Life & Death

Blessed Be Your Name

WELCOME

Welcome! (in-person/online)

In Psalm 119, the psalmist prays: “Consider how I love your precepts! Give me life according to your steadfast love. The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.” (159-160)

We’re here because we believe God’s Word brings life!

In just a moment we’ll hear a reading from the text for today’s sermon in Genesis 2:4. Turn there now.

While you’re turning, 5 quick announcements:

1) A word about PBC. We are Disciples.

One of the ways we grow in our walk with Jesus is by growing deeper in our knowledge of His Word and His ways

Gentle and Lowly

More than enough for everyone here!

2) TableTalk tonight at 5:30—Marriage According to Jesus (the persons in marriage)

Thirty years ago, public opinion surveys found that almost 68% of Americans opposed same-sex marriage

A recent poll found that today over 70% of Americans support it

Now we’re under intense pressure to get in line

Every Christian needs to know what the Bible teaches and how to defend it

3) Next Sunday night, update from the Associate Pastor search team

We encourage all parents of teenagers and older children to attend

4) Fellowship Group Sign-Ups

Our next round will begin in two weeks

Sign up at the blue flag or online

5) Ladies Brunch, 9/18 from 11am-1pm

Debbie Wells speaking about biblical contentment!

You can RSVP and sign up for brunch on the website, or at the blue flag

Now look in your Bibles at Genesis 2:4 as Phoebe Garcia comes to read for us.

Scripture Reading (Genesis 2:4-17)

Prayer of Praise (God is Omniscient, Phoebe Garcia)

Let the Nations Be Glad

Behold Our God

Prayer of Confession (Bitterness, Sam Garcia)

Amazing Grace

New City Catechism #33

Should those who have faith in Christ seek their salvation through their own works, or anywhere else?

No, they should not, as everything necessary to salvation is found in Christ. To seek salvation through good works is a denial that Christ is the only Redeemer and Savior.

Pastoral Prayer (Mike Lindell)

SERMON

Is every human life worth living?

That’s the question asked by two German professors in their 1920 book, Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens.

DEE

FRY-gah-bay

DER

ver-NEEK-toong

LAY-bins-oon-VER-ten

LAY-bins

The book title roughly translates, Permitting the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life.

Lebensunwerten Lebens—life unworthy of life—eventually became a philosophy among the German medical elites.

Was it right to waste limited and expensive medical resources on those whose lives weren’t worth living?

The brain damaged, the intellectually disabled, and the psychiatrically ill were considered "mentally dead" and "empty shells of human beings".

Surely killing such people would be useful, both for the good of the individual and the good of society as a whole. Some lives were only worthy of death.

Within two decades, this philosophy moved from academic papers in the German academy to political realities in Berlin.

Lebensunwerten Lebens—life unworthy of life—would become a rallying cry for Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.

First came the forced sterilization of those considered ''hereditarily sick.” No one knows for sure how many were sterilized, but estimates range from 200K to 350K people. [1]

Then came the mandatory registration of any child aged 3 and under suffering from a handicap or serious medical condition.

Those children whose lives were considered “unworthy of life” were taken to killing centers called ''Children's Specialty Institutions'' or ''Therapeutic Convalescent Institutions.'' [2]

Yes, the prince of death often appears as an angel of light.

Eventually the program was expanded to include the extermination of youths considered juvenile delinquents.

Then, came the Sanitariums and nursing homes. Doctors of long-term patients would fill out a form listing a patient’s various medical conditions. That form would be sent to a Nazi administrator who would mark the form with a red “x”—meaning this was another life unworthy of life—or a blue dash, meaning the patient should be permitted to live. [3]

The “Common Welfare Ambulance Service” would then pick up those lives considered unworthy of life, and transport them to one of six killing centers.

It was only matter of time until the slow and secret extermination of the mentally handicapped and physically disabled paved way for “The Final Solution,” the Nazi plan to exterminate an entire ethnic group.

Lebensunwerten Lebens was the justification for the systemic murder of millions of people whose lives were not considered worthy of life, from the mentally and physically handicapped, to political opponents and the so-called ethnically inferior.

Here’s the question I want to ask you this morning. Why is Lebensunwerten Lebens wrong?

I don’t know of a single person alive who would rationally argue for the mass extermination of human life on the same scale as Nazi Germany. But why not on a smaller scale?

Why is it wrong to encourage the sterilization of young people, so they don’t bring new life into a weary world?

Why is it wrong to encourage a pregnant mother to exterminate the unborn life within her based on the results of an amniocentesis test?

Why is it wrong to take the life of a human being whose so-called “quality of life” does not meet our standards?

Why is it wrong to allow people to choose death with dignity?

To answer these and other questions, you need to understand the distinction between life and death.

Turn to Genesis 2

Week 4 of a mini-series on five Divine Distinctions in Genesis 1-2.

Understanding these distinctions is critical to a firm foundation in a biblical worldview.

We’ve considered the distinctions between...

The Creator and the creation.

Humanity and the rest of creation

Male and female

Today we’ll examine the distinction between life and death.

Genesis 2:7-9, 15-17—then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

. . .

15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Two questions:

what does this mean?

why does it matter?

1. What Does This Mean?

Four implications...

A. Life is a GIFT from God

Genesis 2:7—then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Why did God create?

He wasn’t lonely. He didn’t need someone to love. (Trinity!)

He overflowed into life.

Like a husband and wife’s love for one another overflows into new little lives to love, the Father’s love for Son and Spirit overflows into created life

This life is a good gift

Seven times in Genesis 1 God looks at what He’s created and calls it “good”

James 1:17—Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

It is not a person’s so-called quality of life that makes it worth living. Every human life is precious, not because of its quality but because of its source!

B. Death is an unnatural CONSEQUENCE

Genesis 2:17—but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Death is not a natural part of the created order. It’s an unnatural consequence. It’s the result of sin.

Think about the garden. Adam and Eve's eventual death wasn’t a tit for tat. They died because that’s what sin does. The essence of sin is death. It’s running away from the God of life. It always leads to pain and destruction.

Romans 5:12—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.

Sin is a Trojan horse! It promises pleasure and fun, it looks like freedom and self-expression! But on the inside it’s death.

God’s Word isn’t trying to kill your fun, it’s trying to save your life!

C. Life and death are a CHOICE

Genesis 2:16-17—And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Adam and Eve had a choice, and they chose death

Much later, God’s people would be given the same choice. This time not from a garden paradise but a barren wilderness.

Deuteronomy 30:15-20—“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in His ways, and by keeping His commandments and His statutes and His rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live.

God’s people would promise to choose life, but in the end they couldn’t keep their promise.

Their hearts would turn away, they wouldn’t listen to God’s Word, they would serve other gods

Today each and every one of us are given the same choice. And to a person, every one of us chooses the same death that our first parents chose

Romans 3:10-12—As it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

But I’m not that bad!

Ten commandments—you’ve broken God’s law

Romans 6:23—For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

But the punishment doesn’t fit the crime!

Punching dad, teacher, cop, president [Greater degrees of punishment for greater authority]

Is there any hope? If we’re all given this choice, but none of us choose rightly why does anything matter?

Jesus chose the path of life (He never sinned)

Yet He willingly chose a substitutionary death (He died in our place)

2 Corinthians 5:21—For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Repent and believe

D. God is SOVEREIGN over life and death

God is sovereign over life (breathing life to Adam and Eve)

God is sovereign over death (He warns that death is the consequence of sin)

And their physical death occurs in God’s timing

Genesis 5:5—Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.

God is sovereign over life and death

Hannah prays...

1 Samuel 2:6—The LORD kills and brings to life; He brings down to Sheol and raises up.

God Himself says...

Deuteronomy 32:39—See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god beside Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of My hand.

This is important, because when we say life and death are a choice, we do not mean that you should be able to choose when you stop living.

Yes, you can choose the path of life and follow Jesus who is Life, or you can choose the path of death and chase after the sin that kills you.

But we do not mean you have authority over when to end your life

You didn’t decide to be born, you should not decide when you will die.

God is sovereign over life and death.

The distinction between life and death teaches us that life is a good gift from God, death is an unnatural consequence, each of us has a choice, yet God is sovereign over life and death.

2. Why Does This Matter?

Four applications...

A. LIFE is worth fighting for

Yoda to Anakin in Revenge of the Sith—"Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice, for those around you who transform into the force.”

If life is a good gift from a good God, than it’s worth fighting for...

Fight Against abortion

It is the greatest injustice because it takes the greatest gift (life) away from the most vulnerable persons (the unborn)

Few deny that they’re taking human life, they’re just saying it’s not yet a human person

Psalm 139:13-14—For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

CareNet, sidewalk counseling ministry

Fight Against suicide

“But suicide is humane! It’s death with dignity!”

This argument is based on two faulty assumptions...

Assumption #1: death is better than life with suffering

Holly and I watching a Disney movie with the kids (as is typical, one or both parents die near the beginning, setting the main character on a journey towards growth and self-discovery) , and it occurred to me that in most of our favorite stories triumph comes out of tragedy

Assumption #2: suicide ends suffering

Suicide doesn’t end suffering, it shifts suffering!

Not a Christian? -- Suicide shifts earthly suffering to greater eternal suffering

Christian? -- Suicide shifts your suffering onto others

Your suicide will bring pain to those who love you

Your suicide may lead to copycats

Makes it harder for struggling Christians to keep following Jesus

A word to the struggler: just hang on! Talk to someone!

Fight for the sick

In ancient Rome, destitute families would often abandon the chronically ill to die. In Rome, sick or elderly slaves were routinely left to waste away on Tiber Island. Unwanted children were often left to die of exposure. If a father decided that the family couldn’t afford to feed another child, that child would be abandoned on the steps of a temple or in the public square. Almost without exception defective newborns were left exposed to the elements to die.

In the third century AD, an epidemic swept across Northern Africa, Italy, and the western empire. As many as 5000 people a day were dying in Rome. The sick were abandoned in the streets and the dead left unburied.

But the Christians. The Christians alone would care for the sick.

The sociologist and religious demographer Rodney Stark claims that death rates in cities with Christian communities may have been just half that of other cities.

Hospitals, orphanages, feeding the homeless, caring for the addicted, etc.

Disaster relief, poverty relief, etc.

Fight for human flourishing

What’s your job? Crabbing. Teaching. Interviewing potential hires. Mopping floors. Servicing air conditioners.

Do it to the best of your ability in love!

B. SIN is worth fighting against

Proverbs 13:14—The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.

Sin always leads to death

Unbeliever: turn from death!

Christian: battle your sin

Sin always takes you further than you want go, keeps you longer than you want to stay, and costs you more than you want to pay

C. DEATH will come to all

The book Unbroken about Louis Zamperini was subtitled “a story of survival.” Zamperini survived bombings, plane crashes, shark attacks, disease, starvation, dehydration, imprisonment, torture, and more. But eventually there would come a challenge that Louis Zamperini could not survive.

On July 2, 2014, Zamperini did not survive his battle against pneumonia. After 97 years of survival, Zamperini finally lost the war against death and opened his eyes in the presence of his Maker.

In his book Remember Death, Matthew McCullough says, “At one level, calling Zamperini’s or anyone else’s story a survival story is like describing a fall from a thirty-story building a survival story because it ends before the subject hits the ground.” [4]

Psalm 39:4—O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!

Hebrews 9:27—And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.

D. The GOSPEL is our only hope

In 1961, a reporter named Hannah Arendt [err-ant] reported on the war crimes of Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi operative responsible for organizing the transportation of millions of Jews and others to various concentration camps in support of the Nazi’s Final Solution.

In many ways, Eichmann was the mastermind behind the execution of lebensunwerten lebens.

Yet when Arendt observed Eichmann to be an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat, who in her words, was ‘neither perverted nor sadistic’, but ‘terrifyingly normal’. She coined the term “the banality of evil” to describe what she saw.

Sometimes evil isn’t the foaming rage of a dictator like Hitler. Sometimes it’s sitting at a desk checking a red “x” on a government form, thereby sentencing an elderly nursing home resident to his or her untimely death. Sometimes it’s driving the Common Welfare Ambulance.

Here’s the point: this type of evil is in every single one of us. The difference between us and Hitler is a difference in degree, not kind.

We need someone to pay the penalty for our evil.

That someone must have no evil of His own.

The Gospel!!!

Hebrews 2:9—But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Jesus died in our place, if we believe in Him we will live forever!

Revelation 21:3-5a—And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And He who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

Not a Christian? Choose life today. Repent and believe.

1 Corinthians 15:22—For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive

Christian? Fight for life, fight against sin, and fight for faith in the Gospel

Our call to war to love the captive soul But to rage against the captor And with the sword that makes the wounded whole We will fight with faith and valour When faced with trials on every side We know the outcome is secure And Christ will have the prize for which He died An inheritance of nations

O Church Arise

Benediction (Revelation 1:5b-6)