Passed from Death to Life

Sermon Title: Passed from Death to Life

Scripture: John 5:24

Occasion: John Thompson Funeral

Date: June 27, 2026

Let me read for us this afternoon

the word that has sustained the hearts of believers across centuries. From John 5:24, Jesus says:

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

Let us pray.

Prayer

Heavenly Father,

We come before You today with hearts that are heavy and hopeful.

Heavy because death is an enemy.

Heavy because we feel the pain of saying goodbye to someone we dearly love.

But hopeful because Jesus Christ has conquered sin and death through His perfect life, His sacrificial death, and His victorious resurrection.

As we open Your Word, would You comfort this dear family, strengthen every believer, and graciously call those who do not yet know Christ to trust in Him.

May our hope rest in the sure promises of our risen Savior.

We ask this in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

Introduction

There are moments in life when the truth of Scripture becomes more than doctrine, more than something we affirm in our minds.

There are moments when the truth becomes precious, when it becomes the ground beneath our feet as the world shifts around us.

This is one of those moments.

We gather this afternoon to say goodbye to a man we loved.

John Thompson was not merely a name on a program.

To Peggy, he was a husband of decades, a partner in life and faith.

To Nick and Michael, he was a father whose life modeled what it means to walk with Jesus.

To Becca, he was a steady voice of love and wisdom.

To Stella, he was a grandfather, a source of continuity and care.

And to many of us gathered here, John was a faithful friend and a spiritual father—a man who showed us what faithfulness looks like when it is lived out over years of quiet devotion.

I cannot stand before you this afternoon and pretend that grief is not real.

Scripture does not ask us to pretend.

We mourn because we loved.

We grieve because John mattered.

But I stand before you this afternoon to declare to you a truth that John lived and believed: that death, real as it is, is not the final word.

That goodbye, though it tears at our hearts, is not goodbye forever for those who believe in Jesus and belong to Him.

Listen again to what Jesus says in John 5:24:

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

These are the words of Jesus Christ, the risen Son of God.

Jesus is not speaking to philosophers or theologians.

He is speaking to ordinary people, like you and me, who wanted to know:

Is there hope?

Is there meaning beyond this life?

Is there a way to face death with confidence?

And Jesus gives them an answer that echoes across two thousand years and lands here, on this afternoon, for us.

Notice, first, the foundation of everything:

"whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me."

John Thompson was a hearer of God's word.

For decades, he was in the place where Scripture was taught and proclaimed.

He heard the gospel again and again.

He heard it on Sunday mornings when faithful pastors opened the Bible.

He heard it in the lives of faithful believers around him.

He heard it from his own wife Peggy, who has walked beside him as a companion in faith.

And that hearing was not passive, not mere religious habit.

John believed.

He believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

He believed that the Father sent him and died for him.

He believed the gospel.

This was not a belief that lived only in John's words when he was here among us.

It was a belief that worked itself out in his life.

It showed up in his faithfulness to his marriage.

It showed up in how he loved his children and his granddaughter.

It showed up in how he spent his time, in what he valued, in the way he treated people.

There is a reason his family sits here this afternoon with confidence rather than despair.

There is a reason the gospel that he believed can now comfort them.

It is because John's belief was not just mental assent.

It was real faith.

And to everyone here who knew him well, you recognize that this is true.

John was not a man who claimed to believe in Jesus while his life went in another direction.

His life was consistent with his faith.

That matters.

That is what makes this moment bearable for those who loved him most.

Now listen to what Jesus promises:

"has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life."

Three precious truths meet us here.

First: "has eternal life."

Not will have.

Has.

Present tense.

Jesus is speaking to people who are still alive in their bodies, still drawing breath, still walking through time.

Yet he says they have eternal life already.

This is the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

Eternal life is not something that begins when we die.

Eternal life is knowing Jesus Christ NOW.

As Jesus says in John 17:3,

"This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Eternal life begins now.

It is the gift given to everyone who believes.

And John Thompson possessed that gift.

He knew Jesus.

That relationship did not die when his body did.

That is the hope we carry this morning.

Second: "does not come into judgment."

In a just universe, we all deserve judgment.

We are all sinners.

We all fall short.

We all have things in our lives that cannot stand the light of God's holiness.

But Jesus is not offering us a scaled-back goodness.

He is not saying,

‘Well, if you're mostly good, maybe you'll get through and get into heaven."

He is saying something far more radical.

He is saying that those who believe in him do not come into judgment.

Not because they are good enough.

Not because they deserve it.

But because Christ has borne their judgment.

He has taken it on himself.

The cross of Jesus is the place where the wrath of God against sin is fully satisfied.

And when we believe in Jesus, we stand beneath that cross.

His righteousness becomes our righteousness.

His death becomes our death to sin.

His resurrection becomes our hope.

John Thompson does not face judgment this morning.

That is not because John was perfect.

It is because John believed in Jesus, and Jesus has already settled the matter of judgment on his behalf on that bloody cross 2,000 years ago.

Third: "has passed from death to life."

This is perhaps the most comforting phrase in all of Scripture when we stand in the presence of literal death.

Something fundamental has happened.

A transition has occurred.

The person who believes in Jesus has already experienced a death, already been raised to new life.

It happened spiritually when John first believed.

He died to the old way of living for himself, for the world, for sin.

And he was raised to new life, life ordered toward God, life rooted in Jesus.

And now, as John has left this world, that same reality continues.

The death of his body is real.

But it is not final.

It is not the end.

It is the completion of a passage from death to life that began when John became a Christian.

He has passed from death to life.

That is where he is now.

That is the truth that Peggy and Nick and Michael and Becca and little Stella can hold to, even as their hearts break with missing him.

John is Alive, because Jesus is alive.

Because Jesus passed from death to life, John passed from death to life!

And so it is with everyone who believes in the Lord.

Let me speak directly now to John's family.

Peggy, you have lost a husband.

The place beside you is empty.

The mornings are harder.

The routines you built together now feel incomplete.

And I want you to know that Jesus sees your grief.

He does not minimize it.

He weeps with those who weep.

But he also stands beside you with a promise.

The man you loved is alive in the presence of Jesus Christ.

The bond that held you together in faith does not break when one of you enters heaven.

It is transformed, but not broken.

John is waiting for you.

And one day, as Paul tells us, we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be together with the Lord. (1 Thess. 4:17)

You will see him again.

Nick, Michael, and Becca, you have lost your father.

You have lost the voice that carried your story.

You have lost his example.

But you have not lost his legacy.

You have not lost what he poured into you over all the years of your lives.

His faithfulness to Jesus is your inheritance.

His love for your mother is your model.

His quiet service and his steady faith are not erased.

You carry them forward.

His life has left a legacy of quiet faithfulness that will continue to bear fruit.

I can see it in your lives.

I can see it in your Stella’s life.

And Stella, your grandfather loved you.

He will not tuck you in at night anymore.

He will not hear your stories.

But he is alive, and he is happy, and he is waiting.

And every time you remember him, you remember someone who showed you what it looks like to love Jesus.

He would want nothing more to for you than you to love and follow the one he loved and followed.

Let me also speak to anyone here who does not yet have this hope.

If you have never given your life to Jesus Christ, if you have never heard his word and believed in him, then this funeral is a message to you.

Not a message of despair, but an invitation.

You do not have to live your whole life thinking that death is the end, that there is nothing beyond, that we simply cease to exist.

Jesus offers you something else entirely.

He offers you eternal life.

He offers you forgiveness for your sins.

He offers you himself.

How?

By doing what John did.

Hear the word of Jesus….

The gospel is simple:

You are a sinner.

Jesus died for your sins and rose again.

And if you turn from your sin and put your trust in him, you will be saved.

You will have eternal life.

You will not face judgment.

You will pass from death to life.

John Thompson lived with this hope.

And it shaped everything about him.

It shaped his marriage, his love for his children, his character, his peace.

You can have this too.

Not eventually.

Now.

Today.

Where you sit.

This is what I knew about John Thompson.

He was not flashy.

He was not the loudest voice in the room.

But he was faithful.

He was kind.

He was rooted in Jesus.

And he lived out the promise of John 5:24 in a way that was quiet and consistent and compelling.

Now he has stepped into the full realization of what that promise means.

He has passed from death to life.

His ears hear only the voice of Jesus now.

His eyes see only the beauty of his Savior.

His work is finished.

He has heard the words of Jesus say well done my good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master.

And he waits, in joy, in the presence of God.

We are still here.

We are still running the race.

We still have work to do.

And the same Jesus who welcomed John with gladness now calls to us:

Hear my word.

Believe in the Father who sent me.

Have eternal life.

Do not come into judgment.

Pass from death to life, starting now.

This is the good news the bible has to offer.

This is the hope that sustained John Thompson’s life.

This is the hope that must sustain us as we say goodbye to his body and commit him to Jesus, who will raise him up on the last day.

Let us pray together.

PRAY

Father, we thank you for John.

We thank you for his life, his faith, his consistency, his love.

We thank you that he heard your word and believed.

We thank you that he has eternal life, that he does not face judgment, that he has passed from death to life.

We thank you that he is with you now.

Comfort Peggy in her loneliness.

Strengthen Nick and Michael and Becca as they process this loss and carry forward their father's legacy.

Watch over Stella, and may she grow up remembering a grandfather who loved Jesus.

And Lord, for any of us here who do not yet have this hope, would you grant us the grace to hear your word and believe.

Lead us to Jesus.

We pray all this in Jesus’ name.

Amen.