“Death fills us with tremendous sorrow and grief. And rightfully so, because death is our enemy (1 Cor. 15:26). We may try and convince ourselves that death is natural or just the way things are. But we know better, don’t we? The grief and sorrow tell us that this is not the way it is supposed to be.”

In the movie The Princess Bride, Westley has to leave his fiancé Buttercup in order to make his fortune. Buttercup is worried that she will never see him again. Westley reassures her: “This is true love-you think this happens every day.”

True love is the reason they will always be together. The rest of the movie puts that reason to the test. Buttercup is forced to marry the prince after she hears about Westley’s death. Westley, however, is not dead. He tracks her down before the wedding and says, to her, “I told you I would always come for you. Why didn’t you wait for me?” “Well…” she says, “you were dead.” Westley replies: “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.” Although they face more obstacles, their true love wins out in the end. They live happily ever after.

“Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.” That is a beautiful sentiment. You can make it work in movies, fairytales and books. But you can’t make it work in real life because love can’t overcome death.

Death
Death will bring an end to us and our relationships regardless of how much we love or how much we are loved. ______’s death is another vivid reminder of this sad reality. The Bible says, “…it is appointed for man to die…” Death is universal.

Nonetheless, we know that there is something terribly wrong with death. A human body shouldn’t be lifeless or soulless. A wife shouldn’t be without her husband, a mother without her son, and a man without his friend.

Death fills us with tremendous sorrow and grief. And rightfully so, because death is our enemy (1 Cor. 15:26). We may try and convince ourselves that death is natural or just the way things are. But we know better, don’t we? The grief and sorrow tell us that this is not the way it is supposed to be.

The Bible teaches us that God made us in his own image to love him and to love one another. He made this world for us to live in it and to enjoy it. He didn’t make us to live just a few years and then die for no good reason. Death is an intruder into God’s good creation. Death is our enemy. It teaches us that all is not well with the world.

But why? Why do we die? The answer is us. We all die because of who we are and what we do. The Bible typically uses the word “sin” to refer to our problem. Sin is essentially rebellion against God. To sin is to do what is evil, as defined by God. The Bible says that we are all sinners who sin, and that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). That is how evil sin is. Sinners deserve death. Death, therefore, also teaches us that all is not well with us.

This is why love in the real world can’t stop death. Our love can’t overcome God’s just punishment of death for our rebellion against him. But that is not true for God. Death does not stop God’s love for those who are in Christ Jesus. His love is true love.

True Love
The well-known Bible verse John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Even though we rebelled against him, God loved us. He so loved us that he sent his Son, Jesus of Nazareth, to be the Savior of the world.

How Jesus is able to save sinners from sin and death is quite extraordinary, and it involves his death and resurrection. But the main point that I want you to see is simply this: God saves sinners in and through Jesus. Paul says: “The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Salvation or the gift of eternal life, however, is not like a one-way ticket that you hand out to people. Eternal life is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In John 11, Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Jesus himself is resurrection and life. You need to hitch your wagon to his in order to share in his resurrection and life. Or to use a biblical metaphor, you need to be married to Jesus in order to receive what he has.

A man and a woman are joined together in holy matrimony by taking a wedding vow. How are we married to Christ? We are married to Christ by faith. We believe in him and look to him to save us and to lead us to glory. That is why John 3:16 says whoever believes shall not perish but has everlasting life.

______ believed in Jesus. He was united to Jesus by faith. He loved Jesus. More importantly, Jesus loved ______. Jesus loved ______ with true love. At the end of the day that is what really counts because no Christian loves Jesus perfectly. ______ didn’t. I don’t. No Christians does. One day we will, but not in this life.

We don’t love Jesus perfectly in this life because we are not yet in glory. We are on the road to glory but not yet in it. Let me explain what I mean by using ______ as an example. When ______ became a Christian, he was saved from sin and death and given the gift of eternal life. But he was saved in this broken world. In other words, God didn’t immediately transport ______ into heaven or into the world to come.

Practically speaking, this means that ______ didn’t experience the full salvation that God has promised him in Christ. In fact, the Bible speaks of salvation in the past tense and in the future sense. We have been saved and we will be saved.

Jesus says in John 5 that whoever believes in him has eternal life. He will not come into judgment (i.e. condemned) but has passed from death to life. Or as Paul put it: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those are in Christ Jesus.” All believers are saved right now in the sense that their sins are forgiven and they no longer stand condemned before God. They won’t be eternally punished for their sins.

But there is also sense in which we have yet to be saved. In Galatians 5 Paul says that by faith we wait for the hope of righteousness. In Romans 8 he says we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.