Passage

Acts 1: 10-11

"And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven."

Introduction

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Today is Easter. To those who have become God's children by faith it is the happiest day of the year.

Jesus was crucified to redeem all mankind from sin. He broke the authority of death and resurrected on the third day. Let us give thanks and glory to our Lord of the resurrection!

John 11:25-26 says, "Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?"

Do you believe this?

If you believe in Jesus Christ from the depth of your heart and have the assurance of salvation then you should have said 'Amen'.

Those who have the hope of resurrection like the Lord can overcome any kind of difficulties on this earth. They can rejoice and give thanks no matter what kind of trials they face to become sanctified.

Then, when and how will we be resurrected? Today's passage gives us the answer.

The resurrected Lord ascended into heaven while His disciples and many other people were watching Him. As He was going up into the sky, a cloud covered Him and He disappeared.

To those disciples who were just looking at the sky, two angels appeared and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven."

Yes, it is true. Just as our Lord ascended into heaven through the clouds, He will come with clouds when He comes back again.

When the Lord comes back again in clouds, we believers will also resurrect. First, those believers who have already died will resurrect.
Their dead bodies will resurrect into imperishable spiritual bodies and combine with their spirit coming down from heaven.
Next, those believers who receive the Lord while still living will be transformed into imperishable bodies in an instant and be caught up into the air.

About this, 1 Corinthians 15:52 says, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed."

Those believers who resurrect like this will have the 7 years at a wedding banquet with the Lord in the air, and will reign on this earth with the Lord for one thousand years.

They will then receive their rewards at the Great White Throne Judgment and then go into their respective dwelling places, where they will live happy lives forever.

But, if the Lord did not resurrect, could we have this hope of heavenly kingdom? We can have hope of the resurrection because our Lord has become the first fruit of resurrection.

Today, I will talk to you about the kind of heart that those who truly have the hope of resurrection have. I pray in the name of the Lord that you will be filled with the hope of resurrection more and win the victory always.

Body

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, those who have hope of resurrection, first of all, will cast off evil from their heart and overcome evil with goodness.

In other words, the more you cast off evil from your heart and fill it with goodness, the more hope of the resurrection you will have.

If you think everything in goodness and overcome evil with goodness, you will have more hope of resurrection.

When He became the Lord of resurrection, Jesus also had only goodness. 1 Peter 2:23 says, "...and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously;"

Jesus did not hate even those who were trying to kill Him. He rather had pity on them that they were being used as evil instruments in fulfilling God's providence.

Of course, God did not appoint them to play the evil role.
It's just that they became slaves of the devil by their own accord because of the evil in their heart, and they stood against Jesus, the Son of God.

For example, Judas Iscariot heard many words and witnessed the power of God firsthand as a disciple.

But because he didn't cast off his evil, he finally sold Jesus out. The enemy devil and Satan knew his heart was filled with evil such as arrogance and wrongful desires and incited the evil in his heart.

Because Jesus knew this wretched spiritual situation of Judas, He had pity on him.

So, Matthew 26:24 says, "The Son of Man is to go, just as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born."
It was not that Jesus' heart was hurt or He had hardship because another person was acting in evil.

He had pain in heart because another person was committing sins and was going in the way of destruction because of the evil in his heart.

He had pity on those people who were stained with evil in the heart and acted in that evil. Even when He was hung on the cross, how did He pray for those who were crucifying Him?

Luke 23:34 says, "But Jesus was saying, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."

Because Jesus did not have any kind of evil in heart at all, He did not show any evil against any kind of evil challenges but only goodness.

Because He did not commit any sins, He could resurrect.

He was killed though He was innocent. And, because He was sinless, He did not have to be tied to the curse of the law that dictates "the wages of sin is death".

Because I know this spiritual law too, I reacted only with goodness in the face of any kind of evil challenges.
There were people who spread false rumors to disturb our ministry. Some of them left this church from which they received grace and stood against it following their desires of flesh.

Because of those people we had to face a great deal of loss and difficulties for the moment.

But, even at that time we did not react with evil, but only with goodness. We did not reveal their unrighteousness. We did not get angry at them or fight back against them.

We just prayed so that those people could also be guided to the way of goodness and life.

As a result of reacting with only goodness toward evil, we could receive great blessings from God the Father.

It means that it has been clearly proven that there are no grounds for us to be persecuted without any reason by evil people.

This is overcoming evil with goodness. I hope you will always overcome evil with goodness through hope of the resurrection.

But to the extent that you have evil in your heart, you have less strength to overcome with goodness.

If your feelings are hurt and if you hate someone because he is giving you a hard time, you cannot overcome evil with goodness. You will only be the devil's prey.

The enemy devil and Satan have the authority to control evil hearts through the evil in people's hearts.

For example, they can agitate the evil of your heart through people around you.

If you have evil feelings or speak evil words when the enemy devil and Satan touch you, they will rejoice saying to you, "Well done!"

Therefore, if you have agitation of the ill-feelings, you at least have to suppress it.

You have to hold on to the word of God all the time. Also, by praying fervently, you have to pull out the evil in your heart that agitated the ill-feelings.

Then, when you face the same kind of situation next time, you won't have ill-feelings but you will be able to overcome it with goodness.

If you accumulate goodness this way, and reach the proper level according to justice, then, you will begin to receive amazing blessings. You will receive blessings in all matters in a completely different dimension.

I pray in the name of the Lord that you will all come into this level of blessings.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, secondly, those who have hope of resurrection have spiritual love in them.

If Jesus had had no love, there wouldn't have been the sufferings of cross. Then, naturally, there wouldn't have been the glory of resurrection.

But an exceedingly great love is contained in the heart of Jesus.

First, with His love for the Father God, He humbled Himself according to God's will and obeyed even unto death.
Also, He had great love for the souls. That's why He could take the punishment of death in place of sinners.

Likewise, to the extent that we show our spiritual love in deeds and truth, we can participate in greater glory of resurrection.

To do this, first, we have to love God the Father and the Lord truly. What is to love the Lord?

Is it to attend church every Sunday? To give many offerings like tithes and thanks offerings? To evangelize many people?

Of course these are all ways of showing love for the Lord.

But, John 14:15 says, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." Therefore, to love God truly, is to live by God's word.

The more you live by the word of God, the more hope of resurrection you will have.

The more hope of resurrection you have, the less lingering attachment you will have for the things of this world.

Because you can gain eternal and imperishable things, you don't have any reason to have such feelings for perishing, fleshly things.

So, in case of material possessions for example, you would rather store riches in heaven than on this earth.

Rather than enjoying your life in the passing moments of this world, you try to gain glory in the eternal heavenly kingdom. It's not only about wealth.
If you accomplish spiritual love with the hope of resurrection, you will live a life of devotion.

It's because you have the true hope to gain more precious things in the life to come.

So, you won't insist on your belongings on this earth but just keep on giving to others.
Even the things that you have achieved, if necessary, you can just lay them down.

It's the same in any kind of position, fame, or authority in the Lord.

You won't try to be served only because you are the first.

If you have spiritual love with the hope of resurrection, you will always consider others first.

Soon, God the Father will send so many people to this church. I hope you will be full of this kind of love so that you will be able to softly embrace all the newcomers.

I hope you will receive them with warm hearts so that they will not feel any kind of difference or barrier in their hearts. You are first to have listened to the holiness gospel, and you should be able to consider others who are coming later.

This way, you should be able to add the strength of spiritual love to them so that they can also go into better heavenly dwelling places with the hope of resurrection.

The deed of love that you show will eventually come back to you.

God remembers all your devotions of love and rewards you with heavenly rewards.

Therefore, I hope you will cultivate more perfect spiritual love beginning with this Easter.
Brothers and sisters, thirdly and lastly, those who have hope of resurrection will have unending joy and thanks on their lips.

Just as the resurrection of our Lord is true and real, we will have spiritual bodies at the time of resurrection and live in eternal heavenly kingdom.

Spiritual bodies have no disabilities, pains, or tiredness. Also, the heavenly kingdom in which we will live forever has roads that are pure gold. It is a place decorated with many kinds of jewels.

If you truly believe that you will be an owner of this heavenly kingdom, you can rejoice and give thanks in all things.

Suppose you know that tomorrow you will have billions of dollars.

But today, you have nothing to eat and are starving. Also, your debtors called you and gave you a hard time insisting that you pay the money back.

Because you faced these difficulties and couldn't eat, would you be sad and have heartaches over it?

No, you would not be sad because you will have billions of dollars tomorrow. It won't be hard.

Those who have the hope of resurrection are somewhat like this.
Because they have heavenly kingdom in their heart which is much more precious than billions of dollars, they don't feel any difficulties about anything on this earth.

But we may lose joy and thanks easily although we are believers in God. It's because we don't have that much heavenly kingdom in our heart.

We want something of this world, and because we cannot get it, we have complaints in our hearts.

We may even speak words of complaints feeling it is hard. Those who are really filled with hope of resurrection will not feel troubled by the difficulties of the realities of this life.

They rejoice with faith and give thanks with faith.

God the Father sees this faith and also changes the reality into a kind of reality which is really good and for which we can give thanks. The problems are solved and we will receive blessings.

If you just accomplish one thing 'joy' completely or 'thanks' completely, you can receive such great blessings.

Therefore, I hope you will be filled with the hope of resurrection fully, and all the complaints will go away from you.

I hope your resentments will all go away. Fleshly sorrow and mourning should go away, too.

I hope you will be able to rejoice and give thanks for all things so that you can receive spiritual and material blessings. I hope the blessed fruit of joy and thanks given by God will fill your lives completely.

Conclusion

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Easter, I talked to you about the hope of resurrection.

Those who have the hope of resurrection, first of all, overcome evil with goodness.

Secondly, they have spiritual love in heart, and thirdly, they will have joy and thanks all the time on their lips.

Reflecting upon yourselves and on this message, how great a hope of the resurrection do you have?

Just as you have to take hold of the heavenly kingdom by force, you have to do the same for the hope of the resurrection.

The more you cast off evil and fill yourself with goodness, the more hope of resurrection you will have. The more you love God the Father passionately and live by the word of God, the more hope of resurrection you will have.

And those who really have hope of resurrection will not lose their joy and thanks no matter what kind of situation they face in this world.

Unbelievers say if they have something really good, they will smile and laugh alone even while they are sleeping.

If you are full of hope of resurrection, you will have joy and thanks in your heart that cannot be taken away by anybody.

I pray in the name of the Lord that you will live a wonderful spiritual life with joy and thanks and also enjoy glorious life in heavenly kingdom.

Amen