Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

I grew up in a subdivision just outside of Zeeland.

My mom’s parents lives in town.

My dad’s parents lived on the south side of Holland.

The summer I turned 9, I was finally allowed the 2 1/2 miles into town where my friends and I would buy candy from Bunte’s Pharmacy and dream of buying a lego set from the Ace Hardware store.

Today, this might feel like a lot of freedom for a 9 year old on a bike, but you should also know, we had to ride past my grandma’s house on the way downtown, my mom’s aunt worked at the hardware store and my mom and grandma had both worked at the pharmacy and my mom was still the primary seamstress for the women’s clothing shop downtown.

Everywhere we went, someone knew us.

Either from my family, my school or my church.

Growing up, all my grandparents and aunts and uncles attended church regularly.

All the kids in my Christian school class attended church.

Almost all of the kids in my neighborhood attended church or at least had a home church they said they attended.

Literally, I everyone I came into contact with was a Christian or at least pretended to be one.

When I started graduate school, that reality changed quickly for me.

Suddenly, none of my closest friends at school were Christians.

Some were Hindu.

Some were Jewish.

Some said they were Christian, but never prayed, read a Bible, or attended church.

And some never thought about God at all.

My experience at Indiana is much closer to my kids experience today.

Not all their aunts and uncles go to church regularly.

Not all of their adult cousins attend regularly.

Not all of their friends are Christians and almost no one feels pressure to pretend they have a church anymore.

And so a question that felt very theoretical when I was a child feels much more relevant and emotionally fraught today.

What happens to the people who don’t believe when they die?

Do we have to believe in a fiery hell where people are in agony forever to be a Christian?

Would God really punish people forever for sins they committed over 70 years?

What do we do with hell?

To answer that question, we are going to look at one of the passages that has haunted me the most in all of scripture.

Before we dive into scripture this morning, let us pray for God’s blessing on the reading of his word.

Text

L: This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!

P: Praise to you, O Christ!

What Happens When We Die?

What Happens After What Happens When We Die?

So what?