Living Hope

Philip Miller: These old bodies will die, but in the resurrection, we will be given a new body. To use Paul's language, we will be clothed with immortality. We will be revealed as the sons and daughters of God forever.

Larry McCarthy: Welcome to Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I'm Pastor Larry McCarthy. We're glad you're with us today. We're in our series in Malachi.

Pastor Philip, we're talking about this amazing image of hope. But you know, I'm just going to ask you, you're not just saying things when you're preaching. You believe what you're saying. It's clear that you truly believe this. So can you share with our listeners why do you have such confidence in this great hope?

Philip Miller: The only reason I have any hope in the resurrection is number one, the Bible promises it, but number two, we've seen it in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the firstborn of creation and he's the firstborn from the dead. He's the firstborn of the new creation.

Jesus takes the old world into the grave with him, he dies, and he rises again. He's the only piece of the new creation we've ever seen. But he rises to resurrection life and we see him in his resurrection glory. He's walking through walls and he's raised to immortality; he will never die again.

He is the down payment, the firstborn, the deposit, if you will, of the new creation that is coming in him that will one day sweep through all of creation. It'll change this world and it'll change us who believe in Jesus Christ. All who are united to Christ will be part of that resurrection future and new creation.

The reality is we have seen a taste of the world to come in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And if that's real, then everything else is true. That's why we have resurrection hope. Actually, the whole Bible has been telling this story. This drama of redemption is about the hope of glory that is to come. Jesus is the centerpiece of it, but it's the point of the entire story.

Larry McCarthy: Let's go now to the pulpit of the Moody Church as we dig into the seed of hope. This is part three of the sermon, Awaiting the Dawn. Grab your Bibles; our text today is Malachi chapter four. We're going to look at verses one through six.

Philip Miller: Don't you see, friends, endurance grows in the soil watered with hope. When you know there's light and high beauty forever beyond the reach of the small and passing shadow, it gives you courage—courage to endure because hope has soaked into the soil of your life. The sun of hope, the soil of hope, and finally the seed of hope.

Don't you see in these verses God is planting a seed, a seed of hope that all things will one day be set to rights. God is sowing this seed of hope all throughout his scriptures. Let me just read a couple of these to you. There are so many I couldn't even prune it down. This is a long list, but there's more.

Psalm 9, verses seven and eight: "The Lord abides forever; he's established his throne for judgment. He will judge the world in righteousness; he will execute judgment for the peoples with equity."

Isaiah 2, verses two to four: "In the last days, the Lord will judge between the nations. He will render decisions for many peoples. They will hammer their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not ever again lift up a sword against another nation. Never again will they study war."

Isaiah 11, verses six to nine: "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the lion shall eat straw like the ox, the nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea."

Daniel 2, verse 44: "The God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed. It itself will endure forever." Zechariah 14:9: "And the Lord will be king over all the earth. In that day the Lord will be the only one, and his name the only one."

Daniel 7, verse 14: "To him, to the Son of Man, was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all the peoples, all the nations, and all the men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed."

Titus 2, verse 13: "For we are waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ." Philippians 3, verses 20 and 21: "For our citizenship is in heaven, and from there we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself."

Colossians 3, verse four: "When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." Revelation 22, verses one to five: "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. And on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever."

Friends, these promises are sown in hope all over the scriptures. But the greatest seed of hope ever sown is sown in Jesus himself. Because in Jesus' death and resurrection, what you and I are getting is a preview of what will one day happen to us and what will one day happen to all of creation.

When Jesus died and rose again, he actually blazed the trail from the old creation into the new creation. He became one of us, part of the old creation under the curse: frail, mortal, killable. And he died. He took the old world down into the grave with him, and he rose again into resurrection life and came out on the other side immortal, indestructible, glorious forever.

The new creation is already starting in Jesus. It's already started like a seed that has dropped down into the broken decay of this world. The seed of the gospel of what Jesus incarnates and lives through his death and resurrection into newness of life—the beginning, the dawn of the new creation has begun.

Like him, we will go through death into resurrection life. These old bodies will die, but in the resurrection, we will be given a new body. To use Paul's language, we will be clothed with immortality. We will be revealed as the sons and daughters of God forever.

This same thing is true of all creation. The old world will pass away through fire. It will perish, only to be raised in the dawn of the new creation. Jesus is a microcosm of new creation hope. Jesus is a microcosm, a mini-cosmos of what will one day happen to all of creation.

He's the firstborn of all creation, the first creation, and he's the firstborn from the dead. He's the firstborn of the new creation. The seed of new creation hope has dropped down into this world. The new creation's coming, friends. We can see it in Jesus.

Jesus himself blazed the only trail there is from the old world to the new, from the old creation to the new creation. And the path runs through death to resurrection. It's the only way. So our only hope is to follow him through death into resurrection hope. And the only hope for the cosmos is to be taken by Jesus through death into resurrection hope as well.

You see the seed of Christian hope is founded on more than just a whole bunch of promises. The seed of Christian hope is founded upon the crucified and risen Son of God who blazed the trail through death into everlasting life. And he beckons us: come, follow me, further up and further in.

Some of you know that line. It's from C.S. Lewis's The Last Battle, the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia where Narnia is unmade, when the stars fall and the world is destroyed. It descends back into the chaos from which it was born. And the people of Narnia finally reach Aslan's country.

This is what Lewis writes: "It is hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia, as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste. The new one was a deeper country. Every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can't describe it any better than that. If you ever get there, you will know what I mean.

It was the unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right forehoof to the ground and neighed, and then cried, 'I have come home at last. This is my real country. I belong here. This is the land I've been looking for all my life, though I never knew it until now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this.'

Come further up and further in. And the things that began to happen after that were so great and so beautiful, I cannot write them. And for us, this is the end. This is the end of all the stories. And we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them, it was only the beginning of the real story.

All their life in this world, all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and title page. Now at last, at last, they were beginning chapter one of the greatest story, in which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before."

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with men. He will dwell with them and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." Friends, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Behold, I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus. Would you say that with me? Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

Larry McCarthy: This is Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I'm Pastor Larry McCarthy. We're glad you joined us today as we contemplate this glory that is to come.

Pastor Miller, I love how through this series you've been talking about tender mercies of God in the person of Jesus. It's really reflected throughout the book of Malachi and certainly in this series. But let me ask you this: where do you see the tender mercies that you've been talking about of Christ here at the conclusion of the book?

Philip Miller: There's a reason the book ends with this hope, this cosmic hope of the world made new and set to rights, where all oppression will be eliminated, where the righteous will be redeemed and set free in glory, and all will be made well. There's so much hope, and I think that's instructive.

God has had some pretty stark, hard words to his people. He's called them to account, he's addressed their sin, he's provided accountability. He's not letting them get away with stuff. But he's not finished. His final word is not a word of judgment. His final word is a word of hope and mercy and promise.

The book of Malachi sits at the end of the Old Testament, and it is a warning. It's a set of warning lights: don't go wrong. But it's also mercy because God doesn't drop the hammer. He does go silent, and he waits to see how people will respond. But he gives them 400 years of mercy before Jesus shows up.

When Jesus shows up, he doesn't drop the hammer on them. He takes it himself. He goes and takes the judgment on the cross. So God is in the business of redeeming his people, and he has a glorious hope to come. There's a lot of mercy in the middle of all this, and it's all pointing to this resurrection hope in the world to come.

Larry McCarthy: So, Pastor Philip, what will be different? What will be the same? What will change in the resurrection? How is it going to look?

Philip Miller: We've got to remember the only piece of the new creation, the resurrection world to come, that we've ever seen is Jesus in his resurrection body that he has on the third day. He rises and that body has both continuity—they can recognize him as Jesus. "Here's the scars; touch and feel them. Put your hand in my side."

He looks like Jesus; he's recognizable. You can put your hands in the scar prints, so there's tie-backs to the old world. There's continuity there. And there's discontinuity because at times he's shrouded in glory in ways they can't recognize. He's walking through walls and locked doors and he can vanish on the spot.

He's not obeying some of the rules of physics and things like that. It's a transcendent, glorious, immortal body that doesn't behave like the old world, and yet has continuity with the old world because we can say this is clearly Jesus, and it's his resurrection body.

Because that's the only piece of the new creation we have, that becomes a little bit of the map that we look at when we think of what the world to come will be like. We're going to have a new heavens and a new earth, and we're going to have new bodies.

We're going to live in that new heaven and new earth, and God is going to be with us as our God and he's going to be present. The creation's going to be good and whole and no more death or crying or pain or curse or darkness.

Yet it will still be the world that we know and it will have continuity. I think we're going to recognize physical features about the world. I think there's going to be oceans and there's going to be land and mountains and rivers.

We're going to have the ability to live and do what Adam was created to do in the beginning, which is adorn creation and bring beauty and creativity and unleash the potential and beauty and cultivate all the glories of creation. I think there's going to be an enormous amount of continuity.

We'll recognize the world as our home as a place that we knew, and yet it will be so much better, so much more glorious, and it will be unending. And of course no curse and no brokenness and no death or dying or pain—the glory of creation restored, not just restored but made even better in holiness forever.

Sometimes when we think of heaven, we have this cartoonish thing that we kind of get: we're going to wear little dresses and sit on clouds and have the harp and we're just strumming away and it looks so boring. I agree, who wants that?

But a renewed creation where we run and skip and dance and explore and step out into the wideness of a new creation that needs to be unfurled as his image bearers are running around in the redemption of what's been made, that'll be beautiful. We'll worship the Lord and know each other truly and there'll be harmony and fullness. That's something worth hoping in, isn't it?

Larry McCarthy: Amen, brother, amen. When you think about the eternal state though, is there anything that you're looking forward to in particular?

Philip Miller: I'm looking forward to little things like being able to wake up and not be groggy and not be achy and deal with pain. I mean, it's annoying. I'm looking forward to whole and healthy relationships where I can be known and loved and to know others and fully love them as well.

I'm looking forward to there not being brokenness in my own life. There's so much sin that is in me and in my heart and it creeps up and it messes things up constantly in my relationships with my wife, my kids, my friends. I'm just looking forward to that being removed.

Not being selfish, not being angry, not being impulsive and just messing stuff up. How much more wonderful would it be if my heart was just pure and good? Most of all I'm looking forward to being with Jesus. I mean, there's no one like him. He's so beautiful and he's so good and I can't wait to be with him. That's going to be wonderful. How about you? What are you looking forward to?

Larry McCarthy: You know, in my role, or one of my roles at the church as the compassion pastor, I see so many people as they transition and they're hurting and in considerable pain. I lost my dad not long ago and his transition was painful. He was weak and, in some respects, almost unrecognizable from the guy that I grew up with.

I can't wait to see him in his new form, healthy and whole and rejoicing. I'm looking forward to that, to seeing so many of the saints that I know that are just transformed by his glorious power. You know, I love music, and I can't imagine what that will be like when you hear all of these saints in unfettered praise to our risen Savior.

This is just going to be an amazing time, but I look forward to seeing certainly my dad and others.

Philip Miller: The beauty of resurrection hope. It's ours in Christ. Amen.

Larry McCarthy: Amen. Oh, beloved, I hope you've been encouraged as you've listened to us today. Now you and I don't have to wait for glory to experience the freedom of the gospel. The Grace Awakening by Chuck Swindoll is our gift to help you live in that hope right now.

It will refresh your spirit and ground you in the truth that you are loved more than you know. Get your copy of The Grace Awakening literally for a donation of any amount. To request your copy, simply go to livinghopeoffer.com or call us: 1-800-215-5001. That's livinghopeoffer.com, 1-800-215-5001. And you can always write us at Moody Church Media, 1635 North LaSalle Drive, Chicago, Illinois, 60614.

Next time we're going to start a dynamic series through the book of Jonah. You don't want to miss this, so share this with a friend. Thanks for joining us for Living Hope, where you'll always find gospel truth for the journey of a lifetime. Living Hope is a production of Moody Church Media and is sponsored by the Moody Church.