A New Beginning

Greg Laurie: What happens to the Christian when they die? The Apostle Paul said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. For believers, there's no doubt what's waiting for us beyond the grave. Coming up today, Pastor Greg Laurie offers biblical reassurance.

There's no stopovers, no purgatory, no other place you go to for a period of time. You go straight into the presence of God. You close your eyes on Earth and you open them in Heaven. That's what the Bible promises.

Guest (Male): It's a question baked into the human condition. People have been asking it for millennia. What happens after we die? So many contemplate, speculate, postulate, and hyperventilate over the topic.

Today, Pastor Greg Laurie simply extrapolates what God has already told us on the subject. Glad you're along for a new beginning as we pull back the curtain to see what's waiting for us in eternity. Comforting insight, especially if you have loved ones already there.

Greg Laurie: We're in John 11 and the title of my message is Jesus and the Heart that Grieves. Jesus and the Heart that Grieves. I want to look at a story in the Bible of three people who dealt with death. One actually died, his name was Lazarus. He had two sisters, Mary and Martha. They were a tight-knit family.

They were personal friends of Jesus. Others may have claimed it, but they could say it legitimately. Jesus Christ visited their home often. They lived in Bethany, which is striking distance from Jerusalem. So he would often stop, show up with his disciples, Martha known for her great culinary skills would whip up a feast in the kitchen and everyone would enjoy that time. But they really were friends of the Lord. And their brother got very sick.

And so they sent word to Jesus and that's where we pick the story up. I'd like you to read along with me. John chapter 11, verse 1. "Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore the sisters sent to him saying, 'Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.'" Stop there. We're going to read a bunch more, but we'll stop at this moment.

What do we learn from this story? Number one, life is filled with pain, sorrow, and the death of loved ones. You're thinking, really? Is that a real point? I have to write that down? Well, you don't have to write it down. I would also say life is filled with joy, happiness, and the birth of new loved ones, isn't it? But we can't deny the fact that in life we're going to have to face pain and sorrow and the death of loved ones. It shouldn't shock you when it comes knocking at your door.

Point number two, God loves us even when we suffer. Mary and Martha were hurting. They asked Jesus to do something. They probably thought he would just rush to their side and put his hand on Lazarus. Jesus could even speak the word and Lazarus would have been healed. But Jesus effectively takes his sweet time. So by the time he does arrive to where Lazarus is, he's not just sick, he's died. Needless to say, Mary and Martha were devastated and disappointed.

Listen to what happens. John 11, look at verse 20. "Then Martha as soon as she heard Jesus was coming, went and met him. Mary was sitting in the house. Martha said to Jesus, 'Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know whatever you ask of God, he'll give it to you.'" Then Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Jesus said to him, "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die." Then he adds this line, "Do you believe this?" Wow, what a statement. What a moment.

And it's a reminder for us as Christians that death is not the end. It's a transition from this life to the afterlife. Death does not have the final word, Christ does. Now you might say, well God, why? Why did this happen to me? That's always the question. Why did this happen? And that's a question that you just really can't answer. Nor should we try.

I think as Christians, we do want to try to help people, so sometimes we try to explain things to people that we know nothing about. We need to just say, I'm so sorry, I love you, I'm praying for you, I'm here for you. That's it. You know, in Job's friends showed up and this poor guy's covered head to toe in boils and abject misery, we read that they just sat there and said nothing. That was great.

It's when they started talking that all the problems started because they said all kinds of crazy things that were not true and not helpful and in fact were actually a bit on the hurtful side. So cry out to God. Tell God what you're feeling. You can ask him why. Jesus from the cross said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That's Jesus Christ himself. Ask God why, don't expect an answer necessarily.

And if God were to tell you why, do you think he'd be satisfied? All right, I'm tired of you asking. I'm going to tell you. Here's why. Well, I don't agree. No, you wouldn't agree. So we live on promises, not explanations. So they cry out, this isn't right, we don't agree, we don't like it. Jesus reminds them he's the resurrection and the life.

Now it's Mary's turn, verse 32, chapter 11. Mary came to him, she saw him, fell down at his feet saying, "Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died." Therefore, when they saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her weeping, he groaned in his spirit and was troubled. And he said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Come and see." And then Jesus wept. And the Jews said, "See how he loved him."

Jesus wept. And Jesus weeps with us in our time of pain. He was a man who felt our pain and sorrows. Isaiah 53 says he was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with the bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised and we did not care. Yet in our weaknesses, he carried them. It was our sorrows that weighed him down. So Jesus has walked in your shoes and then some. So he knows what it's like to feel that pain.

Why would he go through all of this? The answer is found in Hebrews 2:17 that says it was necessary for Jesus to be in every respect like us. That's why he had to enter into every detail of human life. Then when he came before God as high priest to get rid of the people's sin, he would have already have experienced it all himself. All the pain, all the testing. He would be able to help where help was needed. Death breaks God's heart just as it breaks ours.

Now look what happens next. Look at verse 33. When Jesus saw her weeping and the other people wailing with her, he was moved with indignation and was deeply troubled. Now go to verse 38. And he was deeply troubled and they came to the grave. It was a stone rolled across the entrance. Now the word used here for troubled could be translated, he was mad. He was sad and he was mad.

Who was Jesus angry with? The mourners? No. Mary and Martha? Again, no. I think Jesus was angry with death itself. He was angry with the grim reaper. He was angry with the fact that we had to die. He felt that pain. And he says to Martha, let's open the tomb. And I love Martha's statement. She said, "Lord, by now he stinketh." Verse 39. Great way to tell somebody they don't smell good. King James has a little flair to it. Instead of just say you smell bad, say you stinketh. Try it out.

But what she's really saying is, Lord, not only is he dead, he's in the process of decomposition. Yes, he knows this. Verse 43, Jesus shouted, "Lazarus, come forth!" And the dead man came out, his hands and his feet bound in grave clothes, his face wrapped in a head cloth. Jesus said, "Unwrap him and let him go." Excuse me, but I see humor here. Because he was wrapped up as they would wrap up a person who had died in that time. "Come forth!" You think Lazarus stepped out, ta-da? No, it was more like uh, yeah, untie me. Jesus actually says, untie that guy.

Now I don't know if it's such a great thing to be Lazarus. Would you really like to be raised from the dead? Let's think about it. Okay, so you've died and you've gone to Heaven. Now you're in the presence of God Almighty. You're immediately reunited with loved ones who have preceded you. The Bible says there's fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. You're taking it all in. And then Jesus says to you, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord."

And then he says, "I've got some good news and some bad news." What? "Let's go to the good news first. You're going to be coming back here again." "Okay, what's the bad news?" "I'm going to have you raised from the dead." "I really don't want to go back there again." I know we wish our loved ones who have died were with us right now. But I think if a person in Heaven was given the choice, they would not leave Heaven to come back to Earth.

We would like them to come back and join us, but would you really want to leave Heaven? Poor Lazarus, think about this. This guy had to die twice. What, once isn't bad enough? Oh, what a blessing. I'm going to raise you and you're going to die again. How about that? Dying two times. Well, that's what he had to do.

But it's interesting how Jesus says, "Lazarus, come forth." If he would have just said, "Come forth," everybody in every grave would have burst out at the same time. So Lazarus, the Lazarus of Bethany in particular, come forth, and Lazarus comes out of the grave alive. Sometimes God will remove our problems, sometimes he'll strengthen us through our problem. But we would all like to see our loved ones raised again and one day they technically will be.

Guest (Male): Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. Hey everyone, I want you to know about our app called Harvest Plus. Think of it as a Harvest version of Netflix. We have all of our resources in one place. We have our movies like Steve McQueen: The Salvation of an American Icon, Johnny Cash: Redemption of an American Icon, A Rush of Hope, and much more. Then we have our television program, daily devotions, and much more. So go and download the Harvest Plus app.

Well, glad you've joined us today for Pastor Greg's message called Jesus and the Heart that Grieves. Let's continue.

Greg Laurie: What happens to the Christian when they die? According to the Bible, we go immediately into the presence of the Lord. Sure, the body is laid in the ground, to be resurrected later, by the way. But the soul, the spirit, goes into God's presence. The Apostle Paul said, to live is Christ and to die is gain. And he said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

There's no stopovers. I hate stopovers. When I fly, I want a direct flight. No stopovers because sometimes you get stuck in airports if the weather goes the wrong way. No stopovers, no purgatory, no other place you go to for a period of time. You go straight into the presence of God. You close your eyes on Earth and you open them in Heaven. That's what the Bible promises.

You take your last breath on Earth, you take your next one in Heaven. In a moment, in a flash. That's why Paul said, "I have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better." So that's what happens to us. So the tomb is not the entrance to death, but to life. It's the promise to all believers.

So not last Saturday, but the Saturday before, I got a phone call from a friend of mine and he said, "My son just died." And where are you? And he told me he's at the hospital. So I rushed down there. Jonathan came as well. And here was his whole family gathered, like 40 of them because they had all been in town because the grandfather just celebrated a 90th birthday.

But this young man, age 23, had died. And he was in peak physical shape. It was really shocking because he was actually running a marathon and he came across the finish line, threw up his arms in victory and collapsed and they were not able to resuscitate him. So I'm in this room with all these folks and I said, "Hello everybody, my name is Greg Laurie, I'm a pastor and I'm so sorry this has happened. But I want to tell you this. I lost a son 16 years ago."

And I talked a little bit about that. And then I said, "And here's what Jesus says. He says, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." And his body was right there. But he's in Heaven right now.

And you know, we had a time of prayer. In fact, something I don't normally do but I said, "Let's all just say the Lord's Prayer together." And everyone seemed to know it. And we said the Lord's Prayer and then we prayed. And you know, there's something about just getting your eyes up in a situation that's so sad, that's so tragic, that's so overwhelming. But you look up and you realize I'm going to see them again. This is the hope of the Christian, you see. Only the hope of the Christian. Only the hope of the Christian.

And so in closing, I ask you this question: What will happen to you after you die? You say, "Well Greg, I'll let the old people think about that. I'm young still." Okay, but this was a young man I'm talking about. You don't know when your race of life is going to come to an end.

When Christopher was younger, we would sometimes run on the beach, we would race. Now when Christopher was in high school, he was a long-distance runner and I was a short-distance runner. So I'd say, "Let's race," and I would always pick a mark that would favor me over him because I was better for the short burst of energy then I was done, where he could just keep going. "Let's run to that rock," and I'd beat him.

And we kept doing this as the years went by, I could still beat him. Then one day we had our race and he beat me. He beat me by a lot. Finally beat the old man. And he was pretty happy about that. And I wasn't so happy about that. And in the same way he beat me in the race of life to Heaven. He got there first. But we're all in this race and we don't know when this race is going to end. So we have to decide, are we ready now?

The Bible says, prepare to meet your God. You decide in this life where you will spend the afterlife. So let's just say that this were your last day on Earth. Are you sure you would go to Heaven when you die? "Well, I tried to be a good Christian." Stop with the good Christian, remember? Forget being a good Christian, just be a person who's put their faith in Christ. That's what it's all about.

How do you know you'll go to Heaven? You admit you're a sinner, you believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sin, you ask him to come into your life as your savior and Lord, you turn from your sin and you become his follower. And to the best of your ability with the help of God, you follow him in this life and that is why you will be prepared for the next life. But only you can make this decision. Are you ready? Do you know that you'll go to Heaven when you die? If you don't know that, why don't we deal with that right here right now?

You say, "Well, I'll do it on my deathbed." I have prayed with quite a few people who come to Christ literally on their deathbed. So I'm thankful that can happen. It's amazing we would reject Christ for our whole life and then in the last moments of it we call out to him and he forgives us. And he's so gracious to do that.

But here's something to think about. Why do you think you would necessarily call on the Lord out of your deathbed if you indeed have a deathbed? Not everyone has that. And by deathbed I mean where you are knowing your life on Earth is coming to an end and you have maybe a day or a week or even a month or longer to get that sorted out, to get ready for the afterlife. For some, boom, death just comes, you don't know it's coming. There's no deathbed. There's no last-minute opportunity.

But here's the other problem. If you reject Christ for your whole life, your heart can become really hard. The Bible says, "He who is often reproved, hardens his heart and he will be cut off and that without remedy." Let me paraphrase that. He that's always rejecting Christ can get a heart that is irreparably hard. It's not that God wouldn't forgive you, it's that you wouldn't want his forgiveness because you've hardened your heart.

See, right now I'm going to give you an opportunity to get right with God. And you can either open your heart and say, "Okay, I'm going to do this," or you can harden your heart. Every time you hear the Gospel and you're given an opportunity to respond to it, if you say no to Christ, your heart can get a little tougher, a little more resistant. That's why the Bible says, if you can hear his voice, harden not your heart.

So we're going to pray in a moment and I'm going to extend an invitation to anyone here who wants to be ready for the afterlife. They want to know that they'll go to Heaven when they die with certainty. If you don't know this, respond to this invitation as we close in prayer.

Okay, let's all pray. Father, thank you for your word to us. Thank you for the hope we have as Christians of Heaven. What a great hope that is. But I pray for anyone here or anyone watching that they don't know you yet. Let this be the moment they believe. I pray that your Holy Spirit will convict them of their sin and convince them of their need for Jesus and help them to come to you and believe. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

Guest (Male): Pastor Greg Laurie with an important closing prayer. And Pastor Greg, just before we close today's edition of A New Beginning, would you mind praying with the person listening who wants to make a change today in their relationship with the Lord?

Greg Laurie: I'd be happy to, Dave. You know, as you've been listening to this today, maybe you've heard another voice. By that I mean, yeah, you heard me say a few things, but you heard God's voice speak to you deep in the recesses of your heart. And it suddenly dawned on you, this is what I need, or to state it more accurately, this is who I need. I need Jesus and I want Jesus.

But maybe you don't know how to make that connection. Let me help you. God is only a prayer away. He stands at the door of your heart and he knocks. And Jesus says, if you'll hear his voice and open the door, he'll come in. Let me help you open the door, so to speak, of your heart as you invite Jesus to be your savior and Lord.

So here's what I would like you to do. I'd like you to stop what you're doing and I want you to pray a prayer after me. I'll lead you in this prayer and as you pray it, God will hear you. Pray this after me right now if you want Jesus Christ to come into your life.

Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner. And I am sorry for my sin. And I need your forgiveness right now. Would you come into my heart and my life as savior, as God, as friend? I choose to follow you from this moment forward. Thank you for calling me and accepting me and forgiving me. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

I know that was a relatively short prayer. Maybe you felt something as you prayed it, maybe you felt nothing. That doesn't really matter because God's word says, these things we write to you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

It doesn't say so you may think you have it or you may hope you have it if God's in a good mood. No, that you can know it. And I want you to know if you prayed that prayer in minute, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come into your life. So congratulations. You're now a Christian. Now continue to follow the Lord.

Guest (Male): And to help you as you follow the Lord, we'd like to send you something that'll help you build a strong foundation for your faith. It's Pastor Greg's popular New Believer's Bible. It'll answer many of the questions you might have and get you started off right in your new relationship with the Lord.

So get in touch and ask for it. We'll send it free of charge. Call 1-800-821-3300. We can take your call anytime. Again at 1-800-821-3300. Or write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514. Or just go online to harvest.org and click Know God.

Pastor Greg, we're so thankful for the work God is doing through this ministry. We're touching lives for eternity. And we're really thankful for our friends who see the fruit of this ministry and invest so this work can reach even further, isn't that right?

Greg Laurie: Absolutely. When you invest in Harvest Ministries, you're investing in the souls of men and women, boys and girls. And what is the value of a soul? Well, let me personalize it. What's the value of your soul? What's the value of the soul of your husband, your wife, your son or your daughter? Or your mom or your dad? Or your best friend? Well, I would say you probably couldn't put a price tag on it. It's so valuable.

Well, listen, God says all souls are mine. God loves us and sent his son to die on the cross to pay the price for all of our sin so we could be forgiven and come into a relationship with him. I can't think of a better investment of my resources, of my money, than in the work of the Kingdom of God. So we would ask you to prayerfully consider investing in Harvest Ministries as we continue on to fulfill the Great Commission.

Guest (Male): Yeah, that's right. And you can make your donation right now at harvest.org. Or write us at A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514. Or call 1-800-821-3300. That's a 24/7 phone number, 1-800-821-3300.

Well, next time as Pastor Greg continues his series Jesus and You, he takes us to prophecy to get a good look at what's ahead on God's end times plan. We'll see how close we may be. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie.