How Do I Help the Dying and Grieving?

A person may be decaying on the outside. If they're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, their inner self is very much alive. Paul tells the Colossians in chapter 3, your life is hidden with Christ in God. The ravages of disease and injury, touching body and mind, cannot touch that life. When disease and illness touch someone we care about, the grief is very real and very deep. Growing up as an unbeliever, as death took people close to me, I had no answers. But as Christians, we understand death. We're united to the one who has overcome the grave, and we have the Word of God to help us respond to suffering well.

I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and you're joining us for the Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Guy Waters helped us yesterday to see how we as Christians may grieve. But how do we help those who are in the midst of their own grief or are dying themselves? Here's Dr.

Waters with some practical advice. We're thinking now about how to encounter death biblically, and we saw from 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 in our last lecture that if we wanted one word to capture how we respond to death, it's grief. And one thing we saw the Apostle Paul counseling us is that as we grieve, we are to minister to others in their grief, encourage one another with these words. Chapter 4, verse 18.

And that provides a nice bridge to the topic of this lecture. How do we minister to those who are dying and grieving? Now that we have a biblical posture towards death, how do we serve those who are dying? How do we serve those who are mourning the loss of someone they love?

I want to take each of those up in turn. First, how do we minister to those who are dying? Sometimes death comes very suddenly. It can be a medical event, an accident, but often people have some awareness that death is coming on, and there's time to prepare. I want to think together about how we can serve someone who knows that death is imminent. Five thoughts, and they each begin with the letter P. The first is preparation. The first thing to do to serve this person well is to prepare yourself. How do you prepare yourself? Well, the first thing you'll want to do is to equip yourself with what the Scripture says about death and dying. You want to equip yourself with the way in which the gospel speaks into these life and death issues.

You never know what kinds of questions or conversations may arise when you're with your friend, and you want to be ready to speak a good word. You want to be sensitive to their circumstances. Are they weak?

Are they discouraged? Does their condition or medications that they're on impair their ability to carry on a lucid conversation or a long conversation? You want to take that into account as you spend time with them. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4, verse 29, we're to speak to one another as fits the occasion.

So we want the right word for the right time. We prepare ourselves with the Scripture's teaching, but we also want to prepare ourselves for what we may see. Your friend or loved one may have undergone significant physical changes since you last saw them.

They may be experiencing considerable mental decline or impairment. And here we need to remember the Bible's teaching about the human person. Paul tells the Corinthians, chapter 4, at verse 16, we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away. Our inner self is being renewed day by day. And that verse speaks to this situation.

A person may be decaying on the outside. If they're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, their inner self is very much alive. Paul tells the Colossians in chapter 3, your life is hidden with Christ in God. This is a believer.

Whatever you're seeing on the outside, they are secure in Christ. And the ravages of disease and injury, touching body and mind, cannot touch that life. So preparation. Second way we can minister well to those who are preparing to die is presence. When we come to be with our friend or loved one, we may put a lot of pressure upon ourselves to do something.

This may well be our very last meeting with them. And sometimes the best thing is to say little, even nothing at all. Something as simple as holding their hand, squeezing their shoulder, reading a beloved passage of scripture, a psalm, a chapter of Romans, singing a hymn, praying for them audibly, can have great effect in the moment. And if you do talk to them, remember as one wise pastor puts it, listen, don't solve. Be there for them. Sometimes when we try to solve or fix, we can create problems we never thought we'd create. Remember Job's friends.

Remember what Job says to his friends in chapter 13. Oh, that you would keep silent and it would be your wisdom. Well, they didn't keep silent.

Would that they had. Even if they're not responsive, assume that they can hear everything. Take time to talk to them, to read scripture to them, to pray with them. Who knows what the Lord may do with that. This is not going to be an easy thing to do, but this is one of the ways we carry out the command bear one another's burdens and you will fulfill the law of Christ. This is a burden you have the privilege of bearing at that moment.

And it takes self-denial. It's not something that's pleasant, not something you relish, but it's an act of love. You remember what Paul wrote the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 2. I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. Not a particularly enjoyable experience, but aren't we glad that Paul bore that burden and served the Corinthians in love.

So presence. The third way that we can help minister to those who know that they're dying involves the prognosis. We need to respect their physician's prognosis. The doctors might have concluded that there's little likelihood of survival. They may prescribe a course of palliative care. That is, they're going to treat the patient to make the patient comfortable, but will allow the inevitable to follow its orders.

We'll think more about these sorts of decisions in a later lecture. But here we simply need to stress it's not sinful to yield to God's providence in this matter. Death can't ultimately be avoided. Sometimes well-meaning believers will ask, but shouldn't we pray for miraculous healing? Isn't it faithless not to expect that God would bring that person back to health and full strength, even someone who's on the brink of death? Doesn't James say in James 5, the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up?

Well, how do we think through that kind of approach to a person who's very sick? How do we respond to their understanding of what James says in the fifth chapter? I think in the first place we need to emphasize, yes, the Lord can certainly do what he will. The Lord is able to do what he will. He can heal any who are sick.

He can raise the dead. But the question for us is what has God said in his word that he is willing to do? And our duty is limited not by what God can do, but by what God has said he will do in his word. What has he committed himself to doing? With that in mind, look back at what James says in chapter 5 at verse 15. You have to read that statement in the context of the whole letter.

A few things. James has said in the last chapter, chapter 4 verse 15, you ought to say if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. He said in the previous verse, what is your life?

It's a mist that appears for a time and then vanishes. So the span of our life is set by the secret will of God. And James tells us whatever you pray, including prayers for those who are sick, your prayer must understand that it is if the Lord wills, Father, bring healing to this person. And God may or may not, but we submit to his will knowing that it is good and for the good of his people.

Another thing to remember from the letter of James is what he says at the very beginning of his epistle. Believers are not spared troubles and trials, and that includes sickness, that includes the trials leading up to death. Why does God bring trials into the life of his children?

Well, he tells us at verse 2 and following. Trials, he says, are for the testing of your faith, and that produces steadfastness, that we may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. So James says, count it all joy when we encounter trials of various kinds. So God has not promised any of his children a life free of trial and suffering.

What God does when he brings those trials into a person's life, he appoints those for their good. And James tells us what that good is, that we would be made more holy and more like Jesus Christ. And then look at some of the examples that James gives us around his statement in chapter 5 verse 15. In verse 11 of chapter 5, he points us to Job, and he says, remember the steadfastness of Job.

Remember Job suffered terribly, both in body and in soul. And that suffering, you'll remember, is not evidence against his faith, but God appointed it in light of his faith in order to strengthen his faith and to refine his servant. And then we have a couple of verses down in verses 16 and 17, the example of Elijah. He prayed, but remember he prays according to the promises that God had given him to believe. He doesn't pray presumptively. So keeping those things in mind, we affirm what James says in chapter 5 at verse 15.

How can we summarize his teaching? James tells us when we're sick, we should pray. Now God may be pleased to answer that prayer with restoration to health, but we know that God will answer that prayer in full for every believer at the resurrection when our bodies are raised to newness of life and where sin and sickness and suffering and dying are no more. But God has not absolutely pledged himself to heal every person, every Christian who is ill. And what James says does not mean we don't go to the doctor or consult the wisdom of our doctors. It means that we put our trust not in physicians, but in the Lord. The fourth thing that we do as we think about ministering to those who are nearing death is to point them to Christ. If we're able to spend time with someone who is sick and near to death, think of ways that you can point them to the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's a very touching scene in the life of Martin Luther. His 13-year-old daughter Magdalena was dying and did die, and he was at her bedside. And he asked his daughter this question, Magdalena, my little girl, would you like to stay here with your father or would you just as gladly go to your father in heaven? And her answer was, yes, dearest father, as God wills.

It was a simple, clear, gospel-centered question, and I have little doubt that Magdalena's answer stayed with her father for the rest of his life. How do we begin these conversations? Well, we've already counseled that we oughtn't be reckless.

But by the same measure, we shouldn't be timid either. These are solemn, final conversations. We should try to find a way to bring up eternal things.

One way to do this is by raising open-ended words. What are you thinking about? Do you have any fears or worries?

Is there anything you'd like to say while I'm here? If the person we're serving is an unbeliever, then we know certain things from the scripture about them. We know that they carry the burden of their sin in all of its guilt, and conscience tells them they are accountable to God as their judge. And we know that they will be relying on something, the wrong thing, in order to present themselves acceptable to God. And so we want to share the good news that Christ is Savior from sin, that sin is real and deserves punishment, that no one is righteous, none is good enough to be accepted on the basis of his or her own record before a holy and just God, that Christ who is altogether righteous took that punishment for sinners, and he won eternal life and victory over death, and it's for sinners just like your friend.

Who knows what God may do with his word in their very last hours? But if we hold out to them the gospel, we have done the very best thing. They're a believer. Remember that the devil and the flesh are going to conspire to tempt that person to despair. And one of the things we can do to serve our brother or sister in Christ is to be a help and encouragement to them.

If you've read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, you remember at the very end as Christian struggles in the hour of death, Hopeful, his pilgrim companion, comes alongside him and encourages him with words of scripture. And so our friend needs to hear the gospel in its clarity, whether at the moment they are in that kind of temptation or not. Point them to the sovereign love of the Father. Point them to the sufficiency of Christ's work. Point them to the preserving power of the Spirit.

Remind them that Christ has gone before them through the grave and into heaven and that he's with them even now. Fifthly and finally, we minister to those who know that death is near by praying with and for them. What sorts of things do we pray for? We pray that they would have a sure and settled faith in Jesus Christ. We pray that they would submit themselves to the will of God. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray that they would have comfort of body and soul. We pray the Lord would take them quickly. On some occasions that's the right thing to pray. And we pray that the Lord would make provision for the loved ones they leave behind. These are all good ways to pray, particularly for our fellow believers in Christ. Secondly, lastly and briefly, how do we minister to those who are grieving, someone who has lost a loved one?

I think there are three things we can keep in mind. And the first is step in. Step in to help.

The experience of grief and mourning, as I'm sure many of you know, is an overwhelming one, physically, emotionally, and otherwise. At just the time when many important decisions have to be made very quickly. So look for ways to step in non-obtrusively. Offer help. Call them. Visit them. Show up with a meal. Offer transportation or housing, if you can, for family who are coming in for the funeral. And don't wait for them to ask. And don't assume that the deacons and the elders have it all taken care of.

Step in and then serve for the long haul. Grief doesn't end with the funeral. Your life may return to normal, but the lives of mourners doesn't. Think about ways that you can minister to persons who are grieving over the long haul. A call or a text on a birthday or an anniversary or on the date of their loved one's death. Invite them out to a meal. Write them a note. Send them a card. Tell them you're thinking about them and praying for them. And then thirdly, speak to them of the deceased. That might seem counterintuitive. We might think if I talk about the loved one they've lost, won't that rip open wounds? Won't that hurt them? But we do have to be sensitive here.

But in fact, the opposite is the case. Perhaps you've experienced, I've experienced how bereaved delight to hear such accounts and stories of their loved ones. Tell them personal things. Words that will encourage them. Acts of service that you've seen, perhaps no one else has seen. Insights into their character.

Ways that they have affected and influenced you. Those are precious things that a family can take with them. And if they're a believer, especially testify to their faith and the fruit of that faith and the good that they have done as a believer in your life and in other lives. If the mourner is not a believer, what a powerful witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if that mourner is a believer, what a powerful comfort to know something more of their loved one and the grace of Christ in their life. This is just a sampling of ways that we minister to those who are dying and to those who are grieving. The important thing is we come armed with the gospel and we come ready to serve because we want to see the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Lord of the living and of the dead, exalted in the lives of his people. As I'm sure you can tell, Dr.

Waters has thought carefully about this sensitive topic. And we'll send you the hardcover edition of Facing the Last Enemy, chapters include, What happens after death? Why do Christians die?

What does the Bible teach about the resurrection? And more. You'll also receive digital access to the complete 12-part series and the study guide.

So give your gift at renewingremind.org or by calling us at 800 435 4343. So far this week, we have considered how we should grieve, how we should care for those who are grieving or facing death. Well, next Guy Waters answers the question, How do I prepare to die? That's tomorrow here on Renewing Your Mind. you