On this episode of The Disciple-Making Parent, we explore one of life’s most avoided topics: death and dying.
We’ll listen to a recent sermon from Chap where he talks about howChristians shouldn’t fear talking about our final departure and what it means to “run through the tape” rather than coast into the finish line.
We examine five biblical principles for facing old age and death with faith and joy, drawing from Paul’s final words in 2 Timothy 4. We discuss how death is not the end but a portal to something better, why we should anticipate suffering in our final years, and how to keep our eyes fixed on Christ and heaven even as our bodies decay. We also wrestle with the physical, emotional, and social suffering that comes with aging, and why we should strive for joy instead of becoming sour in our later years.
This conversation challenges us to develop a biblical strategy for finishing well, longing for heaven, and glorifying God even in our dying.
Resources From This Podcast
On Jordan’s Stormy Banks (Hymn)
Heaven Is a World of Love, by Jonathan Edwards
Topics Covered in This Week’s Podcast
04:38 Topic Introduction
10:17 Death is the finish line, not the end, so I want to run through the tape
13:06 Death is an enemy. And to get old is to suffer. Therefore, I want to anticipate that suffering and honor the Lord through it.
17:31 I want to focus more and more on the love of my savior and friend, Jesus
21:53 I want to strive for joy
23:07 I want to keep serving and growing in Christ-likeness
25:40 I want to remember Jesus sees me, is with me, and is in control
Episode Transcript
I am Chap Bettis and you’re listening to The Disciple-Making Parent, where we seek to equip parents and churches to pass the gospel to their children. Death and dying. We don’t like to think about it and we don’t like to talk about it, and yet the Bible is full of this topic. God wants us to be informed. Are we?
Hi, my name is Chap Bettis and I’m the author of The Disciple-Making Parent. And if you’ve been following this podcast, you know that I took quite a hiatus from delivering content to you. And part of that was because the Lord blessed me with some speaking opportunities both in Germany and in Kenya, and those took a lot out of me. And so as a result, the podcast took the brunt of that and I just could not get around to delivering the content to you. But with this podcast, we get back into the habit and I’m looking forward to it.
When I started this podcast way back, I wanted it to be primarily focused on family discipleship. That included areas of Christian living that interested me: areas like leadership or marriage or apologetics or different types of practical Christian ethics. But selfishly, the podcast is really also for me to share with you anything that I think you’ll be blessed by, anything that interests me. And today’s podcast fits in that category. I have a very unusual subject to share with you, and the title is Running Through the Tape: Thoughts on Dying.
Well, if you’re raising young children or even teenagers, this may be the last thing on your mind, and I totally understand that. But one thing that happened to me when I turned, and I don’t remember, was it 50, 55 or 60? It was to have a realization that went really kind of from my head to my gut. When I would visit someone or go to a funeral home or wake to comfort a family, suddenly I realized: This is going to be me at some point. So this isn’t a theoretical issue. This is going to be me. And so then that led to the question: How will I finish? What was my strategy? In fact, people have asked, why did you write The Disciple-Making Parent? And the answer is, because I wanted to approach this parenting thing with a strategy. I wanted to search the scriptures and have a plan. And so in a similar way, as this topic has been rattling around in my head, I’ve been thinking, what does the Bible have to say? God’s Word is sufficient.
And so recently I was asked to preach a short Sunday night sermon at my church, and it allowed me to gather my thoughts. I received lots of positive feedback after the sermon, both from middle-aged parents, but also from those who were older, and even some who said they sent it to their older parents. So it’s ironic that even Christians, sometimes we are afraid to talk about death and dying.
Well, I’m sure there’s a lot more that can be said on this subject. Many have thought much more deeply, much more biblically than me. But I do think that it’s vital that Christians talk about this and think about this subject. So I want to share this short sermon with you. With those thoughts in mind, and if it blesses you, I’d love to hear from you as well. Let me know. But before we start though, I want to remind you that we are on a mission to equip parents and grandparents to pass the gospel to their children. So we give away the audiobook of The Disciple-Making Parent absolutely free. Just visit our website and sign up for our weekly family discipleship newsletter. And we’ll give you access to the book absolutely free. In addition, every so often I just want to remind you that we are supported by people just like you. Over 80% of our budget comes from those who are blessed by the ministry and want to help us reach others. That’s how I was able to go internationally- go to Kenya and I have a trip coming up to the Ivory Coast. All that’s because people partner. We are helping families around the world, so we’d be honored if you’d consider becoming a monthly or yearly partner. You can find out more by visiting the disciple making parent.com/partner.
But for now, let’s think about running through the tape: thoughts on dying well.
Well, good evening. It’s always a joy to address the saints here at Grace Harbor.
You probably don’t remember Sunday morning, September 3rd, 2023. I recall it, though, quite clearly. I was sitting in the third pew there and that morning we were singing, I Am Bound for the Promised Land. Why does that morning stick in my memory? Well, as you were singing it, young voices were encouraging me, But I’m thinking in my mind what we’re singing is I am bound for the promised land (sometime in the very far future). However, at that very moment, through my tears, I was thinking about my father-in-law, laying in a bed, taking his final breaths. Because truly he was bound for the promised land. And sure enough, before the service was over, he had gone.
This evening, I want us to think about a topic you may think as morbid, but I want us to think about dying. Well, now maybe that seems morbid. You’re like, Man, I came to be encouraged tonight. Well, we do everything to avoid talking about death, but just as you knew that the end of this year was coming, so here we are at the end of the year. Similarly, there will come a point where we’re at the end of our lives.
Now I get, I understand tonight’s message may not connect for maybe even a majority of you, and I completely understand that 20 years ago, it would not have a connected me. When I would go to the funeral home and give my condolences, I was trying to honor the person, and I think I did it. And yet when I turned 50 or so, something changed. Something changed in my gut where now as I go to a funeral home, I say, That’s going to be me. That’s going to be me sooner rather than later. And so while some of you may theoretically know that you’re going to die, others of us I would suggest, experientially, may have that same thought. You know, you look back and you’re like, Oh, if the Lord gives me so many years. And you’re like, Wait, 20 years ago, that’s just yesterday! 20 years forward? If the Lord gives me that, that’s nothing. And so there are applications for those of you who are younger, but primarily this is aimed at those of us who are older. So my hope is to think about some principles to hang onto.
I’m the kind of person who like to have a plan. The first book I wrote came from when my oldest was six years old. I’m saying, What’s the plan? I don’t want to be making up parenting as I go along. Similarly, you may not be able to guess it, but I am over 40 and so I want the plan. What is the plan? What am I aiming at? And so I’ve entitled tonight’s message, Running Through the Tape: Biblical Thoughts for Old Age and Dying. And if you’d like to follow along, we’re going to look at 2 Timothy 4:6-8.
This was Paul’s final letter, and as you can see from the text, he knew that his end was at hand. And so even as there are principles perhaps that apply to those of you who are younger, I also think there are principles that apply to us perhaps who are thinking about, Yes, this will be me soon. And tonight will be a little more on the topical side than it usually is. 2 Timothy chapter four. In the last chapter, the last section of Paul’s last letter, he says this: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course [or the race]. I have kept the faith. In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing.” Would you pray with me? Let’s go to the Lord.
Father, we come to you tonight and thank you for these truths that we’ll be looking at and thinking about and how they bring comfort. And Lord Jesus, we exalt you as the one who has victory over death. And so I pray you would open our eyes to wonderful things in your word, pray you’d make us a people who are not afraid to look at this topic and to grasp onto your truth. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
Well, I want us to think about what I’m going to say are five principles that I hope will guide me in the future. And the first this: It’s that death is the finish line. It’s not the end. Death is the finish line, not the end. So therefore, I want to run through the tape. That’s the title of the sermon and the metaphor that I want us to picture in our minds. Every track coach, if you’ve run track, tells you that you don’t run to the finish line. You run through it for your best performance. You can see that in verse seven. Paul is saying, “I have finished the race,” verse six, “The time of my departure has come.” It’s a departure from this light, but it’s an entrance into another. You don’t depart except to go to another destination.
Death for the Christian is a portal. In The Chronicles of Narnia, the same Lucy that stepped out of earth stepped into Narnia. Some of you may know that in our house, we had a small house fire, and God was very gracious to us. But now in a couple of places, we have inside doors that are covered with plastic that have a zipper up the middle. And what those do is keep out the contamination from the uncontaminated part, but we can actually pass through. If we’ll unzip it, we can pass through that door. For the Christian death is moving from the land of the dying to the land of the living. It is not the end. We’re running through it. Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today, you’ll be with me in paradise.” Paul said, “We know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord,” so therefore the Christian should not have anything to fear. We’re changing addresses. Giving the post office your change of address card. There should be a longing. And though I may be sad for leaving those I love, I can invite them to follow me. So there’s this idea that death is not the end, but it’s the finish line. It’s the finish line, not the end.
But if I’m honest, and think about it though, what the Bible says is that actually death is an enemy. To get old is to suffer. And so the second principle I want to keep in my mind is I want to anticipate that suffering and honor the Lord in it. I don’t want be surprised. Like, I’ve worked very hard in my life. I just want to cruise for the next 20 years. That’s not going to happen. In fact, in a race often, the last part is the hardest part. Scripture says our body is in bondage to decay. And you can see that Paul says right there in the passage, “I have fought the good fight.”
What Paul is describing in 1 Corinthians 15 is the resurrection body and he’s contrasting these bodies with that one. He says this one, it is sown, it’s buried in corruption. It is sown in dishonor. It is sown in weakness. That’s what he’s talking about, our natural body in another place. He said it this way: “Outwardly, we are wasting away.” And I want to anticipate that I’m going to suffer so that I can honor the Lord through it.
What? What types of suffering? I came up with a couple that I thought of. I’m sure some of you who are my age or older and or have thought about this a lot more, you can come up with some. But one type is just physical suffering. The body decays, there are humiliating doctor’s visits. Your strength decreases. I can’t play basketball anymore for fear of getting injured. Body parts no longer work. There’s pain, there’s forgetfulness. You have poor eyesight. So there’s this physical suffering that’s coming.
But there’s also a different type of suffering that I’ve labeled emotional suffering. It’s humiliating to lose your driver’s license and no longer drive anymore. It’s humiliating to have somebody dress you. To go from independence to dependence. To realize you’re not as sharp as you were. And not only that- as older people, we have more people that we love, and that means we have more that can hurt us. Look at verses 9-14. Look at what he’s saying in this last passage. “Because Demas has deserted me since he loved the world. It has gone to Thessalonica, Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me.” Verse 14, “Alexander the Coppersmith did great harm to me.” There’s emotional suffering. People we want to follow the Lord and they’re not.
And I wonder if there’s also- and this is my wording for it- but there’s also kind of a social suffering. People look past you. He’s old. I mean, you’re not really saying it. Like, He’s not cool. She doesn’t have anything to contribute to this discussion. There’s all sorts of ways that we look past older people. It’s not called the valley of the shadow of death for nothing, but does the Bible tell us how to handle trials? Does God tell us? And the answer is yes. 1 Peter 4. “Don’t be surprised when fiery trials come upon you.” James 1, “Consider it pure joy.”
So I want to get in my head that as I approach this, I’m not going to be surprised. This is part of God’s plan and I want to honor him and glorify him. In fact, in John 21, Jesus told Peter, “This is the kind of death you’re going to die to glorify me.” This is how you’re going to glorify me. So we can glorify God in our suffering. And one way is we’re not going to be surprised by it. But if that’s kind of a bummer, that’s kind of a downer, I want us to turn our thoughts here to thinking about, as I’m running through the tape, what am I looking at? Am I looking around to see how I’m dealing with the other competitors? What does every coach tell you? No, you’re looking past the finish line.
And what are we to look at? This is the third principle I hope will guide me, which is this: I want to focus more and more on the love of my savior and friend Jesus. Even as a Christian, if I see death as the end, I’m going to slow down. I’ll look around. I think there’s a temptation for those of us who are older to coast, to plateau. We know the Bible stories. We’ve heard the messages. We know. We know we know. Or do we? Or do we. Because Paul could say, “I long to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.” I’m not there. Are you there? Are you there? I long, I want to be with Christ. That’s better by far. Has my imagination and your soul, have they so enlarged that I can say that? You see that right there in verse eight where Paul is saying, “There is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day.” He’s looking forward to seeing Jesus.
How do we get there? I think it’s by seeing Jesus the way Paul did, seeing heaven the way Paul did, by having my mind and imagination filled with the things of heaven. Jonathan Edwards in his sermon, Heaven Is a World of Love, had some of these thoughts:
“From God, love flows out toward all the inhabitants of heaven. It flows out, in the first place, necessarily and infinitely, toward His only-begotten Son.”
“God is the fountain of love, as the sun is the fountain of light.”
“And there this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and these rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts, as it were, be deluged with love! “
“Christ loves all His saints in heaven. His love flows out to His whole church there, and to every individual member of it.”
“They will know that He has loved them from all eternity, and still loves them, and will continue to love them forever.”
Heaven is a world of love. Doesn’t that make you like, Yes, I want to go. I want to go. That is better by far. Heaven is a world of love that we see by faith. Oh Lord, help us see the invisible. Wouldn’t we like to see the invisible? We look forward to seeing experience, the vision, the hope of seeing God that will bring more joy.
I think about times that I’ve had privilege to visit out West and see the Grand Canyon or perhaps Zion National Park, and you anticipate it. You’re looking forward to it. But in some ways in this earth, you get there and it’s foggy, you can’t see it, but then you go, and now, now I can see. Now I can see the face of Jesus. I hope that I will fix my eyes on the invisible. I want to be pulled towards heaven. I want to run through the end of the race.
There is some bad news here, and that is if you don’t know him, if you haven’t bent your knee to him, then it does make sense to actually fear death, to fear condemnation, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Come to Christ. Look to Christ today. There’s enough love for you there at the cross. Come to Christ today. Even if you’re on your deathbed, even if you’ve gotten the sentence of death or you’re nowhere near that, you’re eight, come to Christ today. So that’s the third, third thing I want. I want to be pulled towards the love of heaven.
A fourth thing you can see, and again you can see this with Paul, is since it’s not my departure yet, I’m still in the race. I want to strive. I put three things underneath this point to help me think about this. Three things I want to fight for. One is I just want to fight or strive for joy. Why is it some Christians, as they get older, become more sour? We should be the happiest people in the world. I want to be a joyful older saint. I am one day closer to seeing my savior and getting out of here. I’m leaving the land of the dying and getting into the land of the living. Now I get it. I heard someone say it’s really hard to be a Christian when your head is in the toilet. It’s hard. In other words, when you’re not feeling well, it’s hard to focus on the things of the Lord. So I think this is a fight, but yes, we want to fight for joy. We’re to strive for joy. So mark it now. I want worship songs being played around my deathbed. I want to talk about Jesus and not my aches and pains. I want to talk about what I’m studying, not what I’m suffering.
So I’m striving for joy, but you can also see in there that there’s a striving after Christ-likeness. Why do I say that? Again, I think as older Christians, it’s easy to plateau. We don’t, what is the saying, drink or chew and go with girls that do. In other words, we got the outward sin sort of cleaned up and we come to church. But are we striving to be like Jesus? 1 John 3 says this: “Beloved, we’re God’s children now and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. 2 Corinthians 3:18: “We all with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into that same image from one degree of glory to another.” As I’m beholding that glory, I’m going to be changed. I’m going to be like him. So I want to strive for Christ’s likeness and I want to keep striving for ministry.
There’s a verse, I remember, that struck me in Acts 13. It said this: “Now, when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep.” If you work that backwards, if you haven’t died, you’ve not served God’s purpose yet. There’s still more work to do on your deathbed. You can be praying, you can be writing encouraging notes. We can glorify God in our living and in our dying. So I want to strive after joy, and I want to strive after holiness, and I want to strive after service. Psalm 92:14, “They will still bear fruit in old age.” Still bearing fruit. What Sharon and I were talking about as we were coming was that we knew a saint in our former church. She was continually studying the word. Even late, late in her life, she was the joyful, most encouraging person. She had a young, clueless elder to submit to, but she was so encouraging and she was always having people over to her house for hospitality. Just all those put together, just joyful, striving to know the word, striving to be Christlike, striving to serve. So I want to strive after joy, holiness, and service.
And a fifth one, which I think may be more personal as I suffer more, get closer. And that is this. I want to remember that Jesus sees me and is with me and is in control. Jesus sees me, he’s with me, and he’s in control you. Because it seems to me that one of the temptations of being older is loneliness. No one sees what I’m going through. Why doesn’t my family take care of me? What am I going to do without a family to take care of me? Why do I have this illness when this other person doesn’t? Does God see? Does God care? Let your eyes slip over to chapter four, verse 16. Paul says this: “At my first defense, no one stood by me. Everyone deserted me. May it not be counted against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that I might fully preach the Word and all the Gentiles might hear.” The Lord sees. The Lord is with me. He is in control. What did he say to his disciples before he left them? “I’m going away to prepare a place for you. I’ll come again and take you to myself.” What does Psalm 23 say? “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Why? “Because you are with me.” When the moment comes, the Lord promises that he will be with us. Psalm 1:15. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Jesus told Peter how he was going to glorify him: by that type of death. Jesus was in control. So I want to remember, and I’m sure there’s going to be suffering, excruciating suffering, loneliness. I want to remember and say, You remember, God sees you. God sees you. He is with you and he’s in control.
In 2015, Sharon and I watched one of our daughters run the New York City Marathon. Over 26 grueling miles, taking four to five hours. But everyone who finished the race got this big blue warming poncho with this word on the back: Finisher. Finisher. And the people who ran the race, for the rest of the afternoon, walked through New York City and complete strangers would say, “Good job, congratulations.” Because all they had to do was finish the race. They got a big blue poncho. That’s what is awaiting us. No eye can see, no ear has heard, no mind can imagine what God has planned for those who love him. Older saints, keep running the race, run through the finish line, being pulled towards a world of love, towards your savior. If you don’t know Christ, come to him tonight. And kids, I have two words for you that a well-known father said to his son and I’ve said it to my kids: be there. Be there. I am going before you probably, but I want you to be there. Let’s pray.
Dear Lord, it is sometimes hard to talk about difficult subjects like this, and yet you have conquered death. You are the one who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. And Lord, I pray for us. I pray for us as a people, of our church that we would like, it seems, like the Saints of the New Testament. We could say yes, we have been transferred from death to life. So this is just a change of address when physical death comes. Lord, help us to live for that day. Help me, help us see that heaven is a world of love and help us to honor you. For whatever you call us, however you call us to walk. And to run this marathon, help us run through the tape into your arms.
We pray in Christ’s name, amen.
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