The Second Coming: Hope, Resurrection, and Reunion

Paul's words at the end of that fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians, I think are especially fitting for Watermark Church where we are today. When the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written. Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. [01:19:54] (35 seconds)  #DeathSwallowedInVictory

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. If Jesus didn't come out of that grave, every one of us would be hopelessly lost for all of eternity in our sins. [00:41:59] (25 seconds)  #HopeDependsOnResurrection

These Christians were concerned about dear love beloved Christian brothers and sisters who had died, that they might miss the second coming. And Paul has just reassured them with the truth of God's word to let them know that you don't need to be worried about that. When Jesus comes again, those Christians are gonna beat us to Jesus. They're gonna get there first. They're gonna be caught up to meet him, and thus we will all be with the Lord. [01:00:34] (33 seconds)  #NoOneMissesJesus

That word meet is a really interesting word, the Greek word that's translated into English meat there. It's the word. It was used in the time of the writing of the New Testament when Paul was writing this. For instance, in the city of Rome, if a dignitary was coming or say a great general went off to a distant land and and and won a great victory and he's coming back to Rome, they had a ceremony where the people of Rome would go outside the city and would meet this dignitary and escort the dignitary back into the city. That's what the word means. It means to meet and escort back into or to the location. [00:58:57] (52 seconds)  #MeetAndEscort

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Amen. God bless you. Amen. Amen. [01:20:29] (23 seconds)  #VictoryThroughChrist

And I think Paul is using it to say there that these that faith and love and salvation are protections for us in our thinking and in our living. We don't need to be caught off guard as the world is caught off guard. We need to we need to believe that Jesus is coming again and rest in the assurance of that hope that he is coming again. And and faith and love and salvation protect us in that kind of thinking and living. [01:04:59] (32 seconds)  #FaithLoveSalvationShield

Now the word sober there has several meanings, but I I think the primary idea that Paul is communicating to them is since we are people of the light and we know that Jesus has come again, let's be sober. Let's be calm. Let's not be worrying about when or or or where Jesus is going to come again. Let's be calm as we wait for him. [01:04:14] (24 seconds)  #SoberAndReady

You foolish person, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. Now that's talking about like a seed, like you plant a seed in the ground. That's the metaphor that we're using. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel because of wheat or some other perhaps of wheat or or some other grain. But god gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. [00:51:16] (27 seconds)  #SeedMustDieToLive