When Life Ends… What Then?

Greeting

Good morning Lighthouse. It is Baptism Sunday!

We are so excited to witness new beginnings for several of our members here today. We love days like today.

And, as God would have it, today’s message will tackle the issue head on about what happens after we die, and the Lord’s return.

So we have a lot to cover today, but before we get to work, let me just say this one thing.

Today, you might not have come with any intentions of taking your next step of obedience and being baptized today, but I want you to know that we are ready for you. Should you decide today that you would like to get baptized we have everything that you’ll need. And, if you’d like to gather a crowd, you can do that and be baptized in one of our later services.

All right, let’s get to work as we close out or series today, After the Riot.

Reading

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 NIV

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

When Life Ends… What Then?

Introduction

Officiating funerals is never an easy task for a Pastor to do. Not too long ago I was asked to preside over a funeral for some friends of a member of our church. Now, I have to be honest, that makes it a very difficult thing to do. You don’t know them. You have no idea if they were good people, or if they were a jerk and you’re here trying to do clean up duty.

I know that sounds harsh, but this is the reality for us Pastors when asked to do funerals for someone we don’t know.

So after meeting with these friends of a member, I decided that I was going to do it.

Why?

Because this was the passing of an amazing woman who was married to an amazing man, that she was leaving behind, and their life was like the movie, The Notebook.

I mean truly. They were high school sweet hearts, they endured military service, they raised a beautiful family. It was just all so nice…

So I’m doing the whole thing… presiding over the funeral, preaching the funeral, they wanted me to do everything.

And when I was done giving the sermon, and church, I poured into the message. The family loved it and it was a message to call people to the Lord while honoring this amazing woman… They wanted to have a time where family could come up and share some words.

While this is happening, I see someone run up to the front row where the family is seated and they tell the family something, and I don’t know what it is, but I cant tell it is important, and immediately the family starts crying.

And of course, since this is like the Notebook, I already have a hunch I know what just happened…

Then the lady who arranged for me to be there comes up and tells me that the their Dad, the husband, who was in a nursing home and was not physically capable of attending the funeral, he passes away.

During the funeral.

I’m telling you, it was like the real life notebook.

And talk about trying to land that plane… I have to cut off the open mic time and as I announce to the church that now their father has just passed, during the funeral, the I hear the whole room let out a collective gasp.

[Pause for effect]

Death is a difficult thing to comprehend, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today because this was a question that the Thessalonians had for Paul.

Transition

So we read in the third chapter that Timothy comes to visit this new group of believers in Thessalonica, and that they had a question for Paul; what happens after we die?

Text

So we’re going to look at how Paul responded, and then I immediately want to set this conversation into our current cultural climate. I’m going to exegete and applicate in real time here.

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 NIV

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.

Remember, the church in Thessalonica had limited time with Paul. They were “building the plane in the air,” as the saying goes.

It’s clear through this question that they weren’t sure about what happens to people after they die. Now watch what Paul does. Paul uses this language that I want to pull on - the rest of mankind.

I wanted to get an idea of what the rest of mankind believes about death so I did a search for our immediate context, the Western American culture, and here is what mankind believes about death.

The growing majority believes this about death: Death is the End of Consciousness.

This belief is influenced by Scientific Naturalism, Secular Humanism, and the cultural idea of “YOLO - You Only Live Once”.

Another major belief about death is “Heaven If You’re Good”.

This belief is influenced by movies, pop-culture and folk religion; not what the Bible actually says, but what culture thinks it says.

Then, there is the Traditional Christian View

Believers are with Christ after death, and they await the resurrection and final judgment.

Now that we’ve got that down, Paul is saying, we have hope in death.

We have hope in death…

How does that align with our current worldview?

To the group that believes that death is the end, they have no hope. When you are gone, baby you are gone.

It’s no wonder then that there can’t be joy when someone passes. There is nothing to look forward to. There is nothing awaiting you.

And for those who believe that heaven is for those who are good enough, what happens if they don’t know if that person was good enough?

That’s a pretty vague way of ending life, isn’t it?

What is good? Who is good? When is someone good enough and what is the actual criteria for that?

[Pause]

But listen, that’s not us. Paul is saying that what is different for the Jesus follower is that when we die there is hope.

Why? Because death is not the end. Death is not a destination, death is a transition.

Paul starts to unpack this when he says,

1 Thessalonians 4:14 NIV

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

The only person to defeat death was Jesus.

That’s what Paul is saying. Jesus lived a sinless life, was brutally killed on the cross, he was buried in a tomb for three days, but on the third day he got up out of the grave.

You might say, “Good for Jesus, but what does that have to do with me?”

Jesus didn’t defeat death for himself - Jesus defeated death for you.

Jesus broke the power of death, and this is the hope that Paul is talking about.

We know that death is not the end because death lost it’s power.

1 Corinthians 15:55–57 NIV

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the hope that we have…

And the “Heaven if you’re good” crowd and the “Death is the end” crowd don’t get to experience any of this unless they are in Christ.

We have to stress that that point.

Paul is saying that death is not the end for those who are in Christ.

What does that mean?

It means that when we have surrendered our lives to the Lordship of Jesus, we are no longer our own, but we are in Christ.

Galatians 3:27 NIV

for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

This is what we are seeing today in baptism. Men and women who have surrendered their life ot the Lordship of Jesus are identifying with him in the death, burial and resurrection through water baptism. This is what Paul is saying that we are baptized into Christ, and now we have hope after death.

Notice then that heaven is not for good people, but heaven is for forgiven people.

We can never be “good enough” for heaven. The Bible lays this out so simply in Romans 3:12.

Romans 3:12 NIV

All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

There is a phrase that I use that is terrible grammar, but it makes the point.

We don’t become good to get God, we get God to become good.

Conclusion

OK, Paul, so when someone dies and they’ve surrendered their life to the Lordship of Jesus, what happens with this idea that Jesus is coming back again?

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 NIV

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

So the deceased are now with the Lord, but there is a day coming when Jesus will come back agin. This is what the church calls the rapture.

The word rapture literally means “caught up” or “snatched up”.

We see this happen in the Bible with Enoch and Elijah. They were both caught up.

And Paul is explaining to these new believers that Jesus will return with all of the dead in Christ, and then we who are alive will join them “in the clouds,” which is how Paul is describing heaven.

Does this sound hard to believe? Yes, I understand it does.

But once you believed a dead man rose from the grave, you know that anything is possible for those who believe.

And when we get to the very next chapter of Thessalonians, which for the sake of time I cannot fully unpack this morning, Paul spends the next 11 verses telling them, we don’t know when this is going to happen so stop asking…

Apparently the rapture was supposed to happen this week. Did you hear about that? A South African Pastor said that God told him it was going to happen on September 23-24 and it actually caught steam…

Were any of you following that on social media? Lots of memes… that’s how we cope as a society and culture…

But let’s get back to the text.

No one knows the day or the hour when this will happen, so what we must do is live prepared!

Paul tells them then, and I am telling you now, live ready for Jesus to return.

What does ready mean, are you in Christ?

If you are not, why are you waiting?

What is it that you are waiting for?

If you can’t see everything that is happening all around us, the day of his return is getting closer. And we have to make sure that we are living right with God and that we are ready for Him to return.

This should not scare you, but it should cause you to examine yourself and ensure that all of your priorities are in order.

Today, we have people who are getting their affairs in order.

As a matter of fact, if you are getting baptized today I want you to stand to your feet.

Church can we celebrate them for one moment.

We are going to dismiss you to go and get ready now for Baptism. Our Team will meet you just outside the doors and in a moment our whole church will meet you outside.

Call

But I believe there are more people here who need to join them and we want to tell you that there’s no reason to wait.

I’m going to do two things right now, I am going to lead those of you who are ready to surrender your life to the Lordship of Jesus through that prayer.

And when you are done, if you want to just go after it and get baptized right now, then head on out these doors and let our Team know you don’t want to wait any more and you’re ready to take your next step today.