Choose Hope Part 6: Hope over Death

This sermon series invites you to believe that hope is not wishful thinking — it’s the power of Jesus rewriting our story. Each week will highlight a different victory He makes possible: hope over pride, fear, affliction, sorrow, guilt, and shame. 

This week we look at God's promise to bless those who CHOOSE HOPE over DEATH.

Transcript

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February 3rd was a day I'll always remember. I was sitting beside my mom just a few months ago. She her health began to decline. We didn't know what it was. And then in January before that February, we got a diagnosis of lung cancer, and it was too late really for any meaningful treatment. And within a month of her diagnosis, we sat in her home with family around her on February 3rd as she slowly passed from here to eternity. A day and a moment I'll never forget. July 24th, Catherine's birthday, but it was also the day we got a call that her father had been in a tragic accident on a beach in Florida in the States. We began to rush down there, and by the time we got there, we found out it was a horrific accident that he did not recover from and passed away just a few days later. Those two dates will live in my mind forever, and we can all probably share moments when a call, a diagnosis, an unexpected moment change our realities forever. Death can feel like it has the ability to kill everything, even our hope. And over these past few weeks, we have been walking through a deliberate path together of a series called Choose Hope. And that title and that pathway has not been accidental. And from the beginning, we have been honest about one central truth: that hope in the biblical sense is not merely a feeling that appears when circumstances approve. It's not a decision of trust. It is a decision of trust made sometimes when circumstances remain painfully unchanged. We started this process by looking at choosing hope over pride in our own self-reliance, and then fear of what could be in the future. We choose hope over fear of the future. And then we chose hope over sorrow of the past, the things that we had done in our life that we felt sorrow over, and then hope even over affliction, the pain that others bring into our life. And then last week was hope over guilt and sin, the grace of God stronger than even the bad choices and sinful choices we make. And with each step, the ground has grown heavier beneath our feet. The struggle has deepened from pride all the way down to guilt. The questions with each one have grown harder and the wounds have become more personal. And this progression is intentional because the deeper the pain, the more hope has to be chosen. The more hope has to prove itself to be true. Easy problems allow for easy optimisms, but deep problems require something sturdier, something anchored not in outcomes, but in God Himself. So today we arrive at the final and greatest challenge of all. Today we talk about choosing hope even over death. Not abstract death, not poetic endings, but the death as we know it. Loss that silences a room, names that stops being spoken aloud, chairs that remain empty, futures that never arrive. Death is the enemy none of us outruns. It humbles the proud, terrifies the fearless, deepens sorrow, magnifies affliction, and exposes our guilt and limitations all at once. And if hope cannot face death, it cannot finally and fully sustain us. True hope must be able to overcome death. And that is why Scripture never treats hope as passive. Hope is not something that simply happens to us over and over again. God's word portrays hope as something we place in, we wait for, we hold on to, we return to often, sometimes daily, sometimes moment by moment, sometimes painfully slow. And this leads us to something that we need to say clearly. Hope is most often formed over time, not in a moment. And this brings us to the verse out of Isaiah 40 that has been our anchor verse for this series. Because hope grows as we wait, it strengthens as we endure, it deepens not when answers come quickly, but when God proves faithful even in the long haul. So listen to this verse again. Isaiah 40. Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wing like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not grow faint. Notice what Isaiah does not say here. He does not say those who hope will never grow tired. He does not say those who hope will avoid grief or loss. He does not say those who hope will escape death altogether. He said that those who hope in the Lord will be renewed, and renewal implies depletion. Waiting implies time. Strength renewed implies weakness that is real. Hope, according to Scripture, is not the absence of struggle. It is the decision to trust God through it, sometimes step by step, sometimes breath by breath, sometimes tear by tear. So today we close this series. We do not come with just a shallow optimism that everything will get better. We come with resilient hope. The kind that has learned to walk before it soars, to run after enduring, and to trust God even when the valley of death feels final. And this is the hope that faces death and says, Yes, you are real, but you are not ultimate. And this is the hope that lives after loss. This is the hope that waits, even when waiting hurts. And so as we jump into hope, let's look again at the definition of hope that we've set for this series. It's it's simple, this simple sentence. Hope is the confident expectancy that God will bring good out of every circumstance, because he is faithful, powerful, and always true to his promises. Notice what that definition anchors hope to. Not outcomes, but God's faithfulness. Not timing, but God's power. Not feeling, but God's promises. This is the hope that waits. This is the hope that endures, a hope that still believes even when the tomb is still sealed. If that is what hope truly is, this confident expectancy that God will bring good out of every circumstance because he is faithful, powerful, and always true to his promises, then it brings us to the natural question: what are these hopeful promises of God? And specifically, where do we see this hope spoken about clearly when death is involved? Because death is a circumstance that seems more than any other to resist goodness, to feel final, absolute, and beyond repair. And if hope is going to mean anything real, it must speak here. Not in theory, but in presence over the grave. And that is why the promise we look at today matters so much. Because this hope is not just a philosophy. It's not an idea, it's not just an idea discovered the more you dig. It is not a conclusion we reach we reach after reflection. It is a promise spoken by Jesus Himself. Into grief, into confusion, into a moment where death seemed to have win. In John chapter 11, Jesus is standing next to a grieving sister at a tomb. Tears are still fresh, disappointment is still real, the stone has not been moved, and death still appears to be in control. And it is there, not after a miracle. In the moment of despair that he speaks this promise, this hope-filled declaration. Look at what Jesus says in John 11, 25. I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. What a promise. What a powerful promise. These words, I am the resurrection and the life, are some of the most hope-filled words ever spoken. But before we treat them as a verse to memorize or just a promise to quote, we need to remember something important about God that He teaches us. God rarely forms hope through abstraction alone, through just a moment where we read a verse and ah, we have it. Just because we memorize it, make it a slogan, more often he gives us hope through stories, our own stories. Stories that can unfold painfully slow, but honestly. Because hope is best understood not when it's stated, but when it's lived, when it's lived out. And that's why Jesus didn't say these words in a vacuum. He didn't offer them as a philosophical answer to a question that another rabbi posed to him. He spoke them in the middle of a story, a real one, involving real people, real fear, real disappointment, and real death. And before we rush straight to this promise and just grab it, we were going to read this story and get to know this story. Because this story looks a lot like ours. This is not a resurrection story that begins with an empty tomb. It begins with sickness, silence, delay, and doubt. It begins with a household Jesus loves where prayers are sincere, faith is present, and death still shows up. So let's walk into the story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Listen to this. Bethany was a small village just beyond Jerusalem, easily overlooked, and it was politically insignificant. Yet it was deeply personal to Jesus. This was not an anonymous place on his itinerary. It was a home he returned to, a place of friendship rather than spectacle. Mary lived there, known for sitting quietly at Jesus' feet, listening. While Martha lived there too, diligent and faithful, always serving, and their brother Lazarus lived there as well. A man scripture tells us plainly that Jesus loved. This was a household where Jesus was welcomed not as a miracle worker but as family. And it was into this very house that death chose to enter. It began quietly, the way death often does. Lazarus grew weak. At first it seemed manageable, fatigue, a fever, something that might pass. Mary and Martha waited, convincing themselves that it would turn around. But the sickness lingered, deepened, and slowly began to claim more of him. His breathing grew shallower, his strength faded, and the sisters felt the rising fear that comes when prayer shifts from confidence to desperation. They began to sense that something darker had crossed their threshold, something they could not touch or control. So they did what faith had taught them to do. They sent word to Jesus, not in panic, not in protest, just trust, spoken plainly and simply. They did not tell him what to do, they did not include instructions, they did not think they needed to. Jesus loved Lazarus. Jesus had healed the sick before. Surely Jesus would do the same for their brother. But death had already taken its place in the home. The message was sent and they waited. Every sound outside made them lift their heads. Every pause and Lazarus' breathing tightening their chest. They told themselves Jesus would come. He always did. Faith seemed easy at first, almost certain. Assured. But as the hours passed and night fell with no sign of him, fear crept in quietly. Perhaps the message had not reached him. Perhaps he was delayed. Perhaps he was still coming. Perhaps he was rushing there that very moment. The next day came and Jesus did not. Hope began to thin. Faith became effort, something that had to be held instead of assumed. Their prayers changed. They became sharper, less composed, more urgent. With fear came doubt, the kind that whispers rather than shouts. Does he know how bad this is? Does he understand how close death is now? Does he still care? And then Lazarus died. Death did not announce itself. It did not argue. It simply settled into the room. And there is a moment when sound leaves a house forever, when the future collapses into a single, unbearable present moment. Mary and Martha would have closed their brother's eyes, washed his body, wrapped him carefully in burial clothes, as their people had done for generations, because death did not wait. Lazarus was carried quickly to a tomb, a stone was rolled in place, heavy and final, and still Jesus had not come. Four days passed. Long enough for shock to give way to devastation. Long enough for mourners to arrive from Jerusalem. Long enough for grief to sink deep into every bone and breath. And long enough for disappointment to harden into a quiet, aching question that could no longer be avoided. If Jesus loved him, why did he wait? This was no longer a theological puzzle. It was personal, painful. It felt like betrayal. They had done everything right. They had trusted him, they had sent for him, and death had answered faster than Jesus did. Fear gave way to resentment, not loud or violent, but just heavy. The kind of anger that grows because hope once lived there, the kind that comes when expectations collapse under a tombstone. Death stood at the center of it all. It did not mock them, it did not need to. It had entered a faithful home, a loving home, a home where Jesus Himself was welcome, and it seemed that though death had the final word. This part of the story closes, and we're left exactly standing exactly where Mary and Martha stood, before a sealed tomb with unanswered prayers echoing in the silence. Lazarus is dead, Jesus is absent, and death, at least in that moment, appears unopposed. And what makes this moment so unsettling for us is not just the loss, but the delay of Jesus' answer in his presence. In all honesty, Jesus was not far away, but and he was not unaware. The message had reached him. Scripture is clear about that, and yet he intentionally waited. Mary and Martha believed the same thing we believe. They believed that Jesus loved them. They believed Jesus had power over sickness. They believed help would come, and yet none of those beliefs prevented death from entering their story. This tension is not theoretical. It is deeply personal. It raises a question we often hesitate to voice out loud. If God loves us, why does he sometimes delay? If he is able, why does he sometimes seem like death always wins and he loses? And if faith is real, why does death still win in the moment? The waiting exposes something important. God's timing does not always feel like goodness to us. His purpose can remain hidden while pain is still fully present. And sometimes what we interpret as absence or neglect is actually part of a larger story that we cannot yet see. But that does not make the ache smaller. It's in the waiting, faith is strained, disappointment grows, and doubt has come room to breathe. So before we rush to the next part of the story, before we speak too quickly about the victory here, before we offer explanations or reassurance, we must sit honestly with the reality that this story presents. That death does not say away simply because we believe. One, because sin has grave consequence. Scripture presents death as a direct consequence of sin entering the world. In Genesis 3, humanity's disobedience introduces corruption into God's good and perfect creation, and death follows that rebellion as sin's bitter outcome. Paul's letter summarizes this truth in Roman. Death is not arbitrary or accidental, it is the tragic result of humanity turning away from the source of life. From that moment on, every generation lives under the shadow of mortality. Not because God desired it, but because sin produces separation and decay whenever it rains. In our modern world, death is often treated as random or natural, but scripture gives us a moral and spiritual meaning. Understanding death as sin's consequence helps us to see why suffering and loss are universal experience regardless of culture or what progress we make as people. It also reminds us that death points to a deeper problem that cannot be solved simply through medicine, technology, our time. And that is our shared experience of loss tells us the same ancient story. Something in this world is fundamentally broken. Broken. So the key point is here let death remind you that sin is serious and salvation is necessary. But death is also part of our story because rebellion brings separation. At its core, sin is rebelling against God, and rebellion always leads to separation. Adam and Eve reject God's command, and that results in exile from his presence, from the garden. Throughout Scripture, separation from God is consistently described as death even before physical death occurs. There's spiritual death. God is the giver and sustainer of life. Turning away from him inevitably leads to distance, decay, loss, and death. Death then is the final outcome of a relational rupture that began long before our bodies ever stop breathing. We still experience the effects of this separation today. Even while alive, people can feel spiritually disconnected, distant from God, distant from meaning, distant from hope. And this helps explain why death feels both inevitable but deeply wrong at the same time. But it also clarifies why the gospel begins with reconciliation, not self-improvement. What we actually need is not more comfort in death, but restoration of our relationship that gives life meaning. And the key point is this: cling to your relationship with God, which is the source of true life. Finally, death is part of the story, but it was not God's original design. And that's a beautiful truth to hold on to. God's original design in Genesis 1:2 was a world filled with life, blessing, harmony, declaring it very good. There was no death, no mourning, no decay. And Scripture treats death as an invader and an enemy. And many people today try to cope with loss by simply normalizing death, calling it just part of life. And while this may offer temporary comfort, it falls short of biblical hope. When death feels wrong to us, that instinct is not weakness, it's memory of what God's original plan was. And the key point is this let your discomfort with death awaken hope in your life, not resignation. After we face this question of why death is part of our story, one truth becomes clear. Death is present not because God is careless, but because our world is broken. It is this bitter consequence of sin, the result of separation, something God never intended to be permanent. But knowing why death exists does not make its presence easier to bear. Mary and Martha likely knew this too. They were not ignorant of Scripture. They understood sin and the world that they should be in, but yet pain lingered. Death does not ask whether we understand it, it does not soften itself for those of us with faith. It still hurts, it still wounds, it still leaves people asking, where is God in this moment? And still, the scene we're about to enter into remains unresolved. But the story does not end there. Jesus has not been absent because he is indifferent, he has been moving toward this moment with purpose that no one yet understands. While the first part of the story ends with a sealed tomb, it begins now with footsteps on the road of hope approaching. Listen to part two. Jesus finally came to Bethany, but by the time word reached the household that he was near, nothing had changed. The tomb was still sealed, the house was still full of mourners. Grief had settled into routine, tears came unexpectedly now, no longer sharp, but steady, heavy, and exhausting. Life had learned to move forward, carrying the loss. Jesus did not arrive quietly, but not because he was making a spectacle, but because hope always makes noise when it appears after being gone for too long. Martha heard first. Practical, alert, always moving, she left the house immediately and went to go meet him. Mary stayed behind, seated where grief had placed her. Some sorrow stands up quickly and some cannot. Martha reached Jesus before anyone else could speak, and when she did, the words that came out of her mouth carried both faith and accusation, intertwined so tightly they cannot be separated. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. It was not shouted, it did not need to be, this was not unbelief, this was disappointment, speaking honestly. She still believed, she said so much. She spoke of resurrection, of the last day, of theology she had learned well, but her faith was not framed, was now framed by loss. Yes, I believe God can raise the dead, but why not before the funeral? Jesus listened and he did not correct her tone, and he also did not defend his timing. He did not explain himself. Instead, he spoke words meant to fix the moment, but to reframe it. Words about life, a promise of life and resurrection. Not as a distant event, but something bound to him. But Lazarus was still in the tomb. Then Mary came. And when she saw Jesus, she fell at his feet. Not to learn this time, not to argue, just to weep. And she said the same words her sister had said, word for word, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But this time the difference was not theology, it was sorrow. And when Jesus saw her weeping, and the people with her also weeping, something happened that the story does not soften or explained away. Jesus was deeply moved, and Jesus wept. He did not stand above their grief, he did not rush past it, he entered into it fully. The Son of God stood before a grave and cried. No sermon, no miracle, just tears. Those watching did not know what to do with this. Some whispered, see how he loved him, others questioned why love had not come sooner. But no one could deny what they saw. God was not detached from human grief, he was standing inside of it. As this comes to a close, grief remained, death remained, the tomb was still closed, but now they were not alone in their sorrow. And what a beautiful truth that is. Even as Jesus stands at the edge of the tomb, knowing what's to come, he stops and meets Mary and Martha in their grief. He doesn't rush them past it. He doesn't say, Why are you crying? You knew I would come, why are you acting this way? You have little faith. He did not scold them. He wept because death is wrong, because grief is real, because loss hurts. And this matters because there is a quiet lie many believers learn to carry. The idea that if our faith were strong enough, our tears would disappear. That mourning somehow signals doubt, or that grief must be quickly replaced with triumphal language and hopeful cliches. But Jesus dismantles that lie at this tomb. He's fully aware of resurrection, and he still allows sorrow and mourning to take full and rightful place. Which brings us to another question that naturally rises then out of Christ's tears. If Jesus mourned, if God enters our sorrow rather than bypassing it, and if grief can exist alongside faith and hope, then why and how do Christians mourn death? I give you some things to think about. We can mourn death because our mourning is blessed. Jesus explicitly affirms this in the Beatitudes. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. This blessing does not treat grief as weakness or failure, but as a faithful response to a broken world. Mourning in this context is not despair, it is honest sorrow brought before God. The promise of comfort assumes real pain, not denial of it. Scripture never portrays blessedness as emotional numbness. Instead, it blesses those who face loss truthfully while trusting God to meet them in it. The key point is this it's okay to mourn freely. God calls it blessed, not faithless. In those moments that hurt, when pain is ripe, mourning, mourn freely, mourn with the Lord. But we can also mourn death because it's also a time of the end of our physical presence with other people. It's right because death brings this painful loss of physical presence. We saw it in the story of David and Jonathan in the Old Testament when David longed for the presence of his friend again. And when someone dies, what we grieve is not only that life has ended, but that relationship has changed. We miss voices, routines, shared moments, and physical closeness. I know for me, Saturday mornings are still a difficult day. Because my mom and I used to have a phone call every Saturday morning. And there's still not a Saturday that I don't wake up thinking about having that phone call with her, or what she would say about our life today. Christianity does not dismiss these losses as unspiritual. Instead, grieving gives absence, physical absence, it affirms the goodness of relationships. Because they're real pain caused by real people that were taken from us. So honor loss, presence mattered because people mattered. And finally, we can mourn death because mourning reminds us of the resurrection. Paul described death not as annihilation, but as departure toward a greater life. As Christians, we grieve differently, not because laws hurt less, but because the future is secure. We can mourn deeply without fear that death has spoken the final word. So let your discomfort with death awaken hope, not resignation. And this brings us to Act Three of the story. When hope is made, present and alive. Jesus stood before the tomb. Grief still lingered in the air, and tears had not vanished. The mourners remained, their sorrow unrelieved. Nothing had changed. Lazarus was still dead, the stone still sealed, death still occupied its place. And then Jesus did something unexpected. He turned toward the grave, and he did not raise his voice immediately, and he did not begin with a command. Instead, he said something simple and unsettling. Take away the stone. Those words landed heavily, because this was not symbolic. This was practical, real. The stone had been rolled there for a reason. It marked the boundary between the living and the dead. Martha spoke up not out of just disbelief, but out of realism. Lord, by this time there will be a smell. He's been dead four days. It was not defiance, it was fear, the kind that surfaces when hope seems reckless. This was death as it truly was, not fresh, not dramatic, not unsettled, not someone who had just fallen asleep and came back. It was death for days. Jesus did not scold her, but he reminded you, did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? Others had taken the step and the hands reached out and muscles strained and they removed the stone. Now Jesus has lifted his eyes. One name, one command, and death did not and could not argue. It did not delay, it did not protest. And from the darkness of the tomb, movement appeared. Cloth wrapped a limb, stepped forward. A man who had been dead emerged into daylight, alive, breathing, standing where death had ruled moments before. Lazarus came out still bound in his burial clothes, alive but restricted. And Jesus in that moment did not rush forward, but he gave one other command. He spoke again to everyone else. Unbind him and let him go. Life had returned, but others were invited to participate in releasing him fully. Restoration had become communal. Death had been confronted, and death had lost. But the truth is this story doesn't end at this celebration because Lazarus would die again. The resurrection was real but temporary, a sign, not the final victory. And those watching would soon realize that this moment, this moment had set something else into motion. The rising of Lazarus would seal Jesus' fate. His authority over death would threaten those in power, and the miracle would lead to a decision. Jesus must die. Soon Jesus himself would be laid in a tomb, soon another stone would be sealed, and soon death would attempt once more to be the final word. But on the third day, the stone rolled away, not to let Jesus out, but to reveal the deep truth that death didn't hold him in the first place. And here at Lazarus' grave, Jesus showed that he could do, and soon at his own, he would show who he is and finally put an end to death. Which brings us to our last question. How then do we have hope and victory even over death? And we do this simply, we have hope and victory through Jesus' death. Through Jesus, death was defeated. Death was defeated. That's all throughout Scripture. He conquered death. His death once and for all, beat Jesus' death once and for all, overcame the penalty and price of death. Because Jesus truly rose, death no longer defines the future. So we should stand firm. Although death is definite, we will experience it is defeated. It is defeated. Second thing we can see is we have hope and victory over death through Jesus. Resurrection is promised. We see this in 1 Corinthians. Resurrection is not just the survival of the soul alone, it is the renewal of the whole person. When we face death, either our own or those of loved ones, then we do knowing that death is only temporary. Burial is not the end of the story. So look ahead. Although there is pain now, there is resurrection in our future. And finally, we have hope and victory through Jesus. Eternity is restored. Jesus speaked often of the future not to satisfy curiosity, but to anchor faith and courage. A forward-looking hope reshapes how believers live and die. We are not clinging to life out of fear and we're not rushing to death out of despair. Instead, we live faithfully in the presence, knowing that what we have ahead is not loss but completion. So live forward. Although we live in the reality of today, your future is secure. The promise. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. What a powerful promise of hope. But I'm going to tell you it's hard to believe. Because in moments like what Presse has experienced this week, what we've all experienced in moments of our life, death feels final and fatal. And we have to, in that moment, choose hope. Choose hope for today, tomorrow, and for eternity. And it should change the way we look at death for our own lives and for those that we love. And this is hope. When death has wounded us, when death has stolen from us, when death has changed everything, your grief does not disqualify you from experiencing hope. Your sorrow does not erase the promises of God, and your pain does not mean that your story has ended. There is more than a story. There is more to the story that we can tell. This is a life we live after death has come. There is a hope that endures beyond death and its sting. There is a peace that holds us. Which brings us to our question of the day. Are you letting pain, the pain of death, be your loudest truth, or trusting the hope of the resurrection to have the final word? Death does not get the final word. Jesus does. This has never been a story about Lazarus. This has been a moment about a story outside of a tomb in Bethany. It has been about you and what you do with the one who stands in front of death and says, I am the resurrection and the life. Jesus did not come only to weep with us, though he does. He did not come only to teach us about hope, though he speaks of it. He came to offer life. Not borrowed life, not delayed life, but eternal life, life stronger than the grave. And so today I want to challenge you as we end this series to choose hope. When moments of despair and death come knocking on your door, make a choice to invite hope even into the darkest moments of your life. Let's pray together.