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[00:00:25] Speaker B: Well, good morning again. You know, the gospel is the good news. In fact, by definition, the word gospel literally means good news. And in one corinthians 15, Paul said, I declare the gospel. It is concerning the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus. According to the scripture. You think about the good news the church has to proclaim this morning. It sets on that tripod, the tripod, three truths. The truth of his death, the truth of his burial, the truth of his resurrection. And it's good news because in the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus, we find hope. We find hope when we deal with the matter of death. Death has touched every person in this room and everyone watching online this morning. All of us have gone through that experience. We've lost someone we've loved. And an understanding of the Easter message gives us hope in the face of death and then burial. Is that the end of it all? I mean, is it all in once life is over? Is there nothing after this? If there isn't, then we should buy into the epicurean philosophy that says, hey, just eat, drink and be merry. Ain't nothing after this. But the Easter message is, the grave does not end at all. The Bible says he came out of the grave victorious. And so it gives us understanding of the death, the burial, and then the resurrection. The resurrection gives us hope that one day we'll see our loved ones again.
One day we'll be in a place called heaven. We'll be reunited forevermore. And so, no wonder. When you properly understand the message of Easter, it gives you hope in the face of death. It gives you hope in the face of loss, and it gives you hope for the morning of resurrection. But when you talk about the Easter story, it opens with the death. You cannot get around the Good Friday sermon, the Good Friday experience. The story opens with death. And none of us are comfortable talking about death. But someone as well said, a man is not really prepared to live until he's prepared to die. And having the proper view of death and having an understanding of what it means and what it doesn't mean has the power to remove the fear of the experience from anyone. I'll be honest with you, as a Christ follower, I really, I don't fear death.
I fear dying.
It's not the getting there, it's how am I going to get there? That kind of, you know, worries me a little. But I just got to be honest. It's not being there, I should say it's getting there. And so there is kind of an uncomfortableness that we all have when we talk about it, yet we talk about it. You have to do estate planning, right? You've done some of that. You have a will. You have to think about that. You have life insurance. Well, you've obviously given some thought to that. As uncomfortable as it is, we have to from time to time contemplate the fact that we probably aren't going to get out of this thing alive.
And we have to actually give some consideration to the fact that when life is over, it ends in that experience called death. In fact, the gospel, as I said, opens with that idea, the death, burial and resurrection. There was an old farmer that lived out in the country many years ago, and it was the custom of that country environment that when a person would die, they would have a wake at the farmhouse. If you were close enough to a little church house, you would go there for a service. If not, a lot of those old country funerals were just held there at the farmhouse. Well, this old rancher had died in his barn and they don't know how long he had been there till one of the hands found him. But they found him setting up and that was back before modern embalming technology had come around. So they had trouble getting to lay out in that casket just right.
So the old funeral director said, the only thing I can do, he told the family to get him in the casket the right way, is I'm going to have to strap him in, im going to have to use some leather straps. And they said, hey, thats fine. Hes not there anyway. Hes in heaven. Its just the body. Go ahead. And they strapped him down in that casket and they had a wake at the farmhouse that night. Well, everybody showed up. People came and paid their respects, and one by one, people would begin to leave. But it was the custom that you typically as a family would set up with that body until the memorial service. Large family. But one by one, as the night grew on, the family members would say, if y'all are going to set up, I think I'll just go into bed. It's going to be a busy day. And they'd dismiss themselves another one would come by and say, look, if y'all gonna set up, I'll go into bed. It's gonna be a long day tomorrow. And all of a sudden, it was just the old aunt and two young cousins in the room. And the aunt looked at those young boys and said, if you boys are gonna set up, I'm gonna go into bed. It's gonna be a busy day tomorrow. And, boy, it was one of those old nights where a storm could roll in pretty quick. And sure enough, it did. Thunder rolled and that lightning clapped. And all of a sudden, man, that old farmhouse shook, and one of those straps on that body gave way, and that old man sat up, and one of those cousins looked at the other one and said, if he's setting up, I'm going on to bed.
Well, we're all uncomfortable with it. Nobody likes to talk about it. But it is an inevitable, inescapable reality. You look at the summary of all civilizations. It's given in Genesis, chapter five. And the Bible says they lived in and they died. They lived and they died. In fact, in Hebrews, chapter nine, verse 27, the Bible says it's an appointment. It's appointed unto people once to die, and after this to meet God. So somewhere on the calendar of eternity, there is a day in which we'll leave this life. Now, I don't know how long that is. I don't know when that is. As I said, it's just a mystery to us all. So we're to live every day to the fullest and live life to the most, because we don't know how long we're going to be here. You go out into the cemetery now, and you'll find the name of the person interred, and you'll find two dates on that tombstone. First is the day of the person's birth, and the other is the day of the person's death. And separating those dates is a little dash. And when you think about it, that entire lifetime is capsulated in a dash between two dates. That's life. Life at its longest is short, is a dash between two dates. Every time the Bible speaks of life, the shortness of it and the uncertainty of it are always emphasized. James says, life is like a dream that you've had. Life is like a vapor, a puff of smoke. You reach for it and it's gone. He said in psalms. He said, life is like the grass that grows in the spring to wither away in the fall. Life at its longest is so short and so uncertain. So to think about it and be prepared for it is essential. In fact, the message of Easter properly prepares us and gives us a healthy view of death and burial and resurrection. In fact, in one corinthians, chapter 15 and verse 20, when Paul was writing, he declares, he says, but now Christ is risen from the dead. He didn't stay in the grave. He's risen from the dead. And then he said, he has become the firstfruits of all of those who slept. I'll explain that in a moment. But Paul opens the gospel with the idea that there is a grievous reality that we have to face. I've been talking about it. It is that reality of death. It's a grievous reality. We're uncomfortable discussing it, but the grievous reality of death opens us up to the second thought I wanted to give you, and that is, it opens us up to a glorious release.
What happens when that body goes into the grave? Does it remain there? I'll do a funeral this week. I'm often asked at a time like this, Bill, do you believe that the spirit and soul remains with the body until the morning of the resurrection? Oftentimes they read verses in the Bible where the Bible refers to death as a sleep, and they interpret that to mean that the spirit and soul of that person kind of remains with that body, and it's there in a dormant sleeping state until the morning of resurrection. But the Bible really doesn't teach soul sleep. Let me explain it. The Bible says in two corinthians five, for we know, and I love the certainty with which Paul writes. He doesn't say we think or we speculate or we're not sure we're gonna. He said, we know that if our earthly house. He refers to your body as a house. If our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, if it were to die, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, a house eternal in the heavens. So there's some sort of a temporal housing that God is prepared for people. When they die. The body will sleep. The body goes back to mother earth, as Solomon says, ashes to ashes and dust to dust. That's just cremation, and that's just natural decay. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And then he says, the spirit returns to God, who gave it. So Paul goes on in two corinthians five to say, but to be absent from the body, this is what I want you to see. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Well, if it's soul sleep, how can you be present and absent in the same body at the same time. So the Bible doesn't teach that. Here's what happens. The moment our loved ones die, they experience death. The body dies, but the spirit and soul just outlives the body. The spirit and soul are released from that body. The part of us that is temporal returns to the earth. The part of us that is eternal returns to God. Absent from the body Paul would describe as being present with the Lord. It's interesting because even the word death, by definition, means separation.
Separation. Well, obviously, it means separation of us from our loved ones. That's the most obvious understanding. But it's more than that. It means the separation of one's spirit and soul from their body. When Paul wrote about how you and I are made, he said, in one Thessalonians five, he said, I pray to God that your spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord. We call it trichotomy. Now, some people will call it dichotomy. They believe the spirit and soul are synonymous, and then the body is separate. So dichotomy, trichotomy. I say potatoes, potatoes. I look at it like spirit and soul and body. Paul makes a distinction, and I do as well. So I tend to embrace trichotomy.
That doesn't mean anything other than to say the spirit and soul leaves the body. The moment of death. Death by separation. The body returns to earth. The body sleeps, waiting. The morning of the resurrection, the spirit and soul return to God. It is a listen, a glorious release.
It means the moment our loved ones leave us. We can rest assured and be certain that that very same moment, they're in the presence of God. Let me give you another way. You remember when you were growing up, and you would go to your grandparents house, and all the family would gather there, and you had great food. That was the thing about grandma's house. Great food, right? That's my memory. My grandmother's house. I never walked in her house without smelling a pie somewhere. Man, it was awesome. And it was just great food. And I would go, and my grandma, she always fed us, and we always had wonderful food. The thing I didn't like as a kid was how long it took us to leave Grandma's house, because the old folks would get to talking. Dear God in heaven, did they ever talk? And they talked and they talked and they kept talking. And as a little kid, this is for video games. We didn't have anything to occupy ourselves with. We couldn't burn anything, shoot anything. You know, there's nothing to do. And we were just sitting there praying that this might end, Jesus might come back, anything. Get us out of here. And they'd keep talking, and they'd keep talking, and it'd just go on and on and on. And invariably, I remember as a child, I would fall asleep at grandma's house, and somehow, miraculously, mysteriously, I would wake up in my bed at my house.
And I thought, how did that happen?
It's a miracle. How did I go to sleep at grandma's and wake up in my bed? And I thought, that is the mystery of what I'm talking to you about. When we lose a loved one down here, they simply say good night to this earthly experience, to say good morning in heaven. They are absent from this body in the same moment they are present with the Lord. Went to sleep at grandma's house and woke up and home exactly how it happens. And the reason, when Paul was writing about this, he said, comfort one another with these words. When you talk to people about death and you talk to them about burial and you speak to them of resurrection, the Easter story, it should bring a comfort. It should bring encouragement. It's good news.
The good news is that death does not end it all. The good news is that there is the hope of heaven that we will one day see our loved ones again.
It's a glorious release.
And it brings about my third thought, a gracious reunion.
A gracious reunion. I share this story a lot when I do memorial services, and I want to share it with you this Easter Sunday morning, back before 911, when you could walk your loved ones to the gate and you could see their plane off right at the gate. I remember I was catching a flight to go somewhere, and I was just waiting on my flight, and a plane was about to depart from one gate, and I saw the family walking with their loved one. And it was really sad scene. I didn't know any of these people, but I was just kind of caught up in it. And they were hugging this loved one, and many of them started crying. And they were embracing this person because they were about to obviously put someone on a plane that they weren't going to see for a while.
And they wept. And the person that was leaving them wept. And they walked down that jet way out of their sight. And the family didn't leave right away. They stood at the window and they watched. They watched as they pushed the plane back, and they watched as the plane taxied out of their sight. And once the plane had taxied out of their sight. They kind of collected themselves and they hugged one another and they said, well, let's go. We can't do anything else here. And they laughed. And I thought, man, that's kind of sad. I didn't know him, but that was sad. And then right across the way, a plane had just landed, and this family were gathering, and friends were gathering, and they were welcoming these people off of this flight. And they were laughing and there were tears, but these were different kinds of tears. These were tears of joy. And they were welcoming someone home that they hadn't seen in a long time.
And maybe it's just because of the line of work I'm in, but I thought, that's life and death. That's what I deal with all the time.
On one side, we gather to say goodbye to our loved ones, and we stay with them as long as we can. We care for them as much as we can, but inevitably, they slip from our grasp and they go into the presence of the Lord. And we stay there as long as we can. And we watch them until we can see them no more.
Then we gather ourselves and we say, there's nothing else we can do here. It's not going to be the same. And we watch them as they leave.
But the comforting part of that is, on the other side, in a place called heaven, when they're landing, there's family gathered over there. And as we're saying, there they go, they're saying, here they come. They've never looked better. Welcome home. My goodness, it's been a long time since we've seen you. And there's some tears in heaven. There's some rejoicing, because while we weep down here, they're rejoicing up there. Do you see that?
Paul said, in one corinthians 15, he said, death is an enemy. And who would? None of us would deny that. But when you read the 127th psalm, Paul said, precious. I mean, David said, precious. In the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. You say, bill, how can that be? How could the Bible say, in one place, death is an enemy, but in another place he says, death is precious. Well, it's perspective. Paul's writing from our perspective. And from our perspective, death is an enemy. David is writing from God's perspective. He said, death is precious because it's the homecoming of one of my kids.
I'm getting them home.
And so you have this glorious release that leads to a gracious reunion. One of the beautiful things that Paul wrote about in one Thessalonians four was an event that's going to happen next Sunday. By the way, I'm going to close this series talking about the second coming of Christ. I hope you can come back for that in one Thessalonians chapter four, Paul said, for one day we know the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout out, with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God. And then those who've died in Christ will be raised first. The bodies that are sleeping will be raised first, reunited with the spirit and soul that are with God, and we which are alive and remain. That's why I'm not looking for the undertaker. I'm looking for the upper taker. We'll be caught up together. Caught up. The idea of rapture is to be caught up. We'll be caught up together. Together. Isn't that a beautiful word? Together with them in the clouds. A reunion will be there with the Lord. How long? Forever.
And then he said, comfort one another with these words. Somebody said, okay, Bill, I understand the spirit and soul doesn't sleep within the body of my loved one, but will I know my loved one when I get to heaven one day? You talk about a reunion. Will we know them? I get that question a lot. I love what one country preacher said. He said, I'd hate to think we'll have less sense in heaven than we had on the earth.
You'll know them there as you knew them down here. You see the exchange between the poor man and the rich man in Luke 16. Both of them are out in eternity. Both of them recognize each other. Both of them had recall of their life here on the earth completely. They had their memory completely remembered all the experiences of life. So, yes, you say, well, what kind of bodies will we have? Well, Jesus said, I'm the firstfruits. Remember? I said, I explained that line, the firstfruits. You know what that means? There was an offering in Leviticus 23 called the first fruits offering, meaning that if you were a farmer, one of the things you would bring is the first fruit of your harvest. Let's say you're harvesting wheat. You would bring a bundle of that wheat as an offering to the Lord, and that was the first fruit of your harvest. That bundle represented a harvest that was to come. In other words, you were saying, the quality of this wheat, if you like this, you ain't seen nothing yet. You ought to look what's back there in my field, what I'm about to cut first fruits, and Jesus is saying, if you like this, you ain't seen nothing. Yet. Wait till I get my all my kids home. That's loosely translated, mind you. But he's the firstfruits.
You say, what kind of body are we going to be? Spirits in heaven? I hear that a lot like a Casper convention.
We're just floating around, strumming on harps. I don't know where that comes from. That doesn't sound fun to me. I don't know if it's floating around and strumming on a. How long can you strum? You ever listen to harp music? Anyway, I digress. The point is for eternity. Are you serious? Anyway, so. No, that's somebody's conception of it, but that's not the reality of it. The Bible says we're going to have bodies like his. Well, what kind of body did Jesus have? Well, in Luke chapter 24, the disciples were in the upper room. Remember the context? Jesus had just died on the cross. He had been buried. And they're hearing rumors that he is alive, that he has come forth out of that grave and they haven't seen him, so they're not sure. And so all of a sudden, out of nowhere, in the upper room, Jesus shows up.
Wow. Can you imagine being in that upper room when Jesus showed up? Now listen, when you study the Bible, sometimes you make the mistake of making people in the Bible out to be superheroes. And they weren't. We talk about St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, St. John. Look, they were no more saintly than any of us. There are only two classes of people, the saints and the ain't.
You either know Jesus or you don't. And if you know Jesus, you're just as much saint as anybody that's ever lived. You're a sinner saved by God's grace. What's my point? My point is they are susceptible to the very same fears and foibles that we are. And in that upper room, you saw somebody die and suddenly they appear in the room with you. Hello?
No wonder the first two words out of Jesus mouth were, fear not. Do you think.
Do you think he read the room?
Fear not. Thank you, sir. And then he said, and this is beautiful, he said, reach forth your hand and touch me not doubting. And then he said, a spirit. What kind of bodies of spirit? Are we floating around like Casper? No, he said, a spirit does not have. Here it is flesh and bone, as you see me have. What are the resurrected bodies? Flesh and bone. What is your body? Flesh and bone. Those resurrected bodies, when those bodies come out of the ground, they'll be recreated. They'll be glorified. They'll be fashioned after his body. Third John says in chapter three, beloved, it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when we see him, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. Glorified bodies. I'm going to be ripped and handsome.
Guarantee you mark that down somewhere.
I'm just simply suggesting we're going to be in a glorified body. You know what's amazing about that? Let me close on this one. We're going to have a glorified mind.
Glorified mind. You know what's incredible credible about that? That means all the mysteries of this life will be made clear.
I talk to people every week, and I've been among that crowd that have struggled with the mysteries of life.
So much of life is unfair. So much of life doesn't make sense.
It's always been amazing to me how some of the best people go through some of the worst circumstances.
And what I found in my life, when you go through something that is soul crushing and devastating, heartbreaking, it has a tendency to either draw you closer to God or drive you away from him. And sometimes you do a little of both. I've done that.
I can give you a page out of my personal story. And you're in our church. You've heard this.
But when Cindy was diagnosed with an incurable, terminal neurological illness, I went into just a spiral of trying to understand what God was doing.
We'd been together since we were 17.
When she left, we had been married for 42 years. We raised each other.
She was the best christian that I'd ever known.
The best part of me, the most spiritual part of our family.
That's why I don't know what y'all are gonna do with me now that she's not here. She was a spiritual one.
Our church, humanly speaking, would not have existed without her willingness to go on this wild adventure with me.
And here she was with a diagnosis that made no sense.
I'm telling you, man, I've been doing this a long time. My dad was a pastor.
It spun me out.
I mean, I really. I faked it as much as I could. Listen, I can be a hypocrite. I've learned from the best. I can roll out here and be the biggest hypocrite in the room. I'm just being honest with you.
And I had to play hurt a lot.
I'd stand up here and tell people, trust the Lord.
And in my own heart, I was trying to put that together, hoping that I'm not leading people astray and giving them some false hope.
Cause I was going through a dark place in my own life, a crisis of my own faith.
So that's why I'm not hard on people.
When they go through something in life and it spins them out and they walk away from the Lord, I say, I get it, man. Come back when you can. We'll keep the light on. We'll keep praying for you. God loves you.
Sometimes you might need to spin out for a little while. I talked a few weeks ago about Simon Peter quitting. Went back to his old job. He said, I'm done with it. That's okay. It's all right. You know what? God never gave up on him. And eventually he came home.
So I was going through a lot of that stuff in my own life, my own crisis of faith, where I was trying to just navigate through this and figure it all out.
And I thought about it. I thought, you know, one day in heaven, I got a lot of things I'm going to ask God about.
A lot of things don't make sense. I prayed a lot to get answers. You know what I didn't get? I didn't get any answers.
And I'm telling you, if you're waiting on God to explain himself, you may wait a long time.
Isaiah. God finally responded to Isaiah. He said, son, as high are the heavens above your head, so high are my thoughts above yours, and so high are my ways above yours.
What he was saying is, if I explained it, I don't think you would get it. And I'm sure if you would agree with me, Isaiah. So trust me.
They used to sing an old song in my dad's church, and the song went like this. We'll talk it over in the by and by. We'll talk it over, my lord and I. I'll ask reasons. You'll tell me why when we talk it over in the by and by. And I thought, okay, I'll get some answers. Oh, God, it's going to be then, all right. But then it hit me, one day, man, there's going to be millions and millions of us in heaven. Is it going to be a q and a with God? How long would that take?
Can you imagine? All right, Bill, you're next. All right, God, let's start about 65.
You know, I mean, really?
And it hit me. Okay, that's not going to be it.
What is? How do we get our questions answered then? And then it hit me. Not only will I have that glorified body that's ripped and handsome. Did y'all forget that?
But I'm going to have a glorified mind.
I'm going to have the mind of Christ.
And one day, if Jesus terries is coming and I step into the presence of God, I think my first response is probably going to be, oh, okay, we're good now.
We weren't so good down there, but we're okay now. I get it.
That's why the apostle says he does all things well.
That's why Pilate said, I've looked at his life. I can't find one thing wrong with this man.
So what my takeaway is for you is my takeaway that I'm preaching to myself this morning. I hope you know that because I hadn't mastered what I'm talking about.
I still have days when I spin out, but here's what I've learned. Proverbs three, five, six. Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Lean not on your own understanding. You're never going to get information.
You won't get enough to satisfy you. I'm telling you, you won't.
Your understanding is limited. So you trust in the Lord God. I don't get it. Trust in the Lord. I don't understand it. Trust in the Lord. It doesn't make sense. It's not fair. Trust in the Lord all your ways. Acknowledge him, and he'll make your path straight. Best advice I could give you. Trust in the Lord.
Don't trust in a church.
Don't trust in a religion. For God's sake. Don't trust in a preacher somewhere.
Trust in the Lord.
I can't save you. I could die for you, but you'd still be lost, and I'd be dead, and it wouldn't do either one of us any good.
He said, trust in the Lord.
Jesus said to his apostles that night when they were grieving his departure, he said, let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. And my father's house or many mansions. If it were. If this weren't true, I would tell you. I go to prepare a place. Heaven is a place. The word in the greek place means topos. Place, topography, from that word. And if I go, I will come again and receive you unto myself. That where I am, there you may be also. Thomas said, lord, we don't know where you're going, and how do we know the way? And Jesus said, thomas, I am thee, not church. I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to, the father set by me. If you don't know Jesus this morning, I highly recommend him. It is the only answer between heaven and hell. It's knowing Jesus. It's the only way you'll ever get the questions of your soul satisfied, ultimately, is knowing Jesus. It'll give you the hope of heaven. It'll give you the assurance that one day you'll see those loved ones again. Let's pray together.
Father, thank you for the hope that we have in you.
And, Lord, I pray for my friends this morning who may be struggling, maybe not, with the loss of a loved one. Some in this room may be struggling with a broken business partnership, a broken relationship maybe. Some may be struggling with a health issue.
Lord, you know our hearts. You know who is here. You know who is watching. You know who will listen later.
And by a divine design, you've brought us here for a reason. To hear something you had for us.
So help us not to miss this moment.
Especially for my friends who may never have trusted you.
May this be the moment. With all their heart. They just pray a simple prayer like this and say, lord Jesus, with everything I know about me, I now trust all that I know about you. Come into my heart, forgive my sin, be a reality in my life on this Easter Sunday morning, and I'll give you praise and thanks all the way to heaven. In Jesus name we pray.
[00:30:02] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting Metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week.
