Why Do Christians Still Have to Die?
1 Corinthians 15:39-58; Genesis 2:15-17; Romans 5:1-17; Psalm 116:15;
Isaiah 57:1; 2 Corinthians 1:8-10; 2 Corinthians 4:5-11
Sermon by Rick Crandall
Grayson Baptist Church - June 24, 2018
BACKGROUND:
*Why do Christians still have to physically die? If we are saved by Jesus Christ, and our sins are forgiven, then why do we still have to die? Please open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 15, and we will begin to discover some God-given answers. God's Word has the sure answers we need, and we will search the Scriptures to find these answers today. But the most wonderful reason why we die is here in 1 Corinthians 15.
*In vs. 3-4, Paul summed up the heart of the good news about Jesus Christ:
3. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4. and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.
*Then in vs. 11, Paul told those Christians: "Whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed." Anybody who has ever been saved was saved by God's grace through faith in the Lord God Almighty. In Old Testament days, they were saved by believing in the promise of the coming Savior. Today people are saved by believing in the fulfillment of that promise by Jesus Christ.
*Christians: We are saved by believing in our crucified and risen Savior, and Paul was writing to saved people here. But some people in that church didn't believe in the resurrection of our bodies, so in vs. 12, Paul began to make a strong case for the reality of our resurrection. And Paul closed by rejoicing over the everlasting victory we have in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
*Let's read about it in 1 Corinthians 15:50-58.
MESSAGE:
*Every particle of life in this world was ultimately created by the Lord God Almighty. John 1:1-4 calls Jesus "The Word," and says:
1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2. The same was in the beginning with God.
3. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
*You are I are in the world because God gave us life. Down through the ages, God did billions of things big and small to make sure we got here. God wanted us have life, and He wants everyone to have eternal life with Him in Heaven.
*The Bible makes this clear in places like Matthew 18:14, where Jesus said: "It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." God wants people to live forever in Heaven. And this is one of the main reasons why the Bible says so much about death.
*Most people shy away from thinking about death, especially our own death. But God's Word doesn't shy away from death at all. A few simple searches for words like "death" and "dying" pulls up almost 1,400 uses, and well over a hundred pages of Scripture.
*God has a lot to say about death, and His Word gives us some very clear reasons why Christians still have to physically die.
1. FIRST, THERE'S A TRAGIC REASON, -- AND THAT'S SIN.
*Why do we have to die? Ultimately, it all goes back to the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve sinned by eating the one and only kind of fruit they were forbidden to eat. In Genesis 2:15-17:
15. . . The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.
16. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;
17. but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.''
*Then in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they immediately died spiritually. And they began to die physically, because the curse of death fell on the world. From that time on, almost everyone ever born was born under the curse of death. We were also born with the deadly spiritual sickness called sin. That's why we never have to teach our children how to be selfish or how to lie. They all get that naturally, and so did we.
*The only exception to this truth is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Though the eternal Lord humbled Himself to be born into a mortal body, He was miraculously born without original sin, and He never did sin.
*Instead, Jesus came into the world to take the guilt for all of our sins. Christ came to die on the cross for our sins, rise again from the dead, and give us everlasting victory over the curse of death!
*Paul explained this to us in Romans 5, and here's a little of what he said to Christians. This is from the English Standard Version of the Bible:
1. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
6. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.
8. but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
10. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
12. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man (i.e. Adam), and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.
15. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
17. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
2. WHY DO WE DIE? THE TRAGIC REASON IS SIN. BUT THERE ARE ALSO TENDER REASONS.
*God has special tenderness in His heart when His people go home to Heaven. One great place to see this truth is Psalm 116:15, where God's Word says: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."
*Sometimes the very thing that makes us sad makes the Lord very glad. When a believer dies and goes home to be with the Lord, it's a "precious" thing to God. That means it's a valuable thing, a splendid thing, a glorious thing.
*In Acts 6-8, Stephen the Deacon was falsely convicted of blasphemy and stoned to death. Acts 8:2 tells us that after Stephen died "devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him."
*But a few minutes before he died, Acts 7:55-56 says this about Stephen:
55. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
56. and said, "Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!''
*Stephen was overjoyed when he saw the Lord. And Jesus must have had a big smile on His face to welcome His servant home. That's because "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."
*We can also see God's tenderness in Isaiah 57:1. There, God's Word says: "The righteous perishes, and no man takes it to heart; merciful men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous is taken away from evil."
*The Living Bible says: "The good men perish; the godly die before their time and no one seems to care or wonder why. No one seems to realize that God is taking them away from evil days ahead."
*God knows the future. Isaiah 46:10 makes it clear that the Lord sees the end from the beginning. And sometimes He cuts a life short to spare people from trouble in this world.
*Also remember what God says to us in Jeremiah 29:11: "I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Christians: The good plans God has for our lives don't end when we die. They stretch out into all eternity!
*Evangelist Leighton Ford lost his son Sandy when Sandy was only 21 years old. Sandy had served as a summer missionary in France, and part of Leighton's comfort came from the man who supervised Sandy in France.
*That godly man wrote the Fords a letter describing his thoughts when he first found out that Sandy had died. He said, "I was stunned, 21, so many gifts to use. I thought, 'What a waste.'" Then he said: "Leighton, I realize we are so earthbound. Sandy's highest service has only begun." (1)
*That great truth gave much comfort to Leighton Ford in the loss of his son, and it should comfort us too. God has great plans for our lives that stretch out for all eternity! We won't know the details until we get to Heaven, but God calls His people home for tender reasons.
3. WHY DO CHRISTIANS DIE? THERE ARE TENDER REASONS. THERE'S ALSO A TRUST REASON.
*This reason is in 2 Corinthians 1:8-10, where Paul said:
8. . . We do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life.
9. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, THAT WE SHOULD NOT TRUST IN OURSELVES BUT IN GOD WHO RAISES THE DEAD,
10. who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us,
*God's greatest goals for our lives are for us to love Him and trust Him. And if there is anything our mortality can teach us, it's that we must trust in God.
*We must trust in the Savior who conquered death by rising again from the dead. We must trust in the God who is bigger than death, the Lord who can raise us again from the dead! We must trust in the Lord! And we can!
*I witnessed to Dot Van several times back in the 1990s. Her son went to church with us at Emmanuel Baptist. Dot passed away in May 1999. She had some good qualities, but had also made some very bad choices in life. And she was always very hard-hearted when we talked about the Lord.
*Dot thought you had to earn your way into Heaven. And she felt like she was good enough to go to Heaven on her own goodness. She didn't want anything to do with Jesus Christ.
*But the last time I saw Dot, she had completely changed. It was an astounding, glorious change! Dot was very sick with cancer at the time, but she did not complain.
*Instead, she took the time to tell me how she had been saved. God had started working on her heart 6 months earlier. The Lord showed her that she wasn't good enough to get into Heaven on her own. So, around Christmas in 1998, she asked Jesus to save her, and Dot told me, "I know that He has."
*You could hear it in her voice, and you could see it in her eyes. It was an amazing transformation! And I walked out of that hospital room a foot off the ground!
*That day, Dot also told me that when she got her cancer, God told her that it was going to be bad, but that was okay because He was going to be with her. And He was! As her son bent down to rub her forehead, Dot's last words were, "Jesus is with me son. -- Jesus is with me."
*She was trusting in the Lord until the very end, and we can too!
4. WHY DO CHRISTIANS DIE? THERE IS A TRUST REASON. AND THERE IS A TESTIMONY REASON.
*This reason is in 2 Corinthians 4:5-11, where Paul said:
5. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
6. For God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
8. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
9. persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed
10. ALWAYS CARRYING ABOUT IN THE BODY THE DYING OF THE LORD JESUS, THAT THE LIFE OF JESUS ALSO MAY BE MANIFESTED IN OUR BODY.
11. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
*God wants our whole life to be a testimony to the fact that Jesus is living in us. So, the life of Jesus should be manifested in the things we say, the things we do, and even in the way we die.
*God wants us to die like Jesus died. But what does that mean? One of the main things it means is that we die in peaceful hope. We understand that death is not the end. We know that we have a home in Heaven. And we know we have an everlasting future with God.
*Christian hope doesn't totally cancel out our fear of death. We will face those fears at times. That's only natural. But God will give us all the strength we need, just like He did for Dot Van, and for countless other Christians who have gone home to be with the Lord. God will give us the strength we need. And it will be a testimony for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
5. WHY DO CHRISTIANS DIE? THERE IS A TESTIMONY REASON, AND A TECHNICAL REASON.
*This reason takes us back to 1 Corinthians 15. In vs. 39-50, Paul said:
39. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fish, and another of birds.
40. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
41. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory.
42. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.
43. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
44. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45. And so it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being.'' The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
46. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.
47. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven.
48. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly.
49. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.
50. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption.
*Look at it this way: Just as fish are not equipped to live on land, our natural bodies are not equipped to live in Heaven.
6. WHY DO CHRISTIANS DIE? THERE IS A TECHNICAL REASON, AND THERE IS A TRIUMPHANT REASON.
*This is God's message for us in vs. 51-58, where Paul said:
51. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed
52. in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory.''
55. "O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?''
56. The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
57. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
CONCLUSION:
*Unless the Lord comes back first, Christians, we are all going to die. And God has some good reasons for that.
*But what's it like to die? Gloria Wink gave me the best explanation I ever heard, and it came from a 4-year-old girl. Gloria heard about this from one of her friends, a cancer patient named Mickey.
*Mickey had recently been to the doctor for chemo. A 4-year-old girl was in the doctor's office that day, and out of the blue, she asked Mickey, "Are you fixin to die?" Mickey said, "I don't know. It's up to God." And the little girl replied, "Well, -- you will just jump out of your skin. And jump into God's arms."
*That was an amazing thing for a 4-year-old to say, and they were sure it was a message of hope from God. It's also the sure biblical truth for Christians that we see in 2 Corinthians 5:8. There Paul said: "We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
*That's the way it is for everybody who knows the Lord. Do you know Jesus Christ? Have you trusted in the crucified and risen Savior? Have you received Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?
*Do you know Him? This is eternal life. As Jesus said to the Heavenly Father on the night before the cross: "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." Do you know Him? Have you called on the Lord to save you?
*You can do that right now, as we go to God in prayer.
(1) Leighton Ford, "Hope for a Great Forever," Preaching Today, Tape No. 96. - Source: The Bible Illustrator, Topic: Death - Subtopic: Of the Righteous - Index: 2160 - Date: 4/1998.1741 - Title: Highest Service Begins with Death
