Trusting God: Dying in Faith and Assurance

It's a cliché in our culture and in our language that there are two things that we cannot avoid and they are death and taxes, but I think all of us know certain people who have been clever enough or astute enough or crooked enough to avoid or evade taxes. But none of us has been able to find a method yet to evade death. [00:00:00]

But even if we recover and are stamped with a complete bill of health five years, ten years, fifteen years down the road that does not mean that we're going to escape death. It's just that we still don't know when and we don't know how. But I notice when I read the Scriptures that when the Scriptures talk about the "how" question of death it's not so much concerned about whether or not I will die through a heart attack or by an accident or by a gunshot wound or by cancer or some other disease, but rather what the Scriptures are most interested in terms of the how question of our death is what will the state of our souls be when we pass from this plain. [00:02:30]

He said, "It's my prayer that when Jack Par's time comes, that he will die in faith." Just this past Sunday they had a litany in the newspaper in which they recorded the last words of famous people. I've already told you my mother's last words, "This is the happiest day of my life." And those are words that I remember with great joy and confidence. It's not the same way with my father's last words. [00:13:36]

I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith." Now, friends, I had no idea where those words came from. I had no idea what their Biblical and theological meaning was about. But as uninitiated in religion as I was at that point in my life, now I'm seventeen when this is going on and he's saying those words to me, I understood exactly what my dad was saying. [00:18:17]

Faith is a word that has become so cheap in our culture. It's almost become a word that conjures up magic and superstition. But the simplest meaning of the word "faith" in New Testament language is the word "trust." This brings us full circle, doesn't it? It's one thing to believe in God, another thing to believe God. It's one thing to trust that there is a God; it's another thing to trust God for whatever is and for whatever happens, and what happens to me. [00:25:24]

He says, "I fought the good fight." Usually Christians think about fighting as something evil that Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." We're called to be people who are docile, who are meek, who are humble, not who are belligerent, and bellicose, people who are contentious and ready to fight at the drop of a hat. But there are certain struggles to which we are called, and when we get serious illness, God is honored when we fight it tooth and nail, when we fight it as hard as we possibly can fight it. [00:26:24]

And the race of which the apostles speak is not a hundred-yard dash; it's a marathon. It's the kind of race that requires that extra courage to keep going when you don't feel like you have any strength. You know the thing that Judy Griese said to me in Miami was, she said, "RC I can't take any more." And I thought about when I joined Weight Watchers that they have this little hokey little thing that they do when you join this organization, at least in Florida, they give you a soda straw. [00:28:11]

I want to die trusting God. I want to die without abandoning hope in Him. The New Testament tells us that the just shall live by faith, and it also tells us that the just shall die in faith. When we speak of death we also have to speak of the other side. The oldest question of all is the question, "If a man dies, shall he live again?" Is there really any reason to expect that beyond the grave there is life? [00:29:31]

But the real question concerns the state of our own faith. Have you ever wondered whether the faith that you possess or you profess is genuine? I know that there have been times where I have been stricken, indeed smitten, by a sudden fear that my own faith is so superficial that it's actually spurious; it's fraudulent; it's not the real thing. In fact, when I look at some of the things I do I say how in the world can a person's faith behave like that. [00:33:08]

Do you ever feel a void of a personal assurance? Are there times in your life when you're really not sure how your life is going to turn out ultimately? Discuss it openly among yourselves. Or has there ever been a time in your life where you did have a sense of assurance about your future destination? Do you think it's possible for a person to know now what their state will be later on? [00:34:56]

Discuss those together and I hope not to stimulate argument but so that you begin to see that you're not alone in the questions that you experience and the doubts that assail you. And I'm hoping that what will come out of this is a sense of mutual encouragement among those with whom you are studying at the moment. [00:36:01]

And I notice the way that the apostle brings all these words together. He says, "I fought the good fight." Usually Christians think about fighting as something evil that Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." We're called to be people who are docile, who are meek, who are humble, not who are belligerent, and bellicose, people who are contentious and ready to fight at the drop of a hat. [00:26:24]