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I Will Live Forever!: Overcoming the Fear of Death, Part 1

From the series Be Strong and Courageous 

Many devoted followers of Jesus, when faced with their own mortality, are terrified of what is to come. In this program, Chip examines the reasons why we fear death. He emphasizes the profound hope in the gospel message and provides practical ways to comfort those on the brink of eternity. Discover how to face death with faith and courage and find peace and comfort in the face of life's greatest challenge.

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Message Transcript

I’ll never forget a conversation I had with my father; it was shortly before he died. He was eighty-four-years-old. He was very athletic. I mean, at seventy he did a hundred-mile bike ride and at seventy-two and three he was playing softball with thirty-year-olds. And it was so tragic because he had a rare disease that started with his feet and moved up where he got to the point where he couldn’t use his body and he was very, very frail. He knew he was going to die.

And he said, “Chip, I really, I really want to talk to you. Would you, can you come?” And I said, “Well, sure, Dad. Absolutely.” And you need a little context for my father to get this conversation. A self-made man. At sixteen-and-a-half went into World War II, he was a fifty-caliber machine gunner, he was a big, strong, strapping guy, very athletic.

So, his mom signed for him to go into the war and so he was in Guam, Iwo Jima. I’ve got his Purple Heart here. While he was in Iwo Jima, rarely talked about it, and they had dug a big ditch. And the people were coming over the hill and he said, “It was just horrendous. It was like cutting grass, I killed so many people.” Lived with very overwhelming guilt, became a pretty functioning alcoholic until it got to where it was really unmanageable. But he was very damaged.

And after he came out of the war, he was that guy that everyone told me when things were happening, “Don’t mess with Reb,”- that’s what he went by - he’ll knock you out. And I was afraid of my dad. I mean, he was a really strong, not violent toward us or anything, but sort of the John Wayne kind of man.

And the alcohol got to a point where it was just ruining his life, our family. I’ll never forget, I was a senior in high school and it got where he’d drink right after, he was a schoolteacher, from three until dinnertime, then he’d miss dinner. And then it was eleven o’clock at night. And just had lots of issues that never got resolved as I look back.

I remember my mom holding up a bottle of beer and said, “You can have this or me and the kids. But you need to choose and you’ve got forty-eight hours.” And so, without any help, no rehab, no anything, he’s a Marine, he chose, stopped drinking, went through a lot of, you know, withdrawal of different things. But I want you to get that picture of this I-can-handle-it, I-can-do-it. And he did. And in fact, he’d stop drinking for two weeks and he said, “You know, I smoked three-and-a-half packs a day and I’m a science teacher. Probably not a good example. I think I’ll quit that too.” So, he did.

As a moment of mild humor, all I can tell you is when he quit both, I wanted to give him a beer he was so irritable and mean for a while. But I didn’t. A great thing happened in his mid-fifties. He saw the change in my life, in my sister’s life, and I’ll never forget. I came back from my first year of college. I had trusted Christ right after high school. And he said, “I do not know what you have, Chip, but I want it.” And I said, “Well, Dad, I’m not sure what you mean.” He goes, “There’s a peace about your life and I have sought that. How do you get that?”

And I would love to tell you the longer story at another time. Trusted Christ, of course, on his own, in the bedroom and then he grew. He got in the Bible, he started serving, his life dramatically changed. And so, now we are back, he’s eighty-four years old, he’s still having nightmares even after being a follower of Christ. What he experienced in Guam and Iwo Jima especially. Every other guy in his unit was killed and so, he lived with the guilt of that along with the injury that he got.

And here’s what he says, “Chip, I know Jesus loves me. I know God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shouldn’t perish but has everlasting life. And I’m afraid to die. What do I do? I’m really afraid to die. I’m a Christian. I shouldn’t be afraid to die. Why am I afraid to die?

And that started a really serious conversation and I’ll come back at the end of this talk and tell you what helped him the most, because I think it can help you. But as I have done reading, I have heard from the experts that two of the most common fears of all people -
fear of death. And the other is fear of public speaking. Not to put those in the same category but that’s just what the experts say. And here’s what I know, too. My father was probably a lot more honest than most Christians. When we look at the behavior of Christians and sometimes the lack of risk and, I mean, all the supplements and all the anti-aging.

And you would think the number one goal of all of life is whatever you do, don’t die. And, yet, it’s a terminal disease. So far, there’s a hundred percent of the people that have lived with a couple of exceptions that God took home - we’re going to die. And it can, be like a shadow in the back of your mind. And you can intellectually, Oh, I’ve trusted Jesus. I know Jesus, this is what He has done, I believe in Him. And that can be very real and yet still have a fear of death. And so, I want to give you a declaration. I want to talk and help you and help me to be bold and courageous and we are going to look at Psalm 16. Because in Psalm 16, David gives us, I mean, the greatest evidence and the greatest perspective about how to face death, how to look at death.

I mean, David came close to death multiple times and he reminds us that we can declare, with absolute confidence if you have received Christ, if you’re a follower of Jesus, you can say, “I will live forever.” It’s true! You can overcome the fear of death. My observation, as people get older and older, it actually gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And my years as a pastor tells me there’s a lot of people that are getting older and older and older that they don’t say anything because, I mean, talk about politically incorrect in a church, especially if you have served and you love God for ten or twenty or thirty or forty years and say, “I’m afraid to die.” I mean, who are you going to tell that to?

But what I know, there’s a lot of people that love Jesus that are truly born again and for a number of reasons, they are afraid to die. And Psalm 16 is going to be just an incredible help to you. It has been an incredible help to me. It was a great help to my father. And in Psalm 16, David, he didn’t have the proof of the resurrection, but he had a conviction from God. In fact, it was so powerful that God speaks through David in this psalm and when Peter in Acts chapter 2, when he is making the case for the resurrection and that Jesus was truly God and that He rose from the dead, Peter reaches back into Psalm 16 and he pulls out a verse and he says, “See? God promised He wouldn’t let His body see decay.” It’s messianic, it’s prophecy. And that was the proof.

And David believed that no matter what happened to him, that he would, in fact, be resurrected, that there was life after death, that he would be face to face with Yahweh, his God and his King.

So, what he does in Psalm 16 is very much like Jesus said in John chapter 5, where he says, “I want you to look above, I want you to look around, I want you to look within, and then I want you to look beyond.”

And before I go on, could I clear something up? I think a lot of Christians, well-meaning Christians think that eternal life begins the day after you die and you’re with Jesus. Right? Eternal life, because it sounds like a long time. You know, I love Jesus, He has forgiven my sins, I believe in Him. So, when I die, then I get eternal life. Can I tell you? That is absolutely theologically, completely incorrect. Eternal life is a quality of life, it’s the presence of Jesus, it’s the very life of Christ that lives in you. And so, it begins the moment you trust Him and it goes on forever and ever and ever and ever. If you’re a follower of Jesus, you will live forever. And notice what He said when He was teaching in John 5:24. He says, “Truly, truly,” when He wanted to make a point He would repeat something or the old version is: verily, verily. I mean, in other words, get this down.

“I say to you, he that hears My word and believes on Him who sent Me,” notice the verb, “has eternal life,” what are the implications? “and does not come into judgement but,” notice the tense of the verb, “has passed out of death into life.” When you repented of your sin and you received the free gift of God in Christ, He says you have eternal life. The Spirit entered your life, sealed you, He deposited spiritual gifts, you presently have an inheritance, you have all the power that you need, and you can know this for sure. Let me read one other passage from the same author.

In 1 John, he was speaking to a group of people that were struggling. And He wanted them to understand that, you know, when you have a genuine relationship with Jesus, the whole theme of 1 John is what you have experienced, in your new life with Jesus, plays out in your relationship horizontally with others. And then He wanted them to know that you don’t have to guess, I hope someday, I hope someway, I’ll make it to heaven.

In 1 John chapter 5 verses 11 through 13, He says, “This is the record,” these are the facts, or this is the witness. And here it is, “that God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son.” So, He says first of all it’s a gift. It’s in His Son and God has given us His Son. Then verse 12, it’s very simple. “He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son does not have life.” He doesn’t say: He who goes to church. It doesn’t say: He who is a moral person. It doesn’t say: He who is sincere and tries hard. It says, “He who has the Son has life. He who doesn’t have the Son does not have life.”

Then notice verse 13, “These things I have written to you who believe,” you have put your faith in Christ, “in the name of the Son of God in order that you may know that you have eternal life.” Eternal life isn’t something you have to guess about. Christ died in our place on the cross, His death paid once and for all for the sins of all people of all time. In that moment as He hung on the cross, the just wrath of God took your sin, my sin, and the sins of all people and He became our sin bearer.

And the word is atonement. He covered our sin. So, God has forgiven. So, the gospel is good news is that God loves you despite your sin and if you’ll turn, He’ll guide and direct you and He’ll give you His Word, He’ll put you in a community of believers, and He wants to use your life like you could never dream. That’s eternal life. When we die, we just move from experiencing that in a fleshly body to – what? A new world and what we know is there’s going to be a new heaven and a new earth and we get new bodies. To be absent from the body, the Bible says, is to be at home with the Lord.

So, let’s walk through perspective. David is going to look. First place he looks, he looks above and he prays. He says in Psalm 16, “Keep me safe, O God, for in You I take refuge. I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord. Apart from You I have no good thing.’” It’s interesting in this one little verse, he uses three different words for God. Where he says, “Keep me safe, O God,” it’s just “El,” it’s the most common word for God in all the Old Testament. When he goes on and says, “I said to the Lord,” all capitals, that’s Yahweh. That’s God’s personal name. That’s the picture of God as Creator, as sovereign, the One who shapes the world and all that there is.

And then he goes on to say, “You are my Lord,” Adonai, and the inference of Adonai has to do a lot with: Who is your master? Who do you report to? Who are you responsible to? Who do you take orders from? He says, “I take refuge in God, this personal God, and You are my master. Or in the words of Paul for those of us that are followers of Christ, we would say it like this, Romans chapter 12, verse 1, “Therefore, in view of God’s great mercy and forgiveness, offer your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. This is your spiritual service of worship.”

And what he is basically saying is: I am all Yours and I’m all in and apart from You I have no good. You are my life. And he prays first about: Keep me safe, because there’s danger. And then second, it’s a prayer of dedication. And he says in a world with chaos, in a world with struggle, in a world with danger, in a world of uncertainty, Lord, first, would You keep me safe? And then second, I want You to know I’m all Yours. And so, after He looks above and prays, he looks around and he loves. Notice his perspective because of this position, this intimacy with his God, his Master, and his Creator. He says, “As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight.”

And he’s saying, God, you know, even in the midst of a fallen world, You have given me these incredible relationships. Think about you. Think about the people that God has brought in your life. Certainly family, but I’m talking about people who walk with God, people who have discipled you, people that you do life with, people that you have laughed with, people that you have wept with, people that have encouraged you. Just, you know, multiple people just come to my mind and I think, What a delight. What a joy. And what is it that holds us together? It’s our common bond in Jesus Christ.

Just recently I had the privilege of going to Korea where about five thousand or so leaders from all around the world, two hundred and some countries, and we gathered and we worshipped together and we prayed and we heard messages from God’s Word and they had a hallway that, I mean, it was a huge hallway. Five thousand people, right?

And then they put us in one room if you can believe five thousand people, around tables, and then they mixed us up. And so, I’m with a guy from India over here and Africa over here and a woman from Siberia. She was a nurse from Siberia. And I had never met any of them. And I mean, within two or three days, we were talking and sharing and praying. Do you realize how rare that is?

And then I had a conversation with a guy from South Africa I had never met, he was just over there, drinking coffee and I remember writing in my journal, “Lord, I have no idea, I have no idea why I met that guy, but I’ll tell you what. It sure was fun. I liked him.” And it’s kind of like this, “the saints in the land, the glorious ones in whom is all my delight.”