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00:04 Blessed Easter to all of you this morning. The words that have been read out
00:12 represent an event, not in the past, even though it's
00:17 written in the past, but something that will happen one day. And what we celebrate today is that the event will
00:25 that will surely come to pass. It's the hope beyond the tomb which you've read
00:31 about this morning. Let's start off with a word of prayer. Lord, we we are a
00:37 people covered by a shroud of death. At every part of our lives, there is
00:44 pain and suffering and eventually death.
00:49 But this morning, we come with confident hope and expectation
00:55 because of what you have done 2,000 years ago. And as we delve into your
00:60 word, we ask this morning you speak to every single one of us. Address those fears, address those issues in our lives
01:08 and help us live with the power that is available to us that have raised Jesus
01:15 from the dead. For we ask for Jesus' sake. Amen.
01:20 There's three points I want to make this morning from the passage and uh first the three is basically we have hope
01:27 beyond the tomb because one immortality becomes a reality two the sting of death
01:32 is removed and three your life begins to matter now the first passage describes
01:40 us that immortality which means living forever the quality of life that's distinctly different from what we have
01:46 now becomes a reality I tell you This brothers, the sound is no good. Can we
01:51 The bass is too high, too low, and whatever that is. It's just no good. Thank you. Um the I tell you this,
01:58 brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the perishable. Here
02:05 the the problem of life is outlined. As we talk about the kingdom of God, we're talking about a kingdom that extends
02:12 forever and ever. And the problem is that with flesh and blood, you can't
02:17 inherit it. The stuff is breaking down. I was in Australia some a couple of
02:22 weeks ago and and suddenly I woke up one morning and I had some things in my eyes, you know, and uh long and I saw an
02:30 eye specialist there and also back here and apparently it's a the membrane at the back of my eye on the right had
02:37 detached. And I asked my eye specialist here, very clever young lady called Datin Tio say what's happened? What's
02:43 going to happen to my eye? Well, he said, "Why does this happen?" "Because you're old.
02:51 Can you stop it? What can I do?" Then she turned and looked at me just the other day and says, "Can you stop the
02:58 wrinkles in your eyes?" I mean, it's an inevitable thing that we
03:03 all face. It's perishable what we have. I mean that 27 uh uh verse verse 7 of
03:10 Isaiah describes it. He will swallow up the mountain. There's a covering cast over all the peoples. There's a veil spread over the nations. There is a veil
03:18 covering the whole world. And this veil is death. And this morning
03:24 in order to talk about resurrection, we actually have to talk about death. Because at some stage in life, we will all have asked our parents, "Hey, what
03:31 happened to Kungong? He's like no longer here and he's like in a box and and they'll tell us, you
03:38 know, it's okay. He's up in heaven. How do you know? And and we give some sort of story that will plate us. But we have
03:45 to face this. Young people don't face this. I was in Europe recently. We're traveling.
03:50 Everywhere I go, I I um I I see young people. You know what they're doing?
03:57 Taking selfies. What do old people do? Photograph food.
04:04 Young ladies, always marry someone your own age. Okay? As your beauty fades, his
04:10 eyesight will also fade. So that's not so bad. If you ever don't want to grow old,
04:16 don't go to the passport department. You know, when you go to passport department, you look at your picture, you age 10 years immediately. It's
04:22 terrible. And and that that's the thing that confronts us, isn't it? and and and basically if you look back there was a h
04:29 a puliter prizewinning book called the denial of death by Ernest Becker and this is basically guided the thinking of
04:36 the secular world over the last you know 30 40 years since he wrote this book it's a seminal book and he and a passage
04:44 from this tells us this is a terror to to have emerged from nothing to have a name consciousness of self deep inner
04:51 feelings and a excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression
04:57 and all with all this to die. And that's the the that's why at some
05:03 stage in life you wake up in the morning you ask your mother and father why is Kong Kong gone and will that happen to me because of all the beautiful things
05:10 you experience in this life you savor and yet at one day you got to face the fact it's going to go away and then why
05:17 bother and so therefore we begin to do all sorts of things in order to handle
05:22 this terror within our hearts we we do all that uh you know there have been
05:28 over 400 psychological studies done to look at this question and they've come
05:33 out with this idea that there is a death bias as a bias to believe that we can live on
05:41 forever regardless of the evidence. And this bias actually shapes the course of
05:46 history. It shapes the behavior of men. It shapes what you do with your life.
05:51 And there are four commonality scientists have found of this immortality stories that we tell
05:56 ourselves. It's retold time and a time again. And in culture you can see in
06:02 almost all cultures there are four stories which are common. And the first one is basically we want to live longer
06:09 or for forever we to do something. So therefore today is not global warming it's plastic plastic or perish. So
06:16 therefore we have to clean out our plastic make the world last longer. If not there are some of us who are
06:22 exploring worlds beyond. This is the artist impression of a planet called Proxima Centuri B. proxy markers in
06:30 here. If you get on the space shuttle, you travel there, it don't take you 148,000 years to get there. Some of you
06:37 won't last, especially with your eyes like mine. So, uh, Mark Twain actually quoted
06:43 towards the end of his life, life would be infinitely happier if we could be born at the age of 80 and gradually
06:49 approach 18. Isn't that either way our children will be our
06:54 grandchildren putting us in diapers, right? Either way, so we actually have a a famous uh movie called Benjamin
07:01 Button, a curious case that actually uh took those words and put it into screen.
07:07 Uh the fountain of youth, elusive, this is one Leon and he was a Spanish
07:12 explorer in the 1600s in the the US. And you know what? He traveled to Florida.
07:19 David, have you been to Florida? Yeah. many times, but obviously you drink didn't drink from this one called
07:26 the fountain of youth. Maybe it'll help my eyes. If you go
07:32 there and you drink, they're supposed to have this fountain of youth. You drink this water, you probably could live
07:38 forever. Um, it I heard there's a high sulfur content. You probably throw up if you take that, right? For the rest of us
07:44 can't go over there. We have new skin, right? We sort out our skin. We have face lift until the your ears beat in
07:50 the middle, you know? But you know inside we are still aging.
07:57 Uh California Aubrey Deg Gray has started an institute where they're actually looking at prolonging life and
08:04 he says the main problem with dying is the fact that we're aging. We got to stop aging. The cure for aging is
08:10 neither prevention nor medication is repair. And he thinks basically it's the mitochondria. These little energy
08:15 packets into our cells they're wearing down all the time. uh a and because of
08:21 the DNA dam the damage inside this mitochondria so therefore if we could repair this damage with chemicals we
08:27 could live longer there's an aging process if a man is aging from a from 40 he's going to die at 80 there's an aging
08:34 process if you could slow that down then you could live to 120 possible isn't it
08:40 uh in fact they've done this in uh uh fruit flies the extension of life 20%
08:46 and mice 35% good news for mice nothing about us yet. You can live to 100 if you
08:52 probably diet. You give up all the things that will make you want to live to 100 anyway. All right. Um now the
08:58 other idea immortality story comes out again and again is the eternal soul.
09:03 Somehow the Greeks recognize that the body is made of the body and then it's a
09:09 dichotomy and then there's a spiritual part of it and you die and you can't avoid that but somehow your soul gets
09:15 transported to the gods as it were. And this idea has been repeated time and again. In fact, liberal uh liberal uh
09:23 churches actually believe this resurrection was actually spiritual uh rather than physical. We don't believe
09:28 that. uh and the idea has trickled down and you can see even in our generation we got this idea of the brain and if you
09:36 can download your brain into a computer the essence of your of ulam and his
09:42 beautiful voice you know you hear a voice a great I love that voice can be stored and then you press a button ulam
09:49 comes alive again but scientists have also found that you can't extract a person from his brain the brain is an
09:56 organic thing if you the brain dies everything else dies with So yulam if his brain goes he will go. So that's a
10:02 problem. The third one I im immortality story that we tell ourselves to comfort ourselves to to react against death is
10:09 this idea of legacy and and our prime minister suddenly became the most influential person 100 persons in a
10:16 year. And at the back of his mind as he's seeing his predecessors destroy this country, he gets up and rails
10:23 because whatever he's done over the last 20 years, which he thinks is good, not all of it is good. Uh will be destroyed
10:31 by this other person. So he rises up because he wants to pass a legacy to the nation and perhaps he'll live on in his
10:38 sons and the party which he has raised up. Uh other people have this idea but
10:43 they're not prime minister. is uh Zeona China in India. He married 39 women, 34
10:50 women and he's got 94 children, 33 grandchildren and he will live forever
10:57 in the lives and the legacy of his children. But as Woody Allen said, I don't want to live in my children. I
11:04 want to live in my own apartment. All right. So when you die, you die with
11:09 children different from you, isn't it? All right. So uh the fourth one immortality story that comes up time and
11:16 time in society and in history is basically rebirth which is Hindu idea or
11:21 resurrection Christian idea that somehow this life will come back again. Uh rebirth is as old as Buddhism and as old
11:29 as Hinduism. And then modern one is what? Cryopreservation. Just before you die, we chop off your head and we freeze
11:35 it. Right? And a couple hundred years from now, we reanimate you with a bionic
11:40 body with your head there and the voice is still there. You
11:46 immortality stories are facts. 400 studies have shown that time and time again society has these
11:54 stories. Why? But scientists who are secular believe these stories are cooked
11:60 up so that man can deal with the reality and the awful issue of death. But al but
12:06 I think that's a little bit biased because you have to face the facts. The facts are if there are all these
12:12 immortality stories, could it also be that they're not cooked up so you can deal with the reality of death? But it
12:17 could also be that they're deeply embedded in our psyche because God has
12:23 put it there. That's actually much more logical, you know, if you you look at the facts and face the facts itself. And
12:30 and let's go back to Ecclesiastes. The smartest man in the world at the time was Solomon. And he writes two verses
12:36 which I'm going to read to you. Number one, he has made everything beautiful in this time. He has also put eternity into
12:42 the man's heart so that he cannot find out what God has done from beginning to the end. But there is eternity. There's
12:49 eternity in his heart. He's always looking forward. That's why there are immortality stories and the purpose of
12:55 the fear of mortality as I perceive that whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it nor anything
13:02 taken forever. But God has done so that people fear before him. The fear of death
13:08 is important is actually put into our hearts so that we will turn to him.
13:15 That's actually the purpose of life. And so therefore the facts of immortality comes out. uh Paul in the earlier
13:22 chapter part of this chapter says I delivered to you as our first importance what I received Christ died for our sins
13:27 in accordance to scripture he was buried raised on the third day accordance to the scriptures he appeared to Keus and
13:32 then to the 12 it appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time and most of whom are still alive though some have
13:38 fallen asleep if you go back there is solid proof there are 500 people who
13:44 have actually seen the risen Christ and if you look at it 75% of scholars also
13:49 believe non-Christian scholars as well that the tomb was empty. There is nobody in the tomb. The changed lives of the
13:57 disciples these 500 plus people like Paul, James, people who were totally
14:02 against Jesus whole lives completely changed. These are historical facts which time in a time secular people
14:09 refused to accept. What's a process of immortality? Let's look at the process this morning. It's a process which we
14:16 will all face one day. Sounds great, uh, Malcolm. Thanks very much.
14:23 Behold, I tell you a mystery. We would not all sleep. We will be changed. In a
14:31 moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, the trumpet will sound and the dead will raise be raised
14:37 imperishable. And we will all be changed. Right at the last minute when you're on your air Asia trip to Bali
14:43 when you just won your no echo hello to collect ticket
14:48 a trumpet will sound sharks Jesus just came again
14:55 would you say that if if they say oh sharks you know Jesus came again that's a wrong response isn't it for some of us
15:03 will be on that trip to Bali when the Lord comes a lot of us will probably be
15:10 But but it's okay. We will be raised. And when we be raised, we will be raised
15:15 imperishable. We will not rot again. We will be
15:20 different. And so it is with the resurrection of dead. What this is for
15:26 uh earlier on in the passage, what is sown is perishable. What is
15:32 raised is imperishable. It's sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness is raised in power is
15:39 thrown in a natural body is raised in a spiritual body. If there's a natural body there's also a spiritual body. What
15:45 Paul is trying to do is say people say this is not logical. You die means you die. No Paul is saying look at the seed.
15:52 It's an analogy of the seed. You know during World War II, William Barlay writes of a a church in England and they
16:00 were having a harvest festival thanking God for the harvest and they actually uh got up all the corn and a lot of
16:08 presents to going to celebrate and then just at that time the the siren came on and the Nazis came and bombed and the
16:14 whole church was blown to bits. Nothing was left behind. Few months later on you know what
16:20 happened? The corn that was blown up started to grow
16:26 up sheav and sheav of corn. The Nazi bombs could not destroy life. You know
16:33 why? Life is in the seed. But the seed has to die. For the seed to die and then
16:40 life comes. And Paul is saying look what is sown is a perishable body so that when you come up again will be life. You
16:48 cannot stop life. Jesus say you cannot stop life. What is
16:53 sown looks terrible. It goes into the ground but he will come up again. And
16:58 the pattern of this is Jesus. He says the first man was there from earth a man
17:04 of dust. The second man is from heaven. And there as the man of dust so also are
17:10 those who are of the dust. Which means the first man is Adam. He's of the dust. And as he dies so shall we. It's
17:18 natural. It follows that pattern and so are those who are also of heaven. Just
17:24 as we are born the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man. Just as we have borne Adam's
17:30 image, Adam's mortality, Adam's weakness, Adam's pain and suffering, we
17:37 will also bear the second man. The second man is in heaven. Just as he has died and rose again, we made after the
17:47 image of the second man will similarly rise. So for this perishable body must put on the imperishable and this mortal
17:54 body must put on immortality. That's how he declares it's going to happen. That's what happens when the tomb when the
18:01 stone was moved away. Death was rolled away. Second of all,
18:07 there's a sting of death is removed. It reads here, "For when the perishable
18:13 puts on the imperishable, the mortal puts on immortality, then shall it come to pass." There is a prophecy here.
18:21 Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your victory? Or death,
18:26 where is your sting? The sting of death is sin. And the power of sin is the law.
18:31 These are powerful words. But if you look at the world, you look at one of the smartest men in the world, you know
18:37 what he says? I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven
18:43 or afterlife or broken down for broken down computers. There's a fairy story for people afraid of the dark. That's
18:49 what he says. So therefore just as when you die your computer stops. Oh computer stops. You don't have a funeral do you
18:57 do you? You don't. U Epicurius a a a Greek philosopher writes similar
19:03 sentiments and these things are actually coming back in the minds of the secular world. uh death doesn't concern us
19:09 because as long as we exist, death is not there. Once it does come, we no
19:14 longer exist. So what's it's not logical for you to worry about death, isn't it? Right? When the death comes, are you
19:20 there? No, you're already buried. Why you going to worry about it? In fact, uh modern philosophers uh Liginstein
19:26 writes, "Death is not an event in life. We don't live to experience death because when you're dead, you're not
19:32 when you're dead, actually you're not there, you know. When you're alive, you're alive. So death is actually like what a book a book has front cover and
19:40 back cover they say right and where are you you are in the pages in between when
19:46 you beginning you I mean how many of you remember you like you remember the the 15 years you were there swimbing around
19:52 as a sperm doing the breast stroke and then the the
19:59 backstroke preparing for life do you remember or not if you don't remember your life as a sperm You think you'll
20:05 remember your life after you've died? That's what they are saying. All right.
20:11 But it's a bit stupid, isn't it? Because if you look at the order of life, God gives various orders of life. You know,
20:18 if if you are an apple or a plant, you know, when when when Suzanne and Pan
20:24 play the piano and the violin, it's just noise to you. You can't even you can't even hear it. If you're an animal, you
20:32 might. And a human, you would love it. the different orders of life which are able to capture or understand the
20:37 reality. The greater order of life is the greater cap encapsulation of reality. So here you actually say I mean
20:44 when was the last time you have a chimpanzeee come up to you and and and scratch you on the back say hey I'm worried about what is going to happen to
20:50 me when I die. The chimpanzeee won't do that even if you could talk. They actually can sign
20:56 language for death for them is like nothing the end of the book. They only exist within the covers of the book. And
21:02 what secular philosophers are saying that we are like animals. We we are the only people on the earth
21:09 to worry about dying. And yet they want us to be like animals and go back in the second order of life. All right? So that
21:15 we are not sensitive to death which makes no difference. So what's the big deal about death? The big deal about death is death is like a scorpion as a
21:23 sting. If death is just death and you transition from one part of life to
21:28 another, there's not a problem, isn't it? I agree with you. But the Bible says
21:33 the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. That's the problem.
21:40 It is death. Why is it that when when when l when a baby is born, all of us get excited, we we bring presents,
21:46 right? We go to the hospital, everybody's rejoicing. When somebody dies, you do the same thing. Is it
21:53 we bring present? We have a party. Sounds like it in some ways, you know, but we don't because instinctively it's
22:01 not the back end of a book, you know, we all believe there's something else going on. In fact, there was a experiment
22:08 done. So these studies on what we call psychologist call mortality salience. uh
22:13 22 municipal judge in Tucson, Arizona. Half of them were control group and the
22:18 other half was the experimental group. What they did was they we gave them questions that made half the judges, the
22:24 11 of them think about death. That's all. Just think about death. After that,
22:31 then they set them on the court and they had to pronounce the bail for
22:37 prostitutes caught in Tucson, Arizona. And they found that the average bond or
22:44 bail set by the control judges was $50. But the ones who are reminded of death,
22:49 their bond is $455. Wow. Huge, isn't it? Why? Because if you are not reminded of
22:56 death, then you think uh death is nothing. All right. So the reminders of death reinforce notions of morality. You
23:04 don't just die. You know, you have to face something after death. That's why
23:10 death is terrifying. You have to, you know, in fact, there was a great uh preacher called Spurgeon
23:16 and he and he actually preached a sermon on this and he said one day when you're dying, all right, it's just like the the
23:22 the the the funeral. After a while, you know, the pleasantries are exchanged, everybody
23:28 files past the body, right? And have a quick look. Some of us don't want to look. And we, you know, and you walk
23:34 away. Imagine his surgeon said that one day when you have someone die and then
23:40 everybody comes up and says ha you cheated me of my money million dollars right and then another woman come ha you
23:46 slept with me then you left me alone another person comes out that's a fact and that's terrifying isn't it because
23:53 everything you done in life there's a price to pay there's a
23:58 judgment that's why the sting of death is sin that's why Lady McBth in
24:04 Shakespeare walks around said out damn spot out. She murdered people and every
24:10 time she washes hands she cannot wash the blood away because there's guilt and guilt of sin is a sting of death and the
24:19 law says the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is actually ironically
24:25 the law. The law is spiritual. You you can't obey it entirely. All right. The
24:33 young man goes to Jesus say I I obey the whole law. Jesus say you go and sell everything cannot. He fails. You say I I
24:41 haven't done adultery. But Jesus say you look at a woman with lust also committed. The law is spiritual. You you
24:46 die. There's no way for you to fulfill that law. It's it's it's comprehensive. There's no mercy under the law. There's
24:52 no part of the law that tells you give you chance. And and every sin is a punishment. You can't even break the
24:59 traffic rules of Koala Lumpo and you tell the policeman, "Hey, I've been a good boy for 30 years of my life. This time you must let me go. I'm entitled."
25:06 The law says every transgression has a punishment. So the law is like a wall.
25:13 And what is sin? Sin takes you and smashes you against the wall because you're trying to break the wall and the
25:18 wall will break your head. You either smash against the wall, it'll break your head, or you try to climb the wall and the wall is so tall you'll never climb
25:24 it, you fall down, you die. That's what gives the power of sin is given by a law
25:31 of God. And in fact the law is so uh uh powerful that but sin seizing an
25:38 opportunity. This is Paul in Romans through the commandment produce in me all sorts of coverages. The fact that you actually have a law actually
25:44 stimulates our sinful body. Have you tried to tell kids don't touch? Huh? The moment you say don't touch will touch.
25:51 It produces all sorts of covetousness. So you have this nexus law, sin, death,
25:60 right? Death is terrifying because of sin and what gives terror such force is the entire law of God that stands by it.
26:06 And and Jonathan Edwards says all three are like three balls of steel and
26:12 they're dragging you down further and further and further down into the abyss
26:18 which is judgment. But thanks be to God who gives us victory through our Lord
26:25 Jesus Christ. And and here he is. All right. This is the victory because why
26:31 should mortality be swallowed up by immortality? Because there is a prophecy by two prophets. One of them is Isaiah.
26:40 The other one is contemporary is called Hosea prophesied 700 years before the coming of Christ. And the first one it
26:47 says death is swallowed up in victory. And if you go back to Isaiah, he predicted it to the southern kingdom. He
26:53 will swallow up death forever. One day he will wipe away all the tears from our
26:60 faces and reproach of his people. We take away from all the earth. For the Lord has spoken. The second one is
27:06 death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? This is actually
27:11 taken from Hosea who actually prophesied to the northern kingdom. Paul actually
27:17 alters the words a little bit to suit his purposes or is probably from a version of the Bible which we don't have
27:23 a extent copy of but it says oh death I shall ransom them from the power of
27:29 shield I shall redeem them from death where's your plagues where's your sting
27:35 compassion isn't from my is delivery but notice the word I will ransom I will
27:40 redeem so 700 years before Christ comes already tells us he's going to pay
27:45 ransom. He's not just going to make the sin disappear. No, he's going to ransom. And the ransom is the body of Christ. So
27:53 therefore, today the sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law. And
28:00 what we actually have is a stingless death. Oh death, where's your victory?
28:06 Oh death, where's your sin? You know what? This is actually a taunt. Paul is standing up. You know Ernest Becker says
28:13 all of us are so terrified of death. We hide here we hide there. We all sort of immortality stories. Paul's approach to
28:19 death is different. He stands up to death and say haha where's your victory? Where's your
28:24 sting? It is a taunt based on what Christ has done. That is
28:31 what every Christian should stand up today on Easter. We stand up and look. I
28:37 know there was a very bad man. and his name was Timothy McVey,
28:43 right? He he he very cruel ideas and he blew up some government building in Oklahoma, killed hundreds of people and
28:50 and when they actually brought him to the execution chamber, he was stoic, he
28:56 was defiant. He handed the executioner a piece of paper and on it was a poem uh
29:03 by by this chap British poet called Henley, you know, called Invictus. I am the and the last two lines was I am the
29:10 master of my faith. I am the captain of my soul. And they
29:16 executed him. That's all you actually that's the best you could actually do. You know die
29:24 in a sullen stubborn manner. But Paul is different here. When you face death, you can stare
29:31 death in the face and says where's your victory? Where's the sting? In fact, you know what Paul says? For me to live is
29:38 Christ to die is gain. You see that's the kind
29:44 of victory what we sing about in Easter. That's the kind of power that is infused
29:50 in us. You know because of this our lives suddenly begin to make sense. You
29:56 know why? Therefore my beloved be steadfast be immovable always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that
30:03 your labor is not in vain. Therefore means because you're going to be immortal, because the sting is removed
30:11 from death, your labor is not in vain. Which means
30:16 the whole idea is that death takes away meaning. Ernest Becker writes, "The fear
30:22 of death that humans experience though lies not so much in the death of
30:27 the body, but in the death of meaning, for it is meaning that defines the human self and society."
30:34 What if I said that you had to you can live forever on the back side of the moon alone? How many of you think that's
30:42 eternal life? Nobody will sign up for that because there's no meaning. Meaning is very very important to human soul. We
30:49 all derive meaning from our professions, from our families, from our projects.
30:54 We're called immortality projects. In fact, there was a there's a photographer who actually ministered to
31:01 dead dying kids with cancer and they took pictures of the kids in whatever
31:07 poses that they wanted. And these are some of the pictures that the kids wanted to immort immortalize themselves
31:14 before they die. These are kids dying of of cancer. You know what? Look at the pictures. Look at her. Does that look
31:21 like somebody dying? Except the hair. Look at that.
31:26 Look at that. Look at that. Look at that.
31:31 Every single one of them reflects the human spirit that desires immortality
31:37 that desires meaning. Whether it's basketball player, basketball or or
31:42 fairy or something that that part that desire for meaning gives meaning to life. This is Tiger Woods 2008.
31:51 I can't remember the time he won the fourth master. Look at the smile on his face. Not bad.
31:58 And then look at compare the smile today. Ph. Huge difference in it. Huge huge
32:04 difference. You know what? Because his meaning in life is golf. After four back surgeries, the last one
32:10 of which he could hardly get out of bed, one divorce and one jail stin because of driving under the influence, he finally
32:18 wins. I mean, that's him. I mean for him his whole life is just winning another master's title and another master's
32:24 title another master's title and in between if you have a goal in life you have a meaning in life you want to marry
32:30 the perfect woman you want to have the best house you're going to have the 10 years of Tiger Woods suffering and pain
32:36 you know why I must win I must win and you didn't win in fact the goals make
32:42 you most stressed out isn't it you look at the other world champion his name is Michael Phelps the most decorated
32:48 Olympian in industry. And in between winning the last Olympics, his his his
32:54 coach wrote and told him, "Michael, you have all the money anyone your age could ever want or need. You have profound
32:60 influence in the world. You have free time. You have the most miserable person I know." Why? Because his meaning of
33:07 life is to be focused on another Olympic gold medal. And somehow somewhere the
33:13 Olympic gold medals are going to going. I mean Michael why can't you chill out enough medals
33:21 isn't it? But you can't because he's fixed his meaning on there. You can't avoid that. We will do whatever it takes
33:29 to get meaning. This Ernest Shackleton, world famous explorer uh about 100 years
33:34 ago. Well, yeah, almost uh and and he sailed his ship to cross the the
33:40 Antarctic. And you know before he sailed the ship in this very hazardous journey, which actually was very very hazardous,
33:46 he put out advertisement. Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter
33:52 cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return, doubtful,
33:58 honor and recognition in case of success. How many of you sign up?
34:06 And in fact, the author writes, "All of England line up
34:11 English stupid or what? You won't see a China man lining up there for sure." But
34:17 people line up. You know why? Because honor and recognition because people are looking for some sort of meaning to
34:24 their lives. But you look at someone who has rechieved all the honor and all the women you ever want in your whole life.
34:31 Hugh Hefner, right? At the height of a huge Playboy empire. He's got a huge Manson. And then towards the end of his
34:37 life, he goes to bed at 9:30 at night. No girls next to him. You know what does he do? spends all his time reading the
34:45 2,485 volumes of scrapbooks of him having sex with these women, him living
34:51 a good life, and all he can do in the final year is just look back at the scrapbooks
34:58 because somehow no matter how successful you are, the only thing you got is to look back at your scrapbook. Isn't it? You could be the most successful surgeon
35:04 in the world, but when your eyes give way, your hands give way, you look back.
35:10 But actually you remember only the five fellows who sued you. That's a fact. You don't remember the hund I don't remember
35:16 the 100,000 that I've treated. Well, I only remember five fellows who sue you. That's all. And that's a fact of life,
35:22 isn't it? In fact, in that case, suicide in Malaysia has been rising. If you look, suicide rates have increased 60%
35:28 over the last 45 years. 60%. In fact, 30,000 family members or friends have
35:34 been affected. Why? Because if you fix your meaning to something that will not last, when that
35:40 something ends, you'll be like Hugh Hefner looking back and you've got no other reason to live. This is a study
35:48 done uh uh uh published in the journal of American Medical Association uh psychiatry division in 2016 to look at
35:57 nurses. There are about 89,78 women who are basically nurses and they
36:03 want to look at the suicide rates because suicide rates among nurses are are are pretty high because they deal
36:09 with horrible people called doctors, right? I feel like strangling them. So they
36:15 don't strangle them, they kill themselves. Uh and they looked at those and you know what happened? They found
36:21 that the but that that the most important factor that actually predicted or correlated with the the the suicide
36:29 rate was attending a church service. If you attended church service or religious
36:34 service, your suicide rate is five times lower important than marital status,
36:40 group participation, number of close friends, number of relatives, number of close friends seen at least once a month, number of those close relatives
36:46 seen at least once a month. Nothing correlates compared to something that
36:52 will last beyond your life. So therefore, my brothers, be steadfast, immovable. You see, steadfast is what
36:59 that means? Continue on the road. Immovable means when the winds of change
37:05 come, when suffering comes and trials come, it doesn't blow you off. Abounding, you know what abounding
37:12 means? But abounding means doing above and beyond.
37:18 Above and beyond. The best example I can give you is Malcolm Anderson. He's here
37:24 more than anybody I know in the entire church. And he's gone above and beyond.
37:30 I think we got to cut him down so that he can rest. That's a perfect example for us.
37:36 Abounding Lord. Because you know why? knowing that in the Lord your labor is
37:44 not in finally because the issue is taken care of, you're going to be immortal.
37:50 The sting of death removed. Whatever you do is going to count. And sometimes there's a contradiction. If you look in
37:56 the uh uh in the scriptures, sometimes Paul fears that his labor is in vain. If you look in Galatians, you observe days
38:02 and months and years, and I'm afraid I may have labored over you in vain. Philippians I holding fast to the word
38:09 of life so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or run in vain or labor in vain or
38:15 Thessalonians for this reason that when I could bear it no longer I I sent to learn about your faith for fear that
38:21 somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain and and here we have an apparent contradiction
38:27 sometimes he's afraid that his labored in vain and in Corinthians knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain
38:34 and the reason is because he's worried the fruits of his labor in this life
38:40 because when you actually minister in the church, it doesn't necessarily depend on you. You can share the gospel,
38:46 but the people can walk away. They have free will. They can decide. So therefore, he's worried that even though
38:53 he's worked so hard, they may walk away and his labor was in vain. But looking
38:59 at this in the Lord, your labor is not in vain is in a context of eternity. Even if you serve in a church that had
39:06 three people left in the end, if it was a labor done for him, in him by him, it
39:15 will not be in vain. Johannes VMA, how
39:20 many of you recognize who he is? Lived in the 1600s, country called
39:26 Netherlands, right? And uh he was a painter, not a very successful painter.
39:32 In fact, his wife always nagged him, you know, because financial problem. So, he had take besides painting, he had to be
39:38 an inkeeper. Uh he had to do another job and he died because of financial
39:43 pressure, right? And he and this is his painting that he did. It's called the
39:49 young woman seated at a virginal. Sold at auction for $30 million in 2004.
39:56 Not bad, huh? But he died poor. Anybody recognize who painted this one?
40:04 Vincent Van Go. Man who actually painted in his last decade of life 2,100
40:10 artworks. The last two years 860 artworks.
40:16 When he died, you know how many painting he sold? This one.
40:22 One. All right. This is portrait of Dr.
40:28 Gosher sold for 82 billion uh in 1990
40:33 but Vinceman Gango benefited is it no
40:39 he's his children grandchildren who it doesn't affect him at all but sometimes good work is only recognized when you
40:47 die isn't it that's a sad part because if you you know it's good for Michael Phelps
40:52 because he actually gets the gold medal what about the rest of us who don't get gold medals if you're working for something and you're not the best and
40:59 you don't have the accolades and you don't have the self-esteem because people are too stupid to see how clever
41:05 you are. Yeah. They take 500 200 years to see how clever you are. My goodness, you go to
41:12 school, you got FF and then 200 years later, oh, I just a genius.
41:18 He should have passed his SPM, but we actually failed him, right? So, we should actually dig up all our SPM
41:23 results and have a look. Therefore, because we are immortal,
41:30 because the issue of sin is dealt with, your labor is not in vain. Brothers and sisters, Ephesians chapter 2, let me
41:38 end. We are his workmanship, created in Christ for good works, which God
41:44 prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. You know, do you translate the word workmanship? Pyma is actually we
41:50 are his masterpiece. Wow. We're like Vincent Van Go's
41:56 masterpiece. God works on us every aspect of our personality, every aspect
42:03 of our character, every work that you do. But the word there is what we, you know, not you. No, whenever you
42:09 interpret this Bible, everybody say, "Oh, I'm God's masterpiece. I'm so beautiful. I'm so great. I take selfie
42:15 every day. No need to photograph food anymore." The word is we. We means who? First
42:22 Baptist Church. The church of Jesus Christ as a collective body we reflect the kind
42:30 of masterpiece. So we have to interact together to become the masterpiece which he has designed us to be the masterpiece
42:37 so that when the world looks at us we will encapsulate the body and beauty
42:42 of Jesus Christ because not every single one of you a single person cannot do that. You can only reflect that in the
42:48 body and I can see so many of you with so many different gifts and so many different characters and you drop the
42:54 differences behind and you come together as one family. That is the beauty of Christ and that's
42:60 why you have to come to the church camp
43:08 because pastor Chris will help us along the road to become that masterpiece
43:16 created for God so that the world will look at us and find salvation. You you
43:21 never know the kind of effect we're going to have. If you look at John Kelvin, he's like one of two people
43:28 responsible for all that is good in the reformation. All
43:33 right? In fact, Luther had more funny ideas. Calvin is the one who really put things together, one of the reformed
43:40 faith in the world. Uh a quiet man who worked in Geneva. Uh and and and
43:45 basically if you look at the American con constitution, right? We hold these
43:51 truths to be self-evident that men are created equal. They'll be endowed by their creator with certain unalienable
43:57 rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happ. You know where Thomas Jefferson got that
44:02 idea? From John Kelvin because in those days royalties up there, officials up there,
44:09 you are nobody. There is no equality. And Calvin is one started this idea that
44:15 men are created equal. Men can read the Bible for themselves. Men can decide
44:21 their futures. And then it started off and the Puritans were affected by it. The Puritans came over to America and
44:27 they're the ones who influenced Thomas Jefferson to write this. See, years later on the effect comes and in fact
44:35 Calvin represents a perfect idea of what the meaning of life is. When he died
44:42 after all the accolades he had, he he had very specific instructions. You bury me in an unmarked grave. Buried in an
44:51 unmarked grave. Somebody put a somebody disobeyed him and put a stone there. Actually, there's no stone. All right.
44:58 You know why he puts an unmarked grave? Because the works that he get he has
45:05 is rewarded by our Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't need you to recognize him 200 years later on. It's too late date
45:12 already. But knowing his labor in the Lord is not in vain. There's somebody who looks at
45:18 you. Every single thing that you do to honor and glorify our Lord Jesus Christ, every single bit, he will not let you
45:26 go. And then there's no longer a stone that seals my hope within the grave.
45:32 Each regret and fear that gripped my heart has been rolled away. Like the rising of the morning sun, let the
45:38 rescued ones resound. Hallelujah. The tomb is empty now and I'm going to pray
45:45 a prayer and this is a prayer of Paul in the book of Ephesians. He prays that the
45:52 the eyes of your heart that be as if your heart got eyes be enlightened
45:59 to know what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who
46:04 believe according to the work of his might great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead
46:11 seated him at the right hand of the heavenly places far above all rule authority power dominion above every
46:17 name that is named not only in this age but also in the age to come you All the atomic bombs, all the hydrogen bombs in
46:23 the world, you put them together and blow them up, they don't even produce a fraction of power required to raise a
46:29 person from the dead. That kind of power can only take life. It cannot produce life. And there's a
46:37 great power. It's not only resurrection. When God raised Jesus from the dead, the power was so immense. Don't raise him
46:43 from the dead, but sit him on the right hand in heavenly places, far above everything else. That same power, do you
46:48 know that same power is released to the church of Jesus Christ,
46:56 that same power is in us. That's why when Paul prays in Ephesians chapter uh one here, he prays that you actually see
47:04 this power. The same power that raised Jesus from dead is now inside us.
47:11 And so therefore, we stare death and says, "Where's your victory? Where's
47:16 your sting? The stone is rolled away. And the message of Easter is that we live in the
47:24 total power and victory of Jesus Christ.
