He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!”He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are therefore badly mistaken.”He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: ye do greatly err.
4 sermons cite this verse
… 34, excuse me, where he says, God is not the God of the dead but of the living. And that's something we all wonder about. What happens after I die? Do I simply cease to exist like Natalie Portman thinks? Or do I actually continue on? Well, the bottom line is everybody is immortal in one sense. I don't care what your beliefs are or what your lack of beliefs are. It doesn't matter if you're a Republican or a Democrat or a Socialist or a Communist or a Capitalist or a man or a woman. of that matters. You are going to live on in the next life for sure. Now you say, well, that's good, right? Well, that all depends. Let's say I came to you and said, hey, I've got you a one-way ticket to a place that you've never been to before. And you're excited because you've never traveled before. In fact, you've never even been on an airplane. You can't wait to go. I suggest you ask me where that one-way ticket is to before you get excited. If I reveal to you it's a one-way ticket to outer Siberia and the dead of winter, this is not a good thing. If I reveal to you it's a one-way ticket to the island of Maui, this is a good thing. So it all comes down to where am I going? So when I say you'll live forever, you might think, well, that's good. But if you're not a believer, that's …
… You are erring in your way of thinking. he goes on to say that God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. And he did that by saying this. This is awesome. Jesus said, the Lord is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You guys, they've been dead for thousands of years. And Jesus said that they were alive. Now, you gotta, listen, we gotta wrap this up this morning. You've got to square this away. Jesus Christ is saying to you that those who believed in him in the past and died, their body died. Their body died. They immediately went to be with the Lord. And in the resurrection, they get their bodies back. But hallelujah, we don't get these bodies back. We get our bodies resurrected back. So what does that mean? That means this body? I'm going to get my body back, but it's not going to be, it's going to be, it's going to be 2.0. Body. You see, wait, wait, wait. …
… I serve the God that will supersede your need. He is not the God of enough. He is the God of more than enough. In fact, put this next one on the screen. This is who God is. He is not the God of bare minimum. He is not the God of just enough to get by. He is not the God of scraps of mercy. Scarcity is the language of earth. Overflow is the language of heaven. I don't serve the God that's like, we're gonna just barely get you enough to get by, and you're just gonna, you know, just have, we're just, here's some scraps of mercy, and we just want you to just hang on by a thread. No, no, no. God doesn't have scraps of mercy. God has fresh, fresh mercy for you here today. He is exceedingly, abundantly, far above anything you could ever imagine in your mind. This is just his nature. It's who he is. He's not trying to give you just a little bare minimum. I'll never forget years ago, I was preaching at this church in Munster, Indiana. Hallelujah. And the pastor's wife got up and she went to pray for all the people. And she said, then anybody in need, come up to the front. It felt like the whole church is in the front. I said, man, I feel like I'm at Zoe. Hallelujah. And the pastor's wife says something. I'll never forget it. She says, I pray that you'd be so blessed that when you walk through the grocery aisles, you can just …
… But he could not, would not stay buried. For ours is not the God of the dead, but of the living. This is the promise that God makes to you and me in his word. He promises that in holy baptism, he joins you to himself. He promises that though you and I may pass away from this mortal life, you do not die forever. He promises that a day is coming, perhaps today, when Christ Jesus will come again and transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body. For ours is not the God of the dead, but of the living. and he promises that nothing will separate you from his love. Despite all the ways that we lose sight of him, lose track of what's most important, he never has and he never will. He ever and always keeps a laser-like focus on making you his own. Neither life nor death nor anything in creation will separate you from his love. For ours is not the God of the dead, but of the living. …