Keanu Reeves’ Thoughts on Mortality, and My Message to Him

Hey there. Thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie, encouraging you.

If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org. Keanu Reeves is one of the most successful actors in Hollywood. Some estimate his fortune to be beyond $300 million with films like The Matrix series or the John Wick series. But recently he was being interviewed and he had some interesting reflections on the topic that a lot of people don't want to talk about. Keanu Reeves said this about his own mortality and death. I'm 59, so I'm thinking about death all the time. Still very young.

I'm like, I'm young old. I mean, I think thinking about death is good. Hopefully it sensitizes to an appreciation of the breath we have and the relationships that we have the potential to have.

Those are some great statements and I think he's very smart to be thinking about this at this stage of his life. You know, in Days Gone By, they would write a certain phrase over financial documents. In other words, over your bank account, how much money you had, they would write these words, memento mori, which translated means think of death.

It wasn't meant to do in a morbid way, but in a reflective way. In other words, hey, all this money you have, think of death. Life is going to end.

You know, the statistics on death are quite impressive. One out of every one person will die. So the real question is not if we're going to die, but rather when are we going to die.

And I think even the more important question is what happens beyond the grave. In an interview with the Associated Press back in 2005, Keanu was asked, what are your notions of heaven and hell, eternal damnation versus eternal bliss? Reeves responded, well, I hope I get the bliss and I know I'm going to have to work for it. But Keanu, listen, let me tell you, here's how you get the bliss, so to speak. Here's how you have the hope of heaven. You don't work for it. The work has already been done by Jesus Christ when he died on the cross and shut his blood for all of our sins and gave that statement.

It is finished. There's nothing I can do to earn salvation. It's a gift of God that he offers freely to everyone out there. An issue about death is what happens beyond the grave, what happens in the afterlife. According to the Bible, there is a heaven or eternal bliss as that question was framed. And there also is a hell, eternal separation from God.

We decide in this life where we will spend the afterlife. So Keanu, as you're thinking about your mortality, think about Jesus. He loves you. He has a plan for you.

There's a number of articles talking about how generous and kind and how down to earth of a person Keanu Reeves is, and I think that's fantastic. But the most important thing is that you come to Christ and say, Lord, I know I'm a sinner and I know you're the Savior and I choose to believe in you. That's not just for Keanu Reeves. That's for everyone.

That's for you. And if you make that decision, you can have the hope that you will spend the afterlife in the presence of God. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Then Jesus followed up with this question after he made that statement. Do you believe this? Do you? I hope you do.