Will We Know Each Other In Heaven?

As we've been in this series on Heaven for the last couple of weeks, some of you have shared your story with me about your loved one who is now in Heaven. I want to thank you for sharing those tender moments with me. A theme I've heard several times now, out in the foyer or during the week after a sermon, is that you still grieve. And you don't only grieve when you think about the past and the life you had with your loved one, your grief also looks to the future. You grieve what they are not here now to enjoy with you.

I've heard a grandmother talk about losing a child, and how it wasn't supposed to be this way, and all the things he won't get to be a part of. He won't get to walk his daughter down the aisle. I've heard a parent talking about their child, and they grieve not only the past, but they grieve the thief that stole the future they thought their child had. Maybe for you, every holiday reminds you that grief continues. Life continues, but every holiday is a reminder of that empty chair. Every holiday is a reminder of something that loved one is missing out on. That parent won't watch his son graduate from boot camp and serve with honor, following the family tradition. That grandmother won't see the grandchild she prayed for, for so long.

Grief is real. Grief is the expression of a pain, the expression of a loss, not only of the past, but of the future that was taken from us. And sometimes people say, “Aren't you over that?” Listen: you don't get over grief. You get through it, day by day, but it's always there.

There's something similar going on in the lives of the first century believers in an ancient city called Thessalonica. It's the city that's still there today, in modern day Turkey. It's called Thessaloniki, or Salonika. The Apostle Paul had gone there in the first century on a missionary journey, and he started preaching the gospel of Jesus: the death, burial, and resurrection of the righteous Son of God, and called people to repent of their sin and believe in Him for the gift of eternal life. Many of them did. A group of people came to faith in that city, turned from paganism, and became followers of Jesus. Paul also taught them that this same Lord Jesus, who died and was buried and rose again, and forty days after His resurrection went back to the Father in heaven, has promised to come again and to receive us to Himself.

They believed this great promise of Jesus. In fact, they were so fanatical that some of them quit their jobs, because they knew Jesus could come at any time. “Hey, I'm not going to work tomorrow if Jesus is coming back.” So Paul had to write a letter to them, among other reasons, to say, “No, you need to live for the Lord now. We don't know when, but you just keep living for the Lord.”

But there was also another problem. Some of the people in that church who had come to new faith in Christ, who were anticipating the second coming of Jesus, had died. They had funerals in that nascent church family, and some of the loved ones and church members left behind began questioning: have our loved ones who died missed out on the coming kingdom of God? They were so looking to Jesus to come again, and now their loved ones were gone. They were worried about the future. They not only grieved the past, they were worried that when Jesus returns, and He could come at any moment, their loved ones would miss out on that coming kingdom. So Paul took time in this letter we call First Thessalonians to address their fear of their loved ones missing out.

I want to take you to First Thessalonians 4:13-18 as we answer this question: Will we meet again? Will we see our loved ones again? Have they missed out on the second coming of Jesus by the fact that they've died? Two thousand years of Christian history have passed, and many of us in this room have loved ones who are now in Heaven. Family members, friends, colleagues, co-workers, fellow church members, who believed in Jesus and served Him, and now they're in Heaven.

The same truths about the hope that first century Christians could have apply to us today. We can have hope, even in the face of death, that we will meet again with our loved ones, and that they have not missed out on the second coming of Jesus. By the authority of God's Word, I can tell you they haven't missed out. They have front row seats.

Now don't take my word for it. I want you to see this with your own eyes from God's holy Word. I'm going to read from the English Standard Version this morning, First Thessalonians chapter 4, beginning with verse 13. Why don't you read along silently from your own copy of God's Word as I read out loud.

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 ESV

13 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. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 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. 16 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. 17 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. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

May God bless the reading of His holy Word, and may He help us understand.

I want to point out three realities of the hope that a Christian can have, that death is not the end. I'll give you the bottom line at the very beginning. Don't leave, stay for the rest, I get paid by the word, so you have to stay. But the bottom line, if you don't get anything else, I want you to hear this:

Because Jesus died and rose again, we can grieve with hope that death is not the end.

That's the truth the Apostle Paul used to comfort these Christians in Thessalonica, in the year AD 51 or 52. But it's the same message he wants to encourage you with today as well. Because Jesus died and rose again, we can grieve with hope. Death is not the end.

I. THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIAN HOPE

I want you to see the first reality, and I call this the foundation of Christian hope. What is the foundation of Christian hope? The lost world thinks that we are just hoping, with our fingers crossed, that there is something on the other side of death. But the Apostle Paul wants to give us the revelation of God Himself to answer this question.

Notice how he begins in verse 13: “For we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers.” Or if you're reading the King James Version, “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren.”

The Apostle Paul has an allergy to ignorance. Several times in his letters he uses this phrase, “We do not want you to be ignorant.” He wants them to have knowledge about spiritual gifts, about God's plan for Israel, about the mystery of the gospel and bringing Jew and Gentile together in Christ. He doesn't want them to be ignorant here about what happens to our loved ones in Christ who have died, who have fallen asleep. That's why we preach from the Bible: because God doesn't want you to be ignorant, brethren. He's given you His truth, and He wants you to know what He is doing. “I don't want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep.”

I love that he refers to the Christians at Thessalonica as brothers. This word includes men and women, brothers and sisters. He's writing as a member of the family of God, the household of God, to other siblings in faith in Christ. If you know Christ as your Savior, we are brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Paul isn't writing as some academic in his ivory tower, detached from real life. He is one of them. He loves them. He's their pastor. He's wanting to come into their questions and their pain and their grief, and help them as a fellow disciple of Jesus. He's hurting because they're hurting.

He says, “We don't want you to be ignorant, brethren, about those who are asleep.” He's not referring to people who have gone physically asleep, the way some people do during my sermon, I can't imagine. He's referring to death, and he's not talking about soul sleep. There is an unbiblical concept that when a Christian dies, their soul goes into unconsciousness until the second coming of Jesus. No. We saw last week, I think it was 2 Corinthians 5:8, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. You are consciously present with the Savior.

He's referring to the body in death that sleeps. Our eyes close in death. Our bodies lie in repose. Even across the street, we call that a cemetery, and the word comes from a Greek word that means sleeping place, a dormitory. It's a reminder that the Christian doesn't just die in the end. The body sleeps, but one day God will wake that body up with a new body, a resurrection body, just like Jesus.

But in the meantime, he says, “We don't want you to grieve as those who have no hope.” Notice he didn't say, “Don't grieve.” Don't tell someone not to grieve; that's a cruel command, an impossible one to give someone. Your grief is not a sign that you have a lack of faith. Your grief is a sign that you have a heart of love.

But Paul does command, “Don't grieve as those who have no hope.” The world grieves as if it's the end. Some of the saddest funerals I've ever had to officiate are for people who did not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and whose family didn't know Him either. I met with a family years ago in Jacksonville, Florida. The funeral home called and said, “We need your help, will you help us?” I said, “Absolutely.” As I met with the family, just to get to know their loved one, they said, “Listen, we don't know why the funeral home called you, because we don't believe in God, and our loved one didn't believe in God.” I said, “Well, what are we supposed to talk about, because I have nothing else.” They said, “Well, just talk about how our loved one loved this and loved that.” So that's basically what I did, I talked about how their loved one worked, and had hobbies. But when I finished, I shared the gospel. You can't do anything for those who have already died, but I'm going to share the gospel with the family standing in front of me, because they need to know there is a Savior who came to give us life, and life more abundantly.

The world understands grief without hope. We have grief with hope. I remember my first semester of Greek in seminary. I had to learn hundreds of vocabulary words, so I would make flashcards and do my best to learn my vocabulary so I could pass the weekly quiz. I remember finding the word for hope in Greek. You pronounce it elpis. I was trying to find all kinds of ways to remember what these words meant so I could pass my quiz, and I just kept thinking, “There are people who hope Elvis is alive.” I'm a big Elvis fan. So that helped me remember that the word for hope in Greek is elpis.

And it doesn't just mean to cross your fingers and hope it might happen, it may or it may not. Some people come to church and hope the sermon doesn't go too long. You never know, it might, it might not. That's hope in a worldly sense. But biblical hope is a certainty of eternal life with Jesus. That's the hope we have. Death is not the end.

You say, “But Pastor, how do we know this isn't just pious platitudes, or Christians whistling in the dark? How do we know there's reality, a foundation under our hope?”

Well, because he tells us in verse 14: “For since we believe Jesus died and rose again, even so...” How many of you believe Jesus died and rose again? Listen, a dead savior can't save anybody. There are liberal theologians preaching in pulpits today, all across America, that Jesus did not bodily, somatically, physically, victoriously walk out of His tomb on His own two feet. Instead they say, “Oh no, Jesus didn't bodily rise from the dead, but His example lives on, His teachings came out of His death, and we are just so blessed.” That is heresy. That will doom you to hell.

The Bible clearly teaches Jesus walked out of His own tomb alive. He rose from the dead. He conquered the grave. And if that's true, don't you worry about your resurrection. He can handle that one too.

The gospel is: Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures, He was buried, and He rose from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures, and He was seen, First Corinthians chapter 15, verses 3 through 5 and following. The gospel is not based on hope. It is based on historical events that took place in Jerusalem in the first century, witnessed by hundreds of people, many of whom went to their martyrs' deaths because they would not stop preaching that the resurrection and the life is none other than Jesus.

Paul says, if Jesus walked out of His tomb in a resurrection body, glorified, never to die again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. Did you hear that? Bring with Him. Yes, Jesus is coming back, and in the meantime, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And when He comes back, He doesn't come alone. He comes back with our dearly departed loved ones in Christ.

II. THE FULFILLMENT OF CHRISTIAN HOPE

We've seen the foundation of Christian hope, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. I can stand at an open grave in any cemetery in the world and look a family in the eye and say, because Jesus died and rose again, you can grieve with hope that death is not the end.

Now the fulfillment of Christian hope: what will it be like when He comes back and our hopes are fulfilled, our faith becomes sight?

He puts it this way in verses 15 through 17. Verse 15: “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord.” Paul isn't giving a word of speculation, he is giving a word of divine revelation. He says, this is what the Lord has given to me. “We who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.” Maybe in your King James Version you're reading, “will not prevent those.” In other words, the Christians in Thessalonica were afraid: our loved ones have died, if Jesus comes back, do we go first? And he says, no, your loved ones won't miss out on anything. They'll have front row seats. They go first, then you.

“We who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.” Then he gives us three beautiful pictures. There's a picture of a return. Verse 16: “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven.” The Lord Himself. He's not sending an angel, or an emissary. He's coming back Himself. He promised it: “I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself.” The same Jesus who was born of the virgin Mary. The same Jesus who lived a sinless life. The same Jesus who walked on water and fed thousands with a little boy's lunch. The same Jesus who could calm the storms and raised the dead. The same Jesus who gave His life as a substitutionary, atoning sacrifice for sinners. The same Jesus who was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. The same Jesus who walked out alive with the nail prints still in His body. The same Jesus who went back to the Father in heaven forty days later, is going to come back one day, just like He promised, to receive us to Himself. That's a return I'm looking forward to. I'm not looking for the undertaker. I'm looking for the Uppertaker, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come back. Amen.

He says we're not going to miss it. You say, “If I'm a Christian, how will I know?” Listen how it's going to happen. He continues: “With a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.” If I were officiating a funeral right now, I would have my black King James Bible, the one I've used since I was a young man. I stopped counting the funerals over a thousand, more people than this room will hold. And I stand before them and read those words: “For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.” As I look at that page, and especially as I flip over to Psalm 23, the page is wrinkled because of how many times I've stood outside in the rain, and how many times my tears have mingled with the rain on that page. My tears are not tears of despair. My tears are, “Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. May this be the last funeral I ever have to officiate.”

But He's coming back one day, and His people will not miss it. When you hear His voice, He's coming out, you're coming out, and you're coming up. It was the voice of God that spoke the creation of the universe into existence: “Let there be light,” and there was light. The same voice of the Lord Jesus Christ stood outside the tomb of Lazarus and said, “Lazarus, come forth.” I like what the old country preacher Randy said: “If Jesus hadn't called Lazarus by name, every dead person in that cemetery would have come out of the grave.”

He's coming back one day: a return, and a resurrection. “And the dead in Christ will rise first.” Their soul comes back with Him, He raises their bodies from the dead, and they are given glorified resurrection bodies. They're raised like Jesus was raised by the Spirit from the tomb. The Apostle Paul would say to the Corinthians, in First Corinthians 15, “This mortal must put on immortality, this corruptible must put on incorruption, and when that has happened, then will come to pass the saying that is written: death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?” And we can read the last book, Revelation chapter 21: when Christ returns, there will be no more pain, no more sorrow, no more crying, no more death, for the former things will have passed away.

Now, I'm a Baptist, you understand that, don't you, my theology, I'm a Baptist. But my grandmothers were Church of God, so I might be Bapti-costal every once in a while. When my great-grandmother heard me preach when I was seventeen, I said, “Great Granny, what did you think?” She said, “Not bad for a Baptist.”

But I was standing at a graveside one day, reading that same familiar passage in Revelation 21:1, 4, “for the former things will have passed away,” when that phrase hit me right there, “passed away.” How many times have I gotten a phone call: “Ricky, I hate to tell you, but one of your loved ones has passed away.” “Ricky, I hate to tell you, but one of your church members has passed away.” “Ricky, one of my family members you didn't know has passed away, and I need you to do the funeral.” How many times have I stood in a hospital and had to tell a loved one, “I'm sorry, but they passed away.”

And as I stood there at that grave, I thought, you're supposed to be dignified, you're supposed to comfort this family, and it hit me: that's the same phrase, passed away. One day it will ring out through the universe: have you heard, today, death passed away? That's a funeral I'll look forward to!

And there's a reunion. Not only a return and a resurrection, but a reunion. Did you see that in verse 17? “Then we who are alive and 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.”

Don't you hear it? If we're still alive when Jesus comes back, our loved ones in Christ who have died will be resurrected, reunited with their soul. And in that moment, the Apostle Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, “In the twinkling of an eye, we shall not all die, but we shall all be changed.” So if we haven't died when Christ returns, we are changed, we are given resurrection bodies, our bodies are changed to be glorified like Jesus's body.

And we are caught up, harpazō in the Greek, it means to be snatched away with power and force. It's where we get the idea of the rapture of the church, that we are caught up together. Listen to this: with them, with our loved ones who had died and gone on before us, now in their resurrection bodies, we are caught up together with them. Will we meet our loved ones again? Absolutely we will.

But what's even greater is the next phrase: “caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” As much as I'm looking forward to seeing my family members and friends who have gone on before me, that pales in comparison to the day my faith becomes sight, and I see the One who died for me, who walked out of a grave, and who saved me by His grace.

“What a day that will be when my Jesus I shall see, When I look upon His face, the One who saved me by His grace, When He takes me by the hand, and leads me through the Promised Land, What a day, glorious day that will be.” (Songwriters: Jim Hill, What A Day That Will Be lyrics © Ben Speer Music)

III. THE FRUIT OF CHRISTIAN HOPE

We've seen the foundation of our Christian hope, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. We've seen the fulfillment of it, when He returns and we get a glimpse of what's going to happen. But let me close with the fruit of Christian hope. What do we do with this? How does this help us? Look at verse 18: “Therefore, encourage one another with these words.” Or, “Therefore, comfort one another with these words.”

The word comfort means to come alongside someone. In the Greek it's parakaleō, from para, alongside, and kaleō, to call. So to comfort someone is to hear the call to come and be with them. Church, we need to encourage one another.

One of the reasons I take funerals so seriously as your pastor is because it is a holy, sacred responsibility. The reason I do that is because of this charge, to comfort one another in those times, to come alongside people when they're hurting, when they're grieving. But I'm also preaching this sermon series because I don't want to wait until that moment to teach you about the Christian hope. I want to help you lay a foundation for your faith in the good times that will prepare you for the difficult times.

And that's not only my job, it's our job. “Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.”

Now, sometimes in grief, Christians take one of two extremes. Either we don't know what to say, so we don't say anything, we don't show up, we don't send a card, we don't make a phone call, and we leave that grieving person unintentionally feeling all alone to bear their grief.

The other extreme is we show up and speak up when we ought to shut up. We mean well, but we say things like, “Oh, don't be selfish, she wouldn't want you still grieving.” Wait a minute, it's not selfish to want another moment with someone you love and have shared life with. That doesn't help. And don't say unbiblical things like, “God just needed another angel in heaven.” Human beings are created in the image of God. Humans are humans, angels are angels, we don't become angels. Don't use bad theology to try to comfort people. Babies don't become angels.

You remember Job's friends, Bildad, Zophar, and Eliphaz? He's suffering, he's lost his children, he's lost his health, he's lost his fortune, but he's got three friends and a nagging wife who says, “Why don't you curse God and die?” That'll bless your heart right there, won't it? Nobody stitches that on a pillow. That's nobody's life verse.

For seven days, Job's friends sit with him in silence, and I think they get it right. What they're doing is they're just wanting to be there. Sometimes, friend, you don't have to say anything, just be there. Let them weep on your shoulder, let them talk, and you just listen. But then after seven days, they started speaking: “Hey, what sin have you committed that God would do this to you?” That was the wrong thing to say.

So what do we do? We do what the Bible teaches us as Christians who have hope. We comfort one another with these words. I think this is the shorthand: we comfort each other with the Gospel. Ours is not only the gospel of a good beginning, ours is the gospel of a good finish. Ours is not just the gospel for the sweet by and by, it's the gospel for the nasty here and now. And we can comfort each other.

There's going to be a day I need to hold your hand, there's going to be a day you need to hold my hand, and we need to gently, and by the Holy Spirit's leading, remind each other: Jesus lived, He died, He rose from the dead, He's coming again, and when He does, He makes all things new. In the meantime, just grieve in hope for that day. Send that card. Make that phone call. Send that text. Just show up, and love on someone with the comfort of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

My wife and I were talking to someone not long ago about an experience I had in Valdosta, when I was pastoring Gateway Baptist Church. I'd been introduced to a family I didn't know. I was just told he was having some kind of heart surgery, at South Georgia Medical Center, but they were going to have to life-flight him to Tallahassee. I said, I'm going to leave everything and go up there. I met the family on the fourth floor of South Georgia Medical Center as they were rushing him out to get him to Tallahassee. So I'm running alongside this family, saying, “I know you don't know me, I'm Pastor Ricky Powell at Gateway Baptist Church, do you mind if I follow you? I'll meet you in Tallahassee.” They just said yes.

He had his surgery, and I was able to lead him to the Lord. But then an infection set in, and not long after that, sadly, he passed away. The family said, “We want you to do the funeral.” So I went to the home and met with the family and ministered to them, went to the funeral home, went to the cemetery, did all that a pastor does.

Donna is so much better with dates than I am, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but it wasn't long, just a few months later, I got a phone call on an early morning from that same widow, who said, “My daughter's gone.” I think she was nineteen. She was pregnant, and she'd had an aneurysm. I went back to that same home, looked at that same grieving family, went back to the same funeral home, went back to the same cemetery I had just been at with this family weeks earlier. I'll be very frank with you, I don't remember exactly what I said, but I remember thinking, this is what pastors do at the end of the graveside, we go and greet the family, and I usually just whisper in their ear, “I love you.” And I thought, what am I going to say to this wife who's buried her husband, and now she's buried her daughter and her unborn grandchild? When I reached her, she grabbed me, pulled me in, and said, “Pastor, thank you for helping us. What do people do who don't know Jesus as Lord and Savior? Heaven's a little sweeter today for me.” And I thought, that's the gospel. The gospel is, because Jesus died and rose again, we can grieve with hope that death is not the end.

INVITATION

I want to lead us in a word of prayer, but I would be remiss if I didn't say one more thing. Paul writes, “But we would not have you to be ignorant.” What was the next word? Brothers, or brethren. He's writing to the family of God. If you have never placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, the hope that we enjoy is available to you as well, by putting your faith in Jesus Christ, who died for you, who rose from the dead for you, to prove that He is the Son of God. He has conquered death, hell, and the grave. He is the resurrection and the life. Nobody gets to the Father except through Him.

So why don't you make the decision to say, “Jesus, I repent of my sin, and I put my faith in You. I stake my life and eternal destiny on You, and You alone.” The Bible says in Romans 10:9, “If we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we shall be saved.” Romans 10:13 says, “For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Will you do that today? Will you call on the name of the Lord?

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, in the stillness of this moment, all of us who are followers of Jesus by grace through faith in Him, we thank You that because Jesus died and rose again, we can grieve with hope, knowing death is not the end.

But Lord, there could be someone in this room who has never received Jesus as Savior. I pray that right now, in the stillness of this moment, they would do business with You and You alone. Dear God, (that's right, friend, if you need to pray, say it, talk to Him in your heart, He'll hear you, you can pray silently.) Dear God, I admit to You, I am a sinner. I've not loved You with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength. I've certainly not loved my neighbor like myself. I have messed up many times. I'm a sinner, I admit it. But Jesus, You came to save sinners, and I believe You are God's Son, who gave Your perfect life on the cross in exchange for my sinful life, and You walked out of the tomb alive, having paid the price for my forgiveness. Today I confess my sin, and I confess my faith in Jesus. Thank You for the promise of Your Word, that if we confess our sin, You are faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Today I receive Jesus. Thank You for the gift of eternal life. Help me now to learn more, and to live for You, Jesus. I thank You for saving me. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.