Lord, It Belongs Not to My Care Hebrews 2:10-15 Rev. Michael D. Halley May 21, 2017 Suffolk Christian Church Sixth Sunday of Easter Memorial Sunday ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This has been an incredibly hard year for many of you here today. You have had to do what none of us ever wants to do, to say our earthly farewells to someone we love dearly. You probably wondered how you would ever get through the difficult days ahead. Death is something we really don t want to think about, do we? Yes, we know it is a reality and that someday we all will have to face a loss. Some of us may agree with Woody Allen when he said, It s not that I m afraid to die, I just don t want to be there when it happens. 1 But death shocks us, it scares us, and it is a sobering experience. Death makes us realize our mortality and our weakness. Most of all, death makes us think. Death makes us think about our own lives, about our priorities, about our goals, about ourselves. And we for some reason hate to think about things like that. So we avoid death at all costs. We avoid death because we don t want to think about life. Does our Christian faith have anything to say to this problem we have with death? God s answer to death comes to us at Easter. God s answer to death is wrapped up in the man who came back from the dead. Hebrews 2:14, which we just read, tells us that Jesus came to earth so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of 1
Page -2- death and the one who holds that power, the writer tells us, is the devil. Satan, the Bible tells us, has the power of death, and he uses the fear of death to keep people enslaved in sin. Death belongs to Satan s realm, but Jesus has broken that power. Yes, we will all die someday, but if you know Jesus, you won t stay dead forever. Each Easter we sing that wonderful hymn: Low in the grave he lay, Jesus my Savior. Waiting the coming day, Jesus My Lord! Up from the grave he arose With a mighty triumph o er his foes. He arose a Victor from the dark domain, And he lives forever with his saints to reign. He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ Arose! 2 Do I deserve to go to heaven? Can I ever earn eternal life? Of course not! When I go to heaven -- which we often describe as a better place -- it will be because Jesus takes me there. And it is possible because his blood has covered all my sins, and he has given to me his own perfect righteousness. So what if I would show up at the gates of heaven talking about how good I ve been? How far do you think that would get me? I would be in real trouble. For one thing, I haven t always been all that good. Many, many sins immediately come to mind -- and those are only the ones I can remember! Surely I have forgotten many of them. Left to myself, I don t have a chance of going to heaven. But thanks be to God, all that is taken care of. The testimony of God is in Jesus Christ: what God did for his Son he will do for all those who put their trust in the Son. We do not believe in the resurrection of the dead because of
Page -3- anything we can see with our eyes. We believe in the resurrection of the dead because we believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Saint Paul write in the 4 th chapter of First Thessalonians, For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him (verse 14). In the 1940's, the Rev. Peter Marshall 3, a Presbyterian pastor in Washington, DC, and chaplain of the U. S. Senate, was invited to the U. S. Naval Academy to be the guest preacher in the historic chapel there. He told this story that Sunday morning. In a home of which I know, a little boy was ill with an incurable disease. As time went on, the little fellow gradually began to understand that he would never be like the other boys he saw playing outside his window and he began to realize that he was going to die. Mother, what is it like to die? Does it hurt? he asked one day. And the Lord gave his mother the answer to her son s question. Son, do you remember when you were a tiny boy how you used to play so hard all day that when night came you would be very tired and you would tumble onto the sofa and fall asleep? That was not your bed. That was not where you belonged. And you stayed there only a little while. In the morning, much to your surprise, you would wake up and find yourself in your own bed in your own room. You were there because someone had loved you and taken care of you. Your father had come with his strong arms and carried you away. Son, death is just like that. We just wake up some morning to find ourselves in the other room -- our own room where we belong -- because the Lord Jesus loved us. 4 Because the Lord Jesus loved us.
Page -4- In the 1500's in Germany, a provincial governor called together a group of scholars of the church to compile a document which could be used in the teaching of the Christian faith. The result of this scholarly effort was the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563 5. A catechism, as you may know, is a series of questions and answers about the Christian faith. The very first question in this excellent catechism is this: Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death? And the answer is this: A. That I am not my own 6, but belong -- body and soul, in life and in death 7 to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ 8. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood 9, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil 10. He also watches over me in such a way 11 that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven 12 ; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation 13. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life 14 and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him 15. That is such a complete and compact statement of our faith that I plan to commit this to memory and repeat it every day. Listen to it again: Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death? A. That I am not my own, but belong -- body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
Page -5- Lord, it belongs not to my care 16 Whether I die or live; To love and serve Thee is my share, And this Thy grace must give. If life be long, I will be glad, That I may long obey; If short, yet why should I be sad To welcome endless day? Christ leads me through no darker rooms Than He went through before; He that unto God s kingdom comes Must enter by this door. Come, Lord, when grace hath made me meet Thy blessèd face to see; For if Thy work on earth be sweet What will Thy glory be! Then I shall end my sad complaints And weary sinful days, And join with the triumphant saints That sing my Savior s praise. My knowledge of that life is small, The eye of faith is dim; But tis enough that Christ knows all, And I shall be with Him. May the Lord bless you. May the Lord comfort you. May the Lord lead you in paths of righteousness for his name s sake. Amen. Let us pray together:
Page -6- Holy Father, in the midst of life we face death every day. But because of the sacrifice of your Son Jesus, we do not fear death. It is the final enemy to be destroyed and we affirm our faith in Christ s perfect atoning death for us. May we go from here refreshed and renewed and reinvigorated to serve you. We pray this in the name of Christ our Lord and our Saviour. Amen. +==+==+==+==+==+==+ I wish to thank the Rev. Dr. Ray Pritchard for his excellent sermon, Christ and the Problem of Death, in which he recounts many personal stories of his own ministry to others at the time of death. He also introduced me to the beautiful hymn quoted above. His sermon can be found at www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/2006-04-12-christ-and-the-problem-of-death/ +==+==+==+==+==+==+ All Scripture references are from New International Version, NIV, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc., unless otherwise indicated. +==+==+==+==+==+==+ Sunday Sermons from Suffolk Christian Church are intended for the private devotional use of members and friends of the church. Please do not print or publish. Thank you. Suggestions for sermon topics are always welcome! 1. Quoted at Death, www.sermonillustrations.com. 2. Christ Arose, words and music by Robert Lowry, in the Public Domain.
3. Peter Marshall (1902-1949) was a Scots-American preacher, pastor of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, and was twice appointed as Chaplain of the United States Senate. (Wikipedia) Page -7-4. Told by Catherine Marshall, in A Man Called Peter, pp.230-232. I have adapted the story a bit for use here. The complete story can be found at https://www.crossroad.to/victory/stories/what-is-death.htm. 5. The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) was composed in the city of Heidelberg, Germany, at the request of Elector Frederick, III. This new catechism was intended as a tool for teaching young people, a guide for preaching in the provincial churches, and a form of confessional unity among the several Protestant factions in the province of the Palatinate. It is still the most widely used and warmly praised catechism of the Reformation period. 6. 1 Cor. 6:19-20 7. Rom. 14:7-9 8. 1 Cor. 3:23; Titus 2:14 9. 1 Pet. 1:18-19; 1 John 1:7-9; 2:2 10. John 8:34-36; Heb. 2:14-15; 1 John 3:1-11 11. John 6:39-40; 10:27-30; 2 Thess. 3:3; 1 Pet. 1:5 12. Matt. 10:29-31; Luke 21:16-18 13. Rom. 8:28 14. Rom. 8:15-16; 2 Cor. 1:21-22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13-14 15. Rom. 8:1-17 16. Words by Richard Baxter, published in Poetical Fragments, 1681. The following notation accompanied the hymn: This Covenant my dear Wife in her former Sickness subscribed with a Cheerful will. The original tune was Evan, written by William H. Havergal in 1847, arranged by Lowell Mason in 1850. Alternate tunes are Dibdin and St. Hugh. See http://cyberhymnal.org/htm/l/b/lbelongs.htm.