The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.
That, of course, was from the Merchant of Venice, which I studied in grade 11. Do they still teach Shakespear in High School? Do they still require that you memorize portions of it?
My favourite monologue from the play are found in Shylock’s words.
How like a fawning publican he looks!
I hate him for he is a Christian,
But more for that in low simplicity
He lends out money gratis and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
If I can catch him once upon the hip,
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
Almost fifty years later, and they are still etched in my mind.
In grade 12 we studied Romeo and Juliet, and perhaps you are familiar with Romeo’s words outside Juliet’s balcony.
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Most of us are familiar with Romeo and Juliet, if not the original then one of the movies the play has inspired, or perhaps the soundtrack from the 1968 movie. The title theme was called “A Time for Us” and it was part of the prelude music played for our wedding.
But, if you’ve not studied the play, then you simply think it’s a love story.
Seriously, it’s about a 3-day relationship between a 17-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl that ends with six tragic deaths, including their own. But that’s a story for another sermon.
The play we didn’t study in high school was “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.” You probably know it simply as Hamlet.
And even though I never studied it, like most people I know a couple of lines from the play.
If I ever see a plastic skull, you can count on me to hold it up and say, “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him Horatio.”
And then there is the quote, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”
That actually is part of a much longer monologue given by the Prince. Hamlet goes on to say,
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.
But it never dawned on me until the other day, when I was reading a novel, that what Hamlet was saying, was “To Be alive, or not to be alive, that is the question.” He was talking about life and death. I didn’t know that because I hadn’t actually studied the play, I just knew the quotes.
Sometimes we are like that with the Bible, we can quote it without knowing it.
This is week 5 of our series “Colossians, Christ above all.” And I want to focus today on the first verse that Greg read for us, and it says: Colossians 2:13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away.
And, if you’ve never studied the book of Colossians, you might wonder why Paul would be addressing the letter to dead people?
Dead is a word that we don't often use in today's society.
When Angela and I were first married, I had a summer job at the Sussex health center, and every once and a while you'd hear an airline voice say "Code 10, room 115, code 10 room 115." Now if you worked there, you knew that someone had died.
Angela worked at the Kiwanis nursing home that same year and you'd think that with all those old people there, that the occasional one would die. Uh-huh, not once. What did happen is that “they expired.” That's right expired.
Come on parking meters expire. Warranties expire. People die. With one exception, I will probably expire but only because I forgot to mail in my renewal.
People die. But what is death? What is dead? Well I’m glad you asked. Collins English dictionary death: The permanent end of the life of a person or animal. But there has to be more to it than that.
Alice Thomas Ellis wrote, “Death is the last enemy: once we’ve got past that I think everything will be alright.”
And Robin Williams said, "Death is nature's way of saying, 'Your table is ready.'"
And while we all know we are going to die, I think we all share the sentiments of the tombstone that said, "I expected this but not yet".
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the psychiatrist who is known for her five stages of grief matrix, wrote “How you die is the most important thing you ever do. It's the exit, the final scene of the glorious epic of your life. It's the third act and, you know, everything builds up to the third act.”
And finally, psychologist, Timothy Leary said, “Dying is something we human beings do continuously, not just at the end of our physical lives on this earth.”
The words, death, dead or dying are mentioned 1683 times in the Bible. I know because I counted them. Actually I asked Logos, my bible program to count them. I tried AI, but that didn’t work.
But Paul isn’t talking about being dead physically, instead he is using death as a metaphor for our spiritual condition. Before we are born again in a relationship with Jesus, we are dead spiritually.
The question I need to ask today is this, Are you dead?
You say, "don't be foolish preacher, I ain’t dead." For the most part we understand that. We know that you aren't physically dead. But are you spiritually dead? Are you walking this old earth alive in the body but dead in the spirit?
the only way you can know for sure that you are not dead is to know that you are alive.
If You’re Dead, You Have No Appetite. When a man is dead, food no longer holds any interest for him.
You can have filet mignon wrapped in bacon, stuffed mushroom caps, baked potatoes, sour cream and chives and fresh strawberries and cream and he won't care.
Dead men don't have Big Mac attacks. They don't crave for food. Pizza, ice cream, burgers, fries, not even Chinese food interests the dead man. While a man is alive, he gets hungry on a regular basis, some of us more regular than others. The dead man though is unmoved by food.
One of the symptoms of the spiritual dead man is a lack of appetite for God. Now lack of appetite for God does not necessarily mean lack of appetite for church. The problem here is that many people get God and church confused. You can have an appetite for church without having an appetite for God.
Your church appetite may be because you like the music, or perhaps the preaching, or because it is a social occasion. Or maybe it adds to your prestige. There can be many reasons why you like church and God may not come into the picture at all. No hunger for God indicates a lack of spiritual appetite, which is usually indicative of spiritual deadness.
One of the easiest ways to diagnose your appetite is by watching what you eat. I love pizza! I could eat pizza seven nights a week and have the leftover pizza for breakfast. I have an appetite for pizza,
I should have that type of appetite for fruit and vegetables, and even though I love grapes and eat a half a dozen bananas a week, I still prefer pizza. Angela on the other hand is a chocoholic, she loves chocolate, she always has a dark chocolate bar in the fridge to nibble on.
One of our family traditions is that Angela provides the birthday cakes for our extended family. Our kids and grandkids. Sometimes she makes the cake or depending on the request sometimes she buys it.
A month before someone’s birthday, Angela will ask the lucky person what they would like for a cake, and they all have different preferences. We’ve had requests for, ice-cream cake, carrot cake, Pavlova, cheesecake, apple pie, butter tarts and cinnamon buns. Ultimately, their request is guided by their appetite.
It’s the same in the intellectual and spiritual level as well, what are you feeding on. Do you have a desire to feed on the things of God? Where do you feed your soul?
In front of the computer, on your phone or tablet or reading God's word? Now I’m not advocating throwing your computer, but it cannot supersede the time you spend with God.
When you are reading the bible, you are feeding on the things of God, after all he did call it the bread of life.
Some people can’t figure out why they don’t grow spiritually, there’s a good chance that it’s because they don’t feed on the word of God. Back when computers were still in their infancy there was a term that said, “Garbage in, Garbage out.” And that applies to our spiritual lives as well.
If you are only being fed from YouTube, Tic Tok, Facebook and Netflix, you probably aren’t getting the spiritual nutrition that you need.
If your view of the world is shaped entirely by Fox News or CNN ,you probably aren’t seeing the world with God’s eyes.
Do realize that during the year we have a half a dozen bible studies happening through the week at Cornerstone?
Catering to virtually every group in the church, they are an opportunity to feed on the things of God. But just as other people can’t physically eat for you, they can’t spiritually eat for you either.
Do you have an appetite for the word of God? Do you seek it out or do you find it boring? Do you feed on what God says or do you have no appetite for the things of God. No appetite means no life and that means that you are dead.
And even though you might fake your appetite God knows what it really is. I’ve obtained a reputation through the years as being a real coffee hound. Someone who drinks a pile of coffee. Can you pile coffee?
But I don’t really, I probably drink two cups of coffee in the run of an average day, I very seldom drink any coffee at home and yet people perceive me to be big coffee drinker.
Sometimes we can give the impression that we have an appetite for the things of God but it’s just an illusion.
If You’re Dead, You Have No Activity. A strange thing about dead people is that they are usually very still. No matter that they had been quite active previously, when they die, they have to stop, I mean they have no choice.
That's going to be the hardest thing for me when I die. It will take me a month just to do the things I promised Angela I’d do.
People who die, are now motionless. They are without activity. The spiritually dead person is usually without activity. Somebody else can lead a small group, work with the teens, help with the children's ministry, work on the social committee, serve on the board.
Now it's not that they are totally without activity, it's just that they are just without kingdom activity. They find time for other activities, duties and functions but they never have time to work in the church, strange thing that. There’s room in their lives for golf, for school and community committees, hockey and cheer, but if you ask them to commit time to ministry, “Well Pastor family comes first.”
Well actually if the truth was known family probably comes twelfth after work, play, hobbies, school, sports, television, friends, yard work, the cottage, fishing, crafts and defleaing the dog. But God’s work definitely comes after family, regardless of what rank family actually is.
If You are Dead You Have no Direction. Now that is really redundant because lack of motion translates so often into lack of direction. Dead people don’t have to know what direction to go in because they aren’t moving. They are quite content to head in whatever direction they’d been laid in.
Sometimes though we are moving but we’re not sure what direction we are supposed to be going. It’s like we’re all guys who don’t want to admit that we don’t know the way and we certainly aren’t going to ask for directions. But guess what? We have to. If we are seeking to follow God, we need to know where to go.
Many people sense a lack of spiritual direction in their life, but it’s because they haven’t asked the way. If you want to know where God wants you to go, you will have to ask. And when you talk to God that’s called prayer. A sign of spiritual deadness is a lack of spiritual growth or spiritual direction.
God does not direct the dead. Doesn’t have to because they’re not going anywhere.
If You are Dead, You Have no Love When a person is alive, they usually love all kinds of people, their friends and their family. Even Hitler loved his mother.
But when people die their love dies with them. Dead people can’t express their love and neither do dead churches.
The spiritual appetite, spiritual activity and spiritual direction, which we have seen is indicative of life, must ultimately produce Love. A love that touches people and communities for the lord Jesus Christ.
How is your love quotient? How do you exhibit your love to the people who surround you? And not only do we have to love people, but we need to tell people that we love them. We need to express our love now because there will come a time that we are unable to express it.
In the Book of the Revelation, which is the last book of the Bible Jesus spoke to the Church in Ephesus. And He commended them for all they did and then he said this, Revelation 2:4 “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!
That’s not necessarily something I would want said about me or about my church. I truly believe that if we were to try and find a secret weapon for reaching people it would be love.
Bill Hybels, made this statement about creating a loving church. “If you create a loving community, first time seekers will sniff it and say “I want in.” Crusty old veteran believers whose hearts have shut down will warm up again. Arrogant people will have their pride melted.”
How do you measure up? Are you dead or alive? If there's no appetite, activity, direction, or love then it's probably time to take a spiritual pulse, and I’d bet dollars to donuts that you won't find a pulse at all.
You have expired, deceased, passed away, you're no longer with us, you’ve kicked the bucket, you're done dead. You may not think so, but like Christ said in Revelation 3:1 . . . “I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive—but you are dead.”
Well then if you're dead then what do you need, well there are some who say all that people need is a Good Example, and there are those who do their very best to provide that good example for society. But let's face it have you ever tried to be a good example to a dead person. It is really quite hopeless.
Oh no someone says what he really needs is Encouragement. Now I think that encouragement is wonderful, enthusiasm is contagious. But you can never encourage a dead man to be anymore then dead.
No, no it’s Your Environment but face it even if a dead man's not in the funeral parlor he's still just as dead.
And Education isn't the answer. You can't educate the dead, although some of my high school teachers certainly tried. But face it if a person is dead then their most pressing need is life. Very simple, when you are dead what you need more than anything is to be alive. The word life or live is mentioned 1778 times in the bible, that's more than one hundred more incidences then death.
You say fair enough preacher I need life where do I get it from.
At different points in the gospel story, we hear peple asking Jesus the same question. How do I get life? And these are some of his responses.
John 11:25–26 Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die.”
John 14:6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
John 6:47 “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life.
Life can only be given by the life giver and that is Christ.
He gives life, not in teaspoons but in buckets and in 100-gallon drums.
John 10:10 The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.
Now Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, . . .
No, the question isn’t are you dead? We all are dead, or we were that is the wages of sin. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Let’s go back to where we started, Colossians 2:13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away.
But Paul doesn’t end there, he continues and says, Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.
Sin is death, God is life, and the choice is yours.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
