Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

Longing for Retirement Phil. 1:21-23 We Believe Sermon Series #17 If heaven was an hour, it would be twilight When the fireflies start their dancin on the lawn And suppers on the stove and mammas laughin And everybodys workin day is done If heaven was a town it would be my town On a summer day in 1985 And everything I wanted was out there waiting And everyone I loved was still alive If heaven was a pie it would be cherry Cool and sweet and heavy on your tongue And just one bite would satisfy your hunger And there’d always be enough for everyone If heaven was a train it sure would be a fast one That could take this weary travler round the bend And if heaven was a tear it'd be my last one And you’d be in my arms again Don’t cry a tear for me now baby There comes a time we must all say goodbye And if that’s what heavens made of You know I ain't afraid to die You may have heard that song on the radio. It’s a popular song by Andy Griggs. There’s two major problems with it. 1) It has absolutely no Biblical support. 2) Heaven and eternity are so much better for the believer. Paul told us that Heaven is so wonderful and so beyond our comprehension that it is “inexpressible” (2 Cor. 12:4). And this world is not our Home, we’re just passing through. We are instead to be longing for Home...we are to be Longing for Retirement. We join the Apostle Paul who said, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far...” (Phil. 1:21-23). As believers, we are aware, sometimes very aware, at other times only vaguely that our lives are shot through with eternal significance, that we were created for something so much greater than time and this passing world. In the Apostles’ Creed that’s affirmed by, “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” But to understand the resurrection and eternity, we need to understand the bodies that we have, the death that we will face, the resurrection that we will enjoy, and life everlasting that we are anticipating. 1. It’s important to understand the bodies that we have. Most of us have a love/hate relationship with our bodies. Let me illustrate. If you had the power to change your body, would you use it? Suppose you could instantly change the way you look, would you do it? That may be the dumbest question I’ve ever asked. The question is not—would you use that power, but would it be a simple repair or a complete make-over? Would you say, “Lord, let’s just start all over again.” Would we even recognize you? Our bodies wear out, they sag, they expand, they wrinkle, the joints get creaky, the arteries harden, gravity pulls everything downward, the heart slows down, the eyes grow dim, the teeth fall out, the back is stooped, the arms grow weary. Our bones break, our muscles weaken. The body bulges in the wrong places. It happens to all of us sooner or later. As we age, we pay more attention to things like diet and exercise. Personally, I am intrigued by the Garfield Diet: Try these 5 points: 1. No seconds, get it all the first time. 2. Never start a diet cold turkey, better lasagna or roast beef. 3. Since vegetables are a must, try carrot cake, zucchini bread or pumpkin pie.  4. Try to cut back, leave the cherries off your hot fudge sundaes. 5. And if that doesn't work, hang around people fatter than you. We human beings like food and you have to sometimes wonder, why did God make so much food if so much of it is bad for us? And fitness is in. We’ve got Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and Curves and we’ve got runners and bikers and marathoners and people who like to lift weights four times a week. And fashion is in also. We’re very concerned about how we cover our bodies, and in most cases we cover up the parts we don’t want anyone else to see because we’re out of shape.   The simple truth is that your body won’t last forever. You can eat all the low‑carb ice cream you want, but your body will still fall apart in the end. Did you know your body disintegrates all the time? You’re falling apart even while you’re listening to this sermon. Each of us has an expiration date. 2. It’s important to understand the death that we will face. This past week our family grieved with my brother’s family. My oldest brother, Mike’s father in law went Home to be with the Lord, last weekend. Many people haven't the foggiest idea of what to expect beyond death's door. French philosopher Francois Rabelais, upon his deathbed, said, "I am going to the great Perhaps." People have all kinds of ideas about death. The old philosophers who didn’t know the Christian gospel said some awful things about death. Aristotle said, "Death is the most terrible of all things, for it is the end." Epicurus said a similar thing, "Death is the most terrifying of all things." Sophocles said, "Of all the great wonders, none is greater than man. Only for death can he find no cure." And we can’t, folks. We can’t find a cure for death. There comes a time when the deterioration of this wonderful body that has been so magnificent, that we’ve really cared for, that we’ve understood and used properly, begins to deteriorate, and in the end we die. And wonderful man, who can do all kinds of wonderful things, can’t do one thing. He can’t find a cure for death. So what do we do about it? We try to pretend it doesn’t happen. Steve Brown pastored Key Biscayne Presbyterian in Miami. Usually when you get on a plane in Miami, it’s full of people who’ve been on a cruise. And people who’ve been on a cruise are usually wild, because they go on a cruise to be wild. They haven’t quite gotten it all out of their system. So, Steve was on this plane. They were all celebrating, having a big party. But Steve noticed that the young woman sitting right across the aisle from him was having some difficulty. Eventually it was obvious that she was having severe difficulties. They asked if there was a doctor on the plane. Three doctors came and worked with her, and she died right there on the plane in the middle of the after‑cruise party. Death suddenly came to the plane. The mood changed immediately. They made an emergency landing in Dallas. They took the body of the young woman off the plane. And then they all got back on the plane and took off. Steve Brown, the minister, went up to one of the cabin attendants and said, "I’m a minister, and if you need me to talk to any of the people, or if you’d like me to talk to all of the people about what has happened, I’ll be very happy to help." And she said, "Oh, I think everybody’s okay. We’ve given them all free drinks, and that will make them feel better." That’s how most people handle death. We give them all free drinks so they will feel better.  Is that how you handle death? I hope not. Most people fear death and don’t want to talk about it. Death remains the “final frontier” that we all must cross sooner or later. Though we all know that death is coming, we prefer to live as if it will never come at all. Suppose you issued an invitation along the following lines to your friends: “I’ve got pizza and Coke—all you can eat. Let’s get together on Friday night and talk about death.” How many people would come? You’d end up spending a quiet Friday night all by yourself. But what does the Bible say about death? a) Death is certain. “Man is destined to die once” (Heb. 9:27a). b) Death is not the end. “And after that comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27b). c) Jesus Christ defeated death. “Christ Jesus...has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10). d) Death remains the last enemy. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26). The dilemma for Christians lies between c and d. If Christ has abolished death, why do we still die? How can death be both destroyed and yet the “last enemy” of the people of God? The answer lies in understanding the basic nature of death. The essence of death is separation. Death is the unnatural separation of the body and the spirit. That thought runs counter to the current popular notion that death is a “natural” part of life. There’s nothing “natural” about death. It’s the most “unnatural” event in the universe. According to the Bible, death came into the world because of sin (Rom. 5:12). Death exists because sin exists. When sin has been removed once and for all, death will no longer exist. That’s why there will be no death in heaven (Rev. 21:3). In the truest sense, then, death is “unnatural” because sin is “unnatural.” We think the opposite because we can hardly imagine a world where sin no longer exists. But there is such a world, and according to the Bible, that world is the “real” world, and this world that feels so real to us is actually passing away. So until then we live in an “unnatural” state of affairs where death still stalks our trail. But what is will not always be.    Christ destroyed death when He died and rose again. He abolished death as a ruling power in the universe. Death itself will one day die, and the true state God intended will be restored. Until that day comes, we live in an odd situation best described by Ecclesiastes 12:7, which says that when we die “the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” Most of us have heard the phrase, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” We come from the dirt and we return to the dirt. From a purely human perspective, that is our destiny. Ecclesiastes 12:7 is true as far as it goes. It accurately describes what happens when we die. But that verse is not the end of the story. 3. It is important to understand the resurrection that we will enjoy. “I believe in the resurrection of the body” is a difficult phrase to believe because it goes against everything we’re taught and everything that we experience. We have lots of funerals but the last resurrection happened 2,000 years ago. If you have walked away from the grave of a loved one, you know how the harsh reality of death can erode your faith. You and I need to say the creed to remind ourselves that we believe that death will not have the final victory. We believe in something absolutely extraordinary, the resurrection of the body. Death is the fundamental human problem. It is our greatest fear, the sum of all other fears. You can see it in the way we treat the dead. An entire industry has grown up to help us deal with death. When a person dies, we do our best to make them look as if they were not dead. Many times I have heard someone stand by a casket and say, “She looks so natural.” Well, no, she looks like she’s dead. But death is so awesome, so final, so forbidding, so shocking to our senses, that we can’t even say the word. We say that someone “passed on” or “departed” or “slipped away.” Somehow that softens the blow a bit. I fully understand the need to use euphemisms when a loved one has died. And I believe the funeral industry plays an important role in bringing comfort to grieving families. But even after we’ve done our best to mask it, death stands as a stark reality. The Grim Reaper that visits every home sooner or later. If death is the fundamental human problem (and it is), what is the Christian answer? Listen to Paul’s immortal words in 1 Cor. 15:51‑55, “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’” Note three things from this passage about our coming resurrection: a) It will happen instantly. The text says “in a flash” and “in the twinkling of an eye.” One moment the dead will be in the ground; the next moment they will be raised to life. This is no gradual resurrection. The great miracle will happen so fast that if you blink, you will miss it! b) It will happen when Jesus returns. The “last trumpet” refers to the return of Christ in the air. The trumpet will sound, the dead in Christ will rise, and living believers will be raptured off the earth to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thes. 4:13‑18). c) It will result in our complete transformation. In that moment our essential being will change from mortal to immortal and from perishable to imperishable. Our individual personalities will remain intact, but all that relates to mortality, death and decay will be removed from us once and for all. Jesus Christ has shown, by His resurrection, that there is in the ultimate constitution of this universe a higher law than death. We see that death is exchanged for life, and not life for death. This doctrine of the resurrection is unique with Christianity. While pagan religions believe in the immortality of the soul, only Christianity teaches the resurrection of the body. Plato declared that the soul would survive the body, but he, like the rest of the Greeks, knew nothing of the resurrection of the body. The believer does not have some vague, shadowy hope like Casper the Ghost. No, our bodies, not just our spirits will be raised once more. The church father, Tertullian, in the second century, emphasized the importance of the resurrection when he said, “He, therefore, will not be a Christian who shall deny this doctrine which is confessed by Christians—the doctrine which is alien to paganism. The resurrection of the dead is the Christian’s hope.” So what will our resurrected bodies be like? Paul faced the same question. Turn to 1 Corinthians 15:35-38. Two errors have accompanied that question: Some have said that we come forth with exactly the same molecules that were put into the grave; others have said, on the contrary, that we are entirely a new creation. The Biblical reality is somewhere in between. The idea that exactly the same molecules will come forth to recreate or reform the same body is not a concept supported by Scripture. Skeptics have raised questions about a person who loses a leg in China and an arm in England and is buried in America. Are we, in that last day, going to have human body parts flying through the air? The whole doctrine begins to look ridiculous. And what about old Roger Williams, the founder of the Baptist church in Rhode Island and governor of that state? When they dug up his casket to move him, they discovered that the root of an apple tree had opened the casket lid and had gone in and had sucked poor Roger right out of the box. The tree had used his molecules for the making of bright red apples which had been eaten by who knows how many people. Now, where do we get the molecules to rebuild old Roger Williams? “How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies” said Paul, (1 Cor. 15:36). We place a tiny seed in the ground and a beautiful rose or a lily comes forth—but the seed dies. We plant an acorn and an oak tree comes out. We do not sow the body that shall be. It is the same and yet it is different. As we the song goes, “We shall be changed.” And what a transformation it will be! We will have a new body, a spiritual body. But do not suppose that this spiritual body will be a body which is immaterial. That’s not what the word means. There are spiritual people alive today who are not immaterial ghosts, and there are also those who are carnal. This refers to that which their hearts are given to and that which they are adapted toward. In the resurrection we will have a body adapted to spiritual ends, but we will also have material bodies—bodies that will be changed. What will they be like?   A) Our bodies will be glorious bodies. They will be glorious bodies like Christ’s glorious body. Your current body is like an old clunker. It never works very well, it keeps breaking down, and one day it will stop altogether. Your new body will be like a Roll Royce that never needs servicing. Time has done its worst to us. Through the ages of mutations and through the years of our life, time has done its best to destroy us. And I am sure that the bodies that we have then will be as different as the body of an Olympic gold‑medal winner is different from the body of the most emaciated wretch in a hospital or convalescent home. We will have a glorious body.   B) Our bodies will be perfect bodies. Will a child who died as an infant, be raised as an old man? Of course not! An acorn is not raised as an acorn but as an oak tree. In the fullness of manhood or womanhood we will be raised. All of our imperfections will be done away with. Will we be fat or skinny? No, I think we will be perfect. Have you ever seen liposuction on TV where they stick some sort of a suction tube in a person’s stomach or legs and pull out all the fat? And the obese are made trim. How clumsy that will be compared to the operation that God is going to perform on some of us. Indeed, in that day, there will be no obesity.   The early church father, Origen, said that, among all the geometric shapes, the sphere was the most perfect of shapes; and therefore he thought that we would be spheroid in heaven, since that would be the perfect shape. I like that. That would mean that some of us, like me, are already approaching perfection in this realm. But I question Origen’s understanding of perfect shapes. That may be all right for geometry, but it does not work very well for people. We will be, I am sure, beautiful and handsome persons. Everyone has lurking within him/her a perfect human being. Of all different types, whoever you are, whatever you are, there is a perfect you that is just dying to get out. When God is finished with us, we will be what God eternally means for us to be.   C) Our bodies will be immortal bodies. We will have immortal bodies, bodies that will never know sickness or decay. We are born dying in this world. Sicknesses clamor to pull us down beneath the tundra. But in that day, there will be no more coughs or aches; there will be no more arthritis or rheumatism; there will be no flutter of heart or shortness of breath; there will be no glasses or hearing aids or false teeth. We won’t need those things because we will be changed. We will be new.   D) Our bodies will be untiring bodies. We will also be untiring. Scripture says that we will not sleep. There is no night there. We will never weary or grow tired. Some of us, after a long day, can barely drag ourselves to bed at night. Some have reached the stage where the best part of the day ends when the alarm clock goes off in the morning. They can hardly drag themselves out of bed each morning. There is so much to do and so little strength with which to do it. We find ourselves, it seems, gathering and collecting and hoarding that strength more and more as the years go by, wondering why God wastes all that energy on children. But in that day we will be without fatigue; we will never grow tired; we will do anything that we want. And when we get finished we will be as energetic as when we started! Whatever our desires are, whatever our inclinations, whatever talents that God has given us, we will continue with those things to perfection. What a glorious thing that will be! What a magnificent body God will provide us in that resurrection day when we will be changed. As I contemplate those changes, I can’t wait to fling aside this old earth suit, filled with aches and pains, and look forward to that new and resurrected body which Christ has prepared.   E) Our bodies will be recognizable bodies. Will we recognize one another in heaven? I believe that we will. They recognized Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration. And I am sure that since love is eternal that God would not have us enter into paradise without knowing those whom we have loved and lost. Michael Jinkins writes of a conversation he had with his daughter, Jessica, about heaven. Jessica was nine years old at the time and enjoys good food. She was wondering what sorts of things we might eat in heaven. Her father told her that he wasn’t really sure that we would eat food in heaven. Our nourishment, he told her, will probably be derived in some other way. He mentioned that after Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus had a body, though a different kind of body than we, a spiritual body, a body that bore the scars of his suffering, that was able to be touched and was able to consume food. But he pointed out that he didn’t believe that the food was necessary to His risen life in the way that food is necessary to our present existence. Jessica listened as her father rambled on for a while. Then she furrowed her brow a little, frowned and shook her head, and said, "So we probably aren’t going to eat food in heaven?" Her Dad answered, "Well, no. I don’t think so." Then she sighed and said, "OK. But it’s going to take a couple of weeks to get used to." The nature of our resurrected bodies is difficult to get a handle on. It may take even more than a couple of weeks to get used to. The apostle Paul struggled with this, and so have many of the greatest Christian minds through the centuries, often coming up with widely (and sometimes wildly) divergent ideas. But on the essential point we have agreement: When we are raised from the dead, we will be raised bodily, which means that our resurrection will be similar to our creation and that our resurrection will be into that life of communion for which we were originally created. 4. It is important to understand life everlasting that we are anticipating. The connection between the resurrection of the body and life everlasting is obvious. It brings us to the most important question in life, Where is home for you? Thursday night I was in Milwaukee doing some shopping and I got talking to some of the workers. As I turned to leave, I said, “I’ll see y’all.” One lady stopped dead in her tracks and asked me, “Where are you from?” And I said, “Atlanta.” And she said, “I’m from Houston.” And for just a moment in the middle of Wisconsin, it was like old home week. If you asked this lady, “Where are you from?” she would probably say, “I live in Milwaukee, but I’m from Texas.” I suppose I feel somewhat the same way. And we all understand what she means. This fall I will complete seventeen years as your pastor. If people ask me where I live, I tell them I live in Burlington, Wisconsin. And I tell them my home is in Burlington. And we’ve really settled in here but I’m not as at home here as a lot of people. There is a big difference between moving here and being born here. You can see that in a lot of ways, but I suppose you probably see it the clearest when football season starts. Non-natives like me probably never will totally get the Packers. Now Burlington feels like home to me. It hit me recently that I’ve lived here longer than anywhere I’ve ever been. It’s been 30 years since I lived in Atlanta. My mother is buried in a cemetery on the south side of town so that forever draws me back there, to the place where I grew up. It’s not the same with Jane. She’s from East Lansing, Michigan. Jane nearly bleeds green and white. It’s home, it’s where she was born, it’s where her people are. And it’s different with our children. Charity was born in Illinois; Ben in Michigan and Aaron here in Burlington. But if you ask them where they are from, they will say Burlington, and they mean it in a different way than Jane and I do. This is the town where they grew up. This is for them what Michigan is for Jane and Atlanta is for me. Thirty or forty years from now, they will still come back to this place, to this town, to their own people. From time to time I meet people who aren’t from anywhere. They’ve lived in so many places that no place is home to them. Or you might say that they have many homes. But if you have many homes, you don’t really have a home at all. And we’ve all had the experience of going back home, wherever that might be, and finding out that it doesn’t feel the way we remember it. I could go back to the neighborhood where I grew up, walk down that street, and no one would recognize me. Even when you go home, it doesn’t always feel like home. That’s what Hebrews 13:14 means when it says, “For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” One version translates it this way: “This world is not our home.” That brings to mind the words of a familiar gospel song: “This world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door, and I can’t feel at home in this world any more.” How true that is! This world is not my home and if you are a believer, it’s not your home. But friend, where is Home for you? For a Christian, Home is where Jesus is and that place is called heaven. It’s a real place, filled with real people. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not really one long, never‑ending church service. Far from it. The Bible says that when we get to heaven we will be “at home with the Lord.” What does that mean? Jesus said to the thief on the Cross, “Today you will be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). The essence of heaven is the presence of Jesus. Heaven is where He is, and when we are in heaven, we will be with Him forever. The phrase “life everlasting” tells us that our home isn’t in this world. Our home is somewhere else. And we will never really be at home in this world because we are constantly saying goodbye to the people we love the most. They leave us, or we leave them. Our children grow up, they leave home, they come back for a visit, and all too soon they leave again. As the years pass, the visits grow more infrequent. There is no getting around that fact as long as we live on planet earth. If you are looking for a place where you won’t have to say goodbye, you won’t find it here. You’ll have to go somewhere else. I think God set it up this way on purpose so that no matter where we’re from, we’ll never feel really at home anywhere. The good-byes of this life are meant to make us homesick for heaven. John Eldredge points out that most Christians have a hard time with heaven. We see it as a backup plan, something that will happen a long time from now. Meanwhile we get busy trying to create a little bit of heaven on earth. But we are disappointed again and again. And even when we are successful, nothing lasts forever. Eldredge says it rather poignantly: “God must take away the heaven we create, or it will become our hell.” Have you ever wondered why so many people have to hit rock bottom before they turn to the Lord? It’s not a coincidence—it’s how God set things up. We think real life consists in what we own and what we accomplish. But having climbed to the top of the heap, we find even the greatest success leaves us empty on the inside. It takes years and years for some of us to realize this. And you may go through four or five careers and two or three marriages before you figure it all out. Let me see if I can tie it all together: 1) This world is not our true home, and we’ll never really feel at home here. 2) All of life is one long goodbye. 3) Nothing in this world can ultimately satisfy us. 4) Even the truly good things we enjoy don’t last very long. 5) We should enjoy those good things without clinging to them because we can’t keep them forever anyway. 6) We won’t be truly at home until we are with the Lord in heaven. 7) Most of us have to learn this the hard way. 8) Eternal life begins the moment we believe, not the moment we die. 9) “Life everlasting” and “heaven” are all about knowing Jesus. 10) If we know Jesus, heaven has already begun for us even though we won’t be there completely until we meet Jesus face to face. 11) Thus, the phrase “life everlasting” answers both the futility of this life and the mystery of what happens when we die. The very worst thing that can happen to a Christian though is to start feeling at home in the wrong place. We are to be longing for a retirement that is out of this world. As Malcom Muggeridge said, “The only ultimate disaster that can befall us is to feel ourselves at home here on earth.” Conclusion:Don’t misunderstand. Everyone has “life everlasting” because everyone has an eternal soul. The issue is not “Do I have eternal life?” Rather, it’s “Where will I spend my eternal life?” If the most exciting moment of your life is behind you, you’re lost. If the most exciting moment of your life is still in front of you, you’re saved. Three men were the closest of friends. They enjoyed the out of doors and often hunted and fished together. On this occasion they found themselves around a fire in Northern India drinking coffee and watching the distant light of early dawn. Several weeks before this trip, the oldest of the three men had become a Christian. He had not yet had the opportunity to share the excitement of his new destiny with the others. As they sat around the fire they began talking about their various adventures. One of the younger men suggested they each answer the same question—What’s the most exciting experience in all your life?—by sharing some intriguing story. The first man to answer told of the tiger hunt he’d been on...about how they had to stalk the beast for more than two days. The final six hours were the most thrilling when he found himself face to face with that big cat. Just as the hungry animal leaped, he fired. The cat lay dead...but he thought he was going to die of fright. The second hunter told of an experience in Alaska, north of the Aleutian Islands, involving an enormous bear. He said it all happened so fast that it wasn’t until the whole experience was over that he realized how close to death he had been. He had to squeeze off three final rounds before that huge beast finally dropped virtually at his feet. He reminded them that the furry, skinned bear was now a rug covering the floor in his den. Finally, the oldest man spoke. "My most exciting experience? It hasn’t happened yet. But it will occur only seconds after I die." This led into an opportunity to talk with his closest friends about Christ. They listened with rapt attention as he described the thrilling anticipation he never knew before. Death was no longer a fearful thing on the distant horizon, but rather an entrance into the most awesome delight the mind can imagine. “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” Friend, all of us will retire some day but not in this world? Where will you “retire”? Where will you spend eternity?