2-28-2016 Bioethics Part 46

The speaker begins with a prayer before discussing the concept of virtues and vices. They explain that virtues are habits or tendencies that make us better people, while vices are habits that turn us into the wrong kind of people. They then mention the six virtues they have been focusing on and explain that they are now looking at how these virtues relate to death. They discuss the importance of courage when facing death and the need for courage when dealing with others who are dying. They also talk about the virtue of constancy and how it is difficult to cultivate in our ever-changing society. The speaker emphasizes the importance of constancy, especially in relationships, and notes that the object of our faith and faithfulness is Jesus, who is always constant. Let's pray, I think of this beautiful day and for these people and we pray that you would be with us this morning as we worship and pray and study, think and seek to once again believe in you, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. We are on the last of the six virtues that we have been looking at throughout this time. What is a virtue? All right, let me try and maybe do the opposite, what is a vice, that's the opposite of a virtue. What is a characteristic that makes you do bad things? Okay, a trait, yeah, all right, it's getting somewhere, and they're opposites, okay, yeah, good, anybody else? All right, awesome, we could define virtues, this is the funny part about virtues and vices, right, we know what they are and we know that one is good and one is bad, but defining them is a little bit difficult because it's like all-encompassing, so virtues would be those habits or those tendencies that we cultivate that make us into better kinds of people and vices are the things that we all too often find ourselves cultivating that we know we ought not to cultivate that turns us into the wrong kinds of people, so being selfish is bad because selfishness is not good, but selfishness isn't just bad because selfishness is bad, why is selfishness bad? Well, yeah, there's that part, it's a sin against God, but what else? All right, yeah, so if you're selfish over time, it turns you into a person that doesn't love others? Selfishness also, does selfishness only work itself out in one way in one person's life? Exactly, it impacts every single decision that you make, sometimes less, sometimes more, often unconsciously, but that's the interesting thing about these virtues and vices is that they really very much form you into a specific kind of person, and we will tend towards cultivating vice, so we have to work hard at cultivating virtue, thus far we've looked at what virtues? We've looked at five of them, just give me one. Courage, faith, hope, love, contentment. Contentment, yes, nailed them. Those would be the virtues that we have looked at, and this time around, we looked at these at the very beginning of our time, like almost a year ago, this time around we're looking at how these things specifically play into the issue of death, because that is our topic at hand. Last week we looked at courage, why is courage so necessary in the face of death? The lone mortality and the mortality of others. Rough crowd this morning, rough crowd, cold room. Weird, because I'm sweating at death back up here. Come on, death is hard, that's right, you need courage because death is hard, it is hard to die. If you don't believe that, that's just because you don't understand that you're already dying. What else? Exactly, there are decisions that need to be made, and there are decisions that need to be made all the time about all kinds of things. Are those just yes decisions? No, there are also no decisions, right? So we talked about accepting treatment or refusing treatment. Either refusing treatment that will keep us alive longer or treatments that will inevitably impact our lives in large ways. Courage is necessary. What about when it comes to courage when dealing with other people? Why would I need courage when dealing with you in your dying state? Because you have to have courage to say things that would... I mean, you know, you're dying, but you're still going to have courage. First of all, you're present. And then you'll say whatever it is that you say, how soft it is, whatever it is that you say. Right, okay. So you have to have the courage to actually open your mouth and speak. So there's the initial courage that you need. And then what about... why do you need courage for even the advice that you would give if you get the courage to open your mouth? And the easiest way to usually answer these questions is what if you lacked courage? You're talking to somebody in their dying state. What would be the tendency of a human being when actually saying something? What kinds of things would they do? What kinds of... Right? Yeah, it's just going to be fine. It's going to be fine. You'd have the tendency to go to that side or you'd have the tendency to go to the exact opposite side and just start crying. Right? I'm not saying crying is wrong. I'm not a big crier. Some of you are big criers. That's good. Crying is good. I should do it more often. I understand that. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about you just freak out when somebody has a problem. Instead of truly kind of lamenting with them, you're just losing your mind as they're losing their minds. So, in other words, courage could be that thing that keeps you stable. Keeps you stable? For sure. And it also would lead you to be able to say things that are more true and better instead of just like, I don't even know what to say right now. Ah! You know, this must... I can't even imagine. That kind of stuff. Which is true. You can imagine. It's like where they need somebody that is not freaking out often. And if you're not a person of courage, then you will probably not be the person that they need in their time of need. Courage is important. The last one we're going to look at is constancy. Constancy is an interesting one because it's a word that we used to use a lot in the English language and now we don't. So, before we talk about why constancy is important, what the heck is constancy? Anybody remember? You English people can probably get it just from the entomology of the word. Tim is gifted at using the iPhone. Yes. Yes. The quality of being faithful and dependable. Way to go. Way to just, yeah, warm up the engine. Good job. Yes. The quality of being faithful and dependable. As with so many of the other virtues that we've looked at, this virtue is particularly difficult to cultivate in our own time and place. Why? What? Ever-changing. That's right. So, our... The society in which we live is ever-changing. Therefore, how does that affect the way that you are towards other people? Right. Right. Yeah. So, we understand that the society changes and we change. But really, what are the, like, think about it and, you know, get personal for a second. What is it about, like, our culture that affects your ability to be constant? Peer pressure. Okay, in what sense? Okay. Yeah, so just everybody's going in a particular direction, whether it's being nice or whatever. What about this ever-changing stuff? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so, and this isn't even... it is a religious thing, but it's not even necessarily a religious thing. Right? It's looked down upon to stick with anything in our society. The new thing is always inherently a better thing. Which we have, as a society, quote-unquote progressed, if that's what the heck it is, enough that we ought to be able... and there are people that have kind of recognized that we ought to be able to realize that the next iPhone is not going to be the savior of the world. We should know that by now. We have enough experience with this. Yet, we, interestingly as human beings, always seem to think that the next thing is the greatest thing. And it breeds within us this idea that, like, others judge others for being constant. Here's the interesting thing. We do find it to be an admirable trait in humans sometimes. It's why when you see an old couple together, you know, it's like none of us... let's make this real personal to us here... none of us talk behind Larry and Teresa's back about how stupid they are for hanging together for 40 some odd years. Right? We might think Teresa's a little crazy. Right? Because she put up with him for that long. But we're not like, oh man, how dumb. You look at that and you go, man, that is truly something. Any old couple, right? Christian, non... don't matter. That is impressive. They stuck it out. Especially in a society where so few people do. I do believe that we want people to be exhibiting constancy towards us. Correct? You don't want... you don't expect people to just drop you at the drop of a hat when it suits them. When it's just no longer pleasing to them to kind of just be with you. Here's the interesting thing. While we all expect that from other people, what happens when it comes to us treating... acting towards others? Exactly. Exactly. There's all kinds of excuses. Which means, what does an excuse mean? No, sure, that's what an excuse is. But if I have to give an excuse, even if only to myself, what does it mean? I'm wrong and... Well, I know it's not acceptable to do that thing. I have to make it acceptable, that's right. Because it's inherently unacceptable. Or at least I'm sure that somebody else would find it unacceptable. Therefore I have to justify my way of living before... even if it's my own self. Anytime anybody gives an excuse for anything, it means that they know that at least somebody in their general proximity won't think that it's okay. Are excuses always wrong? No. No. But it is interesting that we would give an excuse for something like why I don't need to be faithful. And those answers might be true and might be ridiculous. What is true, though, is that we expect other people to be constant towards us. Constancy, in case you were curious, is no soft option for Christians. Anybody know why? You don't get to choose whether you get to be constant or not. It's not like a privilege. Some of us are going to find it easier to be constant than others in the same way that some of us find it easier to be courageous than others. But you don't have an option. Okay, yes. The object of our faith and faithfulness is Jesus. How does that affect the way that I live my life? Or must live my life? He's always constant. That's right. Now, let's think about this for a second. Why is that so beneficial and so motivating? And, again, to answer this question, go to the opposite end. What would be true if I was only constant on the basis of you? So what is it that's so powerful about the fact that the reason why I am called to be constant in my presence towards you is because of God's presence or constancy towards me? Okay, so basically what you're saying is that you're not faithful or not faithful is just what Christ is. That's kind of basically what you're saying. Yep. Right. Right. Yeah, God's constancy is not dependent on us. Therefore, my constancy towards you is not dependent on your constancy towards me. If my constancy was dependent on your constancy towards me, then what would be true about the world we lived in? There would be no constancy at all. Or at least there would be no reason to be constant at all, and those who were constant would be weird. They'd be like, well, I mean, whatever. That's the only reason. Because you will find that some people do not deserve to be shown constancy. By constancy, by the way, I'm not saying you always have to hang out with everybody. I'm saying that that idea of being faithful and dependable is a virtue that's exhibited towards all people. Sometimes that is exhibited in ways that are hard. Right? Faithful and dependable. It is faithfulness and dependability towards God first and then towards others. We're talking primarily here in the context of just life in general, but thinking towards death. This is going to be a major player. You and I are never asked to do anything that God has not already done for us. Ever. Like anything. Give me a command in the New or Old Testament that God has not done for his people, and you won't find it. It's always on that basis. And, like Andy said, if it's ever the opposite, then we're all in trouble. Let's do a quick little biblical theology here. Don't say Jesus, because that's cheating. Give me examples from the Old or New Testaments where we have an exhibition of God's constancy towards his people. In light of the fact that they don't really deserve it. Maybe they do deserve it, maybe they don't deserve it. It doesn't really matter. Go. The Exodus. That's pretty big. What part of it? Like the whole thing, right? But narrow it down. Okay. Yep. Okay, so started the process, sent Moses there, and stayed constant until they were released. Good. So, yes, Jake. When he gave them food and water in the wilderness. Yes. Because that constancy was exhibited. How often? Every single day, except... The Sabbath day, that's right. Which was actually an exhibition of his power and constancy. And not giving it, he was saying, look at me, because he had given them double the day before. Good? Keep going. Mm-hmm. Yep. Right. So his constancy exhibited in the flood. Good. In both judgment and salvation. Yeah. Keep going. Okay. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's one of the more confusing and enlightening times, is the times of the judges and the kings where God will just remain with his people, even though they are clearly in every way so jacked up, it's almost... No, it is humorous. It's kind of like... The judges, in particular, are just like, you kind of have this cyclical thing going on, and then once you get to the kings, the quality of kingship goes from decent to miserable. Right? That's like, the best you get is like an adulterer who kills the guy who he's, you know, who's married to the girl he's getting it on with and gets pregnant. Like, that's as good as it gets. That's the high point. It's a rather interesting series. Yet God remains faithful to his people. That's right. Okay, let's keep working on the timeline. We're now at the kings and the judges. What comes after that? Yes, there is one kind of constancy that we might not exactly appreciate, but is very important, is the exile that God promised. Right? He said, if you do this, I'll do this. If you do this, I'll do this. And then they did that, and God goes, alright, I'm going to give you exactly what I said I was going to give you. That's called constancy. Yep. And if God fulfills the things that he says he will do in judgment, then what, although it is not easy to look at, what can we be confident of on the flip side of that? That's right. He'll also fulfill the mercy. Why? Because God is a constant God. If God only did that which was right and then didn't judge that which was wrong, we would have reason to believe, well, I know he's done it right, like, most of the time, but how do I know he's going to do it right this time? Because one of those interesting paradigms where in the Bible when you go, why can I believe that God's going to save a jacked up sinner like me, the answer can be all kinds of things, one of which is, well, God did destroy wicked people in the flood, and God did send the people into exile. You go, how does that show my salvation? Easy. God keeps his word. That's the point. At any point along the way, Jesus comes in fulfillment of all the promises of God. God is constant towards his people. Well, okay, that's God. What about us? In Galatians chapter 5, you have the very famous fruit of the Spirit. Fruit being singular, on purpose. Galatians chapter 5, verse 22 through 24. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law, and those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Christians are defined by their constancy. It is not a trait that we would like to see in Christians. It is the reality of what Christians are. Imperfectly, to be sure, but the imperfection is what? My imperfection is, at the end of the day, what? Sin, exactly. That's right. So, if you're not constant towards somebody, you don't go, well, at least I'm forgiven. Forget that garbage. No, you're a sinner, right? You are not doing what you ought to do. You are a bad disciple of Jesus Christ. You need to be corrected. You need to repent and change. Now, the interesting thing about this whole fruit of the Spirit thing, and this is what Christians are, is you look at that list, and I guarantee you every single person in here might go, okay, crushing that one. Pretty decent there. Eh, all right. But you're going to find two or three of these where you go, oh, man, that ain't me. At that point, you should not go, well, at least I got Jesus. Whoo! Man! Saved by grace. Amen. Wrong. You ought to look at this and go, huh, there's the works of the flesh, and then the fruit of the Spirit, and I'm not exhibiting fruit of the Spirit, and that's what Christians do. Hmm. I ought to be doing these things. Why am I not doing these things? God help me do these things. I must do these things. This is what Christians do. Christians are defined by their constancy. Not perfectly, right? But we repent. If you are looking at things like these virtues that we've gone over, and you go, I do not find this within me, and you are not brokenhearted, and you do not go to God in repentance, then I seriously have reason to question your salvation. And you have serious reason to question your salvation. Not whether you've lost it or something dumb like that, but whether it was ever true to begin with, because how can one possibly, and you go, that's judgmental. Well, you can call it that if you would like, or you can call it, this is what Christians are. Are you this? No. Do you care? No. How would you possibly think you're a Christian if these things are not in any way, shape, or form true of you? This is literally just a logic game at some point where you go, I don't know what to tell you. I wish this wasn't true. I wish it was different. We ought to be people who long to be constant, who long to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, who will be exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit if we are genuinely converted. So, taking all that into account, hopefully you feel the weight of constancy. Especially in a culture that's, I will love who I want, when I want, for as long as I want, until I want to be done, and then I will go somewhere else and continue to be faceless, nameless, interestingly depressed and discouraged, but fighting for my own selfishness. Fighting against that stream, against peer pressure, like Zach said, is going to be an incredibly difficult challenge. It will not get easier, it is only getting more difficult, and as we become more self-interested, it will become more difficult to cultivate this virtue. Think about it in relation to death, right? If it wasn't heavy enough, let's just throw on the 8,000 pound gorilla and say, in what ways does this virtue come into play in such a big way when it comes to death? There's not just one answer to this, there's a whole bunch. What do you think? Okay. Okay. Yeah, why would that be so easy to do? Fear. Yeah. Yes, fear drives you towards not pursuing any of these virtues at all. Fear is very easy in the face of death, and to remain constant, to remain faithful and dependable, to remain the kind of person that God has called you to be in the face of death is extraordinarily difficult. And if you need proof of that, just think about your life over the last 24 hours, right? There we go. There is evidence enough. You are currently on the way to dying. Some of you know that more than other people. We're all dying, right? But I don't believe anybody in here is, like, at death's door, at least that they know of. However, you already find it incredibly difficult to be the kind of person God wants you to be, right? If you think that's not you, then kudos, you can come tell me afterwards and give me all your secret tips. But I guarantee you that it is hard. Living in a fallen world, as a fallen human being, is very difficult. When you are on your deathbed, you are unstable in your mind about where you're at. If you are looking for something to do, something dependable, something that you can hold on to, that's solid, that would be another way to see why constancy from a Christian would be necessary. Right, for others, right? Yeah, if you are not one who is exhibiting constancy in your faith, in just, like, I really believe this, then when it comes time for somebody that's dying, you will have the tendency to avoid all topics of what's going to happen after you're dead. And if you don't believe that, just get around a dying person and see how hard it is to talk about what happens when you're going to die. Oh, and by the way, you know you're going to die. Or, think about this case. I don't know if you've ever been approached by, if not, just wait for it, it's coming, approached by somebody whose relative has died and asked you, what happened to that person, where did they go? Can you please just tell me that person went to heaven? Can you please just tell me that? And you will be stuck in the awkward position of going, I don't want to let them down, I don't want to hurt their feelings. I don't even really know what the answer is. I do know that I have no clue for sure where they went and they want to know this for sure thing. You know what? I know I ought to say this thing over here, which is, God is just and does what is right. But I want to make this person feel good, so I'm going to lie. And just say, oh, sure, yeah, of course, yeah, I'm sure, right? God's a loving God, he just does, you know, he just does. Without that sense of constancy in belief, well, then, you're going to have a tendency to say things that are untrue. That at least, at bare minimum, are made up. What else? How does constancy work? Thinking not just about beliefs, but about actions. Think about you as the dying one first. So basically, a lot of people die alone. And so the first thing that you would want is someone to be there so that you wouldn't die alone. One of the greatest things, or fears, or whatever, is to be alone. So for a Christian to actually be there, even if he's not saying anything, Right. Yep. That idea of dependability and faithfulness is very key when it comes to other people dying and you being present in their dying. It's very easy to just, like, out of sight, out of mind, right? Just don't think about it. Nobody likes thinking about death, right? Well, I take that back. I do. But most people don't like thinking about death. It's uncomfortable, right? This is the thing. We've got months of this to go. I'm sorry. But, you know, it's getting sunny outside, so hopefully it's not, like, super discouraging. But you're going to die. That's why we're talking about it. We're not talking about it because it's fun. We're talking about it because it's necessary. But the reality is that when that time comes, if you are not a constant kind of person, then the time to find constancy isn't when somebody's on their deathbed The way you've been living your life is, we're going to hang out as long as I like hanging out with you. I don't like hanging out with you. I'm going to go over here. I'm not a person that likes death, right? Guess what? You're never going to like death if you don't like death. That's probably just, like, who you are. If that's true, then you're going to be like, Ooh! See ya! Why? Because I have not practiced the art of, I don't like this. I don't like you, necessarily. But, I ought to be the kind of person who is relational with you even though we're not best friends. It's one of the greatest things about church membership, right? I've said this before, and I'm not supposed to say this, but if I had to choose friends in the world, I would not inherently choose every member of this church. I'm not going to tell you which ones I would choose and wouldn't choose. It doesn't matter, right? And here's the thing. You wouldn't choose everybody in this church, either. That's the great part about it. This is not a social club. This is not somewhere you come and be a part of because you like everybody here. That's a joke. You go join a rotary club or, like, I don't know, some club at Lipscomb or something, if you want to do that, that's fine. There's nothing inherently wrong with those things. Join a softball team, right? Become a professional frisbee golf player, which would be awesome. That is something that's based on some kind of affinity of something, whether it's a sport or something you like to do, right? That's fine. Church is interesting. Church is interesting. Church goes, why the heck are we hanging out together? Because you're weird, and I'm weird, and I don't necessarily like you. Why should we hang out? And the only answer that is acceptable is, what? That's right. Jesus calls us to hang out together. On the basis of what? His work. Notice, it has nothing to do with you, how you grew up, what kind of music you like, the color of somebody's skin, how much money they make, don't matter at all. What are we hanging out for? Oh yeah, Jesus. Which makes it weird. If somebody can walk into your church and go, oh, this is, I'm trying not to pick on anybody in particular, so I'm just going to be an equal opportunity offender. Here we go. If they walk into the church and go, oh, this is like the big family church, right? Like there's lots of vans in the parking lot, and everybody here has lots of kids. Or it's the homeschool church, where everybody walks in and it's like, oh, that's what you're known for. Or this is the Republican church. Or this is the Democrat church. Or this is the social justice church. Or this is the, I don't know what the heck, the recycling church. Who the heck knows? There's all kinds of things like this is what we're all about. So one of the nice things about having few programmatic things inside the church and encouraging you to just go and be a good citizen in the world is that we're not defined on the basis of what we do and don't do. We're defined on the basis, this is what we do. What else do you do? We encourage people to go be human. That's what we do. That's all. Why? Well, because it's so easy to get, it's so easy to say, I like you, you like me because we're the same kind of people. No. That's not why we like each other. Are affinities just a natural part of being human? Yes. But the church will only be a powerful testimony of the gospel inasmuch as humans are constant towards each other in life and in death despite the fact that they don't look all the same. The last area of constancy that I'd like to mention is that in constancy it's going to require us to make decisions that don't only depend on how I feel about how I ought to live my life. This is one of the more awkward areas. We're going to talk about this more down the road. Your death matters to other human beings. The rest of your life matters to other human beings. It's interesting, right? You want your life to matter, right? You should want your death to matter as well. I find it preposterous that human beings will remain alive at any cost, literally, taking valuable resources merely to just try and live for another day. There are really good reasons to live for another day. But there are also really good reasons to refuse treatment and just say, I'm done. I'm done. How do you make those decisions? There's no black and white. There hasn't been any black and white up until now. I said at the very beginning, I'll say it to the end, my job is to make the world more confusing, not less. To feel the weight of living in a world that has almost infinite possibilities. But as we die, we don't only think, what's good for me? We have to think, what's good for my immediate family? That's the closest thing. What's good for the church? What's good for the world? What does my life matter? Well, your life could matter a whole lot. It might not matter to a whole lot of people, but it might matter a whole lot to the people that it matters to. And constancy in thinking about what love looks like is how I act in this world and how that action will have reaction on other people. Yeah? So, most people are Christians, and I say most people because I don't know them, I don't know everybody, I'm just like a microcosm, a microcosm for you, is that the word? That's a good one. Okay. Most people like to show, quote unquote, Christ, while they're alive. Yes. Without really realizing that we're actually all dying. So, basically, what we really want to do is to show everybody how you're dying, how you're living, and why you're dying. So, then at the point you get to your deathbed, it won't be anything different than here when you were changed. Yep. It's great to see people who get converted when they're at the point of death because they realize death is coming, they realize they've screwed up their whole lives. It's much more powerful to live out the confession of your lips as you're dying that you've believed in good times and in bad. Interestingly enough, while it is powerful, extremely powerful, to see people get converted at the end of their life, it is equally tragic and a joke and abysmal to a degree that makes me frustrated beyond all belief to see Christians die in a way that is no different than anybody else, kicking and screaming, which is a fundamental denial of the gospel that they had preached while they were healthy. Constancy requires us to be working today to be the right kinds of people that are dependable and faithful because the end will come, and when it comes, our deaths will matter a whole heck of a lot. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for time. We pray that we would use it well. We pray that we would cultivate the virtues that we have studied here over these last weeks, seeing how important they are when it comes to dying well or attempting to dying well. We pray that you would work in us all the things that we have studied, that we would not forget these things, that as we work forward and look at practical decision issues, things in the weeks to come, that we would always be reflecting back on how these virtues flow into making good kinds of decisions when it comes to things like assisted suicide and advanced directives and all kinds of issues. Help us to think well and to live well. In Jesus' name, amen.