Are you confident to face life and death?

March 16 07 Steve Huber 6 comments

My friend died of cancer last month.

The hardcore Christian, husband, father, seminary professor and elder died on Feb 4th 2007, His name was Alan Groves.

Al is with Jesus now. I am grateful to God to have known him as a mentor, prayer partner, and neighbor. We used to live on the same street and we shared a love for Jesus, the Old Testament (especially the book of Isaiah …which Al inspired in me, thus the liberti sermon series on Isaiah in Advent), and also a love for eating obscene amounts of pan-cooked popcorn. We enjoyed all these things for a last time together in this world on January 8th.

I was able to tell Al how much I loved him and appreciated him.

This is why: Al was a very busy busy man who struggled with chronic fatigue, with endless important projects on his plate, connecting with people around the world on his scholarly projects ….. and he took time to pray and encourage the very young, very green young pastor who lived on his block .

I have to say that I usually gave him the same prayer requests over and over. Al knew all my junk, all my issues, and I shared with him the depths of my struggles.

I have tears on my face as I type this and think about his love, patience and prayers for me. Like most of the 1000 people who came to the funeral (a sad but very joyful occasion) the 400 people who watched via webcast, and the many who knew him around the world—- I want to be like Al Groves. I want to follow him as he followed Jesus. Al followed Jesus Christ in life, and now he has followed Jesus Christ in facing death with faith.

Here is an excerpt from the words that Al wrote for his own memorial service, urging other people to look to Jesus in both life and death. I offer this to challenge you…… do you have this confidence to face life… and to face death??

“As I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I have walked hand-in-hand with Jesus, the one who has already walked through that valley and come out the other side, alive, raised from the dead. And as I hold his hand and trust him, I too am raised with him, for this was his purpose in walking that path: to raise those who trusted in him. His rod and staff, his cross of suffering have become my comfort. Now as I have died, I come before the God, the king of the universe, and I come in Christ. He chose to suffer and die on the cross in my place, so that on account of him I might have forgiveness from sin and victory over death. And now I have received the resurrection and eternal life that has been my only hope, past, present and forever…..

Through all my life, Christ has been constant. Even as I have grown and changed, he is still the one whom I loved that first day.

Nothing has ever changed in how I come to him; every day of my life the story is the same: I come to God in Christ. His love for me has been steadfast, and he has pursued me through every time I have turned away from Him and every time I have returned.

The constant prayer of my heart for my own life and the lives of those around me has been that we would see Jesus, and that He would be welcome and present among us.

There may be some here who have never trusted Christ for life, who have never known that he is the answer to the sin and death in our lives. I urge you to consider the claims he made to being the Son of God, to consider that he didn’t stay dead and sends a message down through the ages that there is life in Him and him alone. His death on a cross, humiliating though it seemed, was his glory, by which he has defeated our true enemies—sin and death. By the ultimate sacrifice he made, he humiliated all powers arrayed against him.

If you struggle with faith, let me encourage you that in the hardest moments I have faced, he has been there.

And death has been defeated. I am in Christ, as you are in Christ. So let us live out of the grace we have received. Let us live out of Christ. This means looking daily for him, asking him to open your eyes to him, and embracing what you see. Seek him with all your heart. Love him with all your heart. Love those he loves with all your heart, even to the laying down of your life for him. Jesus, the way, the truth, the life. In no other do we have hope. But in him we have hope that endures forever. We grieve, but we grieve with hope. The hope of a resurrection; the hope of life eternal. Together with Jesus.

To read the rest of Al’s words or learn more of his story, go to www.algroves.info.

March 17 07 Susan Bertolino wrote:

You are writing about one of my deepest wounds and the greatest source of my spiritual doubt. I have lost so many people to death. I may be a Christian, but I don’t even know if there is an afterlife or what it is; I only know what I’ve been told. Both my parents are dead; they were not Christians, and I raise my fist upward whenever someone tells me they are burning in hell. On my personal blog, I just did a post on grief and death. When people talk to me about hell, I have to walk away. Even reading this is bringing tears to my eyes. I would give my own life to spare my parents hell. I can’t imagine them suffering those torments. Feel free to pray for me on this one. If God threw my mother, one of the finest women to have graced this planet, into hell, then I am very angry at God.

March 17 07 Steve Huber wrote:

Susan—- I will pray for you. I would encourage you not to judge your parents…. but to let God judge them.. and to commit them to God. God is revealed as just and even more that fair…. as totally merciful in the scripture. A precious passage to me as I think about death is 1 Corinthians 15. The whole chapter is good. The Apostle Paul even says “For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.” (and that would be totally ludicrous given how many witnesses there are, etc). There is even a section in there where Paul refers to deceased relatives of those who have become recently baptized. It’s mysterious and there is a lot of debate on the meaning of the passage—- but there seems to be an early concern of 1st Century Christians “hey— what about my family who have already died.?” Check it out and let me know what you think. I will pray that you will have the peace of Christ as you commit your family into the hands of God, and even as you ask God to have mercy on them.

March 22 07 Ray Ohlinger wrote:

Steve,
Sorry to hear about your friend. It reminds me to be grateful for all of mentors that I have had through the years. Press on brother!
Ray

April 01 07 Brian Rego wrote:

Hey Steve,
You know, I was talking to a buddy of mine today and asked him to pray for me concerning a need of mine I have not addressed for quite some time: a deeper faith in Jesus. Oh man, I struggle with so much doubt. I have head knowledge, but there is an iceberg blocking the road from my head to my heart. I need it melted away. As I read the blog you posted about Al Groves and read what he wrote for his own funeral I thought “man, here is a guy who really knows Jesus.” To be honest bro, I don’t know how I would respond in the face of death; I complain to God about the most mundane, little things. At any rate, I am glad you had the opportunity to share in that man’s life and many helpings of popcorn. There is something really neat about bonding over food…kind of like breaking bread. Thanks for doing what you do.

April 02 07 Nathan M wrote:

This reminds me of something another professor at Westminster once said. It is abundantly clear from Scripture, history, and our own experience that God does not demonstrate his sovereignty by preventing the suffering and physical death of his people. This undeniable fact can and should seriously jolt many of our assumptions about what God should be/do (particularly assumptions of the health/wealth gospel variety, which, though many rightly reject it, can become an unspoken, functional part of our faith insofar as we feel shock that suffering and death still plague those upon whom God’s favor rests).

But this does not make him less sovereign. When dealing with the pain and confusion of losing friends and family to the grim tragedy of death, as well as when reflecting soberly on our own impending death, we would do well, I think, to reflect on how God does demonstrate his sovereignty in redeeming for himself a people.

April 07 07 Steve Huber wrote:

Brian and Nathan,

thanks for both of your comments.
Brian—- I don’t think anyone at Al’s funeral failed to wonder “how would I handle death?” A way to respond in humility and faith to that question is to look to Jesus to give you the faith and strength to handle death…. that right now you don’t have. Remember that Al Groves’ Savior (and Billy Graham’s and Mother Theresa’s) is your Savior and my Savior too. Let’s seek to follow them as they follow Jesus, looking to Jesus to strengthen us when the time comes just as he strengthened them.

Nathan— good call on your post. I think you are right that often we have a functional “God should make me happy and comfortable” theology although we would not want to admit it. This is another way we need to reject the not-so-subte- influence of the American dream and seek to truly embrace all of God’s promises and be shaped by a truly biblical hope.

press on brothers,

steve

Sorry, comments have been turned off for this one