Noise - Week 6
Death Defying
Lead Pastor Aeric Wallace gave us a message about death during the final week of our mental health sermon series, Noise. While death is a difficult topic to talk and think about, it is constantly around us even when we try to make it disappear.
One of the promises of our faith is that there is more than just life and death. However, we need to acknowledge the truth about death before we can truly understand our future.
Like a child when their parent leaves for awhile, we ask common questions about death:
Where are you going?
Why do you have to go there?
Can I go with you?
Will you be back?
We ask these questions of God with a small and narrow perspective. Because he knows exactly what will happen and has communicated the plan to us, he knows the answers to our questions. But the question we avoid is: Do we actually want to know his answers?
Jesus did not come to save us from eternal torture but to offer life after death.
We were not designed to live under the burden of death, especially because death is not the end. While our physical body will perish, our soul will simply sleep at the end of our life. Our job is to be aware of the truth about death — about our imminent rest — not to fear it or let it control our decisions.
However, we still find ourselves asking this question: Will I go to Heaven or Hell? Our imagery about both consists of a “vacation in the sky” or an “eternal torture.” While these images of Heaven and Hell are based in some biblical truth, they are a simplification of the truth.
The opposite of life is not torture. The opposite of life is death without Jesus, or eternal separation. Jesus did not introduce Hell — He introduced Heaven and the possibility of a time after death with Him.
Eternal separation is something to be consciously aware of. We should not feel compelled to invite others to come to church because we don’t want them to suffer in Hell, but rather we want to spend eternity with them in a place where there is no suffering.
Only two things remain: Life and Eternal Separation. Jesus did not come to save us from eternal torture but to offer life after death.
Catch up with the rest of the series here!
