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May 02, 2021

1Cor15 - Living Eternal (click here for resources)

Passage: 1 Corinthians 15:35-49

Speaker: Brian Land

Series: Because He Lives - 1Cor15

Category: Grace Brevard

Creation Part 2 -- When our current bodies return to dust, we will be raised along with Christ in new bodies that will never fade or decay; never experience corruption or disease; never hunger, thirst, fear, or experience drama; will only know satisfaction, love and peace. All of this is impossible to imagine. But it gets even better. All of creation itself is resurrected with us as more real, more solid and more glorious than our greatest imagination.

5.02.21 GBV Livestream from Grace Brevard on Vimeo.

Sermon Discussion Questions

Click HERE for printable version

This passage gives us a glimpse into what’s to come. In order to appreciate this a little better, we need to see the whole story:

Creation: In the beginning God perfectly created all things, especially people, to live in satisfaction and harmony.

Fall: But we wanted more; we wanted to sit on the throne ourselves, which shattered all of creation, leaving us to live unsatisfied and in conflict, with God and creation.

Redemption: To redeem us from the Fall, God himself died to pay our debt and bring us out of conflict with God...but in this life we still remain in conflict with creation (i.e. disease, violence, words...)

Restoration: When Jesus rose from the grave he paved the way to bring creation (especially us) along with him into a new creation where the impacts of the Fall are inverted into beauty and wholeness.

Inheritance #1 - Creation: Made in God’s image (“FORMED”)
When God “formed” all of creation:
Think about what this world was like.
What people were like.
What relationship with God was like.

Inheritance #2 - Fall: Life intertwined with death (“DEFORMED”)
The Fall “deformed” creation. It’s not all bad, but it’s all been tainted with pain and decay.

For you personally, what are some of the most painful results of the Fall? What comes to mind?

What about our relationship with the Lord?
Inheritance #3 - Restoration: Death inverted into life (“REFORMED”)
What different concepts of “life after death” come to mind?

What’s your initial thoughts on what heaven will be like?
What we will be like in heaven?

The Lord tells us here and in several other places that heaven isn’t “up there” but will “come down” (Rev 21:1-2) to here...meaning that we are n wot swept AWAY from this place, but this place (all of creation) gets re-created and permeated by heaven...as Jesus came to us, heaven will also come to us.

We MUST use the creative side of our brains to see this...to imagine this place being re-created and made whole.
What would it be like to live in this place, but renewed?
What might WE be like?
(1 John 3:2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.)
What would our relationships be like?

Living Heavenward

As I grow in LIVING HEAVENWARD there are things that will diminish and things that will grow:

I will learn to stop trying to make this world heaven through:
(here are some examples...add your own)
1) Pursuits of comfort 2) Relationships
3) Finances 4) ....

I will be freed to...
(here are some examples...add your own)
1) Enjoy this world more fully (how?) 2) Love
3) Be Generous 4) ....

Another way to put it: The more I realize that this world is a gift, and the best is yet to come,the more I will…