Yes, We Die--AND, NO, We Don't
Gospel of John • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 40:30
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· 7 viewsJesus makes the incredible claim that those who obey His word will not die! Vicious attacks and name-calling ensue from the Jews around him. In another explosive statement, he clearly claims to be God, “…before Abraham was, I am!"
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Key Texts:
REFLECTION: 1 Corinthians 15:50-58
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
SERMON READING: John 8:48-59
MEMORY: Matthew 6:22-24
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
BENEDICTION / CLOSING: Rev 1:5b-6
Revelation 1:5–6 (ESV)
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
There are always reminders of death and departing around us.
TRANSITION
TRANSITION
Just this past week, our family celebrated the 2nd anniversary of Ashlie’s precious mother going to Heaven.
The week before that, we grieved with hope along with the Carlsons as their friend and neighbor passed from this life.
The week before that, I attended the funeral of friend’s wife who was in her early 40s - a mother to 4 high-schoolers - but whose body succumbed to the ravages of a fast-moving disease.
These people that were standing around Jesus, no doubt, had friends and loved ones whose bodies were buried in line with Jewish customs of the day.
And Jesus says…IF YOU KEEP MY WORD; YOU WILL NEVER SEE DEATH!
Were they encouraged?
Were they comforted?
No, they were ENRAGED as they were CONFRONTED.
Let’s dive into the text this morning.
1. INTENSE OPPOSITION TO JESUS
1. INTENSE OPPOSITION TO JESUS
JOHN 8:48,
48 The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
They were hissing at the previous part of this conversation, no doubt. Look at verse 47...
47 Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
Jesus, quickly points out that all He does is for the glory of the FATHER (not Abraham, not “the faith”, not the Jewish Nation). (We’ll come to this in a minute.)
When people have created God in their own image, they will hold God hostage to promises He didn’t make…and claim direction He didn’t give.
The will also INTENSELY REJECT THE TRUTH - GOD REVEALING HIMSELF ON HIS OWN TERMS!
They can become vicious
…vile
…violent, even.
3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
17 But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. 18 They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.”
1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
40 Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about:
41 “ ‘Look, you scoffers,
be astounded and perish;
for I am doing a work in your days,
a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.’ ”
The will continue to ratchet up their rhetoric…all the way to an act of violence.
We’ll examine Jesus’s claim about death in a moment, but look at their response to Jesus’s promise of eternal life:
52 The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?”
now we KNOW - THEY WERE 100% WRONG, BUT 100% CERTAIN! Sincerity/Passion is NOT the measure of truth.
They are calling TRUTH a LIE; GOOD - EVIL; RIGHT they are calling WRONG! (Sound familiar?)
Rom 1 addresses this with alarming clarity...
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
2. THE INTENTIONAL CLAIM
2. THE INTENTIONAL CLAIM
John 8:58
58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
Jesus did NOT de-escalate here!
They’re incensed to violence afterward - of course He escapes since His time was not yet!
WHEN HE SAYS “I AM”, and connects it to Abraham...
He affirms He is better and superior to the prophets.
He affirms He is better and superior to Abraham.
Abraham came into being - he has not ALWAYS existed.
But when Jesus Christ was born as a baby in a manger - HE HAD ALWAYS EXISTED!
I Am is a title of Deity (cf. Ex. 3:14; Isa. 41:4; 43:11–13; John 8:28); the Jews’ response (v. 59) showed they knew EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS SAYING.
It’s a reminder that JESUS IS EQUAL WITH GOD THE FATHER AND HAS ALWAYS existed from all eternity (John 1:1).
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through 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.
They wanted to bicker about their Family Tree...
Jesus does a mic drop and says; I’m the root and the soil
I’M BEFORE ANYONE!
Here it is—the clearest claim in the Gospel of John that Jesus is God - the God of Israel, the great “I am” of Exodus 3:14 and the prophets.
He doesn’t just claim pre-existence...
But he says EXACTLY WHAT HE MEANS HERE...more than just the pre-existentent one.
He says, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
WHY ARRANGE OUR STUDY THIS WAY?
Why begin with the opposition?
Why follow with the last verses in the section about who Jesus is?
I wanted us to feel the weight of these words as we consider the cost of them (they were NOT received well…yet Jesus kept pressing in); AND I BELIEVE THE LORD WOULD BE GLORIFIED AS WE CONSIDER THE MAJESTY OF THE ONE WHO IS SAYING IT!
This the King of kings and the Lord of lords in His earthly ministry, robed in human flesh. THIS GOOD, HOLY, SOVEREIGN, PERFECT, LOVING, COVENANT-KEEPING GOD MADE AN INCREDIBLE PROMISE TO THOSE WHO KEEP JESUS’S WORD!
3. INCREDIBLE PROMISE!
3. INCREDIBLE PROMISE!
John 8:51
51 Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
How does someone die…but not die?
Is this really what happens?
Jesus said, “Truly, truly”
…not, “here’s a neat thought that will help you cope with death.”
…not, “I’m here’s hoping this all works out...”
Before I break this down in two parts: (Our appointment with Death; our eternal state.), let’s peek ahead to the familiar passage where Jesus is with Mary and Martha - after Lazarus has died.
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
THOUGH HE DIE…SHALL NEVER DIE!
The Bible says, Heb 9.27
27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
Death is a reality.
It is a result of the curse.
We experience God’s judgment against our rebellion in the reality of death.
Suffering and death are not natural.
The corruption, decay and death in our world are part of God’s punishment for humanity’s rejection of him.
You can’t cheat death.
ILLUSTRATION: LOUIS ZAMPERINI
In his book Remember Death, Matthew McCullough recounts the incredible life of an American hero.
“I don’t know of anyone who survived more near-death experiences than WWII airman Louis Zamperini. After volunteering for the Army Air Forces, Zamperini survived months of flight training when thousands of others did not. He survived bombing missions under heavy fire, one of which left nearly six hundred bullet holes in the fuselage of his B-24. After mechanical failure sent his plane plunging into the Pacific Ocean, he survived the crash. And that’s when his survival story really began.
He lived for weeks on a small inflatable raft, baked by the sun and tossed by violent storms. He had nothing to drink but whatever rainwater he could collect. He had nothing to eat but the fish and birds he caught with his hands and ate raw. He fought off swarms of sharks that constantly followed his raft and often lunged to pull him in. He dodged the bullets of a Japanese plane he had hoped would be his rescuer.
Zamperini spent forty-seven days on this raft, longer than anyone else had ever survived adrift at sea. Then, when he finally reached land, he was captured immediately. He spent the next two years as a prisoner of“of war, transferred from one horrific camp to another, suffering relentlessly under forced labor, starvation, disease, and merciless torture. When his camp was finally liberated, he was skin and bones, barely clinging to life. More than one in three of his fellow American prisoners had died. Yet still, somehow, he survived.1
It isn’t difficult to see why Zamperini’s biography, Unbroken, has sold millions of copies. It is a captivating story very well told. And in a way, it makes sense that the book’s subtitle calls it a “story of survival.” It is. Or, rather, it was.
Nearly seventy years after his return from war, Zamperini faced what his family called the greatest challenge of his life—a forty-day battle with pneumonia. According to those who stood beside him, “his indomitable courage and fighting spirit were never more apparent.” But at ninety-seven years old, his body was a far cry from the specimen that competed in the 1936 Olympic Games. Worn down by time, the man who fought off starvation and shark attacks and deadly dysentery and sadistic prison guards finally entered a battle he could not survive. On July 2, 2014, Louis Zamperini died.”
YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CANNOT HIDE FROM DEATH.
It comes for us all. 100% of the living have an appointment with death.
The NEW CITY CATECHISM’s opening question frames it so well. It matches the language of Heidelburg Catechism: “What is our only hope in life and death?”
That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ”
DEATH IS A CERTAINTY. It brings grief with it too...
But Grief has a way of clarifying what we are hoping for.
It also clarifies where our true hope lies.
Augustine describes this grief as a soil for the living.
“Grief can become the soil where living hope takes root and grows strong”
BUT JESUS HAS DRAWN A LINE HERE - “HE WILL NEVER SEE DEATH >< IF ANYONE KEEPS MY WORD.”
As we take in the whole counsel of Scripture, it becomes abundantly clear that believers can have hope that their covenant-making God will keep his promises and overcome the forces of death in this world.
The Lord Jesus shows the way. Even at this point in our Gospel timeline in John 8, Jesus keeps making it clearer and clearer that that His power will conquer the effects of sin and death in the lives of His Disciples. They will know the truth and it will make/set them free.
Because of our union with Christ, we live and will live forever - this is BEFORE CHRIST’S RESURRECTION!
Our bodies die.
They lie to us—looking like they are sleeping, which is why the New Testament sometimes calls death falling asleep—they lie in the grave until the last trumpet (we read that a while a go in 1 Corinthians)
“For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52).
But when our bodies die, we do not die.
We have passed from death to life. Eternal life.
Unbroken, unending life.
What that means is this: When we were born again, we received the gift of life.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
Here and NOW, because of Christ - we are able to fellowship with God, know God, love God, obey God, experience God, speak with God, hear from God through his Word.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit.
And for the believer - for the sinner who has been saved by grace, washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ - that fellowship of knowing, loving, obeying, experiencing, speaking, hearing from God IS NEVER BROKEN ONCE WE PASS THROUGH THE SURLY BONDS OF DEATH!
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
This is the promise for SINNERS, SAVED BY GRACE - This is a call for Christians to LIVE, LOVE, GIVE, SERVE with eternity in view!
But When the SELF-RIGHTEOUS heard Jesus’s incredible promise, they were VICIOUSLY OPPOSED!
Why?
Because everybody wants to go to Heaven; but few people want to follow Jesus to get there.
He’s bidding us to come, die with Him; and end our quest of self-discovery - trading it for treasuring HIM and HIS WAY above all else.
When sinners heard this, as their eyes and ears were opened by the Holy Spirit, they repented and believed on JESUS!
Christians should be fearless and courageous - knowing WE WILL NEVER SEE DEATH!
CALL FOR MUSICIANS
Nineteenth century Swiss Pastor and hymn writer Henri Mann captures that incredible promise this way:
It is not death to die—to leave this weary road,
and join the saints who dwell on high who’ve found their home with God.
It is not death to close the eyes long dimmed by tears,
and wake in joy before Your throne delivered from our fears.
It is not death to fling aside this earthly dust
and rise with strong and noble wing to live among the just.
It is not death to hear the key unlock the door
that sets us free from mortal years to praise You evermore.
O Jesus, conquering the grave
Your precious blood has power to save.
Those who trust in You will in Your mercy find
that it is not death to die.
PRAYER:
Are you prepared for death?
Are you prepared for life?
God help us to live, love, give, and serve like we have NO FEAR!