Please turn in your Bibles to Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I've begun a series which I'm going to continue tonight entitled God's Strange Ministers. And we began by looking at how God sends ministers into our lives to minister to us, but they're not dressed up the way we think a good minister of God should be dressed. And so we don't receive them as we should. And we began with the ministry of failure. We looked at the ministry of when God brings circumstances into our life and we utterly fail. Perhaps it's a failed job, a failed marriage, a failed working with our children, a failed something, but we feel like an absolute failure. And how in the world can God use something like this in our lives? And then we looked at the ministry of total powerlessness where you're trying to face a situation and you don't have any power to enact change. You feel wholly powerless in dealing with the situation. How in the world can God use my powerlessness to affect change or to make me into a better Christian or to do anything? And so we looked at several different types of strange ministers so far. We also looked at the importance of learning to say thank you. That saying thank you or thanksgiving is the highest form of faith when you can trust God and say through tears, thank you for bringing this really hard thing, perhaps this awful thing, this tough thing into my life. I believe you. I believe you're using it for my good and your glory. Thank you. Over Christmas, I was invited to a dinner party, and I had told you before, besides Ron Dunn, whose series I copied the title of and took several of his message titles, but I added my own to his, and Ron Dunn had shared stories about how he was not recognized at the grocery store on a Saturday night by a little old lady in his church because he was out of uniform. He wasn't wearing his minister's blue suit. I had my own experience of that when I got through working out one day and was wearing shorts and my jogging shoes and a really gross t-shirt with a lot of holes and odor and a really sweat-soaked baseball cap. And we stopped by Sam's Club on the way home from working out to get something. And I saw a couple of boys who were attending our church with their parents and they always sat second, third row, and I just went over and started talking to them, and they looked at me like I was stranger danger, and they made a beeline for another part of the store where they thought their mom was. I go, I don't need to have these boys like me. I'm tired. I'm just going to get my stuff and go home. So I got my stuff, went to get in line, and hey, they were right in front of me in line. So when the boys saw me, they kind of grabbed their mom. There he is. There's that guy. And I looked at her, and I said, hi, hello. And she very timidly said, hello. And I said, you don't have any idea who I am, do you? She said, no. I lifted up my hat. She goes, oh, Pastor Martin. I was like, that's right. She doesn't used to see me dressed like that. So I was like, that couldn't be him because he doesn't look anything like that. And so we're used to looking at the uniforms and not really looking at the substance. And studies have shown if you want to be a successful robber, wear a uniform. They'll look at your uniform. They won't look at you. And they won't have any idea what you look like. Well, God has ministers that He brings into our lives, which are very important ministers, but if you and I aren't careful, we will not receive them as God's ministers, and perhaps may even try to reject them. And tonight is probably going to be the hardest one for you to swallow, but it's God's strange minister to do you good, and it's the ministry of death. Everyone in this room is going to die unless the Lord comes back in our lifetime, from the very youngest who are now exiting to the very oldest. We're all going to die. We're all going to die. And I was looking at something on Wikipedia the other day, and some of my favorite baseball players and football players growing up, and they're either dead or one of the oldest surviving pro football players, one of the oldest surviving pro baseball players. All my childhood heroes are dead. People I used to watch on TV are dead. Politicians are dead. I'm heading toward dying myself. And so is everyone here. Now, we don't know God's timing. We don't know if some cell might start replicating wildly, and they call it cancer, and we're facing a struggle at a young age that we think, well, shouldn't face the struggle at this age. Or someone who's older. may be facing death, we just don't know. But God has His purposes. So I want you to turn to 1 Corinthians 15. I want to show you some passages here. First of all, we're going to look at verses 10 through 28, 20 through 28. And Paul talks about death in this chapter on the resurrection. He says in verse 20, But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, after that those who are Christ at his coming. Then comes the end when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he has abolished all rule and authority and power, for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He says all things are put in subjection, it is evident that He is expected, that He is expected, accepted who put all things in subjection to Him. In other words, the Father is not going to be in subjection to the Son. Everybody will be in subjection to the Son except the Father. And Christ will take the kingdom and give it to His Father. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself also will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all. Then drop on down to verse 50. Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery, something previously unrevealed. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. 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 will be changed. But this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and when this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. Almost all people in our culture view death as a terrible, negative thing to be avoided at all costs. We don't like to talk about it. We don't like to see TV shows or movies about it. We don't want to have anything to do with death. It is an enemy. But sadly, too often, many Christians don't like to talk about death either. They don't see death as any kind of a blessing, and they would just as soon not have it in their thinking. There's no way that they can consider that death could ever be used by God for a good thing. We're going to look at three things in the time we have together. First of all, what the Bible teaches about the death of unbelievers. So if you're an unbeliever still, you can hear what the Bible says about your fate. What the Bible teaches about the death of believers, if you're a believer, you can hear what the Bible says about your fate. And we're going to see at the end that death is now God's strange minister to carry the believer to glory. You can't get to heaven without dying. And death is God's chariot to get you there. Let's look at these things in some more detail. First of all, what the Bible teaches about the death of unbelievers, and I have several points. First of all, the Bible teaches that death came into the world not through evolution, but through a man named Adam. And because of his sin, God's promised curse upon his sin was death. And the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Sin entered the world through one man and death through him. We read in 1 Corinthians 15 about how death came into the world through one man. The representative man, the man who was in charge of planet Earth as God's vice-regent, and he blew it. And as a result, plunged himself, his family, and the whole world under the curse of sin. Second, death has come and will come to the whole human race because of sin. You may not have sinned like Adam did, but you were a sinner by nature and a sinner by activity. You actually have committed sins. You can't simply say, well, theoretically I inherited my parents' sin, but I've never sinned. No one can say that. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Why does God hate sin? Why does He consider our sin as cosmic treason? because we were meant to be a part of His glory, and by our sinning as we have and rebelling against Him, we've thrown His glory back in your face and said, I'd rather have my own way, I'd rather have my own sin than see you glorified. Death is the gateway to judgment for the unbeliever. I gave you a little hint of coming up later that death is the gateway to glory. It's to heaven for the believer, but for the unbeliever, death is the gateway to judgment. Hebrews 9.27, it is appointed once for a person to die, and then comes judgment. No second chance, no reincarnation. It's appointed once for a person to die, and then they face judgment. No reincarnation, no second chances, and nothing called annihilationism, which some people who faint at the idea that God punishes sin can't imagine that God would punish a sinner for all of eternity. So their view of what happens at death is God just kind of smooshes you and blots you out, you're annihilated, poof, you're gone, that's the end of the story. But your sin is cosmic treason against an eternal God. It has ramifications that you barely understand. And God says that it is appointed once for you to die, and then you will face judgment. And unbelievers know this. If you talk to an unbeliever, and if you're an unbeliever here today, there's a certain aversion to God. There's a certain... Like a criminal feels about seeing a police car, or being in court, or a judge. Like a mouse feels when it sees a cat. I have a natural aversion to God. I sense that He's my judge. You feel the guilt and condemnation of your sin. You're awaiting judgment. The judgment has already been passed on you. God says, the soul of the sin shall die. And He's already passed judgment on you. Death and judgment for the unbeliever means consignment to the second death, the lake of fire. We read in 1 Corinthians 15, the sting of death is sin. Why does death have a sting to it? Why are we instinctively scared of death? Because if you're not a Christian, you know that you've sinned against God, you know that God is your judge, therefore your enemy in a sense, and you don't want to die because you don't want to face His judgment. because of your sins. The sting, what makes it hurt, is sin, and the power of sin is the law. The broken laws of God, which we've broken all of His laws, they're crying out for us to be adjudicated, and we know that if we face God, we're doomed. In the book of Revelation, chapter 20, it says the second death is the lake of fire. If anyone's name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire, which was originally prepared for the devil and the fallen angels." Now, I'm not trying to be overly dramatic. I'm not trying to be unnecessarily grim. But if you can think about your own death and judgment, or those of other people, and not be serious and somewhat grim about it, then you're the one screwed up, not me. This is a sober subject. Death, sadly, is also a present state of existence as well as an event to come at the end of your life. Death is a present reality as well as a future condition. What do I mean? If you're not a Christian, you're a two-dimensional person living in a three-dimensional world. What do I mean? You have a physical body. Well, your physical body has five senses. You can smell and taste and hear, see, and all these kinds of things. And you have a mind by which you can apprehend the world of ideas. But the Bible says your death is a spiritual death. You have no spirit. That's why, for example, to use an illustration, there are all kinds of unseen waves going through this room right now. Various kinds of waves. If you have the right receptor, if you have a TV, if you have a cell phone, if you have some gadget that can pick up these waves, then you'll have a way of actually benefiting from these things, which are going through the room, we just can't pick up on them. But if you don't have the receptor, they may as well not even exist. You would have no reason to even realize they exist. So you're a two-dimensional person. You've got a body and you've got a mind, but you're spiritually dead. So all spiritual things are foolishness to you. They're deadness to you. They're nothing to you. It's like, why do these people get all hepped up about this? There's nothing to it. I never feel excited. I never feel anything about this stuff. I don't care. Right? Because you're dead. You're spiritually dead. Please turn to Ephesians chapter 2. I think the Apostle Paul probably makes it clearest here. It's about the only passage I think I'll have you look up, but turn to Ephesians chapter 2. In Acts chapter 19, the Apostle Paul's ministry and emphasis is recorded by Dr. Luke. It was a dramatic ministry. Listen to what Paul says about, to the Ephesians. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins. He's telling these people you were dead, implying that they're alive now, but you were dead. Well, he didn't go preach in a cemetery when he went to Ephesus. He went into the streets. He went into the marketplace. He went into the place where people brokered ideas and exchanged ideas. He had a give and take over the truth. It wasn't that they were physically dead, and he went to a graveyard and preached to these people, popped out on the ground like a bad TV show. And the walking dead, and that's the new church in Ephesus, Walking Dead Baptist Church. No, that's not the case at all. These people were spiritually dead and he went and preached to them. But how were you dead? Your sins, your trespasses, breaking God's laws, your sins, your general corruption. You were dead and your trespasses and sins in which you formally walked or live your life according to the course of this world. You were a whirling. What excited the world excited you? You could care less about God and the things of God because you were spiritually dead. Boy, if anything was going on in the world, no matter how stupid or foolish or corrupt, you were for it. According to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit or spirit being that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, however the devil manipulated your marionette puppet, that's what you did. Tell them you're your own man. I'm my own man. Nobody manipulates me. Nobody manipulates me. Right. Among them, we too. Among them, we too. Not just you guys, I'm not just going to rain down condemnation on your heads. I'm not saying you all have a problem. Paul said, that's where I've lived, that's where I was, we. He's changing from the you, plural, second person, to first person, plural, we. Yes, you were dead, but we all, too, formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind that were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest of mankind. I'm there too. Paul said, I was a Jew, I was a religious Jew, and I was a lost Jew, I was a sinful Jew, I was a spiritually dead Jew being religious. And you guys were Gentiles, and you were spiritually dead, and you can give a rip about these things. But what? Well, we'll come back. Don't let your finger leave that place. You can be physically alive, but spiritually dead. That's why it says in 1 Corinthians 2.14 that it says, the things of the Spirit of God are foolish to the natural man. That means a person as they are by nature. Just growing up, religious stuff is stupid. Who wants to sing hymns when you can listen to the radio? Who wants to go talk about a God you can't see? That's dumb. Yeah, that's exactly what you'd expect a spiritually dead person to say, because they have no way of gleaning what's going on. They have no way of receiving. They have no receptors. They're spiritually dead. John told his followers in 1 John 3.14, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. Whoever doesn't love the brethren still abides in death. He said, you know, you can be physically alive but spiritually dead. And one of the ways you can tell that God's caused you to be born again is that you start loving other Christians. You really love them. You really want to be with them. Before I was a Christian, I didn't want to go to church. I didn't want to read my Bible. I didn't want to sing hymns. I didn't want to be with Christians. Why in the world would I want to do that? But after He saved me, after He caused me to be supernaturally reborn, I want to sing what worldlings consider all clunky hymns. I want to be with Christians on the Lord's Day. I want to worship God. I want to please Him and not myself. What caused the change? A supernatural rebirth from within by the Holy Spirit. John said in his gospel, truly, truly, I say to you, quoting Jesus, whoever hears my words and believes Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment at the end, but He has already passed from death to life. You have it very clearly. He's talking to people who are physically alive but spiritually dead, and if this work happens to you, if this new birth happens to you, if God causes you to be supernaturally born again, you've passed from death to life and you have a new spiritual life, and you can begin to apprehend things. It's like suddenly if you plug in a TV or a radio or you got a cell phone, I could pick up the waves that are going on around me. Imagine trying to convince an aborigine who has no knowledge of technology about all the things that we have access to. And you can talk to your blue in the face and he's going to think you're just dumb and crazy. And you plug this stuff in and it works and his mind is blown. Because he has no way of even imagining these things are true. The world is full of spiritually dead people who are on their way to the physical death and judgment. The world is full of spiritually dead people who are on their way to physical death and judgment. Death is your supreme enemy if you're not a Christian. It dogs your steps. It haunts your life. It casts its shadow over your family and friends. It whispers in your ear, don't get sick. Watch out for that germ. Don't take any chances. Keep working at keeping your life together. I will get you. The world is full of spiritually dead people who are on the way to being physically dead and under judgment. The Bible says that the only person or being in all of existence that can do anything about your spiritual deadness is God. He alone can make dead people alive. Sometimes I'll hear Christians, well-meaning but naïve, say, well, I really pray that something hard would come into this person's life because that will make them turn to Christ. No, it won't. People in hell do not turn to Christ because God's not given them any grace. They have no grace to want Christ. You'd think if anything, they would make you turn. Hell would. People in hell are not crying out for Jesus. They may not like their circumstances, but they're not crying out, change me. Make me like Jesus Christ. Take away my love of sinning. Make me righteous. Make me love you. That's never their prayers. And praying for people who are going through hard times doesn't guarantee they're going to become Christians. They could just become harder and meaner. Pray that a supernatural work of God would happen in their life regardless of their circumstances. Go back to Ephesians 2. We were reading there, and Paul was giving this kind of dire description of what people's lives are like before they're Christians. Not just you Ephesians, but me, Paul. Now here's extra credit. This is the remedial service. The morning service is the heavy duty, and the evening is the remedial service. Whatever I teach, it's remedial. Okay, who knows what the spiritual state of the Ephesians was like? What's something that stands out about the Ephesians in Acts chapter 19? They were into witchcraft. You get a free handshake from Brandon after this. Okay. They were into witchcraft. How much into witchcraft? They came under conviction of all the occult junk they had. They brought it out in the middle of the town square and piled it up. And Dr. Luke estimated it's about 50,000 days wages. 50,000 days wages of occult paraphernalia were burned up as part of their repentance. It says one thing, these people were really into all kinds of nefarious, evil, wicked deeds that God finds offensive. But God made them Christians. So as he says before, let's go back and read verses one through three. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked or ordered your life according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit or spirit being that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them, we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh. It doesn't mean carnal sexual lust. It means all kinds of out-of-control desires, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature, that is, just by growing up and not being changed by God yet, we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest of mankind. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once preached a whole sermon on the next two words, but God. I don't care who you are. I don't care what you've done. I don't care how deeply you've messed up your life. I don't care how awful and wicked and terrible you have been. God can change your life. There's hope for you. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, what? Even when we were dead in our transgressions, okay, we're spiritually dead. I have all this record of all the sins I've committed, all the transgressions, the breaking of God's laws. Even when we were dead, God made us alive together with Christ. For by grace you have been saved. He made you alive with Christ. And He raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come, a billion years from now as men count time, in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. What's surpassing grace? Here are all your sins, and grace just goes so far beyond that. It's surpassing grace. Grace is not just enough to eke out barely your salvation because you're such a rotten person. Grace is so great and so vast, it surpasses all of the sins of all these people. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." Only God can save a person. Only God can make a dead person alive. That's why some have compared preaching to going to a cemetery and preaching to a cemetery, because these people are dead. And as we know from the book of Ezekiel, you preach in the power of the Spirit, and if God chooses to work, dry bones can live again. And God can make dead people alive. He can make the hardest sinner into the sweetest, most humble, Christ-loving, sin-hating person you've ever met. That's the power of God. Well, I need to move on. That's what death is for the unbeliever. And the only possibility of life is found in God. But what about the Bible and what it teaches about death for a believer? I have great privilege to tell you all kinds of good news. First, Christians as human beings are still Adam's descendants and we're still subject to death. We're going to die even since we've become Christians. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is still death, but death has changed for the believer. On the cross, Christ defeated the devil who had the power of death. This is really important and you'll understand something, I think, tonight. Hebrews 2.14, since the children share in flesh and blood, Christ himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil. And here's a great insight from C.S. Lewis. The devil thinks of himself as God's bailiff. Do you know what a bailiff is? If you're in court and the judge pounds his gavel and says, bailiff, take him away. And this guy grabs you by the arm and there you go and you're gone. Well, the devil thinks of himself as God's bailiff and he wants to take justice into his own hands and personally condemn each and every person found guilty of sin and he wants to put them to death. They're all guilty. I was the chief of the angels at one time. I'm going to have all these people killed. I'm going to kill them all myself." Well, he can't do that. He likes to think of himself as that. He's called the prince of the power of the air, but he has no power to kill you, and he has to ask permission of God. Read Job chapter 1 and 2. Before he can touch a hair on Job's head, he has to ask permission from God to do it. In Colossians 2 verses 13 through 15, Paul says, God made you alive together with Christ, having forgiven us all of our trespasses by canceling out the entire record of death that stood against us with all of its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities, meaning they have no legal right to accuse you. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them into open shame by triumphing over them in Christ. The devil can say all he wants about me, and I can simply say, it's worse than what you said. Drag up all my sins from my BC days. Drag up all my sins I've committed since I've been a Christian. I'm worse than you say I am. But Christ has cleansed me from all of these sins. I bear Christ's righteousness. You have nothing to do with me." And he doesn't. He can't say a word. Because Christ endured judgment for them, Christians are not condemned at Judgment Day. In 2 Corinthians 5.10 it says, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he's done. Everyone in this room will appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Believers will be declared innocent in Christ. Romans 8, 1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Why? My condemnation's been borne by Christ on the cross. There's no dumbbell indemnity with God. He doesn't require my sins at Christ's hand and then turn around and require my sins at my hand. My substitute took my sins upon himself. My guilt was accounted to Christ. My shame was accounted to Christ. Christ's righteousness was counted to me. Believers are declared innocent in Christ. Christ died for them, and in doing so, the claims of the law were met and have nothing more to say. One of my favorite words, it's used a few times in the New Testament. It's a beautiful word. It's one of those big Bible words that you never hear unless you read your Bible. Propitiation. Propitiation. What does that mean? They're turning away of God's wrath by the satisfaction of His violated justice. I justly earned the wrath of God because of my sin. Christ Jesus came and bore the penalty due me. God's satisfied. The law is satisfied. God requires nothing else of my hand. His broken law was paid for by Christ in my place. That's propitiation. Christ propitiated me. You know, on Judgment Day, we'll be there, and we'll have our hand over our mouth, and we'll have tears in our eyes, and we will see people who we know who maybe weren't as bad as us, maybe not outwardly, but they didn't have a savior. They didn't have an advocate. They didn't have a substitute. And they were carried away by the angels and thrown into the lake of fire as unrepentant beings. And the only reason we were saved is not because we were better people intrinsically, but because Christ substituted for us. He became our advocate. He saved us from the wrath to come. That will be so sobering to see people thrown into the lake of fire who you knew. Maybe you grew up with them. Maybe you work with them. Maybe they're relatives. Maybe they're neighbors. They're not such bad people. They don't have an advocate. They don't have a savior. They don't have a substitute. They're lost. Resurrection to the fullness of eternal life doesn't come until we experience death. We've begun resurrection to life when God gave us a new life. When he made us alive, we are now, so to speak, resurrected with Christ, but the fullness of all that Christ has bought for us, we're not yet experienced. We've entered the vestibule, so to speak, of this vast house, which is eternity, but we have not yet to experience the fullness of it. The Bible says because we're united with Christ, united with His life, His death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension, we have everything that belongs to Christ now. Just as Adam represented the human race and plunged it into sin and ruin and misery, Christ represented all that the Father had given to Him when He died on the cross. So, for example, in Romans 6, a passage on baptism, and baptism in the Spirit, it talks about that, don't you realize, Paul says, that you died with Christ. You were buried with Christ. You were raised with Christ. You've ascended to the heavenlies with Christ. And you go, I don't remember any of those things. Your representative went through them for you, just as you weren't there when Adam sinned, but he was your representative, and you had to follow through on everything that he bought for you with his sins, so to speak. Well, now Christ comes along, and all the things that happened to Christ happen to you, too, because you're in Christ, and the penalty's been paid, and you've moved on. Christ gave himself over to death and judgment. that he might defeat their hold on us. Death does not have a hold on us anymore. Judgment has no hold on us anymore. In fact, the Apostle Paul coins a phrase in Greek. It's two words in English, but in Greek it's one word, and he coins a new term for what happens to believers when they die. They've fallen asleep. That's a lot scarier than, he died. Well, for an unbeliever, that's going to be how it feels. But if you're a believer, Martin Luther fell asleep in Jesus. Paul fell asleep in Jesus. Augustine fell asleep in Jesus. And that's the phrase he uses in the New Testament. Death is not a terrible segue into the next world, but simply, they've fallen asleep in Jesus. We should have no more anxiety about dying than we do about falling asleep at night. In fact, a famous 19th century pastor had a great illustration about how this works. Here you have a child that's been motoring around all day, goes to bed and doesn't really want to go to sleep right then. And before he knows it, he goes and crawls in bed with the parents. Falls asleep. Next morning wakes up, I'm in my bedroom. I'm in my bed. How did I get here? I don't remember coming back here. How did I get here? They fell asleep in their parents' bed. They woke up back in their right place. And it'll be like what happens to us. We'll fall asleep in Christ. We will wake up in glory. We will not wake up to face judgment. We will wake up to face the grace of God for eternity. One day we will fall asleep, we will rest from our labors, and we'll wake up in glory and we'll marvel how we got there. So death is your gateway to glory. You can't get to glory, you can't get all the wonders to come, unless God takes you through death. And as 1 Corinthians 15 said, you don't want to be unclothed. God's going to give you a resurrection body. You're living in a crummy little tent now. He's got a building for you, a building not made with hands, and He's going to give you a resurrection body, and He's going to give you the new Jerusalem. You're not going to be a disembodied soul for the rest of eternity. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, Paul says. And so in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verses 1 through 10, he says, we don't want to be unclothed, we want to have a body, but he says the one difficulty you'll have, so to speak, is that when you die, your body will be put in the grave probably, unless you choose to be cremated or atomically blasted or some other way, but your body will still be here, but you'll go to be immediately in the presence of the Lord. And then when Christ returns, then we will be reunited with our bodies. Now how does that work? I heard at a funeral a pastor share it like this. You have a sword that's in the sheath. You take the sword out of the sheath, and then it's like when you get back to heaven, you put the sword back in the sheath and it's done. It's not a great mystery. You will be personably recognizable. Passages in Philippians and 1 Corinthians 15 talk about the believer being absent from the body but present with the Lord. and you'll be awaiting the resurrection of your body to receive a resurrected body like Christ had, that's without sin, without mortality, and will be able to withstand the wonders of the life to come. A couple of concluding thoughts, and I'm past time, I see. You can't get to heaven without dying, and death is God's chariot to take you to heaven. And so that should change our outlook on dying. Now, you go, right, it's not the actual, maybe the act of dying, it's the stuff leading up to it, like I don't want to be burned alive, I don't want to drown, don't want, you know, you can think of all the ways you don't want to physically die. But for most of us, it's not going to be like that. We'll die in some way, and compared to most of our life, it'll be but a very short time. The actual act of death itself shouldn't be a mystery to you, because you know where you're going, you know who will receive you, and he's made promises that he said are as good as any of the promises in the Bible. Eternal life is a state of existence that began when you were converted, not just when you die. You already have eternal life. You come into the full experience of the abundant life that Christ promised when you die, and not till then. I look forward to heaven because then I will receive the finality of all that Christ has promised me. Your best life is not now, as that fool on TV says, your best life is the world to come. Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my voice and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Jesus says, and this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and me, Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Eternal life is a present enjoyment, not a future reality, only. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Do you believe in the Son? Then Jesus says you have eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son, that means repenting and believing in Him, shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him, remains on her. You're still under the wrath of God. The guillotine hasn't come down. It's poised. God's pronounced judgment on you. You've not come to Christ. You're still under the wrath of God. So as my summary, because of Christ's victory over death, death is now God's strange minister to carry the believer to glory. It's not my enemy. It's been conquered. The Bible says it's the last enemy, but Christ conquered it. He's taken away the sting of death. There's no sting. I'm not going to judgment. I'm going to glory. Saints dying and the Lord rests in their labors and their works follow them. Death for the believer is like falling asleep and should not be feared and fought but embraced. Death will be like falling asleep in your bed in this world and waking up in your heavenly home. With the fear of death and judgment and condemnation removed, believers are to be hardworking, faithful, energetic servants of their Lord and Savior. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." And that's the end of that long passage in 1 Corinthians 15 about the resurrection. Death is not going to have the last say-so in my life. Just think, if you want to move for a minute, all the enemies in the Bible that God says He overcomes to save His people. Look at all the brothers that Joseph had. Look at the officials in Egypt. Look at all these things. Did they stop God from accomplishing His sovereign purposes? He overcomes evil men. He overcomes the devil. In the book of Job, for example, the devil had these awful designs on Job's life, and God uses them for His holy purposes. Look at the devil's temptations against Paul. Even the darkest times of our lives are still God's servants. Everything serves God's purposes to get us to heaven. Nothing will keep us from heaven. Death will not keep us from the glories to come. All things serve God's holy, loving, wise, and sovereign purposes. Everything serves Him. Christ has conquered death so thoroughly that death is now God's strange minister to bring us home at the end. It's God's servant. You and I can't get to heaven without dying unless Christ comes back first. This reminded me of a story of my childhood. In 1955, I moved from Chicago to Atlanta. My parents bought a home in the last subdivision carved off this asphalt road called Ashford Dunwoody, which is way out in the boonies in distant North Atlanta, which is now a mile inside the perimeter. But anyway, in 1955, it was the boondocks. And I waited for the school bus down at the corner. And the school bus carried kids to my school in Doraville. I lived in then Chamblee. And it was first through eighth grade. There were kids on my bus who were shaving. And I was in second grade. You know, you kind of look up these kids. And I didn't know any of them. And the school bus driver looked mean. And the kids looked mean. And I'm sure the teacher at school was looking mean. And boy, I did not want the school bus to come. I did not want that school bus to come. Many a day, I stood out there with my heart in my throat and my stomach in my throat, feeling like stuff on the inside was going to be on the outside. I did not want that bus to come. But the Lord, I didn't know this at the time, but the Lord helped me to see through my parents and through my teacher that these kids weren't out to get me. Even the kids who shaved weren't all mean. The bus driver wasn't mean. The teacher was really sweet. The kids at school became my buddies. I actually, after a while, looked forward to the school bus coming. It was the same school bus. My attitude toward it changed entirely because I had seen it in the wrong light and I needed to see it as it really was. You can embrace death when God brings it to you because it's His servant to serve you in His holy purposes for your life. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, would you take my stammering lips, but more importantly, the truths of scripture and drive them into our hearts. Thank you that you've made even the most awful of enemies, as we conceive enemies, to be your servant. The death now serves you. The sting of death is gone. You've paid for all our sins. We die to go to glory and not die to go to judgment. How gracious and great you are. All praise to your name. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.