A Better Place | What Comes Next Week 1 | Pastor Andrew Cromwell

John 14:1-3 NIV: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

Roman catacombs gravemarkers

• In Christ, Alexander is not dead, but lives.
• “Victor, victorious in Christ, rests here in peace.”
• He was taken up into his eternal home.
• He awaits the resurrection.

Today’s tombstones

• “Gone but never forgotten, forever in our hearts.”
• “A life well lived, a soul at peace.”
• “You will be missed, but your memory will live on in all of us.”
• “Forever in our memories, eternally at peace.”
• “Until we meet again in another place, you will always be remembered.”

Psalm 39:4-6 MSG: “Tell me, what’s going on, God? How long do I have to live? Give me the bad news! You’ve kept me on pretty short rations; my life is a string too short to be saved. Oh! we’re all puffs of air. Oh! we’re all shadows in a campfire. Oh! we’re just spit in the wind. We make our pile, and then we leave it.

Capuchin Crypt near Trevi Fountain

What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.

1. Your ability to think and imagine is a from God.

2. Thinking and imagination are two really important ways for you to !

2 Timothy 2:7 NLT: Think about what I am saying. The Lord will help you understand all these things.

3. The Holy Spirit wants to !

 

1. When your body dies, your soul leaves it behind.

Ecclesiastes 12:7 NLT: For then the dust will return to the earth, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.

Philippians 1:21-24 NIV: For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.

2. The physical part of us “sleeps” until the resurrection.

Daniel 12:2-3 NIV: Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.

3. The spiritual or immaterial part of us moves on to a conscious existence in heaven.

2 Corinthians 5:8 NIV: We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

4. When we die we face an immediate .

5. The heaven believers go to is an heaven.

Revelation 21:1 NIV: Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

Romans 3:23 NIV: …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Isaiah 59:2 NLT: It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore.

Hebrews 12:14 NIV: Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

But You Can Be Sure of YOUR DESTINATION!

Romans 10:9 NIV: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.