June 23 Sermon

THE PRAYER OF THE ELDERLY

 

Can a believer grow old gracefully?

            An elderly gentleman I came to know at Crestview (my first pastorate) had open-heart surgery and found his lifestyle changed dramatically by it. Shortly thereafter his wife began to show signs of Alzheimer’s disease and eventually passed away from the illness. To top it off, this gentleman was estranged from his son due to family issues.

            Frank’s response to all of this was, “If these are golden years you can have them.”

            This past week I rushed to Winnipeg to be with my mother who had called 911 in the middle of the night. While at the hospital she had fallen, adding to her pain and predicament. When I saw her walking in a stooped and painful manner, I realized how tough Leukemia had been on her body and spirit.

            Growing old is a difficult journey. Eyesight, hearing, and memory are but a few of the losses one experiences in the senior years. Friends start to pass away one by one; spouses grow ill and die. Usefulness in these later years appears to wane as our elders struggle to find a place in the home and the church.

            Can a believer grow old gracefully in the midst of these challenges? What should be our attitude and prayer concerning the elderly and our own fleeting youthfulness?

            I want to speak hope into the lives of you seniors and encourage you with these words from Psalm 71. But I also speak to those who are young. When you are 15 you think you are going to live forever and be invincible. The truth is that the next 15 years are going to fly by, and the next 15 are even faster than that. Before you know it, you are young in mind but not so much in the body.

            The prayer of Psalm 71 is the prayer of an elderly believer who pleads with God to make his senior years count. It is a prayer to grow old gracefully in this final chapter of life.

1. Let me confess your faithfulness O God

 

Some say this is a Psalm of old king David. I’m not sure; it doesn’t say. Let’s assume it is a Psalm of David.

            As an old man, David prays that God would do essentially five things for him. The first is a plea to let him confess that God is faithful.

            Who is he confessing this truth to? God! I find myself doing this all the time: telling God things he already knows. Why do I do it? Because I need to confess with my own mouth that God is faithful and in that way agree with God that he is able to do what he says he can do.

            David is facing some sort of trouble. So in his prayer he rehearses the fact that God has been faithful to him all his life. He says, “For you have been my hope, Sovereign LORD, my confidence since my youth,” (5). What is this confidence? That God has been steady and faithful like a rock all these years. David says that God has been his rock of refuge, his fortress, his deliverer, and his rescuer.

            A rock is unchanging; a fortress is a symbol of power. When David had troubles he found that God was always there for him and he could hide in the presence of God for safety. Now as David recognizes his vulnerability once again, he allows that vulnerability to drive him back under the shelter of God’s strength and into the fortress of God’s protection.

            This is a testimony of an elderly man’s lifelong experience with God. “From birth I have relied on you; you brought me forth from my mother’s womb. I will ever praise you,” (6).       

            As an octogenarian looks back on his or her life, they can see time after time how God has been faithful. This is a testimony we need to hear as younger people. It is a reminder that God walks with us through all of life. The testimony of an elder bears more weight in some ways than a teenager who has yet to go through the toughest times. The young person’s story is just beginning; the older is finishing and has much to offer.

2. Let me be useful in my later years O God

 

David then prays, “Do not cast me away when I am old; do not forsake me when my strength is gone,” (9).

            David’s enemies apparently saw the aged king and said, “His God is done with him…His God won’t deliver him. David is old, forgotten and vulnerable because his God has abandoned him.”

            Why would they say this? Probably because that culture is much like ours. They were echoing the cultural notion of that day that the aged serve no purpose; they contribute nothing meaningful to society; they are a burden and a nuisance.

            Our culture is not much different. The prevalent message from our media is that youth is valued while growing old is to be despised and held off as long as possible. This is so wrong.

            Today’s enemies of the elderly include their own thoughts. I am no longer needed; the church has no place for seniors; I am too old for service. I can see how an elderly person would translate that into how God feels about them.

            Old age robs us of personal beauty, and deprives us of strength for active service; but it does not lower us in the love and favor of God. His love is like that rock; unchanging.

            Let me be useful in my later years O God, is David’s prayer. Let me continue to pursue your heart.

            John Piper wrote, “When I heard J. Oswald Sanders at the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School chapel speaking at the age of 89 say that he had written a book a year for Christ since he was 70, everything in me said, “O God, don’t let me waste my final years! Don’t let me buy the American dream of retirement—month after month of leisure and play and hobbies and putzing around in the garage and rearranging the furniture and golfing and fishing and sitting and watching television. Lord, please have mercy on me. Spare me this curse.”

3. Let me tell others about you O God

 

Maybe you won’t write books like Oswald Sanders but you have years of experience and stories to tell about God. And the church needs to hear that God is faithful.

            David prayed, “My mouth will tell of your righteous deeds, of your saving acts all day long – though I know not how to relate them all. I will proclaim your mighty acts, Sovereign LORD; I will proclaim your righteous deeds, yours alone. Since my youth, God you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds,” (15-17).

            These deeds are not some recitation of Bible stories or theological truths; these acts of God are something that David experienced personally. And here we see that David is compelled to tell, relate, proclaim and declare what God has done in his life. That is his job as an elderly person in the congregation of the believers.

            This is the job of our seniors – this is a significant role in the church. You are the ones who, like David, testify to God’s ability to help his people in all kinds of situations: the Depression, the War years, the revival years, through illness and marital troubles and family crises. You’ve been there.

            But here’s the challenge: Grampa Simpson is ignored by his family because he tells them all the time how things used to be, about the good old days, and how we need to go back. No, we need to hear about God and his faithfulness, about his strength and power. Tell us how God is utterly dependable. Praise God before us because the younger generation needs to see that your God is still your God.

            Paul’s truth is a truth for the elderly, “…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus,” (Phil 1:6). Seniors, do not withdraw. Do not believe the lie that you have nothing to contribute to the church. You are as much proclaimers of Jesus Christ as any person in the church young or old.

            As David prayed, “Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come,” (18). Let me live long enough to tell the next generation about you, Lord.

 

4. Let me know your comfort O God

 

Two things are apparent with growing old: One is that we look back and see all the troubles we have faced in this life and realize that life is full of suffering. Second, as we look ahead, we know that growing old will mean more suffering. Our bodies will fail and we will die.

            So David prays, “Though you have made me see troubles many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once more,” (20-21).

            There was an elderly woman who was a true saint of God in her long life of devotion. She knew much of the Bible by heart and would repeat long passages from memory. But as the years went by, the strength went and with it the memory gradually went too. Finally, there came the time when she was able only to quote one passage: "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able, to keep that which I have committed, unto him against that day." But by and by that also seemed to slip. So there came a time when all she could say was "...that which I have committed to him..." But toward the last, as she hovered between this world and the next, her memory failed even more. Her loved ones would see her lips moving and, thinking that she might need something, they would bend down and listen for her request. Time and again they found her repeating only one word from this song over and over and over. It was the same word: "HIM! HIM! HIM!" She had lost the whole song -- she had lost the entire Bible -- with the single exception of this one word. And what a word it is! She had capsulated the entire Bible in this one word! The Bible is "HIM." This "HIM" is Jesus.

            Let me know your comfort O God, as my memory fades and my body fails. If I forget everything I ever knew let me remember only Jesus.

 

5. Let me praise you in my twilight O God

 

As David closes his prayer he ends on a high note. He wants to praise God with his last breaths because, as we have seen, David recognizes the hand of God in his life from birth until now.

            He uses the word “praise” three times, twice as one who sings praise, and says that his “lips will shout for joy.” There is a strong emphasis on giving God credit for his faithfulness and deliverance. David knows, even before he is rescued from whatever trials he is facing that God will yet again deliver him. “My tongue will tell of your righteous acts all day long, for those wanted to harm me have been put to shame and confusion,” (24).

            Can this not apply to our present enemies, the enemies of our life and vitality?

            It is well known that John Koop is losing his memory. He has said that his prayer is that he will be a “happy forgetter.” That is the attitude David talks about.

            I have a tendency to be a bit of a crank myself. My hope is that as I get older I will be praising God when people ask how I am.

            That attitude of praise must start now. This is why younger people need to listen to this now so that when age creeps up on us we will already be practicing the art of praising God no matter the circumstances.

            Paul in one of his final letters spoke of attitude in the face of trials and even death when he said, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me,” (Phil 1:21-26).

            Now that is a clear purpose for an elderly person. To say, I am here for you so that you can grow in Christ, is clearly why God has blessed His church with elderly men and women. Praise God for you!

 

Our culture has taught us an error: seniors are not a waste of space. Scripture tells us the opposite. We are told in the OT, “Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the LORD,” (Lev. 19:32).

            John Piper commented on this verse saying, “How? Respectful postures. Respectful forms of address. Respectful deference in sitting and standing. Respectful clothing. These are not just arbitrary, old fashioned manners and customs. The text says, "Honor the face of an old man, and fear your God." Customs of respect and deference to older people are rooted in God and the fear of God. And the loss of these manners of respect from baby-boomers and teenagers is directly related to their small view of God and the contemporary foreignness of the idea of the fear of God. If God has become a buddy, you can hardly expect people to stand when an old man enters the room.

            So we must learn to fear the Lord in humility and trust, and then to let that trust and humility and fear show itself in respect and honor for the people the Lord has made to bear his image a long time on the earth. This is what I mean when I say, Older people are to be PRIZED.”[i]

            The five points I have made about the prayer of an elderly believer are just a beginning point for growing old gracefully. I know that one sermon does not take away the pain and frustration of growing older. However, we do want to break old stereotypes and begin a process of inclusion and respect when it comes to our experienced members. May God show us how to grow old gracefully and to revere the veterans of our faith.

 

                                                            AMEN

---

[i] From John Piper’s sermon, The Prayer of an Old Saint

Baptism devotional

THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP

Baptism Sunday, June 16, 2003

 

The following are actual responses from comment cards given to the staff members at Bridger Wilderness Area in 1996:

-          Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid trails that go uphill.

-          Too many bugs and leeches and spiders. Please spray the wilderness to get rid of these pests.

-          Please pave the trails…chair lifts need to be in some places so that we can get to the wonderful views without having to hike to them.

-          The coyotes made too much noise last night and kept me awake. Please eradicate these annoying animals.

-          Too many rocks on the mountains.

-          A small deer came into my camp and stole my jar of pickles. Is there a way I can get reimbursed? Please call xxx-xxx-xxxx.[i]

These comments and complaints reveal that there are some people who do not fully understand what it means to stay in a “wilderness area.” A lot of people are looking for a comfortable and convenient way to enjoy nature without truly engaging the wilderness experience. They want to observe nature without the work of getting into nature.

            In the same way, many people want to be observers of Christianity without considering the cost of what it means to follow Jesus. Many people today claim to be Christian but on their own terms.

            What does it cost to follow Jesus and call oneself a Christian?

            Jesus makes four startling demands of his disciples.

 

Hate your family

            When Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God, they figured he was talking about the resurgence of their own nation in a political sense. They saw Jesus as the emerging king of this revived nation, and they were eager to see Jesus overthrow the invader Pilate and the pretender Herod.

            But Jesus was not calling for spectators but recruits. When he called on people to follow him, he did not intend for a bunch of tag-alongs and curiosity-seekers, but to throw in their lot with him in sacrificial commitment.

            The first thing he tells them is, “If  anyone come to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple,” (14:26).

            In an era of mega-churches and church growth programs, this is not a seeker-sensitive demand to make. This would turn people off in droves.

            What does Jesus mean? On the one hand, this demand is best seen as hyperbole. A hyperbole is an exaggeration to make a point. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse,” is one example of hyperbole. It would be interesting to know who started that one and if they would actually eat a horse. But when Jesus says we need to hate our families to follow him, he means that our love and devotion to Jesus is to be so intense that it would look like we hate everyone and everything else.

            On the other hand, we do not want to water down the demand by simply labeling it a hyperbole. It is a serious demand. Many of us treat family as sacred, so sacred that we would exalt family above all else. Jesus puts following him on a higher priority than even family

 

Pick up your Cross

            Then Jesus tells the crowd, “And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple,” (27).

            This is the second time Jesus utters a negative imperative. You CANNOT be my disciple unless you hate your family and come and die with me, Jesus says. There is an all or nothing requirement in discipleship. Following Jesus demands your whole life.

            The cross is the cursed, ugly instrument of torture and death. There is no surviving crucifixion. Jesus asks those who follow him to be prepared to even die with him.

            The cross represents complete devotion and whole-hearted service to everyone else. That is Jesus’ own example; he came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. Following Jesus calls for imitation of this very attitude. There is no compromising this demand. Picking up our cross means that I am dead to my own desires and alive to serving the first person I encounter with the love of Christ.

 

Counting the Cost

            The last two statements Jesus makes concerning the demands of discipleship come as illustrations. Very simply, when you build, do you not consider the costs of building a house before you begin? If you don’t and you only build a partial structure, people will think you a fool. And if you are going to go battle, make sure you have enough men or a good plan, or you will lose and look stupid.

            If you are thinking about following Jesus, in other words, let it not be an impulsive decision. Don’t go after him because of feelings alone, or some emotional experience. Because when the feelings fade you are going to have to consider the commitment of your decision. How will that look?

            Think of a guy who wants to express his love to his girlfriend Donna by getting a tattoo of her name on his arm. He’s at the tattoo parlor and halfway through he asks how much it will cost. Fifty dollars. He pulls out his cash and discovers he only has forty-one dollars. Next you see the dude on the sidewalk yelling after Donna, who’s walking away in a huff, “I’ll get it fixed.” Zoom in to the tattoo which reads, “I love Don!”

            Can you afford to follow Jesus? “In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple,” (33).

            Baptism represents a point in one’s life at which one has decided that she is going to give her all to Jesus for eternity. This is a momentous event. Baptism is death – death to the old life and the beginning of a new life. This is a funeral service for the old Hayley, the old Jaime and the old Alyssa. In moments we will introduce the new Alyssa, the new Jaime and the new Hayley, dead to sin and alive to Christ.

            They have considered the cost of discipleship and found that Jesus is worth the price of their lives. The gain is incredible.

            Have you considered the cost? Would you pay it? Jesus invites you to meditate on the worth of following him and to accept the cost today.

 

 

                                                            AMEN

           

---

[i] From Mike Neifert, Light and Life (February 1997), p. 27

The Believer's Grief

THE BELIEVER’S GRIEF

 

Recently I heard about a conversation between a seminary professor and a former colleague of mine. They were talking about funerals and how they were conducted these days. I was intrigued by one comment and it has haunted me ever since. One of the fellows said, “Christian funerals have become increasingly pagan.”

            I am not entirely sure what was meant by that comment but I can guess. It has something to do with the focus of the funeral. In our attempts to find comfort in our grief we have focused heavily on remembering the person who died. That is not entirely a bad thing, keep in mind. What has gone missing is the focus on the resurrection.

            A spate of books has been published lately that tell the stories of those who have died and gone to heaven. Colton Burpo, a four-year-old who saw heaven while having an appendectomy, came back to tell of his experience. He declared, “Heaven is for real,” and told amazing stories that cannot be explained.        

            Others have written about going to heaven and meeting relatives or getting tours of paradise. These books are bestsellers because people have an innate anxiety about what happens to people when they die. We all want to know what life beyond the grave holds for us.

            What we believe about such things will affect the way we grieve over those we love when they die.

            What do we believe about the Christian man or woman who dies? And how do we then grieve? Or do we grieve?

            To answer this question we are going to look at two verses from the passage that was read (1 Thess. 4:13-14).

 

1. How Christians grieve (v. 13)

 

Paul had not been gone long. Only six months separated these new believers from the man who taught them about Jesus.

            Already, they faced a dilemma: members of the Thessalonican church were dying, either of natural causes or from persecution; we are not told. Paul, however, had instilled in them a consciousness of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. They truly expected Jesus to return any day. And if members of their church died before Jesus returned, they wanted to know if they would miss the great reunion with Jesus. What happens to the dead who die in the Lord?

a) We want to know what happens – Paul replied in a pastoral, rather than theological manner. He wanted to alleviate confusion, grief, distress, and bring comfort rather than give an eschatological lecture on the End Times. These people were agitated, upset, confused, worried, fearful and just not informed.

            This is why Paul says, “Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope,” (4:13).

            In my doctoral studies I researched grief and found some interesting things about grieving. When a loved one dies those we attend first is the parents or the spouse; the forgotten ones in grief are often the children. These young ones will often make up stuff about the death to make sense of it. They will fantasize about what caused the death, imagine that what killed the person will kill them, and generally grieve in error.

            The Christians at Thessalonica were baby Christians and were prone to make stuff up. Paul did not want them to be uninformed about the death of Christians, to imagine heaven and fantasize about blueberry pies and perogies, as if heaven were just like earth.

            No, you want to know what happens, and we want you to know too.

b) What it means to fall asleep – So Paul uses a term that speaks volumes to Christian death: sleep.

            Speaking of death as sleep originates with Jesus. It seems that wherever Jesus went, whenever he faced a death situation, he casually called it sleep. A twelve-year-old girl, Jairus’ daughter, is pronounced dead before Jesus gets to her. Jesus replies, “She’s only sleeping,” (Mk 5:39).

            This is how the One who would be resurrected himself approached death. Even before he would be raised to life, he embodied the power of life and resurrection. Death could not hold its victims when Jesus came around. Jesus makes it difficult to find in him an example of how to grieve – he kept raising the dead.

            One of his close friends died, though, and he was forced to face the grief of this loss. When Jesus is told of this death, he said to his disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”

            His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Then John explains that Jesus had been speaking of his death while his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead…” (Jn 11:11-14). Sleep is how Jesus saw death.

            The Church of Acts picked up on this and adopted the Lord’s view. When Stephen was being stoned by the Jews, we read, “Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this against them.’ When he had said this, he fell asleep,” (Acts 7:60).

            Why does Jesus say ‘sleep’? Why not just ‘dead’? Sleep is the unique way to speak of the Christians’ temporary death. Before Christ came they called the place of the dead a graveyard; after the resurrection of Jesus Christians called it a cemetery. The word cemetery comes from the Greek word for sleep. Graveyards became sleeping places, a synonym for dormitory – a place where people sleep.

c) Do Christians grieve? – If death is temporary and Jesus is coming back then why would Christians bother to grieve their loved ones? Questions like this arise among well-meaning believers. They even call funerals “a celebration of the life of …” and stifle their tears because this is not the end.

            Some will ask, “Isn’t grieving an act of unbelief since Christ has been raised?” or “Aren’t we doubting God if in our grief we ask questions?” Basically, is it wrong for believers to grieve?

            Note what Paul says about grief: he doesn’t say it’s wrong to grieve. He just doesn’t want the believers to grieve like the rest of humankind.

            Those who are lost in sin will grieve differently than a believer. They will cling to memories because that is all they have. They will despair at a life lost, a potential wasted, and what could have been.

            Paul described what it means to be lost, “…remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world,” (Eph 2:12). It is no wonder that they grieve without hope.

But grieving for the believer is still permissible – no, it is expected.

Earl Grollman said, “Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical, spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.”

Doug Manning spoke to this truth on grieving when he said, “You give yourself permission to grieve by recognizing the need for grieving. Grieving is the natural way of working through the loss of a love. Grieving is not a weakness nor absence of faith. Grieving is as natural as crying when you are hurt, sleeping when you are tired or sneezing when your nose itches. It is nature’s way of healing a broken heart.”

My daughter shared with a verse from a Toby Mac song: “You are not crying that they are in heaven; you’re crying because you miss them.”

Yes Christians grieve, but we grieve differently than the rest of humankind. Our grief will look the same in our sadness, anger, guilt, loneliness, etc. But we grieve the separation with the hope of reunion. And as we ask questions of our God in our pain, we find that the questions actually bring us closer to God. Without questions we would never search for God.

And let’s not forget that Jesus wept; he grieved Lazarus’ death, even though he had the power to raise him from the dead.

 

2. Why Christians grieve the way they do (v. 14)

 

a) It all goes back to Jesus – When a Christian dies, our grief may be deep but it is carried by the strength of our hope. What is the source of our hope? It is our belief in Jesus.

            Paul shares two things we believe. The first is this: “We believe that Jesus died and rose again,” (4:14a). Note the firmness of that declaration: We believe…This is a fundamental truth of our faith. We believe that Jesus died and rose again.

            The Early Church developed a creed that began with this belief, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” (1 Cor 15:3-4).

            What is the difference between the believer and Jesus in the passage to the Thessalonians? Can you see it? Jesus died and the believer sleeps. Jesus conquered death, dying in our place, that we might live in him. Jesus died; we fall asleep. Death is changed to sleep because it has been transformed by the work of Christ.

            Jesus died for our sins; he paid the debt. The wages of sin is death. If the wages are paid, then we no longer face death, only temporary sleep. The sting of death is sin. But the bee stung Jesus and lost its stinger so it cannot sting again.

            “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ,” (1 Cor 15:55-57).

            Our hope goes all the way back to Jesus who died and was buried and raised from the dead.

b) God will bring us back – Paul’s second point of belief is this: “…and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him,” (4:14b).

            Here is the assurance the Thessalonians were looking for in their original question. What happens to the believer who dies before the Lord returns? Will they miss the great reunion? And this is a great promise for us as well, even though we have a different question. Paul says that those who die will be brought back. They won’t miss anything. Even the people who die won’t miss anything. Based on the death of Christ and its perfect work, based on the resurrection of Christ and the Father’s will, God is going to bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

            Questions abound about what it means that God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. The body is buried in the cemetery, so where is the spirit of our loved one? When God brings us back with Jesus we may ask, “Back from where?”

            Not much further on, Paul gives this promise, “And so we will be with the Lord forever,” (4:17b). Wherever the spirit has gone, and wherever the body reunited with the spirit will spend eternity is not mentioned. That’s not important. What is important is that wherever we go when we die and wherever we go when we are resurrected, we will be with the Lord Jesus. That is what we will rejoice in above all else.

            You have the freedom to fantasize about heaven all you want, who you will meet, what you will eat, and where you will live. My great hope is singular: being with Jesus. Nothing else matters.

            In 1871 Fr. J. Boudreau wrote a short story entitled "The Happiness of Heaven." It's a story about a kindhearted king who is hunting in the forest when he discovers a blind, poor orphan boy living there. The king takes the blind orphan to his palace and adopts him as his own son. The king gives to his blind son the finest education and training money can buy. The blind son loves his father dearly and is grateful for everything he has done for him.

When the son turns twenty, a surgeon performs an experimental surgery on his eyes, and for the first time in his life he is able to see. This royal prince, who was once a starving orphan, realizes how he has been blessed with fine food, fragrant gardens, and lovely music. But when he gains his sight, he doesn't care to look at the wealth of his kingdom or the wonders of the palace. Instead he only wants to gaze upon the face of his father--the king who saved him, adopted him, and loved him.[i]

            That will be heaven in itself. To look upon the One who took these pitiful, blind, wretched orphans and adopted us into his royal family. We won’t be looking for long-lost relatives. “The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads,” (Rev 22:3-4).

            That, dear friends, is why we grieve with hope.

 

What happens to the believer when he/she dies?

He/she sleeps, his/her spirit safe with the Lord Jesus.

We need to know this; we need to know what happens to the believer when he/she dies so that we can grieve properly, as Christians, with hearts full of hope.

           

 

AMEN

 

---

[i] From a sermon by Fred Markes, Heaven, 8/30/2011