If I Should Die Before I Wake

Good morning everyone, or good afternoon or evening depending on when you’re watching us today. Thank you for joining us for this virtual Sunday service.

Our apologies for changing things up here at the last minute, but the forecast for tomorrow morning looks a little iffy as far as some freezing rain goes, and we’re also dealing with another community surge of Covid that unfortunately has affected a few members of the church.

Given all of that, we decided it was best to give everyone a little space this week to stay home and stay safe, and I feel confident that we’ll all be back here in person again next Sunday. In the meantime, please pray for Beth Sakshaug and the Bartleys — EW, Crystal, and Kylie — as they recuperate from the virus. They’re all doing much better. And please be safe, and do all those things we all know by now we should to stay healthy.

Also, please keep Jennifer Kennedy in your prayers. She had trouble breathing on Friday night and had to go to the ER. She does not have Covid but had double pneumonia, so please pray for her and her family.

Let’s begin with prayer:

Father, we thank and praise you for the life you have so richly given us. Thank you for the incredible blessing of being your sons and daughters and for the beautiful creations you have made us to be.

Lord, we give you all that we are and ask that we might engage with your Spirit today. We lift our hearts that you might fill them with new love. We lift our minds that you would pour fresh hope into our thinking.

We lift our souls that they may bathe in your grace. We lift our hands and our voices to sing your praises, as we come to worship and adore you our Lord, our great Creator. Today we offer you our whole beings in worship to you. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

I Pray the Lord My Soul to Take

How about another little prayer as an introduction to our sermon today:

“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

Have you ever heard of that one? I said it every night from the time I was five until I was probably ten or so. Sue told me this week that she used to say it every night, too, though she added a bit to it — “If I should die before I wake, you’ll know I died of a stomach ache.”

It was always comforting for me to say that prayer, but it seems awfully dark now when I think about it. Especially that “if I should die before I wake” part. Seems a little strange for a kid to be saying that prayer every night and then rolling over to go to sleep.

But then I never really thought about death much when I was young. It never really touched me until I was around eleven or twelve. Everyone I loved was still alive. To me, I would live forever.

I don’t think that anymore. I’ll be fifty next year. That’s an incredible age. Half a century. And even though advances in medicine and the quality of life we enjoy in this country means I could live a very long life, the truth is that according to statistics, I’ve lived over half my life. Call it 50%, optimistically. Which means, optimistically, I still have 50% to go.

That sounds great until I realize that whenever the charge on my cell phone hits 50%, I’m looking for somewhere to plug it in.

Of all the ironic things we do as human beings, maybe the most ironic is that we spend so much time avoiding the one thing that’s guaranteed, and that is death. We’ll go to just about any lengths to not think about it, plan for it, ponder it, and accept it. And we’ll reach for just about anything to help us confront it.

Back a few years ago there was a book written called Heaven is for Real. About a million and a half copies were sold. Chances are you’ve read it yourself. It’s a true story about a boy named Colton Burpo, who suffered from appendicitis at three years old and, during surgery, visited heaven.

That book started a trend that resulted in a lot of other bestsellers about near-death experiences, people who not only have gone to heaven, but who have met loved ones and friends and family members who had passed on before them. A few even say that they’ve met Jesus in heaven.

It’s easy to understand why books like these have such a strong appeal. As Christians, we look forward to heaven, and we have a natural curiosity about what it’s going to be like to live there.

We have to be careful, though, because not all of these experiences are the same. They contradict each other quite a bit. So the question is, which ones are real and which ones are false?

That’s why we turn to the Bible, because that is our one true resource for all of Christian doctrine, including the doctrine about death and heaven. And that’s what I want to talk about this morning.

There are a lot of sermons about heaven, but there aren’t many sermons about what happens when we die. And since this is the time of year when we talk about new beginnings, I figured it would be a great time to talk about the ultimate new beginning for a Christian, which is death.

I have Psalm 90 verse 12 listed as today’s scripture, and that pretty well sums up everything we’ll talk about. But the truth is that we’re going to do a little jumping around in scripture for the next 20 minutes, so get your fingers ready, but first, Psalm 90:12:

So teach us to number our days

that we may get a heart of wisdom.

And this is God’s word. Here’s the thing about death. It’s scary. Sometimes it’s sudden and other times it’s drawn out. It can be painful. It can even be humiliating.

But it’s never something that a Christian should fear, and it’s definitely not something that a Christian should spend his or her life never thinking about.

All of life is preparing for the moment of death, every bit of it. That’s the message of this verse. And the more we ponder that death, the clearer the important things of this life become.

The clearer the important things of this life become, the more easily we can focus on them and not waste the time we have. And the more easily we can focus on the things that matter and the less time we waste, the more we have a heart of wisdom.

But we have to think about death the right way, the Christian way. And the first and most fundamental truth about death that we have to hold is the biblical hope that immortality involves a physical resurrection of the body. That’s important, so I’ll say that again — it’s a physical resurrection.

It’s not that the soul will be separated from the body and fly off to heaven and live forever with God. It’s not just that your soul lives forever. It’s that your soul lives forever inside a resurrected body that is raised from the dead and transformed to eternal life.

The model for us here is Christ himself. Turn to 1 Corinthians 15:20. In 1 Corinthians 15:20, Paul explains that our resurrection will be based on the resurrection of Jesus. He says, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

Pay attention to that word “first fruits”. In the Old Testament, Jewish worshippers would offer the first fruits of their harvest, the first crop, to God as a sacrifice.

Paul says that Christ is the first fruits of our own resurrection. He’s the model. Our resurrection bodies will be patterned on his.

Paul says something similar in Philippians 3:20-21. Turn there quickly. Here, Paul is talking about that physical, bodily resurrection from the dead.

He writes, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

These lowly bodies of ours, these fragile houses of bone and muscle, will be conformed to the image of Christ’s glorious resurrection body that he had when he walked out of the tomb.

But now all of this raises a good question. We get this resurrection bodies, but when? Is it the moment we die? No, it isn’t. And here’s the reason: we have to understand that the resurrection body you’re going to have isn’t a new body. It’s the body you have right now, transformed into a glorious, perfect form.

This body you have right now is the body you’ll have forever. The only difference is that right now that body is subject to time and disease. It’s fragile.

But the resurrection body you’ll receive is incorruptible. It’s immortal. It’s completely filled by the Spirit. Every flaw will be removed. Every single thing you don’t like about your body will be transformed into perfection. Which means I’ll only have to be bald for a little while longer.

This is actually one of the aspects of heaven that we can absolutely prove. Because if we receive our resurrection bodies the moment we die, then every Christian grave would be empty, wouldn’t it? There would be no corpses in graves.

So, when exactly do you get your resurrection body? Turn to 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4. Paul tells us that we receive our eternal bodies at the second coming of Christ, when Christ returns to earth. Look at verses 13-17:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

What Paul says here is that when Christ comes again, all the dead in Christ — all the Christians who have already died— will be raised up first and given these new bodies.

Then those who are still alive at that time will be transformed into their resurrection bodies as well, and we’ll all go to be forever with the Lord. But we don’t receive our resurrection bodies until then, until the second coming.

Now that raises another question, though: What happens to us in the time between our death and our resurrection when Christ comes again?

Is there just a kind of blackness, like all the time before we were born?

Do we just stop existing, and then at the second coming God brings us back to life?

Or is it more like when we die we go to sleep, and then we wake up in heaven with our resurrection bodies, and we’re not even aware of all the time that’s passed in between?

Paul says that it’s actually none of those. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

All through the Bible we see that when the body dies, the soul still survives. Your soul is immortal. When we get right down to it, death is just when the body is separated from the soul. That’s it.

While your body continues to decay, turning from bone to eventually dust, your soul will continue to live because your soul is eternal.

So between your death and your resurrection at the second coming, you’ll continue to exist as a soul without a body, and you’ll be more alive than you ever thought possible.

Let’s read 2 Corinthians 5:1-8:

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.

For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

Paul calls the body you have right now an earthly home, because the body you have right now is a temporary one. It’s you, but it’s not the true you. It’s like a tent that can be easily taken down.

Then he says that we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. That’s your resurrection body that will be the permanent house for your soul.

But the rest of what Paul is saying is so important here. He’s saying that it’s not that we want our bodies to be stripped away so that our soul exists in what he calls nakedness, a soul without a body.

Paul says it’s instead that we want to be even more clothed. “Further clothed”, it says in verse 4, and in the Greek the picture is like putting on a coat over the shirt you’re already wearing. You’re already clothed, but putting on that sweater makes you further and fully clothed.

Paul’s saying that if it had it his way, he would rather not go through that state of nakedness where his soul is removed from his body. In other words, Paul’s just like us — he’d rather not die, he’d rather just be immediately clothed in his resurrection body. He’d rather be alive when Jesus came.

But then he says in verses 5 and 6, “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.”

Even though Paul doesn’t want to die, he also understands that if his soul is apart from his body, then he’s present with the Lord. So he says to be of good cheer, because death is going to bring him to Christ, and at the end of the day he’d rather die and be with God than live on his earth forever.

In fact, in Philippians he says that to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Death isn’t a loss at all, at least for the one who dies in Christ. It’s actually a gain! Because what waits for us when we die is this kind of in-between existence where we’re apart from our bodies but with Jesus. We can see him. Hear him. Touch him. Know him truly.

Now, here’s another question. So far we’ve talked about what happens when we die as Christians. But what about those who aren’t Christians? Or more specifically, what about those who lived their lives denying God and constantly turning away from Him?

Paul doesn’t say. He’s writing to Christian churches in these letters, so he’s just talking about what happens to Christians when they die.

Jesus, though, does talk a little about this. Turn to John 5, verses 28-29. Jesus addresses this right here in this verses, and he says that there isn’t only going to be a resurrection for Christians, the righteous dead, there will also be a resurrection for the unrighteous dead.

Here’s what he says: “Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”

See that? Everyone is going to be raised at the second coming of Christ. Those who are believes will be raised to life, but those who rejected God’s grace and love will be raised to death. Everyone is going to appear before the judgment seat of God, and only after God’s judgment will we go to heaven or hell.

In the meantime, everyone who has passed from this life, believer and unbeliever, will be separated from their bodies in a place that’s right next door to heaven, or right next door to hell. Jesus speaks of this in another place.

Turn back one book to Luke, chapter 19. We’re going to look at verses 19-26.

This is the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, and even though this is a parable, meaning this isn’t something that actually happened, it does give us an insight into another important point.

We pass from this life and enter into a place that I’ll call Right Next Door to Heaven, and there we stay until the second coming. Then at judgment, we enter into the new heaven and the new earth where everything is made new.

But something similar happens to unbelievers, though in a different way. They’re not Right Next Door to Heaven after they die, but they are in a place that could be called Right Next Door to Hell.

Luke 16: 19-26:

“There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores.

“The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.

“And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’

“But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’”

So we have a poor man named Lazarus, and where is Lazarus in this parable? Not in heaven, but in paradise, or what the Old Testament calls Abraham’s bosom. There he’s living in peace and joy until the final resurrection.

But the rich man, where is he? Not hell. He’s in a place called Hades, which is a Greek word that’s used for the Hebrew word Sheol.

So no one, not the saved or the lost, enters into the next life with their own body. That new body—for good or bad, depending on whether you’ve accepted Christ or not—doesn’t come until later.

Okay then, so what about all the people who have near-death experiences and say they see loved ones and family members who have passed on? Are they really seeing those people? Well, the worst case is that they’re hallucinating or dreaming.

The best case, though, and I think the more likely case, is that somehow—even though in this first heaven we’re temporarily souls without bodies—we can still recognize each other.

It could be the same way that God sometimes appears in the visions people have in the Old Testament as having some sort of body, even though God has no body. God is spirit.

So it could be that even though we’re souls between this world and the new heavens and new earth, we can still know each other and interact with one another.

This is an important point, because it gives us a clue of what our resurrection bodies—those bodies we’ll receive after judgment when we enter the new heaven and new earth—will look like. And again, we look to Jesus.

When Jesus rose again, nobody seemed to recognize him right away, did they? Not Mary Magdalene, not the disciples on the road to Emmaeus, not even the twelve disciples.

On the one hand, Jesus was Jesus. But on the other, something about him was different because the disciples didn’t recognize him at first but then recognized him beyond all doubt. So what was it?

It was this: these people recognized Jesus in his resurrected body by what he said and what he did.

It was when he taught what the scriptures said that the disciples on the road to Emmaeus recognized him.

It was when he worked the miracle of the bursting fishing nets that the disciples knew who he was.

When we lose these earthly bodies for a bit and enter into heaven as souls, it’s like the best parts of us are shown completely and fully—we may be different, but that difference is BETTER. It’s FULLER. We’re turned inside out and made not less of ourselves, but more.

So, let’s go back over everything we’ve talked about. When you die, your body will lie in a grave until Christ returns.

It could lie there for years, centuries, or hundreds of centuries. It can turn to dust and fade away. Doesn’t matter, because your soul will enter into paradise where Christ will be, and you will enjoy more peace and joy and happiness than you can possibly imagine.

You’ll be with your family. Your friends. Your loved ones. You’ll know them, and they’ll know you.

The souls of unbelievers, on the other hand, will enter into a state of torment and separation from God that is called Hades. It’s just a taste of the hell that will come to them, but it’s a bitter taste.

I read quite a bit this week to prepare this sermon, and I came across what might be the best definition of hell I’ve ever heard. Hell, this writer said, is the truth known too late.

When Christ returns, you will come with him, and your remains will be raised from the dead and then transformed into a perfect and powerful resurrection body, and then your soul will be reunited with your body forever.

The unbelieving dead will be reunited with their bodies as well, then appear before the judgment seat of Christ for punishment. You will appear before the judgment seat as well, but only for rewards. The unbelievers will be judged and cast into hell. You, though, will be welcomed into the new heavens and the new earth.

It’s an amazing thing to think about. There are souls in heaven who have been there for thousands and maybe tens of thousands of years. And there will be souls in heaven that could be there for only a little while before Jesus returns. But we’re all going to see the glory of the new heavens and the new earth at the same time.

Now, how can we use this knowledge right now, while we’re alive? What good does it do for us today?

Well first and best, we can rest knowing that death isn’t the end. Far from it. Death is the greatest beginning.

Your soul will free itself from this broken and worn body and you will live forever. Which means that the life you live now are shot through with eternal significance.

You get to choose where you spend eternity, with God or apart from Him. And everything you do, everything, is eternal consequences that will never end.

Second, it means that this place, this first heaven that we go to, is where Christ is. We will be with him and those we’ve lost along the way in perfect peace and happiness, which means it’s something we shouldn’t fear, but look forward to.

Whatever you think of near-death experiences, they do teach us an important thing. The vast majority of them report that dying is actually a very pleasant experience.

They all report that the world just on the other side of this one is so wonderful that they don’t want to come back. Sickness and growing old is terrible, but dying itself is apparently something that we’ll really enjoy, and then we’ll be united with Christ. So we don’t need to be afraid.

Third, and finally, if you think paradise is going to be great (and it is), wait until that new heaven and earth. Wait until God dresses you in that resurrection body.

Because you will be free from every disability that has ever plagued you, every sickness, every disease, everything from cancer to diabetes to that bad back. It’ll all be gone, never to return, and you’ll enjoy a body more powerful and perfect than you can even dream of.

But it won’t just be a physical healing. Oh no. It’ll be a mental and emotional and psychological healing as well. You’re going to be freed from every worry, every fear, every emotional scar, and you will live in peace and harmony with a whole world filled with believers and Christ himself.

What a hope that is. What a promise that is. Death isn’t the end. Death is just the start. And in the meantime, what we do in our lives—the love we share, the hope we give, the help we offer—matters for eternity.

Death doesn’t rob life of meaning. Death provides life with meaning. It’s the one thing that is guaranteed will happen to us in some form or another. Even if we’re alive when Christ comes, we’re still going to leave this world that we know and these bodies that we know.

But that one guarantee is turned into your greatest promise so long as your faith is in Jesus, because it means that all the best of your experience, every one of your greatest days and all of your greatest joys, haven’t even happened yet. They’re just a little ways ahead.

Let’s pray:

Father, it’s so easy for us to go through this world completely focused on this life alone, and forget that everything we do in this life affects the greater life to come. Death is a shadow over us all, but You have given us a light to overcome that shadow in the form of your risen son. Help us to understand that every answer to our prayers, every peace we long for, and every joy we have always dreamed to possess is waiting for us at our last breath, and that with You there is never an end, only a glorious beginning. For it’s in Christ’s name we ask it, Amen.