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

Historical and sociological scholarship shows the early Christians were remarkably different than their neighbors. Why were the Christians so much more compassionate to the sick? Why were they so much more forgiving to their persecutors? Why were they so much more ethnically inclusive than anyone had ever seen? Were they just ahead of their time? Were they just nicer people? No, it all depended on what they believed their future to be. You might say, “That sounds very good, but how could anybody be certain about the future?” That was what was different. The answer and, therefore, the key to this whole dynamic of Christian hope is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. When the early Christians looked at the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the resurrection 1) gave them certainty of God’s future and 2) described the shape of God’s future. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 11, 2004. Series: Living in Hope. Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:1-10; 47-58. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. The way you live now, your present behavior and character, is determined in a large part by what you believe your ultimate future to be. In today's teaching, Tim Keller explores how Christian Hope can transform our present behavior. After you listen, please take a few seconds to rate and review our podcast. Your review can help others to discover our podcast and experience the hope of the gospel. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. The text on which the teaching is based comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 through 10, and then verses 47 through 58. Now brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preach to you, which you received and

on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as a first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that He appeared to Peter and then to the 12.

After that, He appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.

No, I worked harder than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth. And as is the man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth, and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.

I declare to your brothers that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

For the imperishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothe with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where O death is your victory? where O death is your sting. The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that

your labor in the Lord is not in vain. This is the word of God. We've actually been in the midst of a series here on the subject of Christian hope. And the thesis of the series is that we are always underestimating how much our present character and the way in which we live our lives now is shaped by what we believe our ultimate future to be. We underestimate the degree to which who we are now, what we do now is shaped by what we believe our ultimate future to be. The illustration, I can't get a better one than the one we used a couple weeks ago, imagine two women, they have absolutely the same job, absolutely the same menial tasks, absolutely the same bad working conditions, absolutely the same long hours. Yet one of them is promised for a year's worth of work, $15,000, and the

other one is promised for the same years of work, $15 million. We know, automatically, that those two women are going to be approaching their job and doing their work very differently. They are not processing it on the basis of present circumstances. They are completely controlled in how they work at this moment by what they believe their ultimate future to be. Now Rodney Stark wrote a book called The Rise of Christianity. If you want a book that gives you a synopsis of early Christianity and why, it triumphed in the Roman Empire, you couldn't do better than that book. It's a readable, great scholarship, used sociology as well as historical scholarship. And in the book he says that there were at least three major ways in which Christians

were remarkably different than their pagan neighbors. Three ways in which the early Christians were different. A couple of them we've already talked about recently. The one is that when the great epidemics hit the urban centers of the Greco-Roman world, while other people just fled the cities, Christians stayed in the cities, took care of the sick, even though in many cases they died doing so. Secondly, when Christians were persecuted, that is when they were put to death unjustly, they did not respond with terrorism, they did not respond in violent retaliation,

they did not respond with guerrilla warfare, but they died praying for their enemies forgiveness. And the third thing is, Rodney Stark points out that in the early, at the height of the Roman Empire, Rome had conquered all the nations in that part of the world, never happened before. So for the first time, really in history, in that part of the world, never happened before. So for the first time, really in history, in that part of the world, all national borders were open.

You know, the nations weren't against each other, they were all subjugated to Rome, and that meant that for the first time in history, the cities of the Roman Empire became fiercely multi-ethnic, that had never happened before. And in those cities, there was a great deal of tension, ethnic tension, those kinds of folks had never lived together before. And Rodney Stark said that Christian church was the first institution in the history of the world

that brought people together across those ethnic barriers and said, race means nothing. Race is an important. There's no pecking order of races and cultures here. Rodney Stark said no institution had ever done anything like that. Now, why? Why were the Christians so much more compassionate to the sick? Why were they so much more forgiving to the persecutors?

Why were they so much more ethnically inclusive than anyone had ever seen? Were they just modern, you know, virtuous people? Were they just ahead of their time? Were they just nicer people than any, no, it all depended on what they believed their future to be. Their pagan neighbors, their understanding of their ultimate future was shrouded in mystery. They were completely uncertain about what the future held,

what the future world held, what life after death held. Very uncertain about it, but Christians had hope. Christians were shaped by a joyous certainty of God's future, eternal glory and love that that was in their future. And you know what that meant? The reason they stayed in the cities was they weren't afraid of death.

Because they knew after that comes God's love. The reason that they didn't respond with persecution with terrorism was because they believed that at the end of time God would judge everything and put everything right. And by the way the Greeks and the Romans had no concept of a final judgment at all. And the Christians did so they just felt like I don't need to be the judge. I don't have to do that. And whereas all pagans believe that every nation had their own God, Christians believe that there was one God over all nations, and he was creating a new people from every tongue, tribe, people in nation.

And because they had a completely different joyous, life-shaping conviction about their future, Christians lived in all those ways differently. They were completely different now. Somebody says, well that's interesting. You might be out there saying that sounds very good, but how could anybody be certain about the future? See, that was what was different. How could those early Christians have been absolutely certain that their future was love and glory. How could they be certain? And the answer, and therefore the key to this whole dynamic of Christian hope

is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's the key. Because when the early Christians looked at the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Christ, number one, gave them certainty of God's future, and number two described the shape of God's future, and number two, described the shape of God's future, showed it what it was going to be, gave them certainty that it

would happen, and described the shape of what it would be. And this great passage, obviously, this is Easter, and there's a lot going on in Easter services, so we can't take a long time. This great passage for as Corinthians 15 shows in the first part of it how the resurrection of Christ gave them that certainty of the future. And the last part of it, how it described the shape of that future. Let's just take a few moments to look at these. Number one, in the first, verses 1 to 10, we see how the resurrection of Jesus Christ gave the early Christians certainty of God's future coming, especially

right here. Verse 4 and 5, he was buried, he was raised in the third day according to the Scriptures, that he appeared to Peter, then to the 12, after that he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep, then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, he appeared to me also as to one ab normally born. Now how does this work the certainty? Well, first of all, the average New Yorker, and I know I've been here talking to people for a long time about this, the average New Yorker says, look, in ancient times people were credulous, that is they were open, to claims of the miraculous and the supernatural

like the bodily resurrection of Jesus. But we live in a scientific age. We live with a view of the world, with a worldview that's scientific. We don't believe that bodily resurrections can happen. So they believe because they had a worldview that was open to that, we can't believe, I can't believe because we have a different view of the world. This objection, which is very common, betrays an ignorance, not an abysmal, but at least an ignorance of first century in which Jesus lived.

You only had two basic worldviews amongst the people that lived at the time of Jesus and in the places where Jesus lived. You only had two basic worldviews amongst the people that lived at the time of Jesus and then the places where Jesus lived. First you had the Greeks and the Romans and their worldview was that the body is bad or weak, that the spirit is good, and that death, if anything, was a liberation of the soul and that if any, and the idea of a bodily resurrection as being a good thing, as being something desirable was ridiculous. And then you had the Jews. And the Jews believed that at the end of time

God was going to renew the world, and therefore at that time maybe there would be a resurrection. But the idea of an individual resurrection in the middle of history was impossible. And by the way, it was interesting to me this week, I don't even remember which one, there's so many of these TV specials about Jesus all of a sudden. And so I couldn't help but notice a couple of them.

What was interesting was I was surprised. There was a rabbi on one of them. And somebody said, why don't you believe Jesus is the Messiah? It was kind of an interesting question to ask a rabbi on one of them and somebody said, why don't you believe Jesus is the Messiah? It's kind of an interesting question to ask a rabbi. And the rabbi said, how could he be? Death continues, disease continues, injustice continues, he couldn't have been the Messiah. Now you see, that's perfect.

That's exactly the reason why the Jewish worldview said an individual bodily resurrection in the middle of history with nothing else changed at Celly. The point, it was every bit as impossible to the worldviews of the people of Jesus' day as it is to us. The bodily resurrection was ridiculous, it was impossible, there was no room in their minds for it, at all. And if you say the reason they must have believed it, the early Christians believed it was that fit their worldview, the reason I can't is because it doesn't fit my worldview, you're wrong. Their worldview was every bit as impervious to it as ours. Well, you say, well then why did they believe? I'm glad you asked

me that question. There's three things we know for sure. And this is not speculation. The first thing is that the early Christians, thousands of early Christians, had a world view revolution overnight. That's something that virtually never happens and maybe never has before or since. Now what do I mean by that?

Well, a world worldview is a philosophical view of the nature of the universe. And those things don't change overnight. 150 years ago in New York City. There might have been a couple of secular people around, free thinkers, they were called back then. People who didn't believe there was a God or an afterlife or a traditional morality,

but vast majority of everyone in New York City in 1854 would have been traditional in their views of God and of afterlife and heaven and hell and morality and so on. By the 1920s, there was a spectrum of belief. And by the way, most of the secular people lived in Greenwich Village. I was reading a history of this. That's where the free thinkers were. They were the ones who were questioning the whole traditional view of the world and of God and of right and wrong and good and evil and all that sort of thing. And by today, now of course, the secular mindset is really the established mindset, though

there's resistance in New York. But over 150 years, how does it worldview change in place? It changes gradually. There's first of all, there's parties, and then there's schools of thought, and there's debates, and there's arguments, and there's back and forth as a spectrum of belief in gradually. In the early Christian church, we know that there were spectrums of belief. Circumcision, that was a controversy, right? There were schools of thought.

There was fighting about that, parties, cultural issues of Jew and Gentile. But here's one thing we do know, overnight, no spectrum of belief, 100% unanimity, suddenly thousands of Jews and Greeks all began to believe something that no worldview, no philosophy, had ever allowed for in the history of the world, that a man had been bodily resurrected and therefore had proven himself to be the son of God.

That just didn't compute it, was impervious, and it happened overnight, and it never happened before. Well, you say, how did that happen? Well, here's the second thing we know. That's the first thing we know. That is extremely difficult to account for. The second thing we know is, just what Paul put down here. And that is that there were hundreds

and hundreds of people. Some said they had one-on-one experiences. Some said they did it in a group. Some it happened repeatedly. Some, they were in a huge group of 500. There were hundreds and hundreds of people who said, we saw him, we talked to him. We put our fingers in the nail prints, hundreds of people. And we know that over a 40-day period,

some people saw him repeatedly, over and over again. They talked to him. It wasn't just a one-off experience. And Paul talks about it. When he says, for example, he says, 500 of the brothers at one time, most of whom are still living. Now, why would he say that? Those some have fallen asleep.

Why would he say that? In a public document during the Pax Ramana, when travel was easy, you could not possibly make a claim that 500 people had seen Jesus all at once, unless you were saying, and if you want to check me out, go see them. You couldn't possibly make that kind of statement in a public document, only 20 years after the event, unless it was true. What was true?

That they had seen it. There were 500 people. I'm right now arguing just for this. There is no doubt that hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Jews said, I saw him. I touched him. I talked to him. They said to their neighbors, this is how Christianity started. We know this.

They said to their neighbors and their friends and their relatives, I know it's nuts. I know it doesn't make any sense. I know it's not the sort of thing I ever would have believed. It's not even a thing until it happened. I even thought it could be possible. But I saw him. I talked to him.

We saw it. Hundreds of people spoke to thousands of their relatives and thousands of their friends and thousands of their neighbors. And as a result, thousands of people became Christians. And we also know that those who said they saw him died for their faith, as Rodney Stark said in his book, they lived sacrificial lives, and they died happily, professing that they really had seen him. Now, where does this bring us?

Here, if you say, I can't believe he rose from the dead, because my worldview just doesn't allow me. Well, there's didn't either. They just let this facts challenge them. Why should your worldview be privileged over theirs? Why shouldn't you let the facts at least challenge yours? Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? And how do we handle it in a way that won't destroy us,

but could actually make us stronger and wiser? Those are the questions Tim Keller explores in his book, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering. The book doesn't provide easy answers, but is instead both a deeply theological and incredibly personal look at how we can face pain and suffering. Walking with God Through Pain and Suff suffering is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel Unlife share the hope of the Gospel with people all over the world. So request your copy today at GospelUnlife.com slash give. That's GospelUnlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. You see, do you not want what they had? When they were told we're throwing you into the arena with alliance, they handled it.

They sang. Now, we don't have that, but I'll tell you what you're facing. We're not facing alliance, we're facing lumps. The doctor says, you've got a lump. We're going to have to biopsy it. We don't know what that means. How do you handle it? Don't you want to have what they have in order to handle it? Let's be practical here. Well, here's how they got what they got. They didn't get it through wishful thinking. They didn't get it by saying, well, it would be wonderful

if. I'd like to believe in an afterlife. They didn't get it by saying, well, it would be wonderful if. I'd like to believe in an afterlife. They didn't get through wishful thinking. They got it through thinking. They got their hope, not through wishful thinking, but through thinking. They sat down and they said, could all these people, why would all these people say that these things happen? Would this be a hoax? No, you don't die for a hoax.

Would this be a hallucination? No, hallucinations don't happen in groups. They, you know, you don't have 500 people don't accidentally happen to have the same hallucination at once. They didn't get their hope through wishful thinking, they got it through thinking, and you can too. How? Well, here's what you can say.

You can say, if I don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus, if I just can't accept that, then I have to come up the resurrection of Jesus, if I just can't accept that, then I have to come up with a historically possible altered explanation for this incredible world view shift, for these hundreds and hundreds of other people who said that they saw him. I have to come up with a historically possible altered explanation for the birth of the Christian church.

And you know what? No one has ever come up with that. No one has ever come up with that. No one has ever come up with that. Think, let it challenge you. And as you think, if you're willing to let these things challenge your worldview, the Holy Spirit comes and starts to generate that hope on the inside. It's a combination of your head and your heart, and you can get the same certainty. And you can face lumps or lions or whatever. So that's the first thing.

When we see here in the text how the resurrection of Jesus Christ gave certainty of God's future. But the second thing is it gave, it described the shape of God's future. Now, the last part of this passage is filled with very famous. In fact, we already sung about them. You notice both the songs we've sung, both the hymns we've sung, pull these images out. But let me just, and there's more than I can say here,

but let me just show you how exciting this is. There's four things that the images of the end of 1 Corinthians 15 tell us about God's future that we're certain of, but here's what the shape is. Those four things that we have to look forward to is stingless death, swallowed, suffering, material, newness, and the true you. First, a stingless death, that's the first amazing image. Death, where is thy sting?

Now, you know, the word sting, it's actually a pretty specific Greek word, Kentron, doesn't just mean a bite or a sting, it means a poison sting. It was a word that was used for the scorpion sting, which was lethal. And what's interesting about this image is it's not the bite that kills you in a Kentron, it's the poison in the bite. Paul tells us what the poison in the bite is. Look, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? The sting of death. Now, when he uses the word sting, he's really meaning the poison. The poison of death is the law. Now what does he mean by that? Well there's a not a contemporary exactly but an uphagen author Epicurus has a fascinating

statement about death. Listen, he says, if we could be sure that death was an violation then there'd be no fear of it. For as long as we exist, death is not there. And when it does come, we no longer exist. But we cannot be totally sure it is annihilation. What people fear most is not that maybe death is annihilation, but that maybe death is not. Now, that's fascinating. First, here's what he's saying, and this is exactly what Paul's saying. He says, if we could be totally sure that when you die

extinction, there'd be absolutely no reason to be afraid of death. They'd have no poison. It'd have no sting. We wouldn't be scared of it because as long as we're alive, we're not death isn't there. And as soon as we're extinct, there's nothing to, you know, what's the fear, what's the problem, what's no problem. He says the problem is nobody can be totally sure that death is annihilation. Nobody can absolutely prove that after death, there's no judgment.

And because we know it's possible, we're scared. We're scared. Anyone who's ever faced death at all knows your life latches before your eyes, and you suddenly say, I haven't lived the way I should. I'm not ready. I haven't lived as a sense of judgment. Oh, you say, I don't believe in that.

Can you be sure? And if you can't be sure, the poison is in your soul. Therapist, poets, counselors, theologians, philosophers, everybody says, we're afraid of death. It's the poison. It's the sting. You know, poets talk about it. There's that place where Hamlet said, I could end it all. And then he says, but the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose born no traveler returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those hills we have

than the flight of others we know not of, thus conscience makes cowards of us all. How are we gonna get rid of this thing? The resurrection of Jesus. You know, there's a fascinating place. Well, look at Epicurus says, we can't be sure that after death there is an end judgment. So we're scared, we're afraid conscience. The gospel comes along and says,

okay, there is a judgment. But Jesus took it. There's that fascinating place in the Garden of Gisemony, where Peter, because Jesus is about to be slain unjustly, he's about to be arrested unjustly, Peter picks out a sword, and Jesus says, put away your sword, I have to drink the cup of the father. And you know what Jesus is saying?

I did not come to bring judgment. I came to drink the cup of the father. And you know what Jesus is saying? I did not come to bring judgment. I came to bear judgment. I didn't come to wield a sword. I came to receive the sword. How do you know that Jesus Christ paid the penalty that in your heart of hearts you know you owe? The resurrection. You know what the resurrection is?

It's a receipt. It's God's way of stamping paid and full across history. Why do you keep your receipts to prove that you don't know? This has been paid for. That's why you keep your receipts, because the guard might stop you on the way out of your barns and up. I always keep my receipts, because I want to say, it's been paid. Let me tell you something. The resurrection is the cosmic receipt.

You look at that. And as a result, what, here's what's so amazing about this image, death is stingless. Now you realize what a paradox that is? It's Paul's way of saying, death can't really kill you. Death has no poison. Oh, death will bite you, but it can't really kill you. What do you mean death can't really kill him? You're going to die,, death can't really kill you. Death has no poison. Oh, death will bite you, but it can't really kill you. What do you mean death can't really kill me? You're gonna die, but it won't really kill you.

What? What's he saying? It'll only make you greater. It'll only make you better. The poison's gone. The sting is gone. So stingless death is the first thing you've got in front of you.

Secondly, swallowed suffering. Notice what it says about what what what the victory of the resurrection does to death? It doesn't say death is removed. In other words, if you've got something on your table, let's just say you have a piece of pie on your table. There's two ways to get it off the table. When is you throw it away? When is you eat it? You swallow it, and then it becomes part of your energy in life. It enhances you, as it were.

Sometimes in ways that we don't want. The resurrection is not a consolation for suffering. The resurrection is not even a removal of suffering. The resurrection swallow suffering. The resurrection is not even a removal of suffering. The resurrection swallow suffering. Now we talked about it before and I'm going to talk about it again in the series, but it goes like this, if you've lost something that you love and you haven't been able to find it for two weeks and suddenly you find it. You love it more, you appreciate it more, you're more, you do it on it more now that you had lost it and you found it. You realize how much you missed it,

how much you loved it. In some ways, the experience of lostness, once you find it, is taken up into the finding and makes the joy you had an even greater than it would have been if it hadn't been lost. Notice it says, we're gonna bear the likeness of the man from heaven. What do you notice about the resurrected Jesus?

His wounds are still there. His sorrows are still part of his glory. And I don't know what this means other than this. The resurrection doesn't just say, well, we're gonna take you to heaven and you'll have a consolation for the life on earth that you never had. The resurrection is you get the life you wanted.

You get the body you wanted. You get the family you wanted. You get the love you wanted. You get everything you ever wanted. And if that get the body you wanted, you get the family you wanted, you get the love you wanted, you get everything you ever wanted. And if that's the case then, it means that even the worst things that you've ever experienced in the end will only make your joy greater. That's a defeat. That is utter defeat of suffering.

That is an utter defeat. Your deepest sorrows that you have experienced in your life through the resurrection of Christ will end up only making your eventual glory and joy greater than it ever would have been otherwise. So we have Stingless Death, we have Swallow's Suffering, Thirdly we have Material Nunez, one of the most interesting things is this passage where it says, and when the perishable, verse 54, has been clothed with what? The immaterial?

Say, traditional religion says, I have a body, and it's physical, but it's perishable. But someday, the soul will be liberated, and then we will live forever in heaven. Doesn't say that. Doesn't say the perishable will put on the immaterial. It says the perishable will put on the imperishable. And this is the most astounding thing.

The resurrection hope of Christians is that you're going to get more physical, not less. What do I mean by more physical? Well, you're more physical in the sense that you're solid. You're last. You're not that you're solid. You last. You're not going to deteriorate. You're not going to shrivel as time goes on. But there's more to it than that. You know, NT Wright in his great book on the resurrection says, Jesus' body was a transphysical body.

It was a, it wasn't less physical. It was more physical. You know, one of that, what does that mean? It might mean something like this. How many senses have you got? Well, some of us have five senses and those of us who are older than 50, already have one of our senses getting bad, and then there's tri-focals,

and there's what is your quadrophocals? And, you know, I have to say, now, wait a minute. Would you say that again? You know, I guess I probably have, I think about 3.75 senses left. But of the new heavens and new earth, maybe you're going to have a thousand senses. You know, a person is born blind. It's very hard to explain to a person born blind what it's like to see. They say, what is red light?

Is it like the sound of a trumpet? You say, well, yeah, I know. What would it be like to be more physical? You're going to blossom in places you didn't even know you had buds. What you will be compared to what you are now is what you are now compared to a tomato. You are going to be more physical.

And you notice when it says the kingdom, we will inherit the kingdom. The word kingdom is administration. It's a word for justice. And what it means is God is gonna wipe away absolutely everything wrong with the world, all poverty, all injustice. There's a material world matters.

Martin Luther, he had his theology right. When somebody said to him, Martin Luther, what would you do if he knew Jesus was coming back tomorrow? What would you say? Well, don't answer. But you do if he knew Jesus was coming back tomorrow? What would you say? Well, don't answer. But you know what he said? I'd plant a tree. Why?

Because you see in the kingdom, trees are going to grow better than they do now. They're going to dance. They're going to blossom. Just think of it. Now, what Luther has a great theology? You and I wouldn't have thought of that, would you? Because Luther realizes that if you're a secularist and you believe this material world's gonna burn up,

or if you're a traditionalist and you believe that basically eventually we just leave this world and go live in heaven forever, who cares about this world? God cares. God cares. Here's one last thing. This is the reason why Christians care about this world. This is the reason why we fight against poverty. This is the reason why we fight against disease.

This is why we fight against injustice. Because this world matters. There's a material newness coming and we want to be part of the program. We want to work with God. One last thing. The true you. This is, if you read all of 1 Corinthians 15, it says, it says, we will bear the likeness of the man from heaven, but you mustn't get the impression that means that you will only look like, we all look the same. Because if you go high up into the chapter, I mean, I probably shouldn't be saying this because I didn't print this in the bulletin. There's a couple of places in 1 Corinthians 15 where it says, as every seed bears a different flower, so every one of us, when we're planted,

will come up with a different glory, just as star differs from star in glory. There is a core you, and there's all this gunk around it, all the sins, all the misunderstandings, all your fears, all the things your parents gave you, they've been trying to get rid of and you probably never will. There's a core you, and when it's planted in the resurrection body, you'll come up. Right now we have ugly souls with beautiful bodies, and we have beautiful souls with ugly bodies. That's not going

to happen. You'll finally get the bite of the expresses who you are. You'll finally be the true you. NT Wright, in an interview, says this. He says, I was reading George Steiner's book, Errata, and it struck me that he illustrates the modern spiritual situation. When at the end of the book, he's struggling with the question of God.

He isn't sure that he believes in God, but he believes in original sin because of the existence of child torture, abuse of animals, and all the absurdly evil things that we are doing to one another. He knows that this is not what creation was meant for. That is a profoundly biblical reaction. George Steiner is, in effect,

rejecting the existential philosophy of Sartre without embracing theism. And it seems to me that that's where postmodernism at its best gets us. It preaches the doctrine of original sin to the arrogant modernism that believed that humankind was intrinsically good. But suppose there's somebody who has taken all this torture,

who has taken all this meaninglessness, who has taken all this absurd evil onto himself. That is God's project. The Christian mission is poised between the resurrection of Jesus in which it has begun and the final new heaven and new earth in which it will be finished. Our task is to implement the first

and thereby to anticipate the second. Let's go, let's pray. Thank you, Father, for the hope of Jesus' resurrection, the linchpin, the reason why we can have these dynamically different lives. We pray that you would help everybody in this room get the certainty of your future through the resurrection of Jesus, and grasp the shape of your future through the resurrection of Jesus,

and grasp the shape of your future in the resurrection of Jesus, so that we can be part of your project. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for joining us today. We hope you continue to join us throughout this month as we look at the uniqueness of the hope Christ offers. If you are encouraged by today's podcast, please rate and review it so more people can discover

the hope and joy of Christ's love. Thank you again for listening. This month's sermons were recorded in 2004 and 2008. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast will preach from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.