What Happens When You Die?

Let’s begin with the question. Are you guys ready? It’s maybe the most important question a person can ask. It’s the question that may keep you up at night. It certainly will when you have children, the question that keeps you up at night, considering them, it’s the question, it’s simply this, what will happen when you die? We just jumped into it. That’s what we’re doing here. Now, if you’re uncomfortable with this question and you brought some friends here and now you’re feeling a little bit awkward and they’re feeling a little bit awkward, I’d like to just come out and say it right from the beginning, it’s going to get worse. I’m just kidding. Actually, I think this will be an encouraging topic, but we are going to address this question. This is the discussion for the question, what’s going to happen when you die? Now, this debate about what happens when someone dies has been going on for centuries. In fact, every culture, every religious institution, and every people group has an idea about what happens. The atheist tells us that you die and you’re gone, and it’s over and there’s no more. The Buddhists tell us that it’s a reincarnation that we seek when we begin the cycle of birth and death again with the goal of hopefully escaping that terrible cycle and reaching Nirvana.

The Hindus tell us the same similar thing as the Buddhists. For Muslims, it’s the death of the body, but the soul lives on. The soul goes to the angel of death and awaits the judgment day. And on the judgment day, based upon your actions, good or bad, they’re weighed out. And that judge will determine on that day whether it’s eternal paradise or whether it’s eternal hell. Everyone has an idea. In fact, every Christian circle has an idea about what happens. This debate has been going on in the Christian sphere for 2,000 years. In fact, theologians have a term that they’ve coined to try to explain the nuances of what happens after you die. This is the term eschatology, the doctrine of last things. It’s the study of what Christians believe happened when you die. In a conversation about eschatology, you’re going to hear things like the Rapture and the Second Coming, things like the millennial kingdom about the final judgment. You’re going to hear about heaven and about hell. You’re going to hear about something called preterists and realists and historicists and futurists and pre-millennial dispensationalism and post-millennialism non-millennialism.

And you’re going to hear debate about whether or not the Rapture comes after the millennial kingdom or whether the millennial kingdom is figurative and on and on and on, and it’s riveting, it’s amazing. I can tell you all really care about this subject. It’s one of those things that you study if you want to study it. There’s nuance about eternal things and you might be sitting here and thinking, Who cares? All I want to know is what happens to me when I die. Or maybe you feel like I felt before, which is why spent so much time on a subject that caused me to be so uncomfortable. I’d like to tell you that I feel you, and I’d like to give you an answer to why we spend time on this subject. And it’s simply this, we are supposed to be disciples of Jesus Christ, which means we sit at the feet of the Christ Jesus. And won’t you be surprised to hear, maybe some of you will be, that Jesus spoke more about what happens when you die than any other biblical writer, any other person who wrote about biblical things? Jesus spoke more about it than anyone, and he did it in the most uncomfortable way possible.

Here are some things that Jesus said. These are not the things that you find on pillows, but here they are. Then he will say to those on his left, depart from me, you who are cursed into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. In the same parable, he actually says something a little bit different. Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. Jesus would say things like this, do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Jesus spoke about what happens after you die, and he said to one, Today you will be with me in paradise. And he says to another, Today you will be thrown into eternal torment. Jesus was comfortable making a distinction between those who would be with Him and those who would be without Him. And so we cannot avoid the discussion, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes us. But we don’t want to lose ourselves in the minutiae of the discussion. At some point, maybe we’ll do a series on this whole thing.

But I’d like for us to now just start off with a very simple conviction before we get to the text that we’re going to study today. A simple conviction and this is a starting place for our discussion, and it looks like this. When you die, there are two options. You have two options. You’ll either be awoken on the day of judgment into eternal life, where you will experience everything good on earth without any evil. We’ll call that place heaven. Or you’ll be awoken on the day of judgment and you will be judged and you will experience everything the earth, all the terrible things the earth has to offer. But God will push you away out of his presence into a place called hell. Two places, heaven, and hell. And if you’re with me so far, then the next logical question would be this, on what basis is someone given the opportunity to go to heaven? This is the question that really matters. If we start off with that simple conviction, this is the question that really matters. On what basis can I get to heaven or on what basis will I be condemned to hell?

What qualifies me for heaven? What qualifies me for hell? Now, I know you immediately have jumped in your mind to a whole bunch of different passages and thoughts and theological arguments and reasonings. But I’d like for you to, instead of doing that, for the sake of our discussion, allow Jesus to answer this question for us. Instead of thinking something, stop all of it, and silence all the thoughts. Let’s just start with Jesus. Let’s have Jesus answer this question. I know there are some others of us that think, I don’t even want to deal with this question. I’m disappointed I came to church this morning, I’m a Christian, and I don’t want to feel uncomfortable about my eternal future, and I get it. But I’d like to persuade you through a passage of Scripture that careful consideration of your salvation is a good thing. Philippians 2, verse 12, Therefore, my dear brothers, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Work it out. Make sure you’re in the faith. What I love about the text we’re about to read is that Jesus is going to give us an opportunity to work out our salvation by helping us answer the question we started with, what will happen when you die?

Let’s hear Jesus’ answer. John 8, verse 21 is where we’re going to be, if you don’t have a Bible, don’t worry, all the scriptures are going to be on the screen. We’re going to read a major chunk. It’s going to go from 21 to about 30. We’re going to try to unpack it. We’ll read it all the way through first. But John 21 begins a series of arguments. There are two arguments, we’ll take it in two parts where he gives us a litmus test to this question. Today will be part one. Next week will be part two. In the first sermon, we’re going to focus on Jesus’ instruction about belief. Next week, we’ll focus on Jesus’ instructions about how you behave. This week, belief. Next week, behave. John 8, again, we’re going to start in verse 21. We’ll go all the way down to verse 29. Once more, Jesus said to them, We find Jesus once again at the place we left him about a month ago. I told you I would come back to this chapter. Here we are. Jesus is on the Temple Mount.

He has already dealt with the woman caught in adultery. He’s already spoken to the Pharaoh a little bit. Then verse 21 says, Once more, Jesus again says to them, I am going away and you will look for me and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come. This made the Jews ask, Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, Where I go, you cannot come? But he continued, You are from below and I am from above. You are of this world and I am not of this world. I have told you that you would die in your sins if you do not believe that I am he. You will indeed die in your sins. Who are you? They asked. Just what I’ve been telling you from the beginning, Jesus replied. I have much to say in judgment of you, but he who sent me is trustworthy. And what I have heard from him, I tell the world. They did not understand what he was telling them about his father. So Jesus said, When you have lifted up the son of man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak what the Father has taught me.

The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone for I always do what pleases Him. It’s a pretty intense verse that starts off with this opening line, Once more, Jesus said to them, Jesus continues to speak to them. Who are the “them”? It’s the Pharisees. Again, we’ve taken a break from this moment, we’re back there. It’s interesting here because instead of saying, Again, Jesus spoke to them, the Gospel writers say, Once more, Jesus said to them. It’s a little bit of a difference, but I’m going to tell you why it’s important. The difference is subtle. This time, the point is not simply that Jesus is speaking to the group again, but that again, he’s saying the same thing. What is he saying? I am going away and where I go, you cannot come. He’s already said this. He’s already told them this. Hey, I’m going away and you’re going to look for me, but you’re not going to be able to find me because where I’m going, you’re not going. I’m going away, you’re not going to be able to come because of your life. And this time Jesus tells them exactly why.

He says this, You will die in your sin. This is a poetic way of saying that you’re going to die apart from God. You’re going to die in darkness. You’re going to die. What’s going to happen to you when you die? Well, it’s very simple for you. When you die, you’re going to hell. Pretty intense. Imagine sitting before the Son of God and him looking at you and going, You’re going to die in your sin. At that point, you’re either rattled or you do a little bit of what they do. It’s without equivalence. You’re going to die in your sin. Now, just to make a quick point here, the Bible tells us that everyone sins, that all have sinned, and all fall short of the glory of God. So the judgment here isn’t that they have sinned. It’s that they’re going to die in their sin, meaning that no forgiveness is coming their way. No solution for sin is coming their way. And the quick point for all of us here is this, being a sinner doesn’t ultimately mean that you’re not going to get a chance to go to heaven. In fact, sinners are the only people that get to heaven because everyone’s a sinner.

If that were the case, there would be no hope for anybody, right? But what’s the point here? These guys, they have no remedy for their sin. They have no remedy. We’re going to see why in just a second. But first, we’re going to see their answer because it gives us a little bit of a glimpse into their disposition towards their own spiritual state. Let’s see how they respond. To the Pharisees, Jesus says, Hey, I’ve been saying to you this a bunch of times. I’m going to say it to you one more time. Where I go, you cannot come. You’re going to die in your sin. The Pharisees are offended by this and so they begin to mock Jesus with this statement. From the onset, it doesn’t look like something very special, but, man, when you study this text, it illuminates how their hearts were so far from what Jesus intended. They said, This made the Jews ask, Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, Where he goes, I cannot come? Oh, that’s really funny. Where you go, I cannot come. And the reason you’re saying that is because you’re going to kill yourself.

You’re about to commit suicide. You might think this is a strange comeback, but you have to know that the Jews believed that suicide was the worst sin anybody could possibly do. And that if you committed suicide, you were going to be sent to the darkest place in Hades. People who killed themselves according to the Pharisees, committed a sin that caused them to go to the deepest parts of hell, permanently and without any recourse to get to heaven. So what are they saying to him? They’re saying, Oh, we’re not going where you’re going? Oh, that must be because you’re going to hell. Imagine speaking to the Messiah. Oh, yeah, of course, we’re not going to go where you’re going to go because where you’re going is to hell and we’re going to heaven. Why does Jesus make such a critical pronouncement on these people? Well, it’s because of answers like this. It’s the same reason he passed judgment on every spiritual person, every so-called spiritual person. Jesus talked in terms of them going to hell because of one thing about these people. And it just is illustrated in the way they answer. These men were, above all things, self-righteous.

You heard this term before, right? Self-righteous. They believed that they could be righteous by themselves. This is what self-righteous means, they believed that they needed to be ritualistically religious. And if they were ritualistically religious, they could get to heaven. If they just were obedient enough, they could do it. What is self-righteousness? It’s the belief that your behavior has earned salvation for yourself. It’s the belief that you’re so good that God couldn’t possibly condemn you. That you’re a wonderful human being, that you have wonderful human achievement, and that is more important than any divine influence. It’s not that God needs to make you right. It’s that you are right in and of itself because of how wonderful you have been. It is to entertain the hope of obtaining the favor of God because of your own supposed goodness. This is what they believed. Hey, I mean, it’s clear that you’re not going to heaven. We’re going to heaven. Well, why are you going to heaven? Well, based upon how wonderful I am. I’m such an awesome human being. I obey the law. I do everything it says.

I’m incredible. They magnified their goodness and diminished their own evil. The truth is, the Bible is so plain on this. No one is good enough to come to God by themselves. It is so clear. No one comes to God by themselves. No one is righteous, not even one. No one is moral enough. No one is righteous enough. No one does good enough. And this is what the Pharisees would not understand. And so Jesus lets them know it’s because of this, you will die in your own sin. There’s an old-timey preacher that, sometimes old-timey preachers makes me super cringy. They make me feel cringy. Is that how you say this? I was watching one online, and I was scrolling through YouTube Shorts or whatever, and there was an old guy, it doesn’t have to be old, but whatever, preaching to a group of people. And he was just basically going, You’re all going to hell and fire and brimstone. And it was like, Whoa, okay, sounds good. But he actually said something in that little 10-second thing before I just slid away and went to some cat video that got my attention. He asked the people in the room, Hey, I want to prove to you that you’re not good.

And I thought, Oh, this is interesting. He says, Let’s take the Ten Commandments. Are you ready? So he looked at an individual and he said, You know the Ten Commandments? Do not steal, do not give, do not, etc. He says, so he started off with the do not give false testimony. He says, You know the one of the Ten Commandments, do not give false testimony. Have you ever lied? And the person sitting there, of course, had no response but to say, of course, I’ve lied. And the guy says, Well, then you’re a liar. And he goes, Okay, have you ever murdered anyone? The guy goes, No, I’ve never murdered, but he goes, But do you know that Jesus said that to hate someone is to murder? He goes, So have you ever hated anybody? He’s like, Yeah, of course, I’ve hated people. So he’s like, Okay, so you’re a lying murderer. Then he says, All right, have you ever committed adultery? He goes, Actually, it’s a little bit of a silent issue for me. He said, Okay, no problem. You’re a lying murderous adulterer.

Honoring your father and mother? Done that? No, you’re a lying mother, dishonoring, adulterous murderer. And then I slipped the video, but man, for that one moment, the point was very clear. How can you say that you’re good? How can you say that you’re moral? You cannot. Everyone in here has lied. All of you are liars. I have lied. Everyone in here has stolen. How can you say you’re moral? You’re a thief. How can you say you’re moral when you obviously have looked at a man or looked at a woman lustfully in your heart? How can you say that you’re moral when you’ve obviously hated somebody and turned and been angry at somebody and cast down curses on somebody? Well, you’re a murderer in the eyes of Christ. You’re not moral. You cannot be. So what would Jesus decide? What would Jesus say to these people? He says, Simply you are dying in your sin because you believe your moral by yourself. Instead, the Bible is really clear about what Jesus wants. He doesn’t want people that are self-righteous. He wants people that are poor in spirit, humble enough to get some help, who empty themselves of themselves, who come to the knowledge that they actually need a savior.

And this is the first prerequisite for getting to heaven. Where are you going to end up when you die? Well, here’s a better question. Are you self-righteous or poor in spirit? That’s the question I would ask you. It’s a prerequisite because you need to believe you need a savior in order to get a savior. Only the sick get a doctor. Only the sinner gets a savior. Only the needy get a rescuer. Only broken get a healer. And that’s the issue with men. We stand on our own righteousness and we believe each other, we believe we’re actually wonderful. But the self-righteous get nothing but condemnation. As Jonathan Edwards, the famous preacher, once said, It’s a fatal consequence to men’s soul for them to entrust in their own righteousness. It’s a fatal consequence to your own soul to entrust in your own righteousness. I was driving by Nova Southeastern University about a month ago. And at Nova on 39th or whatever, they have these eight-foot high fences and they use them to block in the football field that’s there or the field that’s there. I’m driving by and as I’m driving by, I look over and I’m like, Is that a woman on the fence?

I’m like, I think it’s a woman straddling the fence. This is so weird. I just keep driving by for a second, looking back in my rearview mirror to see when she will jump over the fence. I realized very quickly that she could not jump over the fence. She just for whatever reason. I’m like, I’m going to turn around and go help this girl. I pull over and I realized it was like a 22-year-old college student who tried to jump an eight-foot fence but had never jumped a fence before in her life. I stand there and I ask her, I said, Do you need any help? She says, Please. Then I ask, How long have you been here? She said, 15 minutes. Imagine sitting straddled on a fence for 15 minutes. You could tell the ridges at the end of the fence are poking into her. The sides of her jeans are ripped. Her shoes are on the floor. Her bags on the ground spilled open. And she’s trying her hardest to get over the fence, but she has no ability to get over the fence. She’s trapped by herself. And there’s nothing that she could possibly do to fix her situation.

She said, I’ve tried and I’ve tried, this is what she’s telling me. And so I and my buddy who was in the car helped her over the fence and we sent her on her way. But at that moment, I thought a little bit about the process of self-righteousness. I thought about this idea of a man or a woman trying to get onto the good side of God’s graces. I thought about the man or a woman trying to figure out how to make it to heaven and figure out how to do it on their own. I thought about this idea of them beginning to climb the fence of righteousness by themselves, only to get stuck on the way up, realizing that there is no way for them to get there by themselves. This is the illustration I think about all the time. It’s men and women who believe they can do enough to be good, to be right before God, only to find themselves trapped because of their own decision-making. They were self-righteous. And so Jesus says, you will die in your sin. You’re just going to die up on that fence.

You can’t do anything about it. You’re just going to die there. But there’s another reason. There’s another reason he continues. They say, hey, you know, he must be going to hell because we’re going to heaven. But he continued, You are from below and I am from above. You are of this world, not from this world, of this world. I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sin. If you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sin. You are of the world. This world in John’s Gospel is defined by the rejection of the light. How do you know you’re in the world? Well, it rejects the light. We see that in John 1 and John 3. Jesus has come to testify, the Bible tells us about the works of the world, that they are evil. John 7, says, You are from below. You think that your actions and your thoughts and your motivations come from below. Consequently, you are part of the system of the world. The term world simply means the system of evil, the system of evil that we all participate in, the system of evil.

It’s opposed to God. It’s opposed to Christ. He says you’re a part of the world. Now, if you want to guarantee to die in your sins, just buy whatever the world sells you. In fact, in Luke 16, verse 8, Jesus calls unbelievers children of the world. Galatians 1 does the same thing. Jesus gave himself so he might deliver us from the system of the world. You say, Well, what is the system? How do you know that you’re in the world of the system? Well, the system of the world is characterized by everything that you see in the world. The system of the world is characterized by materialism. That’s part of the world the system. Humanisticness, selfishness, men going to solve their own problems. It’s men ruling their fate. The world has a preoccupation with pleasure, with comfort. It’s about cardinal ambition. It’s about pride, greed, jealousy, envy, selfish desire, and on and on and on. And you see it every single day. Its opinions according to Jesus are always wrong. Its aims are always selfish. Its pleasure is always sinful. Its influence is also often demoralizing. Its politics are corrupt. Its honor is empty.

Its smiles are phony. Its love is fickle. And it’s on full display in every single TV show you watch and every single bit of music you listen to. It’s on full display in the news anchors you watch and the podcast you absorb. It’s on full display as you’re at work standing by the water cooler. It’s on full display, the actions and the system of the world. The system of the world produces a delusion that you believe this world is what it’s all about. But the Bible tells us very clearly the world and its ways are passing away. They are self-destructing. So he says, Look, I want you to know the reason why you’re going to die in your sin is because you are part of the world’s worldly system. Notice again, not from the world, we’re all from the world in some way, shape, or form, but of the world, meaning identified with the world. What the world teaches, you follow. That’s the idea. You’re a sheep and the world is your shepherd. The world says this is okay to do, then you do it. If the world says this is fine, then you embrace it.

If the world says don’t do that, then you don’t do that. If the world says to embrace this thing and to support this thing, then you support it. Whatever the world tells you to do, you do it. You are in the system of the world. It tells you what to believe about money and how to engage in relationships and how to be happy and how to find purpose and how to think and how to respond and all that stuff, and you believe it and you obey it. You are part of the world. And Jesus makes it really clear. You, if you embrace the system of the world, you will die in your sin because Jesus is not of the world. In many ways, this is an echo of Jesus’s early warning. Maybe by following the world, you’ll get the whole world. But what are you going to lose? Your very soul. Jesus is trying to give them an eternal perspective. Life today is not about life today. It’s about preparing and testing you for the life to come. But if you make it all about life today, you have dove headfirst into the system of the world.

So a simple thing Jesus is saying, is you’re going to die in your sin and there are two reasons. One, you’re self-righteous. Two, you’re totally engulfed in the system of the world. You buy whatever it sells. The implication then is repeated in verse 24, I told you that you would die in your sin. It’s a warning that the Pharisees seem to not really have heard. Jesus has now repeated this idea three times verbatim. I told you you’re going to die in your sin. I told you you’re going to die in your sin. I told you you’re going to die in your sin. Jesus makes the grim prediction all three times and all three times they do not listen to him. And at the end, as a qualification or an encouragement, Jesus tells them again why. For unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. This conditional clause offers a little glimmer of hope. I’m going to tell you in a second, but first, let’s go back to the question. What will happen when you die? Well, here’s my question back to you. Who do you believe will bring you salvation? Or what do you believe will bring you salvation?

Who do you believe could lead your life here on earth so that you have a full life? What do you believe you should trust in, in order to find the life that God has called you to? That’s simply the question. It’s about who you believe or what you believe. So what do you believe? Do you believe in yourself? Do you believe in the world? And Jesus is very simple. If you believe in yourself or you believe in the world, you will die in your sins. So what’s the alternative? Well, the alternative is found in the passage we just read. If you do not believe that I am He, I’m going to talk about the I am he thing a little bit later on. But I think the simple idea is this, do you rely on yourself, on the world, or do you trust in Jesus? We can’t make this any more simple than this. Do you believe that Jesus is right? That what he has to offer is true? That what he has to offer is correct? Are you a disciple of Jesus, meaning that he is your teacher, he is your instructor, he is your tutor, he is your messiah, he is your savior, is your Lord?

Or do you believe that look, I’ll figure it out and the world will tell me what to do. And the combination of Jesus, self, and the world will lead me into righteousness. Because if you have that viewpoint, you will die in your sins. You must believe that he is the one. And what is that? He is the one. Well, he is the light of the world, that he is from above, that he is the way, that he is the truth, that he is the light, that no one can come to the Father apart from him. And look, this is the response. You either believe him or you believe the world or you believe yourself. Those are your options. But given the ambiguity of the question, the Pharisees reply, Who are you? Jesus could have now turned and gone, Look, I am the light of the world. I’m the son of God. I am God in human form. But instead, he says something that is virtually untranslatable. I read a bunch of commentaries and they’re like, They can’t figure out how to translate it. All they know is that this first line is just like a, Huh?

Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. Another way to translate this same idea is for them to say, Who are you? And Jesus goes, I’ve been saying it. I’ve been saying it. I’ve been telling you and telling you and telling you and telling you, and you still are self-righteous and you still are from below. You’re not listening. And then he goes on to this wonderful monolog that we’re not going to read right now. Instead, we’re going to skip to the end of verse 28. And he says, Who are you? And he says, Look, I could judge you, but I’m not going to judge you. Instead, the Father will judge you when you have lifted up the Son of Man. Then you will know that I am he. You’re never going to change. You’re not going to believe it until the day you see me raised up on the cross. Until the day you see me rise from the dead, you’re never going to believe. Here’s my encouragement for you. Don’t be that person. Don’t wait until God has to show you before you believe that his ways are better than your own ways.

Don’t wait until God has to show you until you believe that his ways are better than the world’s ways. Just respond. What do we learn? Jesus’ pronouncement of judgment had to do with these people’s system of belief. Where do you go when you die? Well, you go to hell if you believe in your own way, you’re judged if you believe in the way of the world. And that’s in stark contrast to if you believe that Jesus is the one sent from God, that you trust in him and not in yourself, that you build your life not on the basis of what the world says is true, but on the basis of what he says is true. So where will you go when you die? Well, it all depends on who and what you truly believe in, on who or what you truly trust in, yourself, the world, or the one that was sent down from heaven.