Death and Its Wisdom for the Living
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Introduction:
For every memorial and funeral I preach, I always quote this passage of Scripture.
A good name is better than precious ointment,
and the day of death than the day of birth.
It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
and the living will lay it to heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter,
for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
A good name is better than precious ointment,
and the day of death than the day of birth.
It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
and the living will lay it to heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter,
for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
The author, was considered the wisest man who ever lived. Most scholars believe that author is King Solomon, the Son of David, the King of Israel.
And Solomon reflecting towards the end of his life after experiencing all of life under the Son, says that the day of death is better than the day of death and it is better to be in a funeral home than it is to be at party?
Why?
The reality of death is something all must consider and all must embrace some point in their lives.
The reality of death also teaches the living because it sobers us up. The Bible tells us life is but a vapor, and like the grass of the field, we are here today and gone tomorrow.
As we reflect on the life and death of Connie Dela, I believe reflecting on the reality of death can teach the living several lessons.
Suffering and pain often teaches us life’s greatest lessons. Trials and suffering can make the living wise so that they too can prepare for their on time.
Proposition: I want to focus on three lessons of death, so that the living may become wise and we find comfort in the hope of the gospel.
The first lesson that death teaches is that every person on this planet will one day face this reality...
I. Death comes to all mankind
I. Death comes to all mankind
We praise God that mommy Dela lived a long and fruitful life. And as her time as come, we must realize that soon our time will come as well.
Mommy Dela lived a long life
Whether you are 7 or whether 70, death comes to all mankind. Death may come for some suddenly through a tragic accident or terminal disease, slowly for others, and expectantly through old age.
Whatever the case, each one of us have to embrace this reality.
A fool is one who thinks he can avoid this reality through a life of pleasure or one who thinks he can escape this reality altogether.
The point is, that all of us will have to embrace this reality one day whether you are young or old.
The question is not if death will come, it is when death will come and what do we do about it?
Both religious and non-religious people seek to make sense of this dark reality. For some, death means we simply return to the dust and cease to exist altogether. For eastern religions, death is the transition to reincarnation. If you live a good life and earned good karma, you will be rewarded and be reincarnated into this next life. If you lived a bad life, and had bad karma, you will inherit a bad life.
For the Jewish and Christian worldview, both Jew and Christian believe that after death comes judgment
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
What should we do when death comes?
1. Reflect
A good name is better than precious ointment,
and the day of death than the day of birth.
Honor is given to those who lived blessed and fruitful lives. Mommy Dela had 7 children and many more grandchildren. I was told she heard the gospel from Tito Sonny and also one of our elderly Deacons that taught her the fear of the LORD.
Reflect on the memories, the good times, the laughs you had with her, the meals she cooked for you, the quirks she had. Reflect on her life.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
The memory of the righteous is a blessing,
but the name of the wicked will rot.
2. Grieve
It is normal to shed tears. This is an appropriate time to cry and grieve. Someone who was so dear to us is no longer with us. Someone who raised us, fed us, taught us, cared for us, and loved us is no longer in our presence.
Even the Lord Jesus Christ in his humanity wept at the thought of his friend’s Lazarus departure.
It is right and appropriate to grieve.
Transition: Death teaches us that this comes to all mankind...
II. Death is an enemy of all mankind
II. Death is an enemy of all mankind
The reason why we grieve and cry is because we know that this is not the way its supposed to be.
Deep down in our hearts, we know that death is an enemy that takes away life.
Jesus Christ wept because of he was grieved at his friend’s death, but I believe he probably wept because he knew that death was not part of God’s original design.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
When God made the world, God declared everything to be good and in fact very good.
The first two chapters of Genesis describe perfect paradise with God in perfect fellowship with the eternal God and perfect fellowship with one another.
It is only until we get to Chapter three where the ancient enemy of God’s people, the Devil, is introduced and tempted man to rebel against God’s loving commands.
God commanded man to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and in that day they eat they shall surely die.
And Satan said it was better to disobey so that they can be like God and that God was an unkind God withholding information from them, and therefore they ate.
And the minute they ate, everything change. A dark shadow was cast over humanity and is cast over all us today.
Death is the shadow cast over humankind because of our disobedience to God and as a result of our first parents we experience the curse of sin.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
Death is a result of the curse. And we are curse because the Bible tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
In other words, every person on this planet has chosen to reject God’s ways and God’s loving commands and choose to live lives apart from our Maker.
And because God is a holy and righteous God, he must punish and deal with sin.
And through one man’s sin, came death to all mankind.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Death is an enemy of mankind. It is a curse. It is a curse we all bear. It is a consequence of rejecting our maker. And all of us stand guilty before our Creator and all of us must stand before our Maker and give an account.
Transition: Death comes to all, death is an enemy, but this is where the good news of Christianity comes in, death has been conquered by the Lamb who was slain.
III. Death has been conquered by the Savior of all mankind
III. Death has been conquered by the Savior of all mankind
Death came into the world as a result of man’s sin, but God sent His Son into the the world to reverse the curse of man’s sin.
Because Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they were cast out of paradise and forbidden to eat from the tree of eternal life.
The Bible tells us that the Son of God, left heaven, in God’s plan before the foundation of the world, to enter into our humanity. Enter into our temptations. Enter into our weaknesses. And at the right time, enter into our death so that he can take the curse for us.
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,
“As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest,’ ”
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this passage he said,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
where your fathers put me to the test
and saw my works for forty years.
Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
they have not known my ways.’
As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
And the good news of Christianity is that Jesus Christ hung on the tree of death for our sins, so that we can one day have the tree of life through his victory over death.
Christ came to die for man’s sin. To bear our curse. And to reverse the effects of death through rising again from the dead.
This is the Christian gospel of all who believe in Christ alone. This gift is given for those who embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and turn from their sins and follow Him.
Heaven will be a place where all have access to the tree of eternal life because the Son of God hung on a tree of death to give eternal life to all who come humbly and embrace him by faith.
So that in death, the believer is in the presence of God even though her body may remain waiting for the resurrection of the dead when the Son of God appears in glory to take both living and those in the grave with him.
This is why believers can grieve with glorious and bright hope even in pain because Jesus died. Jesus rose. And Jesus is coming again.
Tomorrow, we will reflect on the reward of the believer. What does the believer gain when he or she dies.
And for Mommy Dela. She gains Christ and life eternal when she embraced Him as Lord. So we can grieve at her departure, but we can also rejoice that she is in the presence of God.
Death is a teacher. It teaches us:
It comes to all
It is an enemy
It has been Conquered by the Lord of life.
Non-Christian
If you have not embraced Christ, this would be a good opportunity to do so. If you are wise, you will take these lessons to heart because one day death will come to you.
And you will have to answer to God for every deed whether good or evil.
And if you are standing on your own righteousness and your own works, you will be judged forever because you cannot pay an infinite debt to an infinite God.
But if you trust in Christ alone, turn away from your sins, receive and confess him as Lord, the one who bore your curse and the one who rose again on your behalf, then your future and eternity our secured because He lives, you till live live.
Do not reject the wisdom in the reality of Death’s teaching. Embrace Christ and turn to Him today.
Sorrow is better than laughter,
for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise
than to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:3-