Untitled Sermon (48)

Introduction to why we are all here.

Talk about death having become a natural part of our life.

I had the joy many years ago of being Grandma Deann’s Pastor. Through that, I was able to get to know her on a spiritual side in ways that today cause me great joy.

As a Pastor, my primary calling in life is to point people to Christ and prepare people for the moment that Deann is experiencing right now.

Death is not designed to be natural

Prepare human beings, created in the Image of God to meet the God of all creation.

Its something that each and every single one of us in this room will one day encounter, regardless of our beliefs on the matter.

So today, that is what I would like to share with you all.

I want to share with you the hope and the joy that Grandma Deann had for many years and even through her final moments.

2. I’m going to read to you a passage of Scripture that I read to Deann last week when I first got the call that she was being placed on Hospice.

2 Corinthians 4:1–18 ESV

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Pray

I first want to address the Christians who are here today.

3. There is much in this life that is considered affliction, yet the death of a Christian is not one of them.

The modern culture has invaded the hearts of those within the Church in many ways, and one of those ways is through the idea that a Christian dying is somehow a bad thing.

While I can agree that life is precious and in what the believer leaves behind we will see sorrow, the Christians death is not a bad thing.

For the Christian, we do not look at that which is seen. We have a hope that is founded on the person of Christ.

We know that this life is but momentary. Its temporal! Instead, what the believer in Christ Jesus has when they leave this life and pass on into their rest, is just that!

For the person who is redeemed in Christ, they will never again no any form of pain. They will no longer know of any form of affliction.

The Christian will enter into their rest with the sweet embrace of the one who loved them enough that He would die for them on the cross of Calvary.

Every sorrow that we know in this life will be gone. Every tear wiped away from the grieving mother.

It’s on that day when the physical flesh of the person dies that their soul and all that they are enters into the sweet embrace of Christ Jesus.

Death for the follower of Christ, though painful to the family, is beautiful to the one who is known by God.

4. Yet this does not mean that death is natural.

Just because death is imminent, does mean that we should look forward to it because this body that we dwell in is made in the image of God.

We were not created to encounter this death that each of us will encounter.

We were made to live in the spectacular fellowship of God.

Yet with the introduction of sin into the world, death became unavoidable to all people. There is not one who will escape it apart from a miraculous work of God. It is the ultimate statistic.

It happens to all people and every single time it happens, death mars and defaces the very image of God.

It impugns the goodness of God because we are made in His image and therefore, we were not designed for death.

5. Yet this does not mean that we fret on the death that is to come.

Instead, for the believer it means that in these moments, when we weep for those whom we love and long for the seasons of life that we had with them that was joyous, we can truly rejoice in knowing this was only temporal.

This life is only temporal because everything has been restored through Christ Jesus.

In the death of Christ, He underwent what each of us will encounter. Yet we’ve no need to fear that death because in His resurrection, we see that death was not victorious over God.

That’s where the scripture states, “Oh death where is thy sting? Oh death where is thy victory?” Christ triumphed over death and it proves to us that we have hope beyond measure through Christ.

Because Christ defeated death, each and every single one of us can look at our beloved family and friends entering into eternity and know that this is not the end.

We can weep alongside our friends and family but our weeping is different. Our weeping is not as those who have no hope. Instead we weep alongside them knowing that for the believer, Christ is the basis of our faith.

As Christians we can boldly encounter what is coming our way and count it as a temporal affliction.

6. The reason that we can face death as a mere affliction is that it is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory.

And that weight of glory is far beyond what anyone in this life can fathom. There is no comparison.

For the Christian, everything that we encounter in this life will fall short of measuring up to what we will one day encounter.

If God gives us 74 years on this earth, it won’t even begin to compare to an eternity.

The Hymn Amazing Grace captures this idea so well when it says, “When we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the Sun. We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, than when we first begun.

The idea is that in light of eternity, 10,000 years will be as merely blinking our eyes.

This for us as Christians should cause us to wipe away our tears and rejoice for our beloved friends and family.

7. Yet this hope is not for everyone.

Scripture also tells us that there are many of those who would refuse the very hope that I’ve been sharing today.

They see it as a whitewash or a false hope of ideals.

Scripture even says this. It states that this message of forgiveness in Christ is foolishness to those who are perishing. Yet to those who have been redeemed, the message of the cross is beautiful.

Even the Apostle Paul speaks of this idea at the very beginning of this chapter.

He tells us that there are those whose eyes are veiled. They have been blinded by the god of this world which is sin.

tells us that those who don’t believe, don’t do so because they do not know.

Instead, they don’t believe because they are so in love with their sin that they would choose that over redemption.

For me as a Christian though, this absolutely breaks my heart! If you could only see for a moment the glory of God you would run to Him, pleading with Him for His grace to be upon you.

Yet many won’t!

I think this is why we as a society look at death in such a tragic way. They see this life as being the best that they will ever have.

And to be honest, as an unredeemed person without the grace and the mercy of Christ, this life is the best that you will ever have!

Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die. Pursue after all that you can in this fleeting moment of time.

Pursue after what pleases your heart for to you there is nothing else.

8. Yet I stand here this morning as walking testimony that there is so much more!

There is so much more than being separated from a holy and righteous God for all of eternity. There is so much more than a pursuit after things in this life.

You can have a reason to rejoice, both in this life and the one to come.

Each of us in this room, left on our own before God would stand condemned because of our sin. Yet in God’s grace and His mercy, He has offered a way for you to not only be forgiven, but also for you to be able to be right before Him.

Restored to what you were truly created to be. A way for you to know joy beyond all measure.

Each of us will one day stand before a holy and righteous God. And on that day, we will all know that God sees us lying, stealing adulterers at heart. That we are guilty of so much more than we can ever understand here today.

And because of our guilt, we are removed from God’s presence forever.

Yet because of His great love for us, the Lord did not leave us in that place.

Instead He sent Christ Jesus to live a perfect and a righteous life, to die upon the cross of calvary, taking upon Himself the full weight of the wrath of God over sin.

All so that you who would call upon the Lord to be saved can say that upon Calvary, you died with Christ. The penalty for your sins was poured upon Him, and by Jesus’ wounds, you are healed.

8. For many of you today, you are probably thinking this all to be stupid or idiotic, maybe even saying you don’t believe any of what I’m telling you.

Belief in something doesn’t make it true. I can sit in a garage all day and believe I’ll one day turn into a car, that doesn’t make it true.

Instead what makes something true is whether or not it can be verified.

(Hold up Bible) I hold in my hands not some religious book as some may call it. Instead, I hold in my hands a trusted history book. One which test after test has revealed its historicity to be true.

A book which reveals that there were over 500 witnesses to the resurrection of Christ. A book which verifies time after time that Christ Jesus was God on earth, that He lived a perfect and righteous life and died upon the cross so that all who would believe upon Him, would not perish but have everlasting life.

9. So my question for you today could be summed up in this way, are you weeping as those with no hope? Or are you weeping as those who know that this light and momentary affliction in life is preparing for you an eternal weight of glory?

Let’s pray.