Sermons

No matter what your background, culture, or religion, we all know that we will die.  Death is unavoidable, and inescapable. 

One of my closest encounters with death was a few years ago, when I got a call on a Sunday morning from a woman in our church.  Her husband had gone through many treatments for cancer, and there was no more the doctors could do, so they sent him home.  And a few days later, on a Sunday morning, the phone rang and this woman told me that her husband had just died.

So I drove over to her house, and the family was there, and there was his body, in the center of the living room.  He had died.  I was face to face with death.  That morning I was confronted with the reality of death.

I will die.  You will die.  And because we know we will die, we human beings have come up with many different ways to explain death.

For example, Buddhism teaches that when you die you stop existing as an individual and become part of the universal mind.  Here’s a quote from a Buddhist website:

When the body disintegrates at death the mind does not cease. Although our superficial conscious mind ceases, it does so by dissolving into a deeper level of consciousness … which has no beginning and no end.

Hinduism teaches that when you die you are reincarnated as another being – a superior being if you’ve been good, an inferior being if you’ve been bad.  Here’s a quote:

Hinduism believes in the reincarnation of souls. Death is therefore not a great calamity, not an end of all, but a natural process in the existence of soul as a separate entity, by which it returns again to the earth to continue its journey.

Atheism teaches that when you die you stop existing entirely.  Here’s a quote from Bertrand Russell --

Man is the product of accidental causes; his origin, growth, hopes and fears, loves and beliefs, are but the outcome of chance combinations of atoms.  No fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; all the labors, all the devotion, all the inspiration, are destined to extinction.

But then there’s also a lot of people who know they will die, but are not sure what that means.  We can call this agnosticism.  Larry Ellison is the founder of Oracle, the huge business software company.  Here’s what he says about death:

Death has never made any sense to me. How can a person be there and then just vanish? Clearly the reason they're not there is they're off doing something else.  Death makes me very angry.

So we human beings have come up with lots of contradictory and conflicting human ideas about death.  But the good news is that we don’t have to choose between contradictory, conflicting human ideas.  God Himself has told us what death is in this book: the Bible.

There’s dozens of passages in the Bible in which God tells us about death.  And this morning I’d like us to focus on one of them, found in Romans 8.  If you need a Bible go ahead and raise your hand and one of the ushers will bring a Bible to you.  Romans 8 is on page 944 in the Bibles we are passing out.

Look what God had Paul write in Romans 8:9-11 --

9              You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

10            But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

11            If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

One question everyone wonders about is -- Why is there death?  Why does there need to be such a thing as death?  Why is it that DNA programs our bodies to peak in health at around 18 and then start a slow decline towards death?  Why are there such things as cancer and Lou Gherig’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s?  Why? 

Paul tells us why in v.10.  Read that verse again and look closely at what he says:

10            But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Did you catch that?  “The body is dead because of sin.”  The reason your body has death programmed into it is because of sin. 

See, God originally created the world perfect.  Adam and Eve were not created to die.  They would have lived forever, they could have lived forever if they would have continued trusting God.  But they did what we’ve all done: they rebelled against their Creator.  By creating them God had shown them His goodness, His power, His wisdom, His love.  But they, along with all of us, refused to trust Him, to seek Him, to worship Him, to obey Him.

That’s what the Bible calls “sin.”  And as a result, God brought upon the world the curse of death.  That’s why there’s cancer and Lou Gherig’s Disease Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s.  That’s why your body peaks in health at 18 and then starts a slow decline towards death.  And that’s why physical death results in eternal spiritual death being punished by God for our sin.  That’s what every one of us faces, because of our rebellion against God.

But there’s good news.  In this passage Paul says that you and I can be raised from the dead.  You can see that in v.11:

11            If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

We can be raised from the dead.  Even though we have rebelled against our Creator, we can be raised from the dead so that we live forever in the love and goodness and forgiveness of God.

But how is that possible?  If we have sinned,  and the consequence of sin is death, physical death leading to eternal punishment, how can we who have sinned be raised from the dead?

How can sinners be raised from the dead?  The answer is given at the end of v.10.  Let’s read the whole verse –

10            But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

There’s the answer: “the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”  Because of righteousness, the Spirit in you is life.  Because of what righteousness?  Because of whose righteousness?  

Earlier in this book Paul taught that the moment you repent of your sins and trust your life to Jesus all your sins were punished in Jesus, and you received the gift of Jesus’ perfect righteousness.  So because you are connected to Jesus by faith, when God looks at you He sees Jesus perfect righteousness, and responds to you with total love and favor because of Jesus’ perfect righteousness.

And one of the things He does for you because of Jesus’ perfect righteousness is give you the Sprit – the Holy Spirit – who is life.  That’s what Paul means in v.10 – “the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”

Some versions spell “Spirit” with a lower-case “s”; some, like the ESV, with an upper-case “S.”  The original Greek didn’t use upper or lower case; that’s why versions differ.  So is Paul saying that your human spirit is life because of righteousness, or that the Holy Spirit is life because of righteousness?

I think he’s talking about the Holy Spirit, because in the very next verse, two times the word “Spirit” refers to the Holy Spirit.

So what Paul is saying is that because you are trusting Jesus, you have been given the gift of Jesus’ perfect righteousness.  And because you are clothed with Jesus’ perfect righteousness, God has given you the gift of the Spirit – the Holy Spirit.  And one of the many wonderful things the Holy Spirit does is to give life – He raises people from the dead.

So that’s how you, as a sinner, can be raised from the dead.  It’s by trusting Jesus, by trusting Jesus as your Savior, your Lord, and your Treasure.  When you trust Jesus, you are clothed with Jesus’ perfect righteousness, you are given the gift of the Spirit, and because the Spirit is life, you can be absolutely certain that the Spirit will raise you from the dead.

So – quiz time.  Can a human being who has sinned be absolutely confident that he or she will be raised from the dead?  Yes.  How?  Is it because he or she has been especially good?  No.  It’s because they are trusting to Jesus, and their faith connects them with Jesus’ perfect righteousness, so they have received the gift of the Spirit who will raise him or her from the dead.

So how will this resurrection happen?  Paul says it will happen by the power of the Holy Spirit.  You can see that in v.11 --

11            If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

It will happen through the Holy Spirit.  Just as God raised Jesus from the dead through the Holy Spirit, so God will raise you from the dead through the Holy Spirit.  Here’s how this works.

The moment you die, you immediately go to be with Jesus.  Remember the thief next to Jesus on the Cross?  As he was dying, he repented of his sin and trusted Jesus as His Savior, His Lord, His Treasure.  And that moment all his sins were being punished in Jesus’ death on the Cross, and Jesus’ perfect righteousness was being given to him as a gift.  And he received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And remember what Jesus said to him?  He said: today you will be with me in Paradise.  So the moment that thief died, he went to be with Jesus in Paradise, where his heart was filled with joy in knowing Jesus, worshiping Jesus.  The moment you die, you will be with Jesus in Paradise.

But you are not yet resurrected.  The resurrection does not happen until the end of history.  And so between the time when you die and the end of history, you do not yet have your resurrected body.  You are just your soul, full of joy in knowing Jesus.  And that’s awesome – but it’s not the full package.

The full package doesn’t come until you are resurrected.  So at the end of history, the Holy Spirit who is in you now will give life to your mortal body.  Wherever your mortal body is, in a casket, or in an urn, at that moment the Holy Spirit will give life to your mortal body.  It will be raised from the dead, transformed into a brand new resurrection body.  And at that moment you, who have been a soul with Jesus in paradise, will be joined to your new body, and at that point the full package of heaven will begin.

And if you are trusting Jesus as your Savior, your Lord, your Treasure, then this will happen to you.  You will not lose your individuality and become part of universal mind, as Buddhism teaches.  You will not be incarnated into another being, as Hinduism teaches.  You will not stop living entirely, as atheism teaches.  No.

When you die, you will immediately go to be with Jesus in Paradise, where you will fully experience the joy you were created for – the joy of knowing God through Jesus.  And then – at the end of history, the Holy Spirit will raise your physical body from the dead, and you will be joined to your new body, which will give you even more of the joy of knowing God through Jesus.

So what does the Spirit do for us?  This is our last week on the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  And I want to wrap up this message, and this series, by celebrating with you what a precious gift we have in the Holy Spirit.  Think of all we have covered.

We saw that we can be born-again by the Spirit.  Because Jesus died and purchased for you the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit changed your heart, gave you repentance, gave you faith, so you turned to Jesus and were saved.

We saw that we can be filled and satisfied by the Spirit.  The Holy Spirit satisfies all our heart-hungers and thirsts by enabling us to feel the truth of Jesus.

We saw that we are empowered for witness by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit enables us to feel the truth of Jesus so we become bold for Jesus, and we want to help everyone come to know Jesus.

We saw that we are gifted by the Holy Spirit -- with revelation, knowledge, tongues, interpretation, prophecy, healing, miracles – which glorify Jesus, build up other believers, and show Jesus to the unsaved. 

We saw that we are enabled to worship by the Holy Spirit, as He wakes up dull hearts and reveals the truth of Jesus so we feel who He is, and worship with amazement and joy and gladness.

We saw that we receive fruit of love, joy, and peace as the Holy Spirit makes Jesus real to us.  And we are enabled to put to death sin by the Holy Spirit as makes Jesus so real in our hearts that we turn from the lesser pleasures of sin.

We saw that we are guaranteed our inheritance by the Holy Spirit, as he takes a small amount of the joy we will have in Jesus heaven, and giving us a taste of it now.

We saw that we have our adoption made real to us by the Holy Spirit, as He pours God’s very love into our hearts, so we feel His actual love, experience His actual affection for us in Christ.

We saw that we are united by the Holy Spirit with such a love for each other that the world sees that Jesus is real.  And we saw that we are made effective in evangelism by the Holy Spirit as He uses our words to convict lost people about their sin, Jesus’ righteousness, and future judgment.

And now today we see that we will be raised from the dead by the Holy Spirit, so that forever we will have the joy of knowing, beholding, and worshiping God as He is revealed in Jesus.

So treasure this precious gift of the Holy Spirit.  And thank the Father for His love in giving us the Holy Spirit.  And thank Jesus whose blood purchased for us the Holy Spirit, and whose righteousness clothes us so we can receive the Holy Spirit.