Sermons

FILTER BY:

← back to list

Feb 09, 2025

A Worthy Death?

A Worthy Death?

Passage: Hebrews 2:5-18

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Worthy: His Worth, and a Life Worthy of Him

Keywords: power, suffering, death, glory, help, temptation, forgiven, honor

In Christ we see a worthy life and in turn find a life worthy of His and of life itself. What about a worthy death? Is there such a thing? What is one? Is that one more expectation we might fail and only compound our regret and guilt? Can one even prepare or face death, should the circumstances of our final season permit reflection or agency, with something other than the inevitable fear or sorrow? If He is worthy of our trust in living, why is He worthy of our trust in dying?

 

CENTRAL TEXT:  Hebrews 2:5-18

For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking.
6 It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? 
7 You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, 
8 putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 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. 
10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.
11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers,
12 saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.” 
13 And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again, “Behold, I and the children God has given me.” 
14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,
15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
16 For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.
17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

 

PREPARATION:   Psalm 119:17, 18

LEADER: Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word.

ALL: Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.

 

PRAYER/SCRIPTURE READING/CONFESSION OF FAITH: Heidelberg Catechism, Question 1

LEADER: What is your only comfort in life and in death?

ALL: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

 

BENEDICTION:   Romans 15:13

LEADER:   May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

DISMISSAL: Amen.

 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: 

  1. What are your thoughts when you think about death? Now what are your thoughts about the thought of a “worthy” death? Is there such a thing? Does it apply? Is it desirable or impossible? What would be a worthy death insofar as none of us knows when or how our last days might unfold?
  2. We named several reasons from the text why Jesus might be worthy of trust in our dying–taking comfort in, despite all we lament to lose and leave behind. What do you remember? What would you add on the basis of what you find here? About him, about His regard for us, about His accomplishments on our behalf?
  3. Name several ways the fear of death holds us in a kind of slavery–conscious or unconscious slavery? Care to concede any of those ways manifesting in you?
  4. Your death will be sooner or later, but inevitable. How would what we find in this passage be of comfort to you now–such that you set aside the ways you might be living enslaved? How would it be of comfort to you on your last leg? What could you write or say to yourself now that you would want to hear then that it might help to press upon you the hope of what your dying tempts you to deny?
  5. What help will you need–help he is “able” (v. 19) to give–in the hour of temptation–whether long before you are in your last bed or in it?

 

ILLUSTRATIONS:  

 

View Illustrations

 

 

QUOTES:  

  • A person spends years coming into his own, developing his talent, his unique gifts, perfecting his discriminations about the world, broadening and sharpening his appetite, learning to bear the disappointments of life, becoming mature, seasoned-finally a unique creature in nature, standing with some dignity and nobility and transcending the animal condition; no longer driven, no longer a complex reflex, not stamped out of any mold. And then the real tragedy, . . .: that it takes sixty years of incredible suffering and effort to make such an individual, and then he is good only for dying. This painful paradox is not lost on the person himself-least of all himself. He feels agonizingly unique, and yet he knows that this doesn't make any difference as far as ultimates are concerned.
    - Ernst Becker, The Denial of Death

  • The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive.  . . . Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order to blindly and dumbly rot and disappear forever.
    - Ernst Becker, The Denial of Death

 

  • Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing.
    - Ernst Becker, The Denial of Death

  • The root of humanly caused evil is not man's animal nature, not territorial aggression, or innate selfishness, but our need to gain self-esteem, deny our mortality, and achieve a heroic self-image. Our desire for the best is the cause of the worst.
    - Ernst Becker, The Denial of Death

  • Modern Western culture has tried valiantly to domesticate and marginalize death, both by taming it through fictionalized representations in movies and TV shows, and by keeping the real thing out of sight.
    - Carl Trueman

  • Resolved, to think mthe resolutions of Jonathan Edwards

  • Let us suppose we possess parts of a novel or a symphony. Someone now brings us a newly discovered piece of manuscript and says, 'This is the missing part of the work. This is the chapter on which the whole plot of the novel really turned. This is the main theme of the symphony'. Our business would be to see whether the new passage, if admitted to the central place which the discoverer claimed for it, did actually illuminate all the parts we had already seen and 'pull them together'. Nor should we be likely to go very far wrong. The new passage, if spurious, however attractive it looked at the first glance, would become harder and harder to reconcile with the rest of the work the longer we considered the matter. But if it were genuine then at every fresh hearing of the music or every fresh reading of the book, we should find it settling down, making itself more at home and eliciting significance from all sorts of details in the whole work which we had hitherto neglected. Even though the new central chapter or main theme contained great difficulties in itself, we should still think it genuine provided that it continually removed difficulties elsewhere. Something like this we must do with the doctrine of the Incarnation. Here instead of a symphony or a novel, we have the whole mass of our knowledge. The credibility will depend on the extent to which the doctrine, if accepted, can illuminate and integrate that whole mass. It is much less important that the doctrine itself should be fully comprehensible. We believe that the sun is in the sky at midday in summer not because we can clearly see the sun (in fact, we cannot) but because we can see everything else.
    - C.S. Lewis, Miracles

 

  • So I saw in my dream, that they went on together till they came in sight of the gate. Now I further saw, that betwixt them and the gate was a river; but there was no bridge to go over, and the river was very deep. At the sight, therefore, of this river the pilgrims were much stunned; but the men that went with them said, You must go through, or you cannot come at the gate.
    - John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress
  • Pain is terrible, but surely you need not have fear as well? Can you not see death as the friend and deliverer? It means stripping off that body which is tormenting you: like taking off a hair- shirt or getting out of a dungeon. What is there to be afraid of? You have long attempted (and none of us does more) a Christian life. Your sins are confessed and absolved. Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind. Remember, though we struggle against things because we are afraid of them, it is often the other way round—we get afraid be- cause we struggle. Are you struggling, resisting? Don’t you think Our Lord says to you ‘Peace, child, peace. Relax. Let go. Underneath are the everlasting arms. Let go, I will catch you. Do you trust me so little?’ Of course, this may not be the end. Then make it a good rehearsal.
    - C.S. Lewis, June 17, 1963

 

 

BOOKS / DOCS