How Can I Serve the Dying?

00:00:00.000 | We close out the week with a question from an international listener, a young woman.

00:00:08.080 | "Hello Pastor John, and thank you for this podcast.

00:00:10.760 | I'm a medical student in Romania preparing to be an oncologist.

00:00:16.320 | I want to care for bodies, but even more I want to serve souls.

00:00:20.120 | I want to be wise in serving terminally ill patients, including children, as they face

00:00:25.800 | pain, helplessness, and eventual death.

00:00:29.920 | From your pastoral experience, what tools should I have available to minister to the

00:00:36.400 | terminally ill?"

00:00:38.160 | I'm going to assume that you are not in a position where you will be penalized for sharing

00:00:46.980 | the gospel or sharing the promises of God or for praying and encouraging others to pray

00:00:54.240 | for those in your care.

00:00:56.480 | It's tragic when for political reasons or other reasons, medical professionals and even

00:01:03.120 | chaplains, pastors, are instructed not to help people in the most critical hour of their

00:01:13.040 | lives with the most important issues they face, namely the issue of faith in Christ.

00:01:19.520 | That's tragic.

00:01:20.640 | So I'm going to assume that's not your situation, but that you have freedom.

00:01:26.360 | I'm also going to assume that you're not asking about the practicalities or the legitimacy

00:01:34.400 | of palliative care, that is, the biblical lawfulness of reducing pain.

00:01:42.640 | I assume you agree with me that even though pain was God's righteous judgment for sin

00:01:51.720 | after the fall, his redemptive call on his people is to do good and to bring merciful

00:02:00.400 | relief, not judgment.

00:02:03.800 | So how should we then think about ministering to the terminally ill, especially those who

00:02:10.660 | are so near the end that they may be bedridden and even mentally or physically unable to

00:02:20.080 | use some of the means of grace that have sustained them, perhaps in faith for their whole lives,

00:02:27.640 | like reading the Bible or being part of worship or regular fellowship?

00:02:31.760 | In 1992, during the summer Olympics, I preached a sermon called "Olympic Spirituality,"

00:02:42.760 | and I tried to connect biblical passages about fighting the good fight and running the race,

00:02:51.960 | mastering the body.

00:02:52.960 | I tried to connect them all with the Olympics, and I challenged our people to treat the Christian

00:02:59.920 | life with as much seriousness as athletes treat their relatively insignificant competition.

00:03:09.120 | Now, one of the grand old saints in our church who had been part of the staff for 62 years—Elsie

00:03:20.120 | Viren was her name—was in the hospital with a broken hip and near the end of her race.

00:03:28.080 | And I realized that my sermon, "Olympic Spirituality," might sound utterly unrealistic

00:03:37.040 | for a dying woman in a hospital bed with a failing memory.

00:03:42.080 | What on earth could Piper mean by "Olympic Spirituality" for someone who can't even

00:03:49.040 | get out of bed?

00:03:51.840 | So I wrote an article for our church newsletter, and like everything else I ever wrote, it

00:03:59.120 | is that desiring God.

00:04:02.620 | So I wrote an article for our church newsletter to try to show that "Olympic Spirituality"

00:04:11.120 | is just as valid for a dying saint in bed as it is for a healthy 20-something taking

00:04:20.220 | risks for Jesus on the mission field.

00:04:23.200 | In 1 Timothy 6.12, Paul said to Timothy, "Fight the good fight of faith.

00:04:31.280 | Take hold on eternal life to which you were called."

00:04:34.420 | So the fight, the spiritual Olympic boxing match, is, Paul said, a fight of faith.

00:04:43.540 | It's not a fight to get out of bed.

00:04:46.380 | It's a fight to rest in God, to be satisfied in God.

00:04:51.360 | It's not a fight that depends on mature muscular legs, but on childlike trust.

00:04:59.660 | It's not a fight to keep the powers of youth, but to trust in the power of God.

00:05:08.240 | The race that terminally ill people are running in bed—they're running—is not a race

00:05:17.240 | against wind or hills or heat or burning muscles.

00:05:23.380 | It's a race against temptations, temptations that would make them doubt God's goodness,

00:05:29.860 | God's love.

00:05:32.020 | It's a fight to stay restful and content in God through broken hips and cancer and lost

00:05:39.060 | sight and failed memory.

00:05:41.260 | It's not an easy race.

00:05:43.380 | They may not be moving their legs or even their arms, but oh, the difficulty of this

00:05:48.500 | race.

00:05:50.100 | It's harder than the Olympics, and it may have to be run flat on your back.

00:05:56.020 | For most of us at the end, it will be run that way.

00:05:59.180 | And Paul says in 2 Timothy 4:7, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the

00:06:07.300 | race," and then he defines, "I have kept faith."

00:06:13.900 | That's the goal for those who minister to the terminally ill, helping them finish the

00:06:20.220 | race and fight the fight.

00:06:23.380 | And Paul makes explicit what kind of fight it is.

00:06:26.620 | It's the fight of keeping faith.

00:06:28.620 | I kept faith.

00:06:30.300 | I didn't stop believing.

00:06:31.940 | I didn't throw in the towel of faith at the end of my life through all my troubles.

00:06:38.720 | We win if we keep believing.

00:06:42.180 | It's a race against unbelief, not against time.

00:06:46.940 | Sometimes we use the language of battling cancer.

00:06:50.860 | You hear that a lot.

00:06:53.520 | What we ought to mean by that, mainly, is the battle to keep cancer from destroying

00:07:01.260 | our faith, as we ought to mean.

00:07:04.360 | Whether cancer kills us or not is not the main issue.

00:07:10.940 | That's not the main battle.

00:07:12.980 | It's not wrong—don't hear me wrong here—it's not wrong to want to be well and to fight

00:07:20.440 | to stay alive.

00:07:21.440 | That's not wrong.

00:07:23.060 | But that's not the main warfare.

00:07:25.960 | The main fight, the main race is, "Will we keep trusting?

00:07:30.940 | Will we keep resting?

00:07:32.460 | Will we remain content in Jesus no matter what?"

00:07:37.140 | That's the main fight and battle.

00:07:40.740 | Paul says in Colossians 1:23, "Christ will present you holy and blameless before God,

00:07:48.140 | provided that you continue in the faith, not shifting from the hope of the gospel."

00:07:58.100 | Finishing the race at the end of our lives means not shifting from the hope of the gospel.

00:08:05.900 | It's a race, a fight against hopelessness.

00:08:10.380 | So the great challenge for ministering to the terminally ill is to keep Christ before

00:08:18.100 | their eyes, help them and help others keep Christ before their eyes with all of his blood-bought

00:08:25.900 | gospel promises that remind us to live as Christ and to die as gain.

00:08:32.920 | The banner flying over every hospice bed should be Hebrews 10.35.

00:08:40.920 | Do not throw away your confidence, which has great reward.

00:08:49.240 | Weakening saints need the constant reminder that the finishing line is crossed, not by

00:08:57.180 | a burst of human energy, but by collapsing into the arms of Jesus.

00:09:03.320 | And of course, we must realize that as people come near the end, they are often not mentally

00:09:10.540 | or physically able to feed themselves with the promise-sustaining Word of God.

00:09:18.240 | So we need to do it for them.

00:09:20.880 | I hope my family, I hope the Piper family remembers that when I'm in my final weakness.

00:09:28.840 | The last caregivers should be speaking, maybe even singing, gospel sweet promises into the

00:09:40.160 | lives of the dying person whom they may think no longer can hear me.

00:09:47.260 | You don't know that.

00:09:48.880 | You don't know that.

00:09:49.880 | I sat beside my dying father, counting his breaths, wondering when the gaps would stop.

00:09:55.120 | I was there at midnight when they stopped, and I never stopped speaking God's Word into

00:10:01.520 | his ear.

00:10:02.520 | I have no idea whether in the five seconds before he was in heaven, he was hearing the

00:10:07.600 | Word of God.

00:10:08.600 | He maybe was.

00:10:09.600 | I hope he was.

00:10:11.180 | And since their next stop is heaven, we're not going to promise them a prosperous life

00:10:15.940 | on earth.

00:10:18.560 | We're not stupid.

00:10:20.500 | We have to reach for the ultimate promises, the most glorious promises, and one of them

00:10:25.980 | is 2 Corinthians 4.17.

00:10:28.680 | We do not lose heart.

00:10:30.840 | Though our outer self is wasting away, oh my, is it ever, our inner self is being renewed

00:10:39.280 | day by day because this light momentary affliction is preparing for us, working for us, producing

00:10:48.380 | for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

00:10:53.540 | The reason this promise is so precious is because it gives meaning to final suffering.

00:11:05.260 | It doesn't say that the suffering is going to produce a new sanctified walk with God

00:11:12.560 | on the earth.

00:11:13.560 | That's what suffering is for, for those who have more life to live.

00:11:18.320 | These people don't have any more life to live on earth.

00:11:22.920 | Instead, here's what the verse says, this affliction is preparing for you, this final

00:11:32.680 | affliction, one hour before you die or one week before you die or one month before you

00:11:38.040 | die, this affliction is preparing for you an eternal weight of glory.

00:11:43.020 | In other words, every hour that you hand over your suffering to Jesus and bear it in the

00:11:51.240 | strength that he supplies and for the glory of his name, your reward is increasing in

00:11:59.800 | heaven.

00:12:01.160 | There is meaning to what looks to the world like absolutely meaningless final suffering.

00:12:09.920 | So my answer is spare the dying as much pain as you can.

00:12:15.920 | Use the prayer-soaked Word of God to keep Christ before the dying, to help them fight

00:12:22.960 | the fight of faith, to keep believing that even this final painful push will be rewarded

00:12:32.600 | by God's grace.

00:12:33.600 | Amen.

00:12:34.600 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:12:36.600 | Olympic Spirituality was a two-part sermon series preached in August of 1992 during the

00:12:41.880 | Summer Olympics, the year of the dream team, the basketball team, hard to forget that.

00:12:47.240 | You can find that short series Olympic Spirituality right now at DesiringGod.org along with the

00:12:54.000 | article mentioned here, How Can Elsie Run? published a few days after the second sermon.

00:12:59.620 | Thank you for listening.

00:13:01.320 | You can ask a question, search or browse all 1600 of our past episodes or subscribe to

00:13:05.880 | the podcast.

00:13:06.880 | Do all of that at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:13:12.320 | I am your host Tony Reinke.

00:13:13.680 | Thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with longtime pastor and author

00:13:18.540 | John Piper.

00:13:19.540 | We'll see you on Monday.

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How Can I Serve the Dying?

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