Opening Story – Everybody’s an Expert
Have you noticed that everybody’s an expert on heaven until you ask for directions?
A little boy once asked his Sunday-school teacher, “Do you really go straight to heaven when you die?”
She said, “Yes, honey.”
He squinted and said, “Then why does Pastor Bill keep saying he’s ‘going by way of the cemetery’?”
Another child drew a picture of the pearly gates with a “Now Hiring” sign and told his mom, “They probably need more angels since people keep dying.”
We laugh—but underneath the humor lies our universal curiosity. We are, quite literally, dying to know.
What happens when the heartbeat stops, when the screen fades to black, when the song ends on the final note?
Humanity has been guessing for millennia: pyramids packed for the afterlife, philosophers dreaming of the immortal soul, poets writing about crossing rivers.
Every culture tells its version of the story—but Jesus told the truth of it.
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Our Curiosity About Death
From the moment Cain buried Abel, the human race has been haunted by one question: Where did he go?
We sense that death is wrong—foreign, like a typo in creation’s manuscript.
We dress it in euphemisms: passed on, departed, asleep in the Lord.
But behind the soft words is hard reality.
Death doesn’t politely knock; it barges in and rearranges everything.
Even Jesus wept at a tomb.
Yet Christianity dares to face death without superstition or sentimentality.
We don’t call death a friend. Scripture calls it “the last enemy.” (1 Cor 15:26)
It’s not a graduation; it’s an interruption.
It’s not evolution; it’s invasion.
But here’s the paradox: to understand life, you have to study death—because grace rewrote death’s definition.
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What the Bible Actually Says
The Bible’s vocabulary for death is surprisingly gentle.
Abraham slept with his fathers.
David rested.
Stephen fell asleep.
Jesus Himself said of Lazarus, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” (John 11:11)
In Scripture, death is not consciousness relocated—it’s consciousness paused.
It’s not an open door to another world; it’s the shutting down of this one until God calls.
Ecclesiastes 9:5:
> “The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing.”
That’s not nihilism—it’s mercy.
God doesn’t let pain echo forever; He silences it.
He doesn’t let the grieving live half here, half there; He holds them safe in His memory.
If death is sleep, then resurrection is the alarm clock.
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Lazarus — The One Who Knew
So when Jesus said, “Lazarus, come forth,” He wasn’t interrupting harp practice in heaven.
He was breaking the silence of the tomb.
Think of it.
Four days dead.
Wrapped tight, face bound, body cold.
No oxygen, no brainwave, no heartbeat—only stillness.
Then a voice.
A single name slicing through eternity: “Lazarus.”
If Jesus hadn’t named him, every grave would’ve opened.
But He personalized the miracle—proof that resurrection is not mass production; it’s personal invitation.
And Lazarus came back.
No travelogue.
No near-death story.
No “you wouldn’t believe the light.”
Why? Because he hadn’t been anywhere.
He’d been nowhere—nowhere but the memory of God.
When he opened his eyes, the first face he saw wasn’t St. Peter or Grandma Rachel—it was Jesus.
That’s the biblical picture of death: complete silence until the Savior speaks.
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Why We Fear Death
Let’s admit it—death scares us because it reminds us we’re not in control.
We can Google symptoms, take vitamins, eat kale until we turn green—but mortality still shows up on the doorstep.
We fear death because we confuse delay with denial.
We think, If I can’t control the ending, maybe I can edit the middle.
But Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” (Matt 10:28)
The worst the world can do is temporary.
The best God can do is eternal.
And here’s the secret: we’re not just dying from something; we’re dying to something.
We’re dying to sin, to self, to separation.
Every funeral whispers the same question: Have you died before you die?
Because if you die before you die, then when you die—you won’t really die.
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Dying Before You Die
Paul wrote,
> “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:20)
That’s spiritual death—and it’s the only death you should practice daily.
The gospel invitation isn’t “try harder” but “die sooner.”
Die to ego, to pride, to karma, to scorekeeping.
Grace begins where self ends.
When Jesus said, “Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it,” He wasn’t being poetic; He was describing divine physics.
Only an empty seed can sprout.
Only a buried bulb can bloom.
That’s the paradox of the kingdom: resurrection power is released only through surrender.
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The Death of Death
Paul’s trumpet line in 1 Corinthians 15:54 still rings across the centuries:
> “Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
At the cross, Jesus did not merely die for us — He died as us.
He went all the way down, not halfway.
He didn’t peek into the grave and back away; He entered it, sealed the door, and turned the lock from the inside.
And when He rose, the hinges of hell fell off.
No wonder Revelation 20 says that Death itself will be thrown into the lake of fire.
The enemy will be executed.
Think of it: the undertaker unemployed, the hearse rusting, the cemetery turned into a garden.
That’s what grace does when it runs its full course — it buries the gravedigger.
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The Butterfly Moment
Earlier you said it so perfectly: “The second death must be something else — just like a butterfly.”
Yes.
The caterpillar doesn’t ascend as a ghost of itself; it dissolves, waits in stillness, and then emerges with wings.
When we die in Christ, we aren’t recycled — we’re re-created.
The tomb becomes the cocoon of transformation.
And just as surely as morning follows midnight, resurrection follows rest.
That’s why the New Earth will not be full of spirits floating in clouds; it will be populated by people.
Real, tangible, laughing, worshiping people — restored in body, mind, and heart.
Eternal life will not be less human but more.
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The Silence Between the Notes
Every great symphony has rests — moments when the orchestra falls silent and the audience holds its breath.
Death is that rest.
It’s not the end of the music; it’s the pause before the crescendo.
The devil wants you to fear the silence.
Grace wants you to trust the Composer.
Because on resurrection morning, the baton will rise again, and the next note will shake creation awake.
That’s why Jesus said, “The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice.” (John 5:28)
That voice that called “Lazarus!” will one day call you.
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The Real “Near-Death Experience”
People write books about tunnels and bright lights.
I don’t mock them, but I do measure everything by Scripture.
Lazarus never wrote a memoir.
Paul, who actually glimpsed paradise, said it was “inexpressible.”
Maybe the reason the Bible tells us so little is because death’s power isn’t in the details — it’s in the defeat.
The gospel doesn’t give us tourism of the afterlife; it gives us triumph over it.
We don’t need to know every street name in the New Jerusalem to trust the One who built it.
So when I say I’m dying to know, I mean this:
I’m dying to know the resurrection from the inside out — not as information, but as transformation.
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What Death Teaches About Life
Death is a mirror that tells the truth about our priorities.
When you realize life has an expiration date, the nonsense falls away.
You love deeper, forgive faster, serve freer.
Moses prayed, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)
He wasn’t being morbid — he was being realistic.
When you number your days, you stop wasting them.
You start dying to things not worth living for.
That’s the freedom of grace: to die to what drains you and live for what outlives you.
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Dying to Self — The Daily Resurrection
Every morning, before you brush your teeth, you can practice resurrection.
You can say, “Lord, today I die to my ego, my anger, my endless need to be right.
Raise me into Your likeness.”
That’s how Paul could face prison singing hymns.
He had already died once; Rome couldn’t threaten him with anything new.
The man who has died with Christ is untouchable.
The woman who has surrendered to grace is unstoppable.
Spiritual resurrection always begins with spiritual surrender.
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When Heaven Comes Home
Revelation 21:4 says it in the simplest sentence of all:
> “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.”
No more death shall be.
Not just no more funerals — no more fear.
Not just no more sickness — no more separation.
In the New Earth, no one will say, “She’s gone.”
We’ll only say, “She’s home.”
And the first thing you’ll notice about eternity is not the streets of gold but the absence of good-byes.
We’ll finally live in a universe where nothing dies — not love, not laughter, not light.
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Illustration — The Empty Chair
I once visited a home where the family had lost their father.
At the dinner table, they left one chair empty.
A year later I visited again, and the chair was still there, polished, waiting.
The mother smiled and said, “One day, Jesus will fill that chair Himself.”
That’s faith — the kind that looks at absence and still expects presence.
Every empty chair, every silent grave, every framed picture of someone we miss is a reservation for resurrection morning.
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The Invitation — Die Before You Die
Friend, maybe you’re afraid of death because you haven’t yet died the first time — the spiritual death of surrender.
But the safest people in the world are those who’ve already died with Christ.
They’ve signed the certificate early.
When you give Him your life, death loses its claim.
When you walk out of the baptismal water, you’ve already had your funeral — and your first resurrection.
The next one will just be physical.
So don’t wait for the undertaker to start living for the Resurrection-Maker.
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Closing Vision — The Final Awakening
Picture that dawn.
The sky still gray, dew trembling on grass.
Then a sound — not thunder, not trumpet alone, but a voice.
Graves open like unsealed letters.
Hands reach out of the earth, not in fear but in recognition.
The Redeemer stands where cemeteries used to be, and He smiles as the planet exhales.
And you, hearing your name from His lips for the first time, realize that death was only the comma, not the period.
Life continues — not as repetition but as restoration.
The silence ends; the song resumes.
And the refrain of eternity is this:
The Lamb reigns, and death is no more.
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Benediction and Prayer
> “Lord of life and conqueror of death,
teach us to live dying, and die living.
Until the day You call our name,
keep us faithful in the waiting,
fearless in the silence,
and full of hope in the promise:
that You will wipe away every tear,
and we shall see You face to face.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
