Why Do Christians Still Have To Die?

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.