Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones.  Psalm 116:15

God pointed me to this passage many years ago when my college roommate died of colon cancer.  We were both in our mid-30s.  I had just learned weeks before that we had both been enduring many similar GI tests during the fall.  While my illness has added difficulty to my life, his disease took him to be with our Lord.  Since that time I have leaned on this verse many times.  I find myself doing the same now as my Aunt Margaret left this world to meet her Lord and Savior in the early hours of this morning.  Once again I am saddened, yet it is sadness filled with hope.  Our hope is in Christ and in the promises of God that we will abide with Him free from sin and sickness enjoying His presence for eternity.  To that end, I would like to consider the calling of God.  For purposes of this discussion, I will be using one of my father’s (Robert Henning) funeral sermons as a loose basis.

First consider the call to life.  In Genesis 1:27 we read: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”  Man was formed by God and called to life.  After thousands of years of children being born, I fear we too easily forget that the creation of each new life is just as miraculous as when Adam was created.  God carefully chooses our features, our talents, our nature and all that makes us individuals.  He also lays out the plan for our lives whether it is brief or long.  With that first breath, a child unwittingly accepts God’s call to live in this world and the general mandate to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”   As a rule, that new life is greeted with joy and anticipation; considered to be precious and is cared for; plans begin to form and there is hope for the future.

Our second calling from God is the call to become a child of God or as Paul put it:  “God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.” (2 Timothy 1:9)  It is at this point that we choose whether or not to accept God’s costly, but free gift of salvation.  It is a choice between rejecting God and facing eternal death punishment or accepting a life of service to Him and eternal life.  When someone accepts God’s call to be His child, there is joy in the Christian community and “in the presence of the angels of God” (Luke 15:10).  Not only is there joy, but once again there is hope for the future both in this life and the next.

Finally there is the call to eternity or the death of this life as we know it.  Barring the Lord’s return, it is certain to come and yet is the call many dread. The coward dies a thousand deaths during their lifetime.  The self-driven push forward with the thought of gaining all that they can before it conquers their lives.  The fame-seeking labor long and are wearily attempting to write for themselves an article in the great histories of the world.  All are thinking of that inevitable day.  There is only one group that wisely does not fear the third call of God.  They are those who know of the promises of God.  The promises that they have read, understand and rely on because they know the One that has promised.  Once again there is joy in heaven as they are united with their God and those who have gone before them.

You really had no opportunity with respect to your first calling and have grown to some level of maturity.  If you are reading this, I assume that you have accepted the second calling and now “confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead” and are “saved”; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation”.  Now, where do you stand on the last calling?  As you consider your mortality, do you view your death with dread or hope?  Apart from a relationship with God, there is only dread, yet many who trust in God, still fear the end of life.  Some fear the process, while others just cannot abide the thought at all.  To die well is to be sympathetic to the loss of those left behind while looking joyously to the hope of the future that is before them.  Not hope in some theoretical utopia that is manmade, but hope in a future laid out and promised by the One who is eternal and unchanging; the who lovingly created you and planned your life; the one who will safely carry you from this life to life with Him.  Consider just a few of the promises provided in Revelation 21:3-4.   We will be free of pain.  We will be free of sin.  We will be free of sorrow. Free of death.  However, most importantly, we will abide with God.  He will dwell among us and we will be His people.  These are but a few of the promises.  If you have not done so before, please study the promises of God the come with death.  They are beautiful and trustworthy.   They provide a sense of calm when facing our end for in reality, it is just the beginning of the best part of our lives…the perfect part.  It is this that gives us hope in death…a future in our end as we now know it.

The song that I’ve attached to this post is a favorite.  To me, one of the greatest pleasures in this life in running a beach on the Atlantic ocean at sunrise on a warm day listening to this song.  The sunrise elicits a need to praise God and reminds me of His glory.  The sea reminds me of the God’s sovereignty as well as the vast number of believers who will join together with perfect voices to praise God.  It reminds me that one day I will be reunited with my grandparents, my roommate, my mother, Uncle Wilbur, my father-in-law, my father, Uncle Lou, Aunt Margaret and all of the other wonderful and godly people that God has woven into my life… joining them to praise our God.