2-14-2016 Bioethics Part 44

The speaker starts by praying for guidance in discussing the Christian virtues of hope and love. They emphasize the importance of prayer in cultivating hope and remind listeners that the kingdom of God has come in Jesus, but not yet in its fullness. They discuss the distinction between faith and hope, highlighting that hope looks towards the future. Prayer is beneficial for those nearing death as it is one of the few things they can do without physical abilities. The speaker stresses the importance of practicing hope through prayer in order to face death well. They then transition to discussing the virtue of love, explaining that Christian love is different from other forms of love as it is not solely based on emotions but on God's love for us. Christian love requires self-sacrifice and is directed towards both God and others. The speaker emphasizes the importance of receiving love as well as giving it. They mention the difficulty of allowing others to help us, especially as we near de Alright, let's pray and get started. God, we thank you for this morning, and for your word, and for each other, and we pray that you would help us think well about what it means to live well, in the face of death, in Jesus' name, Amen. So last week, as we're marching our way through the Christian virtues that we've been focusing on in particular during this time of study in bioethics, these are not the only virtues, these are not the sum total of the virtues, there's many more we could talk about, but we decided to pick six that are of particular relevance in the topic of bioethics. Last week we finished talking about hope, and we talked about love. So when we looked at hope, we were talking about the issue of prayer, so how prayer helps us to cultivate hope, especially focusing on death. So how does prayer build hope in us? It's particularly helpful towards death. That is correct, and it is. What happens when we pray? It reminds us of things that we already may know, but in praying that's what we're reminding ourselves of. Yeah, absolutely. When we pray, we remind ourselves of things that are true. So give me an example of something that we ought to pray for that would ground us in hope as a Christian. Looking towards death. Thy kingdom come. Thy kingdom come. There we go. There's a good one. How does that one work out? Well, we know that God's kingdom has come in the person of Jesus, but not completely. Great. So God's kingdom has come in the person of Jesus, but not completely. So if it had already come in its fullness, then we would not be praying in hope. We might be praying in faith, but what's the distinction between faith and hope? Hope is in the distance. That's right. When we pray thy kingdom come, we pray that in a sense of earnest expectation and a lot of assurance because it has come in the person of Jesus and so we're sure it's going to come again, but it's not here right now. So we long for that day, but with great assurance and because we pray for that, we remind ourselves that's where we're headed as the people of God. We are headed towards the kingdom of God. If that does not give you hope in the face of death, then there's not much that will because you're going to die and you're going to go somewhere. And that idea goes like, oh yeah, I'm reminding myself through prayer of where I am going and also all of God's people. Good. What is the unique thing about prayer, especially as we get close to dying, or not the unique thing, but what is very beneficial to the dying about prayer, especially those who are at the point of death, who are maybe physically incapacitated? There you go. Yeah. It's one of the only things you've got left to do. You don't have to be able to see, speak, hear, move, you don't have to do anything to pray. You just have to be alive. However, that doesn't mean prayer is going to be easy. Prayer is always going to be difficult. For some of us, prayer is more difficult than for others. However, prayer is something that we can do even up until the very moment of our death. We talk about this as a theological virtue that we need to practice now for what reason? What's going to happen if we don't practice the grounding of ourselves in hope through prayer starting today? Probably not going to be doing it when we're dying. It is not the default move of people who are dying. I know, I'll pray. That sounds like a good idea. What's the default move of people who are dying, even if they're Christians? Panic. That's right, I'm going to freak out. Why? Because I'm dying and this is terrible. Makes sense. So, we need to work at dying well. One of those ways is by praying in hope. The other one is love that we looked at. Love is significantly different from faith and hope in that it's not just directed towards God but also towards our neighbor. Christian love is distinct in a number of ways. How is Christian love distinct from just kind of the love that a non-Christian might have for somebody? Which is legitimate love. So, there's lots of comparisons, but what's a distinction? It's not based purely on our own emotions. Right? Yeah, that's a big one. It's not based on just our own emotions towards others. What is it based on? God's love for us. Amen. Why is that so helpful or necessary in any culture at any point in time? If it's just based on my love for whoever I feel like loving, then who will I love? Just the people that I find myself loving. I will not love anybody I do not want to love, which is not Christian at all, even a little bit. Okay? Any other distinctions between Christian love and other kinds of love? What does Christian love entail of me towards you? Sacrifice. That's right. Love is something that we would all kind of say, now some people might say that, but Christian love necessitates self-sacrificial, self-giving. Why is that? Is it just because God commands us to do that? Or does it go beyond that? That's right. That's what Jesus has done for us. God never asks of us anything for us to do towards our neighbor that God has not already done towards us. We talked quite a bit about the importance of not only giving love, but also receiving love and the need to practice that. Why is it so important to practice the art of receiving love today? Because we want to do everything on our own, and especially looking towards death, what is going to be impossible as we near death? It'll be, that's right, the thing that we most long for now, we will still long for in death and will make us very upset in death should we be unable to do it. We want to believe that we have the ability to do everything ourselves. And as you near death, what are you not going to be able to do? Most likely, should you not, like, die in your sleep one night, healthy 56 year old person or something. What is it that you're going to lose the ability to do? Huh? Be autonomous? Yeah. In what ways? Like, you're not going to be able to drive? There you go, yeah. You might not be able to do almost anything, like, take a shower, like, clean yourself, feed yourself. If you do not practice the art of allowing others to help you now, then you will be naturally uncomfortable with others helping you as you near death. Now, this is always important to say, if you and I practice the art of allowing others to help us today, will it be easy to die and have people help us in death? Heck no, it's never going to be easy. This though, is the only way forward, and it also has the side benefit of being glorifying to God as we both give and receive love from each other. So we not only aid ourselves in the process of dying, we also are obedient to God in life as we head towards death. So this week we're going to talk about the remaining virtues, we'll see if we get through these, three of them, the three C's, contentment, courage, and constancy. We'll start with contentment, David Van Drunen helpfully says, contentment is the virtue by which we submit to and find peace in God's will for our condition in every circumstance in life. The virtue by which we submit to and find peace in God's will for our condition in every circumstance of life. I think that we would be very much on an agreement, you can voice your disagreement with this statement, we here today, in particular, but through time, have never been very good at practicing the virtue of contentment. What is it about our time and place, in particular, that makes contentment a rare thing? Okay, technology makes it so there's always more, there's always new, that's right, any other ideas? We have a lot of exposure, yeah, how does that work itself out? That's right, we know what the rich people have, and we can even take it a step further than just we know what the rich people have, what is the way most people feel about what the rich people have? They want it, and take that even a step further, they deserve it, that's right, why do they deserve it? Because I'm American, right, it's crazy, it's the craziest thing on the face of the planet, however, we sincerely believe that, way deep down, some of us are just more honest about it than other people, right, that's really all it comes down to. I deserve to have the best life humanly possible, the Constitution, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of happiness means I get whatever the heck I want. Our entire economy is based on a big C word, anybody know what it is? Consumption, right, and this is not a public policy speech or anything like that, this is just facts of the matter, consumption, our economy is based on consumption, that means that in order to keep the country afloat, your patriotic duty is to do what? Buy stuff! So we have built a society on the basis of whatever the crap is that you have is not enough, there's always something else that you need, it is your duty to continue to not only buy more stuff, but to buy the new stuff. That wars at every point against contentment and, this should not be shocking, do you find Americans to be rather content people, yes or no? No! Not even close. Now, I have a large amount of time spent outside of the United States and I can tell you that contentment is hard to come by everywhere you are, however, there is no place I've ever found less content than this place. And the really sad part is Christians are no more content on the whole than non-Christians. We're just as selfish, we're just as driven by our wants as everybody else. What are the grounds for Christian contentment? Well, let me tell you what it's not. The grounds for Christian contentment cannot be that everything is going to go well for you in life. That is a lie that many Christians believe and, paradoxically, that is a reason they are not content. Why is it that we cannot believe that everything will go well for us? Because it does not go well, that's right, this is kind of the Sunday School answer, right? It looks like a duck, it's probably a duck. Life will not go well for you. We know that life will not go well for us on the basis of a number of things. Do we have any ways in which we can guess that life will probably not go well for us, at least as well as we are expecting? We all grow old, okay? Jesus said we would suffer and die. We live in a fallen world. He put the Jesus theme. He did not only say that we would suffer and die, what is true of Jesus? Jesus suffered and died. It is hard to call yourself a disciple of Jesus and to then expect to not do what Jesus did in both life and in death. If your death is anything short of a public execution in the most painful way humanly possible, you got off easier than the one you follow. And if you do happen to get beheaded by terrorists, you just got what Jesus got, right? Kudos. You get to join the club. Contentment cannot be based on the fact that life will go well for us, especially when we are promised the exact opposite. We'll hear a little bit about that this morning in Exodus. Our contentment will often match our expectations for life. Have you ever found that to be true? Ask people why they are not content and they will never say because I just wish I could suffer a little bit more. Talk to people who are elderly, not old, just elderly, and if you really drill down and get to what they regret is that life did not turn out exactly the way they wanted it to. Our contentment will match our expectations. Let's look at the grounds of what Christian contentment might be. The book of Hebrews, chapter 13, is a good place to look at this, there's plenty of examples we can find. The writer of Hebrews is giving some closing admonitions, encouragements, and exhortations to the people who are most likely sitting under the sermon, this is probably a sermon, that's for a different day. Hebrews chapter 13, we'll begin in verse 1. Let brotherly love continue, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares, I will not answer what the heck that means. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor amongst all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for, he has said, I will never leave you or forsake you. So we can confidently say the Lord is my helper, I will not fear, what can man do to me? Here we have two things, the exhortation to be content, and the grounds for Christian contentment. What are the grounds? What is the foundation for Christian contentment according to this verse? Who the heck is speaking? Jesus. And then it goes on, there's a second one. What's going on there? That's right, where does that come from? Well, I mean, just don't take a guess, follow it. Psalm 118. There we go. So the author is going to Jesus, and he's going back to David, right, saying, look, the assumption of the writer of the Hebrews is, that based upon the profession of our faith, what is the natural condition for a Christian? What should I expect from you, what should you expect from me if I call myself a disciple of Jesus? There we go, that leads to contentment, all right, tough room today, yes, it is the expectation. So I'm not encouraging you to be content, I expect you to be content. Now contentment is hard, therefore, if you lack contentment, let's say this, I'm going to play the role of the lackee of contentment, I am malcontent, it's a great word. What is your encouragement to me, as a Christian, if I lack contentment, according to what you have learned in Hebrews chapter 13? Trust what? God. God, why? I'm just asking for somebody to play off of Hebrews 13. Who? God will never leave me or forsake me, so? So I have everything I need, uh, oh, okay, good. I guess I should be content, right? That kind of kills it, I could rage against the machine all I want, but the reality is that if God exists, and if he has given me all that I need, then you need to be content. Why would you be not content? What has God not given to you that you need? What do you lack? What? Yeah, I mean, essentially, that's all I can say is, well, I'm not God. But notice, a lack of contentment is, at the end of the day, what? Idolatry of what? Exactly. I would absolutely agree. This is a provocative statement, but I believe that a lack of contentment is idolatry, it's sin, it's hatred towards God, it's believing that you deserve something from God that you don't actually deserve. Therefore, if you comfort me in my lack of contentment, what are you doing? You are sinning, and you are helping me do what? Sin, continue my idolatry. Now, this is rather provocative, because what we think is, I just need to love you, which is true, but love works itself out in saying, don't follow the false idol that you are currently following. It will lead to death, because what you are saying is actually saying something profound about God. Most of our sin says something really wrong about God, not just wrong about our situation. This is a big one. So contentment is not just something that I hope is formed in you. Now I can't just exhort you into the kingdom of heaven, I have to give you all the reason in the world for why you ought to be content, however, like the writer of Hebrews is saying, if this is the Jesus you say you believe in, and if this is the God you worship, the God not just of the New Testament, but of the Old, then you have every reason to be content. Pursue contentment. How would you, or how could you, not pursue contentment? This is one of the reasons why theology matters. Here, it is the permanence of God with His people that grounds the call to Christian contentment. There is a very legalistic way of producing contentment in another person. Could you please help me with giving a very legalistic, pseudo-Christian argument for why I ought to be content? I have Jesus! That's right. Yeah. Now there is no explanation of what that means. It's like, well I also have, you know, a mountain of debt, and I have whatever. So if you just leave it at, I have Jesus, it's like, well what has Jesus done for me? That statement, remember, you can't assume anything about what other people know or believe. It's like, I also have a cold, but that's not helping me out. Why is me having, whatever that means, Jesus, help me? Right, that's true, but I'm asking for a bad argument. Bad. Right? That was a good one, huh? I'm going to be rich when I get to heaven, that's right, you're just going to be rich. You know, we walk on streets of gold, so you know, don't worry about it. Huh? Count your blessings, that's right. Or, right, here's the classic one, there's starving children in Africa, right? Which is a true statement. It's like, well how does that help me? Oh, I should just feel guilty about how I feel right now? Thank you. That is very motivating. This is showing, now to get to the good part, if we're victorious in Jesus, right, okay, I can be content, if Jesus will never leave me or forsake me, why does theology matter? Because the permanence of God with his people grounds Christian contentment. If I don't have that, if I have a capricious God that can come or leave when he wants, then is there any way that I could say that God will never leave me or forsake me? No. Pharaoh is going to attack the Israelites after he got whooped up on because he had a false view of God. You will do a terrible job of growing in contentment or helping others grow in contentment if your view of God is messed up. This is why theology matters a lot, like reason 4,632. So now, turn the corner, why is the virtue of contentment so important when it comes to death? There's a number of answers to this. Anybody? What? Death is not an escape? How does that apply to contentment? Huh? Yeah, absolutely. If you lack contentment and you're just upset here, and you just want to escape and get out of here, then you'll view death as some kind of weird thing, and then you'll also just give up on living, probably, just like, I just want to die. Why? Because then I'll be fine, because I'm so upset with this life. Yeah. What else? It's always easiest for me to answer these kinds of questions if I picture that I am at nearing death. Why would I lack contentment? Why would you lack contentment? What would be upsetting to you? Let's get real personal up in here. Bingo. That is a big one. When you are on your deathbed, should God give you the blessed opportunity of dying slowly, then you will have much time to regret all the things you didn't do. Here's the interesting thing. There was a fascinating debate on Intelligence Squared US a couple weeks ago about do we or maybe a week ago about do we live long enough? Should we extend human life spans? If we could expand human health spans, so not just like living longer, but living longer well, should we pursue that? Or are we okay with living about 120 years? And there was a debate on both sides. And one of the guys who was arguing that we live long enough and that we shouldn't pursue indefinite living had a fantastic argument, and the argument went something like this. Human life and the choices that we make are valuable because we are limited beings. Because just as in business, everything that we choose to do means we don't do something else. Every decision we make has an opportunity cost associated with it. And that's what makes the decisions actually valuable. I don't have an infinite number of choices to make. I have a very limited number. I know that my life is finite and will not go on. That leads to frustration on some things because I can't do everything. But it means that everything that I do decide to do is very valuable. I have decided to be a pastor. Now, as most of you know, I wrestle to believe that I cannot do everything that I desire to do in this life, so I try to do 10,000 things. But still, even then, there's lots of things that I would like to do that I can't do. You have decided to do whatever it is that you want to do. You could change your profession, right? Gabby is going to be a nurse. Lila is a nurse. That's all nurses up in here? Yeah, alright. You guys could stop being nurses or pursuing being nurses and pursue something else. But what that would do is shut down, for the rest of all time, nursing for you. Now, that might be a good decision or a bad decision for you, but that is an opportunity cost you have to take upon yourself because you can't do that anymore. The rest of you are not nurses. You could become nurses, but then you would not be whatever it is you are now. And even deciding to become a nurse, you are literally deciding to not be 10 million other things. Our lives are valuable because we have to make very expensive kinds of decisions. But if we are not working on contentment, then when we come to the end of our lives, we'll get mad about all the things we didn't do. And just in case you think I'm wrong, you should hang out with some dying people that have not done a very good job of appreciating the life that they have been given now because many people are very upset about all that they didn't do instead of being excited about what they did do. It is a very important task that we must go about doing. This dying well thing. What else? Think about the dying process and the opportunities you are going to have to either pursue or not pursue certain treatments. If you lack contentment, what is going to be your default motivation? Get more treatment. What's the treatment? Doesn't matter. I'm going to do it. Why? Because I'm not going to die. Why? Because I want to die. Why? Because I'm not done. Why? Because I've got to do more. Why? Because that's what I want to do. No thought to anybody else. No contentment in oneself in the life that one has lived. I'm just going to do that thing. This happens time and time and time again. If I'm not content in Christ, death will be terrifying and I will eat everything out of it at all costs. Also, if I lack contentment, what happens when my body starts falling apart? What's the default? Imagine just not being able to do anything. Somebody has to give you a bath every day. What is the way you will probably feel? Just thinking about that. Angry. That's right. And if you lack contentment with the fact of receiving and the inability to receive love from other people, then terrible things will seem like the most viable option to you, such as doctor-assisted suicide. Why? Because I'm not content with the life that I currently lead and my goal is to just be content in this life and I will live this life on my own terms. I am not content with the life that God has given me to live. I will only live as I desire to live. If that's true, and if that's the way we ought to be pursuing life, then you have no right to tell anybody that they shouldn't take their own life. None. And if you are going to say, we're going to talk about doctor-assisted suicide, it's going to be really encouraging and uplifting. It's very important and it all comes down to these kinds of things like contentment. If you are going to look people in the face and say, I understand your desire to die and it's wrong, you better think and have a reason why instead of, I just feel that way. When that person is the one that's suffering every day of their lives and you're not that person. Now, you might think that doctor-assisted suicide is fine. It's not a Christian option and I'm going to explain why when we get there. But, we have to understand why people would desire to do that and what it's going to demand of other human beings to not have people even consider that option. Much like what we talked about when it came to abortion. Contentment. If you and I are not practicing contentment now, just like every other virtue, then you do not have a prayer of practicing contentment when everything starts falling apart. You cannot be content with the life that you have lived at the end if you have not been content now. It's not a light switch. None of these virtues are light switches. It is all the process of a life lived. Now, the nice thing about all these is that these virtues are not impossible to pursue. As we've seen, these things are not some kind of really complicated philosophical moves that you've really got to think through. It's just the art of going, okay, why am I alive? Who is God? Who am I? Who's my neighbor? What does it mean to live well? That's really all we're doing. Week in and week out. That's contentment. Any questions on that one? Yes? Are there things that we're not to be content with? Absolutely. Yeah. You want to tease that question out, what you're thinking of? Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. So, God's Word shapes what we are content with and not content with. 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