The Gospel Story #5: YELLOW
Nobody really likes to talk about death. There is nothing good about dying. Or maybe there is? In this episode I am going to talk about it. Why? Because even though it isn’t a super-fun topic, it is actually a really important one.
I will start off by asking - what is bad about dying?
Here are 4 things I could think of.
It might hurt
we don’t know when it will be
we don’t really know what it is going to be like
we will have to do it alone
When someone we love dies, the bad things are this:
we will miss them
life will not be the same without them
I don’t want to harp on these negative points for long, because there is a good one, and it links up with what we chatted about in Episode 1, the Green Creation episode. Adam and Eve lived in the garden of Eden in a perfect relationship with God, just hanging out with him and each other and not having to work. They ate fruit from all kinds of trees, including the Tree of Life.
This meant that Adam and Eve didn’t have to die - God never wanted any of us to die! But when the black sin came along and we wrecked our relationships with God, he decided that death would be the way to come back to Him, back to that perfect friendship. Make sense so far?
So we are born, we live on earth, we sin, we believe in Jesus - that he died for our sins and then we have an imperfect friendship with God. If we never die then this is what life will be like forever! So God doesn’t end the story there. We live and then we die and all of the sins go away and our friendship with God becomes perfect again. Now living forever is looking much much better! A perfect relationship with God and a place where there are no sins means that there is no sadness, no hurting, no loneliness, no mean behaviour, no one laughing at you when you do something wrong or make a mistake. WOW! I would actually want to be in this situation forever and not die. This is called Eternal Life. Some people refer to this place as Heaven, and I do too sometimes, but technically God is going to create for us a new earth and a new sky (the bible calls the skies heaven sometimes which is sometimes confusing). This new earth will be the perfect place that we live in with God and one another.
You excited about it yet?
I know that my kids don’t get as excited as I think they should be. Do you know why? Because of the bad points about death I made earlier - there is still so much we don’t know about it. When you go to a new place - a new school, a kids camp, new church or even a party where you’ve never been before or don’t know anyone - it can be really scary. So eternal life will be a bit scary like that in that it is unknown.
But imagine when you go to the school or church and it is the best and you meet such amazing people and have a great time that it was worth the scariness and going anyway. Eternal life will be like that - a million times better than you can even imagine!
I know my kids also worry about being without their parents and I have to tell them this - God is their ultimate father. God created you and he gave you to be born in your mother’s tummy and he chose your mum and your dad to be your parents for you while you are on this earth, to love you and to look after you, to feed you and to teach you. So while I love my kids so much - to the moon and back again - God loves them infinitely more than I could, because his heart is that much bigger than mine, because I am a human and he is God.
So when you die and you believe Jesus took your sins, then you get to be with God and you will have nothing to fear. Here’s why:
You will not be alone - God will be there and he loves you to infinity and beyond
There is no sin there - no other people will be mean, hurtful or bullying you at all
You know what it is not like - not sad, painful, lonely, depressing
You know what you will feel - happy, joyful, content, bliss
You know a bit about where you will be - A new Earth - Paradise
Eternal life with God! That is what God created us all along for! I still have heaps of trouble imagining what it is ultimately going to look like, but know that it is going to be excellent and very worthwhile, because we are promised that it will be in the bible.
How do I know all of this? The bible of course! Here is an awesome bible passage for you from the last book of the bible, Revelation 21:1-4, written by Jesus’ disciple John who saw heaps of things that are to come in the future. He says:
"I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth had disappeared, and so had the sea. Then I saw New Jerusalem, that holy city, coming down from God in heaven. It was like a bride dressed in her wedding gown and ready to meet her husband. I heard a loud voice shout from the throne:
God’s home is now with his people. He will live with them, and they will be his own. Yes, God will make his home among his people. He will wipe all tears from their eyes, and there will be no more death, suffering, crying, or pain. These things of the past are gone forever.”
Now there is one more sad thing to mention before the end of this episode and I would rather not talk about it because it is not a good thing. I am referring to the question about what happens to the people who don’t believe in Jesus and that Jesus was able to take away our sins on the cross. What happens to those people when they die?
If you don’t believe in Jesus and don’t think you need your sins to be taken away then you will not be allowed to enter into eternal life with God. He has reserved places especially for people who believe in Him. If you don’t believe in him then you will not be let in.
The other place people go when they die is usually referred to as Hell, but is really just a place where God is not. If God is loving and free of sin, then I can imagine a place without God would be horrible. The bible refers to it as ‘eternal destruction’ in 2 Thessalonians 1:9. So for those people this earth right now is the best existence they are ever going to get, but for us we are blessed with a perfect Eternal Life with God to look forward to!
But we don’t have to be worried, because Jesus said some comforting words to his disciples that we can take comfort in too.
Jesus said to his disciples, “Don’t be worried! Have faith in God and have faith in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s house. I wouldn’t tell you this, unless it was true. I am going there to prepare a place for each of you. After I have done this, I will come back and take you with me. Then we will be together.” John 14:1-3
Discussion Questions:
Share any concerns you may have about dying.
Are there any things that you heard today that make you excited?
What 3 words would you use to describe God to someone who has never heard of him?
