1 Corinthians 15:35-44

Truelight.July.29.2012 1 Corinthians 15:35-44 35 But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. 42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. When we speak of resurrection there is an absolute prerequisite and that is death. Is that not so? In order to be born again one must die first, but we desire to be born again without death. When we are faced with choices, rather than making the same mistake, we must choose to do what is right in order for the change to take place. We cannot do good if we do not acknowledge our mistakes so that we may change them. All the earthly desires must die within me so that Christ can reign in its place. The word is very clear as it speaks of the heavenly bodies and their splendor and all the other bodies. Even though we do not go into detail this is something we all understand. By comparison, what is life? What does it mean to live? Is it to eat, sleep, go to work or school? Is this living? What is the purpose of living? Why do you eat, sleep, go to school, make money and do all the things that you dislike to do? Why do we spend all our energy doing all these things? What is life? Why do you do such things? Depending on what you plant and sow in your life will be the difference between success and failure. For example, if you study hard, get a good job and make good money then you will have reaped the benefits of all you hard studying and work. You have benefited from the seeds of hard work which you planted. If you do not work hard can you make good money? If you do not study well can you get good grades? In order to live well you must work hard and be diligent. If rather than working hard you spend time entertaining yourself watching TV, going out, eating and drinking, being lazy and living for yourself then what will you reap later? It does not matter that you think that you are doing well, if someone else looks at you and tells you that you are not well, then we must be able to accept what they say and be able to change but that is difficult for us to do. The reason it is difficult is because we are stubborn and it is our pride. We hide behind the excuse of comfort rather than seeing it as pride and stubbornness and getting rid of it. Why do I point this out? It is so that you may be a better person, a good person, reap good rewards and have good results in your life. This is good advice for your life but you refuse to listen. Why? Because in order to achieve it you feel like you will die. What does it mean to plant something? Does it mean to go out to a field and plant seeds in the ground? Is that all? What does it mean to sow? What I do, say and think are the seeds that I plant. I will reap the harvest of the things from which I have spoken. I will reap the harvest from the actions I have performed. What will the harvest be? If I speak with vulgar language and use words that are uncivilized what will people think of the type of person that I am? If I act wildly and have no manners, what will people think of me? You may think that people do not know the thoughts that are in your head, but over time those thoughts will gain power and they will reveal themselves in speech and action. Thoughts are important. This is what you are sowing in your life. As you think, speak and act you are sowing seeds into your own life. However, we do not think that we are sowing seeds in this manner. If today you sow the seed of anger to someone you love, what will you gain in return? Will you hear the words "I love you"? Is this what happens when you fight? When you raise your voice in anger is there anyone who answers the anger with love? There is none. Just as a ball will bounce back, I will receive what I sow. We don't think about this. Instead we think we have the right to be angry and expect the other person to respond with love. This is our stubbornness. This is our will, our pride that lives in us. We tell our spouses that we have done nothing wrong. We put the blame on the other person. We claim that we are the head of the household and question why they choose to anger us? As I force my will upon others, it causes others to have to surrender to my will. In my family of five, if I spread the seeds of angry words, angry actions and all my emotional issues on them, then where will those seeds spring up? It will be evident one day in the lives of my children, but today in this moment I feel satisfied because I have relieved my stress on them. If we are living in this manner, will we be able to say that we have lived a good life in the end? Will our children be able to say that their parents have lived well, and have learned so much from them that they can now pass it on to their children? If this is not so it is because you have still yet to die. The seeds that you are plating will effect many generations to come but you fail to see that. What you are doing this very moment is very important. But if you are living for your pleasure and your gratification then it will be difficult to reap good rewards from your life. If a student plays video games rather than study, will that child be able to go to a good school, get a good job and get good benefits from it? Who can guarantee it? No one can. It is the students fault for not making the sacrifices in order to reap the benefits. Adults also, as I have told you before, because of my desire I taught my children to watch TV and it was quite a burden for some time. I must restrain myself, read books, read the bible, sing praises or spend time communicating with my family and show them by example the life that one must live so that they will learn and remember seeing their parents reading the bible, talking to them and teaching and guiding them the way to be a family and to love one another. This is what we should be teaching them. Instead after spending the day at work or having been in an argument you come home and are demanding to your spouse doing and saying what you want. Can you be a family unit like this? What are you teaching your children? We don't think that we are planting seeds by doing these things. We plant by bestowing upon others. We bestow acts of good will to others. Though it is difficult we love others. We forgive the ones that we find hard to forgive. When you bestow something upon others what have you done? You have planted seeds. The seeds of forgiveness, the seeds of love, the seeds of mercy and the seeds of humility. What you will receive in return will be given to you by God and that can be the splendor of the sun or the moon. Depending on the seeds you sow you will reap different types of splendor in your life. However, many people refuse to see the types of seeds they are planting and the resulting fruit and this is where the problem arises. You may have lied, for whatever reason, and people may overlook it the first couple times but if it continues will you have any credibility with others? Even if you do speak truth, once you have been labeled a liar because you have sowed the seeds of lying you will never be credible to anyone. Our Lord teaches us not to live like this. But we choose to be insincere and say whatever we want depending on our mood. What is this? You may come to church and it may seem that you are a believer, but God looks at your heart and knows that when you are in the world. You live as part of the world. This is a double life. You are lying. You do not receive recognition in church and the world recognizes you as a false Christian. You are the one sowing these seeds but you fail to see this. You want to be praised because you dedicate your time to the church and because you hold a position here. When you are in the world you spend time entertaining yourself with them and you want their approval also. What do you expect to receive from the seeds of your action? The bible teaches us that rather than storing up the things that will waste away, to live in the spirit and reap the things of the spirit. But we are callous to this teaching. We say that Jesus has forgiven us all our sins and we interpret this teaching incorrectly. We sing the words of the hymn "safe in the arms of Jesus, sweetly my soul shall rest" but what does it mean if have worries? It means that you are not in Christ. Is this not so? If I have doubts, worries or troubles I am proclaiming that I am not in Him, but we fail to see it this way. We sang the hymn, but what use is it if the moment we say "amen" and then immediately start to worry? We are living a double life and lying in our faith. We sing that "our fears have turned to prayers and our sighs have turned to praises" but are you singing and are you praying? But yet you sing these praises. God is everywhere. He is with you in the bathroom as well. He is with you in the garage, in the shed, no matter how deep one digs to build a bunker God is there. We think as long as no one else can see us then God does not see us. We think the moment we leave the worship area, or the moment we say "amen" that God is no longer present. This is why we do whatever we want. When we ask God to help us wherever we are in a difficult situation that means He is also with us when we are doing wrong. But when we are doing wrong we think God is somewhere else watching over someone else. We say that God is watching over us in all that we think, speak, and do, but if we don't act as if He truly is then we are liars. Who are you lying to? You are lying to Jesus. You tell Him that He knows everything and if He replies that He knows that you have been lying your entire life before Him what will you say in response? Will you be able to ask Him for the splendor of the sun, the moon or stars? What have you sowed and what did you think that you would reap? This week I pulled out all the carrots. It has been about three months. I planted all the carrots all at the same time and gave them all the same amount of water. There were plenty that were a good size. Look at these half inch carrots. There were many of these small ones. Unless you pull them out of the ground you can't really tell the difference. You say you believe in Jesus, wear your nice clothes, spend your life coming to church and hold a position in it, but when the time comes and your are pulled from the ground will you be like these useless carrots? How much time and energy did I spend on these carrots? What a waste of time and energy on these ones.The time and energy was spent the same but some of the vegetables will make it on the dinner table while others will be thrown away. Jesus gives us the example of fishing. What happens after you catch the fish? He says the unwanted ones will be thrown away. Are they all not fish? It is up to the one who catches the fish whether to keep it or throw it away. If you do not satisfy the heart of Christ then He will throw you away. Though you may receive the same amount of water if you do not grow you will be thrown away. We sing that Jesus will watch over us until we make it to heaven, but there is a requirement. That requirement is that you live according to His will. You cannot expect Him to follow you to wherever you want to go. You cannot let go of the hand of Jesus and think that He is going to chase you down. I don't think that you can receive the help from Jesus when you let go of Him. Because we have been trying to have an organic farm we have not been using pesticides. And due to my physical condition I have not been able to tend to the garden well. When evening time comes you can see where the insects have eaten away at the plants. Some of the plants have been eaten before they can even start to grow. You need to kill the insects before they eat the plants or else use insect repellant but that means it would no longer be organic so I surrendered and let it be because the garden has been getting too big to maintain. At this rate there will be nothing to harvest. In order to maintain a vegetable garden one must be diligent and use their spare time to tend to it. If you are not diligent in tending to the garden of your soul, and if you are not planting good seeds through you thoughts, speech and actions, then the devil will come and attack you and make you one of his own. If I am not prepared for his attacks, in the end, no matter how holy I may seem, I will end up having lost the battle. The world will attack you with worries and concerns so that you will be unable to focus properly according to God's will and His word. When this happens you must recognize it immediately and uproot those thoughts and rid yourself of them. Catch it and throw it away. This is the only way to properly maintain the garden and to reap good rewards. During the London Olympics, a South Korean has set a new world record in archery. The archer is legally blind. He set a new point record of 699 points from which 720 is perfect. The archer can only see from a distance of 20 feet what others normally see at 200 feet. At a distance of 70 meters they shoot 72 arrows so I calculated that he hit the bullseye 51 times for 10 points and 21 times for 9 points to reach 699 points. He beat his own previous world record. How much did he have to train to do this? He had to overcome much difficulty in order to accomplish this. You sit here as a healthy individual. You know Jesus. You have been educated and taught everything you need to know, but are you living for the goal of attaining the eternal life which is far more precious than any medal you can attain at the Olympics? The bible clearly lays out the path for us to attain this reward, but how much training and discipline are you putting yourself through to attain it? Are you putting in as much effort in your own life, as did the legally blind person who trained thoroughly to set that new world record? Are you training yourself in every word you speak and every action that you do? If not then can you win the gold? Does the coach allow the archer to train how he wants or only teach him how to shoot arrows? A coach teaches the athlete everything that is required to make them a complete athlete. In order to master the skill they are trained physically and mentally to harness all there strength and focus to achieve one goal and that is to hit the bullseye no matter how chaotic the world is around them. In 2002 when South Korean hosted the World Cup, what did the new coach do? He started with the fundamentals by training them and conditioning them. He did not start with soccer skills. He trained them differently. In our daily walk, it is not studying the bible that is important, although it is, but what is truly important is the skill to take what you have studied and apply it to your lives. It is the ability to take what you have learned and to make it real in your life. But we prefer to just know it in our heads and therefore we lack the fruit in our lives. Is this not how we are living in these times? It does not matter how much you know of the bible, if there is no change in your life it is because you have failed to die to yourself. That means that those seeds have not died and therefore there is no fruit. Do you truly want to participate in the resurrection with Jesus? Then you must die. Without dying you cannot participate in the resurrection. There is no reward prepared for you if you do not die first. If others are not able to see Jesus in my life then I will not be acknowledged as a Christian. If I do not live in Jesus and participate in the resurrection then all the power and money in the world will not matter. What does it mean to die? Does it mean to literally kill oneself by suicide? No. It is killing your will, your stubbornness, pride and your thoughts. This is how you die. It is the change in your life created by your death and Christ living through you. Why do you get off the cross when they bring the hammer and nails to put you to death? What do those nails and hammer represent? Theses are the words spoken by those around you that attack your pride. These things are the hammer and the nails. The words are nothing but you let it effect you enough that you come running off the cross. They are words spoken to you that you may improve your life but you refuse to listen to these words. This is how we rebel against dying to oneself. During the time of President Park Jung Hee there was a single star general Na Hi Pil. At a banquet all the officers were poured a ceremonial drink as a sign of appreciation from the president himself. As all the officers were given shots and when it came to Na Hi Pil he asked the president if he could substitute soda for alcohol. The mood of the celebration was immediately iced. No one could imagine a lower ranking officer deny the drink when all the other officials were accepting it. Even those who claimed to be Christian accepted the shot and pretended to drink it. But Na Hi Pil refused to accept the drink due to his faith. Another officer realizing the situation quickly apologized to the president saying that Na Hi Pil could not drink alcohol so he quickly took it and drank it in Na Hi Pil's place. Due to the circumstance all the officers told Na Hi Pil that he would now be removed from his position and would most likely leave the military. After the banquet was finished, and the president was leaving he approached Na Hi Pil and said to him "you are a true Christian". The next day, Na Hi Pil expecting to lose his job had cleared out his desk and waited for the news. What do you think happened to him for standing up for his faith? Not only did he keep his position, he was given an additional star and raised to a position in the main headquarter of the army. He became more powerful than a four star general. When you submit to Jesus, no matter what others may do to you, Jesus will move their hearts in order to use you. Na Hi Pil later retired from the military and went into work for government agency and was hired by head of the agency and given a recommendation from the president of the country. The president was able to acknowledge Na Hi Pil as someone who stood out. He mentioned that when Na Hi Pil refused the drink he knew that Na Hi Pil was a man who could not be forced into a situation nor compromise on his work. That action was seared into the mind of the president permanently. Later, during this time, the president was assassinated but God had provided a way for Na Hi Pil to be protected from the coming storm. When you submit yourself to God and follow Him, He will prepare the way of safety and keep you from trouble. This is what it means to die to oneself. Even though you may think that you are dying you do not really die, when you submit yourself before God He will lift you up. This is the kind of life we must live, the one of death and sacrifice so that we may receive the blessings and pass it on to the next generations. Please do not be stubborn. If you make one mistake you apologize one time. If you make a bigger mistake and one apology is not enough then you must apologize twice or three times. You must apologize until that person accepts your apology. Our problem is that we refuse to apologize for our mistakes and we say that we will do better. It does not work this way. If I have wronged someone 10 times then I must apologize 10 times, but you think after one simple apology that everything is resolved. In Christ you have been forgiven everything. Everything that you did before knowing Jesus is forgiven at one time, but the sins you commit knowingly after you have put your faith in Him is like crucifying Him again. You will not be easily forgiven for these sins that you knowingly commit. There are too many sins that will not be forgiven just by saying you are sorry once. I must truly repent and seek to be forgiven. Just as an athlete must train and discipline themselves to set new records you also must train and go through the discipline to receive that which is greater, the gift of eternal glory. I cannot receive the prize of eternal rewards without going through the training and discipline. I must go after that which I seek or else it cannot be mine. It does not matter that the world acknowledges me, I must seek to be acknowledged by Jesus and until I receive His acknowledgement I must strive to live the life that can only be done by remaining in Him. And when I remain in Him, He will protect me until I am called into His kingdom. This is the life that gives glory to our Lord and this is the life that shows others the fruit of our faith. Sermon by Pastor Howard K.J. Park translation by Miguel Park