Dying in Faith (Hebrews 11:1-12:2)

Introduction

On the morning of February 18, 1546, Philip Melanchthon was teaching on the book of Romans in what we might call a seminary classroom. He received a note from a messenger that said Dr. Luther has died. Martin Luther was 62 years old, and he had been suffering from heart disease. He’d had a number of heart attacks in the previous days, and everyone knew he was dying.

For nearly three decades, Martin Luther had been impossible to silence – though an emperor and at least a couple of popes had tried hard to do it. But during the night, death brought an end to Martin Luther’s incredible life.

When Melanchthon received the note, he referenced the prophet Elisha’s words when his mentor, Elijah, was miraculously taken up to heaven by a fiery chariot at the end of his life (2 Kings 2:12). Melanchthon said, “He who sits on Israel’s chariot, he who has led the church in the world in these last days, has died.”

It is the common end of all humans to die. Even the most consequential and most powerful and most unstoppable figures of history have all been forced to submit to this unrelenting enemy.

Death does not care how wealthy you are, how powerful you are, how young or old you are, or how influential you are. Death does not wait until you are ready, it does not ask if you are busy, and it sometimes comes when you least expect it.

About 15 years ago, I knew a pastor whose wife was putting Christmas decorations back up in the attic. They were both in their 30s, with two young children, and she seemed to have her whole life ahead of her. But she lost her footing on the attic ladder, and the surprising fall brought her head to the concrete floor so violently that she died very quickly.

As Christians, we do not have to fear death, but (I think) we ought to expect it. Death (and suffering in general) have nearly been eradicated from most of our normal experience, such that it is a shock when death comes near to us.

Christians used to gather in church buildings that were surrounded by death – cemeteries used to fill the landscape just outside the church walls, and churchgoers would have to walk through the congregation of the dead both before and after a church service. This was a stark reminder that we too will one day join those who have gone before us, and those now dead once sang and prayed and believed and lived the very same ways we are doing now.

This perspective of death – that it is our almost certain experience soon to come – gave life a kind of sobriety, a weight of importance, and a reason to plan.

Friends, I am pretty confident that all of us in this room will die. I am sure that Christ will return, but I am also sure that Christ would have us live as though there are going to be generations after us who will need our faithful witness.

Our children and grandchildren – our descendants, most of whom will not remember our names – they will need us to live as though death is not a shock or a surprise to us. They will need us to plan for it. They will need us to look death in the face and make it our aim to meet it well.

Today we are continuing our series on the Well-Ordered Life, and my topic for the day is dying well… or dying in faith.

I want to spend the next little while with you thinking about how we might plan to meet death as faithful and hopeful Christians who know that death is not the end, but it is a universal feature of life in a fallen world.

We want to know the gospel and believe in Christ. We want to follow Christ faithfully, training ourselves for godliness and spiritual growth. We want to get married and have families, wherein the doctrines and ethics of Christianity are the norm and the expectation.

We want to hand down the faith – once for all delivered to the saints – to the next generation. We want to work as unto the Lord, giving ourselves to productive living for ourselves, our families, and our communities. And we want to prepare to die in faith, so that those who come after us will know that we truly believed what we preached, and they will know what it looks like to finish life well.

May God help us.

Let’s stand together as I read a lengthy passage this morning from Hebrews 11 and just a couple of verses into chapter 12.

Scripture Reading

Hebrews 11:1–12:2 (ESV)

1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

7 By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

20 By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau.

21 By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff.

22 By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.

23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.

24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

27 By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

28 By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.

29 By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.

30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.

31 By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.

32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

35 Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.

37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— 38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Main Idea:

Death is the expectation of nearly all Christians; therefore, we (as followers of Christ) ought to prepare to meet death with the same order and preparation as we live.

Sermon

1. Expect to Die

Death is the expectation of nearly all Christians; so, we should expect to die.

Think of all the faithful men and women we read about in Hebrews 11. Abraham and Sarah both heard the voice of the Lord, and they received special revelation that their gracious privilege would be to take the role of father and mother of all the faithful who would follow them. And yet, they “died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar” (Heb. 11:13).

They were “seeking a homeland… a better country… a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:14-16), but they did not see it in their lifetime, nor do they see it even now – not in full. The coming day when heaven and earth shall meet is not yet the experience of any of the believers who have gone before us, and they too are still waiting.

Certainly, as sure as I’m standing here right now, those who have died in faith are with the Lord, and their blessed experience with Him is far greater than what I have right now, but they (like me) are waiting for the resurrection that is to come.

We read (in Hebrews 11) of Isaac and Jacob, who both looked to “future blessings” for their offspring, even as these men faced their own impending deaths (Heb. 11:20). Joseph too, “at the end of his life” looked ahead to the time when Abraham’s descendants would be delivered from Egypt, and he “gave directions concerning his bones” (v22).

We read about Moses, who acted on his faith in the promise of God during his life, and yet he died in the wilderness, unable to enter the earthly Promised Land… but in eager anticipation of the Promised Land that is to come for all who die in faith.

The author of Hebrews spoke of many men and women who endured all sorts of hardships and afflictions as they awaited “something better” that they could not experience until all the faithful from every generation would join them on the last day (Heb. 11:39-40).

Indeed, the author of Hebrews threw down the ultimate trump card when he even pointed to Jesus Himself and said that Jesus “endured the cross” and suffered the shame of death in anticipation of what would come afterward (Heb. 12:2).

Later in ch. 13, the author of Hebrews reminds his reader that “here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14). His exhortation was not to abandon the responsibilities of this life, but rather to bear them with endurance and faithfulness, even as death itself would soon come upon them, as it had done to all those faithful ones of the past.

Friends, how many countless Christians have lived and died before us? How many men and women have followed Christ to through the fearful waters of death, and now await the resurrection that Christ has achieved and will share with them?

Why should it be our expectation to avoid this universal experience of mortal man? Why shouldn’t we rather expect to die, as so many other faithful Christians have done, and prepare to meet death well, as they have done before us?

It is true (at least as I understand it) that some generation of Christians will not experience death, and they shall be resurrected to eternal life without having to pierce that veil. But there is far more reason for us to expect to die than there is for us to expect to see that coming day of Christ within our lifetime.

What a different death we might die if we see death coming and meet it with boldness and preparation.

John Calvin (in his Institutes of the Christian Religion) wrote, “Monstrous it is that many who boast themselves Christians are gripped by such a great fear of death, rather than a desire for it, that they tremble at the least mention of it, as of something utterly dire and disastrous… For if we deem this unstable, defective, corruptible, fleeting, wasting, rotting tabernacle of our body to be so dissolved that it is soon renewed unto a firm, perfect, incorruptible, and finally, heavenly glory, will not faith compel us ardently to seek what nature dreads?”

Then he wrote, “Let us… consider this settled: that no one has made progress in the school of Christ that does not joyfully await the day of death and final resurrection.”

Friends, death is the expectation of nearly all Christians; therefore, we ought to expect it. We ought to live with an expectation that we will die (sooner or later). We ought to speak of our coming death in a way that teaches other Christians around us not to fear it but to face it. We ought to bear Christian witness that death is part of life under the curse, but death has no final hold on us.

2. Prepare to Die

Because death is not our great fear, but rather we expect to face it in Christian faith and hope, we ought to prepare to die. It seems to me that a well-ordered life is one in which death has been prepared for – both temporally and eternally.

Let’s consider various ways we might prepare for death… first, eternally, and then temporally. These two are not separate, but they are distinct; and certainly, the eternal preparations ought to be prioritized.

Indeed, we see eternal preparations prioritized in our passage today. The author of Hebrews said that “Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous” (Heb. 11:4). Of course, this is a reference to those first two children of Adam and Eve, those brothers who offered gifts to God as an act of worship (Gen. 4:1-5).

We are not given many details (in Genesis), but we are told that Abel’s offering was “regarded” by the Lord as “acceptable” or appropriate, while Cain’s was not “regarded” as such (Gen. 4:4-5; Heb. 11:4). The point here (as the author of Hebrews puts it) is that Abel lived and acted in “faith” (Heb. 11:4).

So too, Noah acted “by faith,” building “an ark,” as God had commanded, and “became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (Heb. 11:7). And Abraham also “obeyed” God when he was “called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance” (Heb. 11:8). Sarah too, “considered” God’s promise and “by faith” received “power to conceive, even when she was past the age” to do it (Heb. 11:11).

Each of these examples of faith and faithfulness teaches us that the most important thing we can do in preparation for our death is to hear and believe and obey God. The author of Hebrews points back to these faithful ones of the past in order to urge his own readers on to do as they had done.

Friends, we have no promise that God will spare our mortal lives beyond 60 or 50 or 30 or even 1 or 2 years. The average lifespan in America today is about 78 years for men and about 81 years for women, but death has come for so many quite a lot earlier. God has not promised us long life, but God has promised sinners of every generation that they will receive forgiveness, and favor, and blessings, and life if they will simply look to Christ and believe the promises of God.

It is Christ Jesus who has lived and died and conquered death, so that guilty sinners like us may have life in His name. The first and most important thing we must do to prepare eternally for our death is to trust Christ for what He has promised and live in keeping with that trust or faith or belief.

Friends, to prepare eternally for our death, we must get our spiritual and moral house in order. We must hear the gospel (that God has made atonement or sacrifice for sins), we must believe or trust in Christ as our Savior and Lord, and we must give ourselves to following Jesus for the rest of our days (however many they may be).

If you want to know more about what it means that Christ has died for sinners or what it means to believe or trust in Him or what it looks like to follow Christ, then let’s get together and talk about it as soon as the service is over.

But this eternal preparation for our death bleeds over into our temporal preparation. What we believe has an effect on how we live, and our everyday lives are to be spent in active preparation for that coming day when we shall face death.

Consider how the author of Hebrews brings this point home at the beginning of ch. 12. He says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [i.e., those faithful ones who lived and died in faith], let us also lay aside every weight, and sin with clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…” (Heb. 12:1).

In other words, brothers and sisters, if we are believing ones (as those who believed and followed Christ from centuries past), then let’s turn away from sin and let’s press on toward holiness, since this is the new life to which we have been called.

In preparation for our death, let’s live the sort of lives for which we will not be ashamed on the last day! Let’s give ourselves to knowing and following Christ in every area of our lives, so that when death comes, we will be prepared to meet it.

I’ve participated in many funerals where the deceased had given little or no reason to believe that he or she died in faith. They lived as non-Christians in almost every way – they weren’t involved in church, they had no observable interest to grow in godliness, they gave no meaningful effort to love and serve other Christians, they spent no time or money on extending or preserving a Christian witness in their community, and they valued the things of this world just the same as any unbeliever.

What hope do we really have that such a one is with Christ today? What assurances did they feel in their dying moments that they would enter paradise when they took their final breath? Do we really think that a mere statement – “I believe in Jesus” – is sufficient evidence that a dying sinner should expect eternal glory?

What a different funeral we experience when the deceased has given a great deal of evidence that he or she has died in faith! Almost right at four years ago, many people were gathered in this very room to mourn the death of Kathy Ford. She was a longtime member, and she served on staff for more than 20 years. She became ill and soon died unexpectedly in August of 2021.

While her death and funeral were indeed sorrowful, her friends and family were able to have great assurance that she is with the Lord. Her simple and humble life was lived in service to Christ and in love for others so obviously that there is no doubt about what she believed. Her faithful witness in life has even (I believe) changed the eternal trajectory of others – she gave her time and intentional energy to reading the Bible and sharing the gospel with her family and friends so that they too would come to know and love and follow Christ.

I pray that the seeds she has sown in her life will continue to bear fruit in this and the coming generations of those she has affected by her faithful witness.

And yet, I hope it’s already clear that there are preparations we ought to make that are not usually associated with the spiritual or eternal. If we are going to die (and I think it’s pretty safe to say we all will), then we ought to make temporal (or what we might think of as practical) preparations as well.

There is nothing more practical than preparing to die and meet God with a good conscience and covered by the righteousness of Christ. No other concern comes close to this practical and real necessity.

But I think it would do us good to think of the practical ways our expected death ought to provoke us to prepare for what and who we may leave behind. Think of your spouse, your children, and your grandchildren. Think of all the ways you care for them now, and what will happen when you are not there to pay bills, to encourage them, to offer wise counsel, or to help them make decisions about what to do with your stuff after you’re gone.

Some of us in the room can give testimony of how assets can become liabilities when family members have different opinions about what to do with a house, or a vehicle, or a bank account when someone dies.

Let me mention just a few practical ways you can temporally prepare to die, so that you will leave this world with a kind of responsible order – the sort of order that ought to mark the disciplined Christian life.

First, you can find a way to organize your assets and property (whatever that might be) so that your loved ones won’t have to go hunting for accounts, passwords, or legal documents. I know at least a few people who have helped others do this in preparation for death, and if you need help, then come ask me about them.

Second, you can purchase life insurance and/or burial insurance for a pretty small cost. For men who are still working (especially those of us with wives and kids at home), life insurance is a particularly important way to ensure that your family will not be overwhelmed by the cost of living if you die before you’ve been able to provide for their needs into your children’s adulthood.

So too, a traditional burial can cost you somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000. But insurance can cover this expense, so that your family doesn’t have to find that kind of cash at a time they may not have been expecting to do it.

We will consider more about funerals and burial next month, when I conclude my series on the Well-Ordered Life, so I’ll leave that for next time.

Third, you can create a will. This can usually cost you somewhere between $200 and $500, depending on what kind of legal assistance you need. As most of you probably know, a will designates how your property and assets will be distributed after you die. Doing such a thing can help prevent confusion and even save money for those who may be dealing with your stuff when you’re gone.

Friends, these are just some of the practical ways we can prepare well for our inevitable death. We are going to die, and we ought to take responsibility (to the degree that we can) for how we are going to meet death when it comes.

Once again, Christians do not have to fear death. In fact, Christians can look upon death with a kind of bittersweet longing, since death is the door through which we walk in order to enter the presence of our Savior and King.

Brothers and sisters, we mustn’t fear death, but rather we ought to expect it… and we ought to prepare for it (as well as we can) both eternally and temporally.

3. Don’t Wait to Prepare

It’s been said that you can know you are old when someone speaks of what will happen five or ten years from now and then looks at you with embarrassment… realizing that you might not be alive that long.

But the fact is that none of us knows how long we’ve got before we die. Death (God forbid it) may surprise one of us before the end of this new month. Even now, death may be sneaking up behind us without warning, and we may feel its cold chill before ever we have a chance to cry out any objection.

I haven’t spoken much about it, and I don’t plan to, but Cass, Malachi, and I were in a terrible car accident almost three years ago. We were driving to Dallas along I-20, to watch Micah play a football game, when a big box-truck in the lane next to us yanked into our lane, crashing into us and launching us over the concrete divider into oncoming traffic. As we tumbled (end over end, spinning and crashing in every direction), I thought to myself, “I figured death would hurt worse than this.”

I had every expectation that we would die in those moments. One moment, we were driving down the highway to enjoy a family weekend, and the next we were tumbling violently toward (what I thought was) inevitable death. We did suffer various injuries, and Cass experienced worse than Malachi and me, but (in God’s providence) we did not die. And I’m grateful for the years we’ve had since then.

Jonathan Edwards once said that “The manifold and continual experience of the world in all ages shows that there is no evidence that a man is not on the very brink of eternity, and that his next step will not be into another world.”

He said that God does not need to employ special means to send mortals into eternity. Edwards said, “The greater part of those before us have lived under the same means of grace [as we have now], and they are now dead… and it was not because they were not as wise as those who are now alive; it was not because they did not lay out matters as well for themselves to secure their own escape.”

No, death comes… whatever our plans, whatever our strength, whatever our wisdom… and it takes no notice at all of such things. This is why we must live as dying ones. We must learn to remember death. We must live and plan and take responsibility for our future as well as we may, but we must not presume that we will most definitely be here to experience it.

Charles Spurgeon spoke of the Christian discipline of dying daily, saying, “Consider with much care, everyday, the certainty of death to all those who shall not remain at the coming of Christ, and let the certainty of our own death go with us as an undivided companion. We ought always to feel that we are mortal… The fact that we are here but as sojourners and wayfarers should be painted on our eyeballs.”

He went on to say that the Lord has given us so many reminders of our mortality because He knows that we are prone to try to shake off the remembrance of it. Spurgeon said, “We have before us the frequent departures of others – the path to the cemetery is well trod… [And] just think how often you have seen strong men… taken away in their strength! …God rings the funeral bell in our ears and bids us remember that the bell may next toll for us.”

Spurgeon went on, “The whole of Nature around us also helps us to remember that we are mortal. Look at the year. It is born amid the songs of birds and the beauty of flowers. It comes to its ripeness and luscious fruits and shouts of harvest home – but soon the old age of autumn comes and a lamentation is heard… Amidst the fall of decaying leaves and the howling of the cold winds of winter the year finds its end.”

Friends, consider the last couple of verses we read from our main passage this morning. God Himself calls out to us through the author of Hebrews this morning, saying, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [i.e., those who have believed the promise of God and have yet to experience the final resurrection… those who now are dead and await the coming day], let us also [like they have done] lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1).

The call is for us to take up the faith that believers have modeled in generations past. We are to lay aside the love of this world and to make war against the sinful desires we still have within us. And we are to put one foot in front of the other on the path which God has laid out before us – however long or short that run may be.

Brothers and sisters, we ought to expect to die (sooner or later) and we ought to prepare to meet death with sobriety, with hope, and with the same kind of order and preparation as we have lived – as followers of Christ who love and believe and obey the Savior… the One who has faced death before us and conquered it.

The Lord’s Supper

As we turn our attention toward the Lord’s Supper this morning, our subject has prepared us well. The observance of the Supper is full of meaning, and one of the main features of it compels us to look death in the face with the kind of sobriety and hope I’ve been talking about today.

First, the Lord’s Supper reminds us that the penalty of sin is death.

God spoke these words all the way back in the Garden of Eden, and we have seen them on display throughout the Bible as well as the whole of human history.

Scripture says that “sin came into the world through one man [Adam], and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).

Friends, sin is the reason we die, and sin is the reason Christ died… though Christ did not die for His own sin. The elements of the Supper – the cup and the bread – remind us that Christ really did die. His body was broken, and His blood was shed, and this was because of sin.

Second, the Supper reminds us that Christ has died so that sinners might live.

The Scripture teaches us that Christ had no sin of His own, but that He took upon Himself the sin and guilt of all those who would love and trust Him.

Colossians 2:14 says that God “canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”

Friends, sinners like us can look back to the death of Christ as the time and place where God poured out His wrath against our sin upon the person of Christ in our place. In these elements of the Supper, we can remember that Christ’s death was counted as ours, so that we might find forgiveness and love in the face of God, and not judgment or condemnation.

Third, the Lord’s Supper reminds us that death is a conquered foe, and Christ’s resurrection will be ours one day.

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (Jn. 11:25-26).

The promise of God, represented in the Supper, is not that believers will avoid death. But rather, Christ Himself has promised that the same resurrection He experienced shall be for all those who turn from sin and trust in Him.

As we observe the Lord’s Supper today, we may remember Christ’s death, we may remember Christ’s sacrifice for sinners, and we may remember that Christ Himself has conquered death… so that we too may not be left in the grave.

This means that the Lord’s Supper is not for all people everywhere. It is only for those who are loving and trusting and following Christ… those believing and clinging to the promise I’ve been talking about today.

If you are a baptized member of this church or of another church that preaches the same gospel that I have described this morning, then you are welcome to participate. It is not our words or deeds that grant us a seat at Christ’s table, but Christ’s own work on our behalf has opened a place for us… and we must trust Him for it.

If you have questions about who should partake or why we explain the Supper like this, then I’d be happy to talk with you about it after the service. Just come on up and ask me about it.

For those who are going to participate, let’s prepare ourselves to do so.

Let’s confess our sin to God, let’s set our hope on the promises of God’s blessing in the gospel, and let’s join together in this observance wherein we may reaffirm our love for Christ and be reassured of God’s love for us in Christ.