If you would please turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 23. It's an account in the life of Abraham and Sarah. And the students at the seminary in the fall quarter were preaching through this narrative of Abraham's life. And four years ago, when they were preaching through the same series, I had an opportunity to step in and fill in and preach for one of the students who had to leave town to go back home and finish the term by distance. And this was his text, and so I decided it would be my text. And so as the students were preaching at the seminary this fall, the last few weeks, it was on my heart again. And so I want to read it and consider it as we seek the Lord together. But before I read, a reflection. Henry lived 93 years. These were the years in the life of Henry. And Henry died in Winchester, Kansas. Zachary lived five years. These were the years in the life of Zachary. And Zachary died in Rochester, Minnesota. Lucille lived 89 years. These were the years in the life of Lucille, and Lucille died in Evansville, Indiana. Jean lived 62 years. These were the years in the life of Jean, and Jean died in Evansville, Indiana. Amelia lived 11 days. These were the days in the life of Amelia, and Amelia died in St. Louis, Missouri. Bill lived 70 years. These were the years in the life of Bill, and Bill died in Evansville, Indiana. Wilbert lived 93 years. These were the years in the life of Wilbert, and Wilbert died in Evansville, Indiana. Scott lived 38 years. These were the years in the life of Scott, and Scott died in southern Indiana. William lived 77 years. These were the years in the life of William, and William died in Sebring, Florida. Frank lived 84 years. These were the years in the life of Frank. And Frank died in Evansville, Indiana. Thelma lived 90 years. These were the years in the life of Thelma. And Thelma died in Evansville, Indiana. Charlotte lived 65 years. These were the years in the life of Charlotte. And Charlotte died in Boonville, Indiana. Helen lived 86 years. These were the years in the life of Helen, and Helen died in Evansville, Indiana. Florence lived 95 years. These were the years in the life of Florence, and Florence died in Evansville, Indiana. Nancy lived 63 years. These were the years in the life of Nancy, and Nancy died in Santa Claus, Indiana. Raymond lived 89 years. These were the years of the life of Raymond and Raymond died in Melbourne, Australia. Shirley lived 90 years. These were the years in the life of Shirley and Shirley died in Melbourne, Australia. Muriel lived 63 years. These were the years in the life of Muriel and Muriel died in Mount Eliza, Victoria, Australia. Juliana lived 104 years. These were the years in the life of Juliana, and Juliana died in Melbourne, Australia. John lived 81 years. These were the years in the life of John, and John died in Skye, Victoria, Australia. Michael didn't live outside the womb. These were the days in the life of Michael and Michael died in Langwarren, Victoria, Australia. Another Michael lived 37 years. These were the years in the life of Michael and Michael died in Mount Eliza, Victoria, Australia. Barbara lived 75 years. These were the years of the life of Barbara, and Barbara died in Knightstown, Indiana. And now, God's Word. Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah, and Sarah died at Kiriath Arba, that is, Hebron, in the land of Canaan. And Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. And Abraham rose up from before his dead and said to the Hittites, I am a sojourner and a foreigner among you. Give me property among you for a burying place that I may bury my dead out of my sight. The Hittites answered Abraham, Hear us, my lord. You are a prince of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will withhold from you his tomb to hinder you from burying your dead. Abraham rose and bowed to the Hittites, the people of the land, and he said to them, If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat from me Ephron, the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns. It is at the end of his field. For the full price, let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place. Now, Ephron was sitting among the Hittites and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites of all who went into the gate of his city. No, my lord, hear me. I give you the field and I give you the cave that is in it in the side of your sons of my people. I give it to you. Bury your dead. Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land and he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land. But if you will hear if you will hear me, I give the price of the field. Accept it from me that I may bury my dead there. Ephron answered Abraham, my Lord, listen to me, a piece of land worth 400 shekels of silver. What is that between you and me? Barry, you're dead. Abraham listened to Ephron and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, 400 shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants. So the field of Ephron and Machpelah, which was to the east of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it and all the trees that were in the field throughout its whole area was made over to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites before all who went in at the gate of his city. After this, Abraham buried Sarah, his wife, in the cave in the field of Machpelah east of Mamre that is Hebron in the land of Canaan. The field and the cave that is in it were made over to Abraham's property for a burying place by the Hittites. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Please join me in your hearts as I lead us in prayer, asking God for help in understanding his word. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we do come to your word and we want your word to have its effect on us. We want you to change us as we need to be changed, to make us what we're not, to remind us of what we are, to call us closer to you by faith. And now, as we walk through this text, in many ways walking through the valley of the shadow of death, may we fear no evil for you are with us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. The names that I read or spoke at the beginning of my message, all except Saris, were people whose funerals I either participated in or conducted. 21 sermons during my 19 active years of pastoral ministry, and then, or 20, and then 21, 22. The first one of those was my grandfather, and I wasn't yet in pastoral ministry, but I did participate in his funeral. Many have done more than that. Many pastors have done more than that. Some have done fewer. Those are just the ones that I had done. Some of those names that I named were old and full of years. You heard some of the lengths of years that they had, 89, 90, 93, 104. Some were just beginning, 11 days, five years, not even life outside the womb. As I mentioned, the first was my grandfather, the last was my mother. Some were friends, some were parents or children of friends. Some of them I'd known my whole life, some of them I'd known their whole life, some of them I never met. Some of them I led to Christ, some of them I baptized. Some died of old age, some of disease, suicide, drug abuse, abortion, birth defects. People live some number of years or days and people die. You are living and you will die. The people with whom you live are living and will die. What can we learn about living and about dying from the text here in the continuing story of the life of Abraham? Well, the first point that I call you to, it's in the title of the sermon is to live well, live well. And if the Lord is willing over the next three services this evening and then morning and evening next Lord's Day, we're going to consider three different aspects of living. This evening, live well, die well. Next Lord's Day morning, now it's always dangerous to announce ahead of time, but I think that's where we're going. Live as Christian citizens. And then in the evening, Lord willing, live together. And so that's a bit of a theme in this, what's in my mind at least, a little mini series as your pastor takes vacation. But live well. God calls you and me through his word to live well. Our English translation begins, Sarah lived. Sarah lived. I trust that you noticed the continuity between my reflection and the reading of the first verse. So-and-so lived so many years. These were the years in the life of so-and-so, and so-and-so died. And that's what we see here. Sarah lived. Sarah was a princess. She was a princess of a very small nation, a nation of three. But God had given her the name Sarah. He had told her husband that she would no longer be Sarai, but her name would be Sarah and that she would be one from whom kings would come. And so Princess Sarah lived 127 years. I don't think any of us will see that. The further we get from the fall, the shorter in general lifespan is, though technology does improve that somewhat, but we'll never accomplish what some would like, immortality apart from Christ. Since about age 65, Sarah had lived by faith as she followed her husband as they departed their homeland in Ur of the Chaldeans. She waited, sometimes impatiently, for the promises of God. And as one pastor put it, after above it all, in her old age, she became the mother of laughter, the son of promise. Sarah lived well because she lived by faith. Imperfectly to be sure, but she lived by faith. She considered that the one who had promised was faithful. Peter calls women to imitate Sarah's faith in their response, as hers was to her husband. Live well. Live well, live by faith, they're the same thing. The only way that you can live well is to live by faith. The only way for you and for people with whom you live and serve to live well is to live by faith. There are a lot of people, I hope none of you in this room, I hope none who are watching from a distance, are those who are saying, yeah, my life's good. I have a good life. I'm enjoying life. It's everything that I want it to be. But they're not living by faith. And to live that way is. It's like the silly story that I suspect some of you have heard, a rich man who died and he had put in his will that he wanted to be buried in his gold plated Cadillac. And so they followed his wishes and they embalmed the body, they put it in the Cadillac and the crane was lowering the Cadillac into the vault. And a passerby noticing it, seeing this gold plated Cadillac said, man, that's living. No, that's dying. And you may at some point or you may know people who think, look at my life, I'm living. And yet you can see that they're not living by faith, that they're dying. Not just dying decay that all of us are facing, living in a sin-filled world, but living apart from Christ, apart from faith. The only way to live well is to live by faith in the promises of God. And if you don't know what that means, if you don't know what it means to trust the Lord Jesus Christ, the work that he accomplished that you and I could not, and to put your faith absolutely and ultimately and totally in him, and to live by faith, If you don't know what that means, even though your pastor's on vacation, I think he'll talk to you about it. If he can't, one of your elders or one of the other members of the congregation who are living by faith. It's interesting that living by faith in the promises of God. Living well involves dying daily. Involves dying to sin. Temptation by temptation. As you decide, no, Christ is more important to me than this temptation to sin. And so you turn away from sin, you turn toward Christ. It also involves dying daily to self. I don't know when any of us found this out, but when a little child is born, a friend of ours, Jordan Fegley, at the seminary, he and his wife just had their first baby this week, and they're not sleeping very well at night. You know what happens when a baby's born is everything revolves around them. They think, or maybe they're not even thinking very much yet, it's just instinctive, When I cry, you react. And if it's in the middle of the night, it doesn't matter. You react. And at some point, we get a little bit older. I don't know. Most of you kids have probably learned it by now. I hope you've all learned it by now. At some point, we realize, no, it's not all about me. And that's what we have to learn as Christians. It's not all about me. That I am to die to self. and give myself to Christ, that I give up my preferences at times for those of my brother or my sister in Christ. You die to self daily. Christ said, take up your cross and follow me. So the exhortation from the text before us, my exhortation to you, people of God, is live well. The second exhortation is die well. Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years in the life of Sarah and Sarah died. You will die. I will die. We die because of the wages of sin. Some of those in the list that I read died directly because of their own sin. Some died directly because of the sin of others, but some died merely because they and you and I live in a sin filled world and the wages of sin is death. A pastor friend of mine and another congregation in the RP Church a few weeks ago in the same week had two funerals, two burials. One was an older man, a godly man who'd lived by faith and died in faith. The other was a 27-year-old son of an elder in the congregation who lived and died in unbelief. One of them lived well and died well and one of them lived and died poorly. As we read the text, as I read it to you, we walk in the valley of the shadow of death. There's only a word about the death of Sarah, but 14 times we're reminded about death. In verse 2, Sarah died. In verse 4, a burial site so that I can bury my dead. In verse 6, bury your dead. Here's a burial place, a need for a burial place to bury your dead. In verse 8, bury my dead. In verse 9, a burial place. In verse 11, bury your dead. In verse 12, bury my dead. In verse 15, bury your dead. In verse 19, buried his wife. In verse 20, a burial place. We live in the valley of the shadow of death, and in the valley of the shadow of death, die well. Sarah not only lived by faith, but the author of Hebrews tells us that she and all those others about whom the author is telling us died in faith, not yet having received the promises. Trusting God, even on their deathbed, and you and I must learn For ourselves, we must learn so that we can help teach others those God has placed you with how to live well and how to die well, how to live by faith, how to die in faith, believing the promises of God. During the 10 years that we were in Australia, as I was pastoring there, Nancy's father first and then my mother died. And we weren't there for either of their deaths. But in the Lord's kindness, we were back a few months before my father-in-law went to be with the Lord. And Dad Cole, as he was approaching death, was getting nervous. Now I think part of the problem he was getting nervous was he was raised and brought up in a system of doctrine that I believe humbly had an error in it, a serious error in it, a doctrine that he had believed his whole life that you can be a Christian and then not be a Christian, that you can have eternal life and then not have eternal life. And a little side note, if you have eternal life, it's eternal. And if whatever you had, you don't have anymore, it wasn't eternal. But as he was approaching death and became aware of his own mortality in a very significant way, he died of cancer. And I recall as I was with him that he said something, not an exact quote, but he said, And I just, I don't know, I don't know if I'll make it, I don't know if I'm good enough. And I didn't argue theology with my father-in-law, I pointed him to the Christ that I had seen him trust as long as I had known him in his life. And I said, Dad, of course you're not good enough, you know you're not good enough, that's why you're trusting Jesus. And a staunch Calvinist may become afraid as they near the end of their life, and they may begin to wonder, am I really in Christ? And the thing that we have to do, and if you face that, the thing you have to do is look to Christ. As people wonder, point them to Christ. Point them to the one in whom they have faith. Not just their faith, but the object of their faith. And that is how you and I and those we love can die well. Live by faith and die in faith. If for you to live as Christ, than for you to die is gain, as Paul writes to the Philippians. But the third exhortation from our text here this evening, not only live well, die well, mourn well, mourn well. Abraham mourned, wept real grief, and it was not and is not sinful to mourn. It's seen here in godly Abraham. It's seen in a number of godly people in the scripture, but it's also seen in the perfect one, the God-man, Jesus Christ. We read it in John 11. Some of you kids, you were glad that early on in your scripture memory program, you got to memorize John 11, 35, because it's one of the easiest verses. It's not technically the shortest verse in the Bible, I don't think. Depends on which language you use and what translation. But it's one of the easiest verses in the Bible to memorize. Jesus wept. And when we're little, we just memorize it, because it's easy. It's just two words. Anybody can remember two words, can't you? But the older we get, the more we come to appreciate those two words. Jesus wept. Jesus stood at the graveside. Here, it wasn't a hole in the ground, but it was a hole in a rock that was covered with a stone. And he wept. He wept. that the wages of sin are death. He wept for the loss of his friend who just in a few minutes he was going to raise miraculously from the dead. He wept because death is an enemy that he would go to the cross to conquer. But weeping and mourning is a Christian virtue and we must learn how to mourn well. There's a trend in the world and a trend in the church That a memorial service is simply a celebration of life. Now, I don't mean to criticize any of you if you've had a memorial for a loved one and you've focused on it being a celebration of life. It is that for the believer, but it is also for the believer a time of mourning, a time of weeping, a time of mourning that the loss of life and weeping like our Savior at the death of our friends and our family members. Or even at the death of one maybe we've never met because death is an enemy. And so mourn well. How do you mourn well? You mourn with hope. You mourn with hope. One of our students at the seminary last quarter buried his mother. And he sent an email to me and some others after the funeral and he said this, thank you friends for your prayers for my family as we grieve the loss of my mom. I thank God for our time with her. I'm glad that she's with Jesus." Real grief, real mourning, real hope. Paul writes about that to the Thessalonians and he tells them, don't grieve like those who have no hope, but grieve with hope because death is not the end. But it is real and it does hurt. And I don't know if I could say Christians should weep at funerals, but I can certainly say Christians are free to weep at funerals. Grieve, but not without hope. Live well, die well, mourn well. And the fourth exhortation is to bury well. Bury well. Now most of you, some of you pastors and elders will have responsibility for burying, conducting a funeral service for another. But you're going to be buried one way or another unless Jesus comes earlier than I think the scripture indicates he's going to. And so decide early, dear Christian, how to bury well and how to be buried well. I had to decide what to do as a young pastor when the funeral director called and asked me to do the funeral of someone I'd never met. I had to decide what to do as a young pastor when I conducted the funeral of someone I had no idea if they knew Christ. And in some cases, I was pretty sure they didn't know Christ. What will you do? What do you want read at your gravesite? I've found nothing better than Westminster Larger Catechism questions 84 to 90, and I've read it at the gravesite of Christian and non-Christian alike. I modify the words a little bit. The words used in the larger catechism as it describes what's going to happen at death and what's going to happen at the final resurrection, the two distinctive words that it uses are the righteous and the wicked. Well, I don't know if you know this, but no unbeliever thinks they're wicked. I shouldn't say no, most of them, most of the people you know who are unbelievers don't think they're wicked. And so I think in the context, we need to understand what it means to be righteous, what it means to be wicked. And so in the context of a funeral service, a gravesite service, I would substitute the words, those who have trusted Christ eternally and those who have not, savingly, and those who have not trusted Christ savingly. But what do you want read at your gravesite? What will you do, Christian, when you have to care for the family of a member of your church who commits suicide? Or you receive a call from strangers who want your pastor to bury their unborn child who, it seems, on medical advice, they aborted. What will you do, dear saints? When someone close to you in the face of death wants the one who's died to be cremated so they can keep their ashes in their home and remain some kind of a close relationship with them. Now just a side note, I think the scripture makes a strong case that burial is the preferred way of disposing of the body. I don't think we can make an absolute case. We have brothers and sisters in Japan who have no choice. There's no land to be buried in. And so cremation is not a sinful option, I don't believe, though I think it's often done for sinful reasons, even by Christians. But what will you do? How will you speak words of comfort? When you can do nothing but sob in the face of an untimely death. Consider your pastor as he's called to preach. Funerals don't make appointments, deaths don't make appointments. We were just a week before last with our daughter and son-in-law, Charity and Garrett Mann. Garrett's just a little over a year into his first pastorate up in Lisbon, New York. And on Wednesday he got a call that a member of their congregation had died, an elderly woman who had never since he was there been in the church service, but he had been visiting her regularly in the nursing home. And they planned the funeral for Saturday, his first funeral. So he'd been working on a sermon for the Lord's Day and he had to finish that quickly and write a sermon for Saturday. So think about and pray for your pastor and others as they're called to deal with funerals. What do you want preached at the burial of your family members, your loved ones? What do you want preached at your burial? so that the one speaking can get to the gospel clearly and gently and urgently. I considered it a great privilege to preach at a number of funerals, even of people I'd never met, because it was just an opportunity to preach the gospel to those living. And I never made it my aim if I suspected this one was an unbeliever, if I knew that they had died in unbelief, to judge them in the funeral sermon. If I knew they were in Christ, I would emphasize that. But I did make a clear distinction between dying in faith and dying out of faith and what it means and how you can prepare to die and the only way that you can prepare to die by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But over and over, People would come up to me after those services that I preached and shake my hands and say, thank you. Those were such kind words. And I wanted to grab them by the lapels and shake them and say, were you listening to me? The words weren't kind unless you're in Christ. And I think it was Shirley's funeral. She was the mother of members of our congregation in Australia. I forgot the name of the town. I think she was a believer, though I'd never met her. She was older and had been in a nursing home. Her daughters who were in the congregation were both believers. I tended to preach the same sermon over and over. Why do we die? How do you prepare for death? What happens when you die? How do you prepare for death? And a man came up to me after that service and he said, I didn't agree with what you said, I don't like that you said that Jesus is the only way. And I wanted to hug him. I want to hug him because he was listening, because he got it. He understood there is a distinction and who knows, but that the Lord may continue to use that sermon in his mind as he rebels against the God who says, I am the only way. Who knows, perhaps the Lord in his kindness will or has brought that one to salvation. But where was Abraham to bury his wife? He was a sojourner, a foreigner, a nomad, a stranger. He had no fixed property, even in the land of promise that God had said, I will give this to you and your descendants. And so what begins is kind of an odd account of Abraham and the Hittites haggling over a cave. And the owner of the cave, after some back and forth, said, what's 400 shekels between us? I'll give it to you. Yeah, if you want to pay 400 shekels, that's OK. Some who've tried to explore the currency and the practice of the day suggest that maybe 400 shekels was a high price and Ephron expected that they'd be bartering or haggling over what the final price would be. But Abraham would be indebted to no one except God. And so he paid the full price and bought that land, which was a down payment. to his descendants possessing the land. By faith, he bought it. He buried Sarah in it. A few chapters later, we read that he was buried in it. Jacob was buried in it. Isaac was buried in it. Jacob was buried in it. We see Jacob commanding his sons to take him back and bury him in the cave at Machpelah. Why was it so important? Because they were looking for a land, not a land of Canaan, but a city whose architect and builder was God. And so as Calvin puts it, while they were silent in death, the grave cried aloud that death was no obstacle to their entering on the possession of what God had promised. And so for you, for you individually, for you as the people of God in an assembled congregation, for those with whom you live, live well, die well, mourn well, bury well. so that Christ will be honored in your body, whether by life or by death. Please join me in your hearts as I lead us in prayer. Our great God and Father in heaven, death is hard. Death is sobering. And some of us, when we're younger, think, oh, I don't have to think about death. But people die at 11 days old and five years old and in the womb. Not everybody lives to 93 or 104. And so might we be preparing now to die? Might we be preparing to die by living by faith, living by faith in the promises of God, trusting you? And when we're impatient, Lord, teach us patience to trust you more. Bless these your people as they face death, whether their own or those that they love, as they prepare to die or as they make preparations for the burial of one who has died. May they, by your grace and strength, live well and die well. May this be a congregation that is known as a congregation that mourns well and that buries well. And would you be glorified in their bodies and mine, whether by life or by death, we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. We'll sing again to the Lord's praise and we'll use Psalm 48, Selection C. I just want to call to your attention the last line before we sing in the old psalter, the previous psalter. It ended with, even on through death itself, our constant guide is here, and the language is a little bit different, but it's exactly the same idea, who guides eternally. He is our God forevermore who guides eternally. And so even as you sing these words, look to him in faith so that you can live well and so that you can die well.