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May 02, 2021

More Than an Afterlife

More Than an Afterlife

Passage: 1 Corinthians 15:20-28

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Let Us Not Mock God with Metaphor

Keywords: kingdom, authority, reign, firstfruits, subjected

When we think of resurrection we naturally (and properly) think of the life following death and of its ultimate transformation. But the wonder and glory of that truth notwithstanding, there’s far more to what the resurrection points to. It’s the pledge and promise of something greater. And that has relevance to how we live, and love, now.

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: I Chronicles 16:28-31
LEADER: 28 Ascribe to the Lord, O clans of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!
29 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering and come before him!
Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness;

ALL: 31 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice, and let them say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!”

CONFESSION OF FAITH - Westminster Catechism Q & A 26
Q. 45. How does Christ execute the office of a king?
A. Christ executes the office of a king, in calling out of the world a people to himself, and giving them officers, laws, and censures, by which he visibly governs them; in bestowing saving grace upon his elect, rewarding their obedience, and correcting them for their sins, preserving and supporting them under all their temptations and sufferings, restraining and overcoming all their enemies, and powerfully ordering all things for his own glory, and their good; and also in taking vengeance on the rest, who know not God, and obey not the gospel.

BENEDICTION: Colossians 1:17-19 & Revelation 21
LEADER: 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

ALL: 5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Related Scriptures

  • Psalm 8
  • Proverbs 3:9
  • Jeremiah 2:3
  • Ezekiel 44:30
  • Romans 5:12-21
  • Romans 8:22-23
  • Romans 11:36
  • Romans 14:4
  • Colossians 1:15-23
  • 2 Corinthians 1:22, 5:5
  • 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Don’t think--just respond: best thing about the hope of resurrection? Why did you say that?
  2. What from the passage suggests that the significance of the resurrection has to do with more than dead people rising (as glorious as that thought is!)?
  3. How does Paul compare and contrast Adam and Christ? Why does he do so?
  4. What is renewal? Where do you see the need for renewal on the widest scale? On the most local scale? How would you summarize--or just describe--the mandate given those with resurrection faith? How is that faith uniquely positioned to live and act in the ordinary world?
  5. Of what benefit is it to us for God to finally reign without opposition, as the resurrection is a signpost for? 

QUOTES:

 

  • Towers fell and mountains slid; walls crumbled and melted, crashing down; vast spires of smoke and spouting steams went billowing up, up, until they toppled like an overwhelming wave and its wild crest curled and came foaming down upon the land. . . .And as the Captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out toward them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell. - From Tolkien’s The Return of the King
  • Our faith is in a God who has come to rescue his creation from the absurdity of sin, the emptiness and waste of death, the forces. . .that shatter living souls; and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred. - David Bentley Hart
  • Jesus Christ came not just to save my soul, but to form a new society. - Carlos Rene Padilla
  • At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in. - C.S. Lewis, Weight of Glory
  • The headstone was only two rows behind Kendra and Ariana’s. It was made of white marble, just like Dumbledore’s tomb, and this made it easy to read, as it seemed to shine in the dark. Harry did not need to kneel or even approach very close to it to make out the words engraved upon it. Harry read the words slowly, as though he would have only one chance to take in their meaning, and he read the last of them aloud. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death’…” A horrible thought came to him, and with it a kind of panic. “ Isn’t that a Death Eater idea? Why is that there?” “It doesn’t mean defeating death in the way the Death Eaters mean it, Harry,” said Hermione, her voice gentle. “ It means…you know…living beyond death. Living after death.” But they were not living, though Harry: They were gone. The empty words could not disguise the fact that his parents’ moldering remains lay beneath snow and stone, indifferent, unknowing. And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot then instantly freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending? He let them fall, his lips pressed hard together, looking down at the thick snow hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay, bones now, surely, or dust, not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under the snow with them.”― Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (pg. 328)

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