AfterLife Sermon Series -- Part 1
Naylor Community
Christian Church
-- turn in
Bibles to 2 Corinthians 5:1-8
2 Corinthians 5:1 For we know that if the earthly tent we
live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven,
not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead
with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found
naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we
do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly
dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now the one who
has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a
deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long
as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by
faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away
from the body and at home with the Lord.
-- several
years ago, Maria Shriver, the former wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger, wrote a
children's book called, "What's Heaven?" -- this book is the story of
Kate, a little girl whose great-grandmother has just died -- she's trying to
understand what happens after you die, so her mother tells her all about heaven
-- in the
book, Shriver writes, "heaven is a beautiful place -- a place where you
can sit on soft clouds and talk... If you're good throughout your life, then
you get to go [there]... When your life is finished here on earth, God sends
angels down to take you heaven to be with him."
-- now, what
Maria Shriver was putting forth in her children’s book is the view of heaven
that most Americans hold -- the idea that when we die, we are all going to
become angels and get our wings, and go to heaven to live in the clouds with
God and worship Him every moment of every day for all of eternity with the
harps that we are given at the pearly gates
-- I can’t
tell you how many times I’ve been at funerals and heard people share this same
idea with the family who lost a loved one -- “God just needed another angel,”
they’ll say -- “Your loved one is with God in heaven right now”
-- but is
this image of the afterlife, correct? -- is this what happens when we die? --
does anyone know?
-- Sara
Groves, a contemporary Christian singer, wrote a song about this great question
called, "What do I know?" where she shares her experience of trying
to comfort an 88-year-old friend of hers who was dying
-- this friend was saved by Jesus
and was strong in her faith when she was 34 -- when she was young and in the
prime of her life -- but now she is old and is afraid because she is facing
death -- she’s about to find the true answer to the question we all face in our
lives, “what happens when we die?” -- and, so, she’s seeking a word of hope and
encouragement from her friend
-- Sara
sings about trying to answer her friend's fears and sums it up like this:
And what do I know? What do I
know?
I don't know that there are
harps in heaven, or the process for earning your wings.
I don't know of bright lights
at the ends of tunnels, or any of those things.
But I know to be absent from
this body is to be present with the Lord
And from what I know of him,
that must be pretty good.
-- so, what
does happen when we die? -- is it like Maria Shriver wrote in her children’s
book? -- is heaven going to be an eternity of living in the clouds and playing
our harps or is it something else? -- what does the Bible tell us?
-- well,
this morning, we are beginning a new teaching series called Afterlife -- a look
at how the Bible answers the question, “what happens when we die” -- in this
series, we’re going to look at heaven and hell and all things in-between --
and, hopefully, we will emerge at the end of this study with a greater
understanding of what happens to us after life from a Biblical perspective
-- so, let’s
dive right in and see what we can learn about this question
-- first
thing we need to know -- who are we? -- in other words, as humans, the Bible
tells us that we were created in the image of God -- but what does that mean?
-- and how does that affect what happens to us after we die?
-- in
Genesis 2:7, we read that “the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the
ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a
living being” -- out of all the living creatures that God made, it is only man
who received from God the breath of life -- which makes us unique out of all his
creation
-- this act
of creation resulted in humans being formed as tripartite creatures -- body,
soul, and spirit
-- most
people assume that the terms soul and spirit are interchangeable -- that they
are the same -- but there is a difference -- as we read in 1 Thessalonians
5:23, “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your
whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ.”
-- the Greek
word for “and” in this verse was deliberately put in-between spirit, soul, and
body -- Paul was trying to emphasize the fact that we have all three -- he
wanted to make sure that his readers knew that we have spirit and soul and
body
-- so, the
Bible recognizes these as separate and distinct parts of who we are as men and
women created in the image of God -- most of creation only has a body and a
soul -- but because God breathed into us His very breath, we were given a
spirit -- and it is the spirit that makes us different from the rest of
creation
-- let me
break this down for you
-- everything
in creation has a body -- everything that is alive has a body of some type --
that is a given -- it’s easy for us to see -- whether we’re talking about
plants or animals or microscopic organisms -- we all have a body of some type
-- a form that was created just for us by God -- our body is what makes us
mortal -- it is the perishable part of who we are -- all of creation has a body
-- secondly,
we all have a soul -- everything in creation has a soul -- that’s the part of
the creature that makes it alive -- the soul refers to our consciousness -- our
mind -- our emotions -- our will -- it is when the soul leaves our body, that
we die -- that is the definition of physical death -- the absence of the soul
-- now, there is a difference in the
type and complexities of the souls that each creature possesses -- we know this
too, right -- we can look at an insect or a snail or a dog or a person and
realize very quickly, that they are all different -- they have different levels
of consciousness and aliveness -- they have different levels of awareness and
different ways in which they interact with the world and their environment
-- as men and women made in the
image of God, we have the highest, most complex form of the soul -- this is
what gives us our humanness -- that makes us distinct from all the other
creatures on earth -- our intellect -- our emotions -- our mind -- our will --
all of these are greater than the rest of creation -- but that is not the only
thing that separates us from the rest
-- the part
that separates us from the rest of creation is our spirit -- that which was
given when God breathed into us His very breath -- our spirit is that part of
us that connects with God -- that allows us to know Him and experience Him and
that joins with His very presence and unites us with Him forever
-- only
humans have this -- snails don’t stay up at night pondering whether there is a
God -- birds don’t worry about their salvation -- only humans do -- and the
reason why is because we alone were created with a spirit
-- our spirits join with the Spirit of God within us when we
become believers -- it is our spirit that makes us immortal and different from
all the rest of creation
-- so, as
humans, we are tripartite -- we are three parts in one creation -- body, soul,
and spirit
-- now, what
does the fact that we are body, soul, and spirit have to do with the question
of what happens when we die?
-- we see
the answer to that in this passage here in 2 Corinthians 5 -- look back with me
at verse 1
2 Corinthians 5:1 For we know that if the earthly tent we
live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven,
not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead
with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found
naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we
do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly
dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now the one who
has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a
deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
-- remember what we were just
talking about -- as humans created in the image of God through the breath of
God that was breathed into us during creation, we exist as tripartite beings --
body, soul, and spirit
-- that is what God created us to
be -- and that is what we are going to be in eternity -- we will always have a
body, a soul, and a spirit -- that is foundational -- you need to know that
-- we see
that here in these verses -- Paul speaks in these verses about our earthly tent
that we live in -- what is that? -- that is our earthly body
-- when Paul
talks about us living in an earthly tent or being clothed in an earthly tent,
he is referring to our physical body -- the body that you are in right now --
the body that you can see and feel and touch -- that is your earthly tent
-- so, what
is the first thing that happens when we die? -- our soul and our spirit vacate
our earthly body -- we leave it behind -- our earthly tent is destroyed
-- we all know
that -- we’ve all seen that ourselves -- all of us are aware of this fact
-- we know that when we go to a
funeral, it is only the body of our loved one that we see -- their soul and
spirit are not there -- and so the body is just the earthly container of the
soul and spirit that has been left behind
-- a young
pastor was trying to make this point in a funeral one time and he was trying to
use the illustration of a peanut to help everyone understand what had happened
to their loved one -- he was trying to point out that the soul and spirit had
moved on and that all that was left was the shell, just like the shell of the
peanut is all you have left when you get done eating a peanut
-- but he spoke
too fast and he proclaimed to the congregation, “The shell is still here, but
the nut is gone” -- I’m sure the family appreciated their loved one being
called a nut
--
regardless, he may have chosen his words better, but his point in that illustration
was correct
-- as Paul
says here, when we die -- when our earthly tent is destroyed -- our soul and
our spirit move on -- and only our body -- the shell of who we were -- remains
-- so, what
happens then?
-- here’s
where a lot of people will tell you that we go to heaven as disembodied spirits
-- as spirits with no body -- that we go up to the clouds, we get our wings and
our harps, and we spend eternity with God
-- not quite
-- Paul points out here that when our body is destroyed -- when this earthly
tent is destroyed -- we are not left homeless -- we are not left naked -- that
is, without a body
-- instead,
we are clothed with our heavenly dwelling -- don’t miss that -- don’t skip over
what Paul is telling us here
-- when we
die -- when our soul and our spirit leave our body -- we don’t just go to
heaven as incorporeal beings for all eternity
-- no,
remember what we talked about -- as humans, created in the image of God, we
were created to be body, soul, and spirit -- so, when our earthly body -- our
earthly tent -- is destroyed, God gives us a heavenly body for our soul and
spirit to reside in
-- so, we
will always have a body
-- remember
the story of the Transfiguration from the gospels -- the account of Jesus being
transfigured and appearing in His glorified form before Peter, John, and James
on the mountain? -- when this happened, the Bible tells us that Peter, John,
and James looked up and saw Jesus speaking with Moses and Elijah
-- both
Moses and Elijah were dead -- Moses died a natural death and Elijah was taken
to heaven in a fiery chariot -- their earthly tents were destroyed -- but they
still had a body after death -- not their original body -- not their earthly
tent -- but a heavenly body that God had given to them to house their soul and
spirit
-- when we
die, we don’t become ghosts -- we don’t become spirits -- we continue on as God
originally created us -- body, soul, and spirit
-- there’s a
lot more to say about our heavenly bodies and we’ll cover that in another message
-- but what I want you to get from today’s message is the point that when we
die, we won’t be spirits floating around on clouds -- we will always have a
body because that is how God created us and designed us -- we always will have
a body, a soul, and a spirit
-- second
point from this passage about heavenly bodies -- going back to Moses and Elijah
-- when Peter, John, and James saw them standing there in their bodies next to
the transfigured Jesus, they recognized them -- and that’s important
-- that
tells us that who we are continues on into eternity -- our soul -- that part of
us that is our humanness -- our mind -- our intellect -- our emotions -- our
personalities -- that part of us that defines who we are -- how other people
know us -- that doesn’t cease to exist when we die, but continues on
-- that’s
why Peter, John, and James were able to look up and know that they were looking
at Moses and Elijah -- even though dead, Moses and Elijah were the same people
they were on earth -- just in a different body
-- so, our
physical body passes away -- the shell is gone -- but the nut continues -- and
if you were a nut on earth, you’re going to be a nut in heaven -- because your
personality -- your humor and your dry wit and your being and your character --
everything God created you to be -- your personality and your personal
distinctiveness -- will continue to exist in heave
-- we will
abide -- we will continue to be ourselves in eternity -- and we will know each
other, even in our heavenly bodies
-- now, if
you get up there and start looking for me, I’ll be the guy who is ripped -- I’m
going to have muscles and visible six-pack abs in heaven -- so, look for
someone like that
-- hey, we
can dream, right?
-- moving on
-- look back at verse 6
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long
as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by
faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away
from the body and at home with the Lord.
-- third
discovery we see from this passage -- there is no intermediate state -- either
you exist in your body on earth -- or you exist in the presence of God
-- Paul makes that explicitly
clear here -- look what he says in verse 6 -- we “know that as long as we are
at home in the body we are away from the Lord”
-- quick definition of heaven --
heaven is the location of God -- heaven is being in the presence of God
-- so, what Paul is saying here
is that if we are alive here on earth -- if we are here at home in the body --
in our earthly tent -- that we are away from the Lord
-- this is a geographic
statement, not a spiritual statement -- if you are a believer, you have the
very presence of the Lord within you in the Holy Spirit -- and Jesus told us
that He would never leave us nor forsake us -- we are with God, even here on
earth
-- but Paul’s point here is
geographic -- when we are alive here on earth in this earthly tent, we are not
in heaven -- we are on earth and not in the heavenly abode of God -- that’s
what he’s saying
-- look what he says in verse 8
-- we “would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord” -- as
other translations phrase this, “to be absent from the body is to be present
with the Lord”
-- when you die, you immediately
are in the presence of God in heaven
-- there is no talk here about
reincarnation -- coming back again in another body
-- there is no talk here of
purgatory -- the place in-between heaven and hell that the Catholics and some denominations
teach
-- there is no talk here of soul
sleep -- of you existing in a dream state until the resurrection
-- and there is no talk of
annihilation -- of our soul and our spirits being destroyed and no longer
existing
-- Paul makes it clear -- as long
as we are at home here on earth in our bodies, we are away from the Lord -- but
when we are away from the body -- when our earthly tent is destroyed -- we are
at home with the Lord
-- there are no ifs, ands, or
buts -- this is the way -- this is what happens when we die if we are believers
-- going back to verse 2, where
Paul wrote, “Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly
dwelling” -- we are groaning to be in the presence of God -- we are groaning to
be made whole -- to see our salvation and our faith made sight -- so that we
might be with the Lord forever
-- that is our blessed hope --
that is our longing -- that is what we look for and hope for
-- and this is the truth that we
stand on when we stand before the coffin of a loved one, looking at their
remains -- at the earthly tent that has been abandoned
-- for we know, beyond the shadow
of a doubt, that if our loved one was a believer -- if they had put their faith
and trust in Jesus Christ and asked Him to forgive their sins and be their Lord
and Savior -- that at the moment of death -- at the moment the very last breath
of their body was given -- they were immediately clothed with their heavenly
bodies and were at home in the presence of God
-- that is what we believe --
that is what we proclaim -- that is why we are here today
-- it is this truth that made
Paul proclaim in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, that this is the reason we “do not
grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.”
-- we have hope in Christ and in
His finished work -- and our very bodies and souls and spirits cry out and
groan to be in His presence forever -- because that is what happens when a
believer dies
-- that is the good news of the
gospel of Christ
-- but
there’s a whole lot more to say in response to the question, “what happens when
we die?”
-- for instance, what about the
people in the Old Testament -- what happened to them?
-- and what about unbelievers? --
where do they go when they die?
-- well, as they used to say on
the TV -- stay tuned next week for the exciting continuation of our story about
the afterlife -- same location -- same time
-- and, next week, bring a friend
who might be interested in hearing about this -- don’t forget that we’re having
covered dish dinner after the service next week, so use that to help convince
them to come
-- before we close, though, I
want to make one thing clear about all that we’ve been talking about today --
everything that we have covered today about being absent from the body means
that we are present with the Lord only applies to believers -- to those who
have received Jesus as their Lord and Savior and put their faith and trust in
Him
-- if you are not a believer,
this is not what is going to happen to you when you die -- and I want to make
that clear -- we’ll talk more about that later
-- so, if you’re not sure where
you stand with Jesus -- if you have any doubts at all about whether you are
saved or not -- about whether you have really accepted Jesus as your Lord and
Savior, then let me tell you -- don’t leave here not knowing
-- we’re going to close in prayer
in a moment -- and if you aren’t sure if you are saved or not, now’s the time
-- what does it take? -- when
they asked that of Peter on the day of Pentecost, he replied, “Repent and be
baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of
your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for
you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God
will call.”
-- later on in the Book of Acts,
the Apostle Paul was asked the same question from the Philippian jailer -- what
must I do to be saved? -- and Paul responded, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and
you will be saved”
-- so, to make sure that you are
saved -- to make sure that you are in a right relationship with the Lord and
will go to be with Him when your time on earth is over -- you must believe in
the Lord Jesus -- you must repent of your sins and ask Him to forgive you for
all the wrong that you have done -- and you must be baptized into new life in
Him
-- if you’re not sure where you
are with Jesus, you can make sure right now as we close by simply praying to
Him and asking Him to be your Lord and Savior-- asking Him to forgive you of
your sins -- repenting of your sins -- turning away from them and committing to
follow Jesus and His way -- and by asking Jesus to send His Holy Spirit to
baptize you and indwell you forever
-- as always, the altar is open
for you -- and you can pray up here on your own or I would be happy to pray
with you -- just come and let me know
-- so, let’s close in prayer and give
thanks to our God who has promised eternal life through His Son Christ Jesus to
those who believe
-- let us
pray
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