Where Is Your Hope?

We come here today not to celebrate death but to celebrate life. Judy?s life here on earth is over but her life in heaven with her beloved Savior Jesus Christ has just began. We sorrow because we shall miss her - but we rejoice in the memories we have of her and we praise God that her life of no pain, no concerns, no doubts, and no lack of understanding has started with Jesus Christ in her new home.

WHERE IS YOUR HOPE?

PSALM 39:4-7

I. We need to be aware of our frailty.

A. Psalm 39:4-6 "LORD, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, and that my life is fleeing away. My life is no longer than the width of my hand. An entire lifetime is just a moment to you; human existence is but a breath. We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing. We heap up wealth for someone else to spend."

B. Jewish Proverb - Every man knows he will die, but no one wants to believe it.

C. Isaiah 64:6 "... we all do fade as a leaf..."

D. Nothing is so certain as death, and nothing is so uncertain as the hour of death.

E. The chances of you winning a state lottery jackpot are 1 in 4,000,000. The chance that you eventually are going to die is 1 in 1.

F. Hebrews 9:27 "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:"

G. Death is our universal fate because of our first parents Adam and Eve.

A. I Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam all die..."

B. Death is our universal fate because of our first parents Adam and Eve, but death is not the end.

C. Everyone who is born into this world will also have to leave it and for most people their deepest instincts and convictions tell them there is something beyond the grave.

D. For millions though the crossing through the portal of this life holds sheer terror. They have nothing on which to hang their faith and hope with any certainty.

II. We need to know where our hope lies.

A. Some seek security in possessions.

? Luke 12:16-20 "And he spoke a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?"

B. Many place their faith in religion or church.

1. "Most people in America have just enough religion to keep them from getting the real thing. They have just enough to inoculate them against God!" - Billy Graham

2. Trusting in religion or church is putting the cart before the horse.

3. Acts 17:22 "Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious."

C. Most their hope in good works.

? Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: [9] Not of works, lest any man should boast."

D. The Psalmist declared in Psalm 39:7, " Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you"

E. John 11:25-26 "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Believest thou this?"

F. At death, we all cross from one territory to another, but those who have established a personal relationship with Jesus will have no trouble with Their visas. Their representative is already there, preparing for their arrival. Their entrance is incontestable as citizens of heaven.

G. As such death for the Christian is the beginning of Life.

H. John 10:9 "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture."

I. Jesus Christ opened the ?Door to eternity? when he died on the Cross for Judy, and for you and me.

J. Let me ask you, "Have you entered that door?"

1. Judy entered that door a number of years ago.