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Opening Prayer I’m excited to talk about family worship. It’s a topic that I hope will either encourage you, refresh your zeal, or introduce to you as a new practice that will bless those in your household. Let’s pray. God, we thank you so much for this morning. We thank you for this opportunity to look at your word and consider what is profitable, what is useful, consider the means of grace that will enable us to grow and be sanctified and be more pleasing to you. God, please help us to do that. I pray that this would be an encouragement to everyone who’s here. And I ask all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. The Chair I Broke In the past, I did air conditioning for about seven years, and I remember one of the most embarrassing, pit-in-my-stomach moments I have ever had. I was 21 years old, and I was doing an air conditioning tuneup at a customer’s house. Part of my check was to go to every vent in the house and check airflow and temperature, and everything was going really well until I got to one vent that had a chair underneath it. Because the chair was there, I couldn’t reach the vent, and so I did what any sensible person would do. I stepped up onto the chair, and after a couple seconds, I hear creak, snap. I look at the chair. The chair is broken. I noticed for the first time in that moment that chair looks kind of old. The homeowner comes running in. She looks at me on the ground, looks at the chair, and she says, “Mima’s chair.” Just getting worse and worse by the second. It was an heirloom. It was a family heirloom, and I snapped it so that I could be extra thorough on my air conditioning tuneup for $69. She starts crying. I call my manager, and he comes out and promises her we’re going to make it right. They ended up finding an antique craftsman to repair it, and she was happy. I don’t know how much that repair bill cost, but I was expecting to be fired. My manager graciously looked at me afterwards and said, “Did you learn your lesson?” I said, “Yes, sir.” And that was it. I never heard about it again. From then on I used a ladder every time I checked registers. I never stepped on a customer’s chair again. I learned to use the right tool for the job. In fact, I had the right tool available to me the whole time in my vehicle, and I just didn’t pull it out and use it. Think of a typical household—dad, mom, kids—and we will address other situations later. Dad has a responsibility to shepherd and lead his wife. He and his wife together have a responsibility to bring up the children. Those are no tasks for the faint of heart. They’re sweet tasks, but they aren’t easy. You need to use the right tools. This morning, I want to present family worship as an essential tool in those endeavors. Today, I’ll demonstrate three stimulating considerations of family worship. A Husband’s Pursuit of His Wife’s Sanctification We’ll start by looking at Ephesians 5. Go ahead and turn to Ephesians 5:25–27. “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.” I’m not going to do a complete exegesis of this passage or the surrounding passages, but I want to highlight some things that will serve our purpose well. I want to talk about the husband’s need to pursue his wife’s sanctification. The text says that husbands are to love their wives just as Christ loved the church. Notice these characteristics of Christ’s love. It was utterly sacrificial. He gave himself up for her. Christ put the good of the church ahead of his own well-being. He didn’t avoid the things that demanded effort or discomfort or even pain. Those of you who know the gospel understand that Christ went to the cross and bore the wrath of God as a sin offering on behalf of everyone who would ever believe in him, so that though sinful and guilty, they can be declared righteous, innocent, and adopted into God’s household. So husbands, as you look to lead your wives, sacrificial love is the modus operandi for your leadership. But look at the purpose stated here for Christ’s sacrificial love. What was he aiming at? So that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. Christ was aiming at the sanctification of the church. This is positional sanctification. Christian, when you believed the word of God and the gospel, Christ set you apart as his own forever. You have been sanctified. This positional sanctification came through the means of sacrificial love on the cross. So because of what Christ did, every believer is justified. Every believer is declared to be righteous and free from sin. And every believer still alive needs continual repentance, confession of sin, and pursuing holiness. We don’t yet experience the fullness of our purification, sanctification in the gospel, and we won’t in this life. But we must be ever striving for greater purity of heart, greater holiness. This is called our progressive sanctification. So husbands, Christ provided the salvation and positional sanctification of all God’s people at the cross so that the church would be presented to himself in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle, holy and blameless. It’s an incredible reality, and it’s one that none of us husbands play a part in. We are beneficiaries of this work. But every believer must partner with Christ, with the Spirit, in the aim to see that they and those around them are growing in godliness. And especially in this context, the husband to his wife. This is part of your duty. Certainly not all of your duty to your wife, men, but it’s an important part, and it’s the element that we’re going to focus on today. It is your responsibility to conspire for your wife’s sanctification. Bringing Children Up in the Discipline and Instruction of the Lord Second stimulating consideration of family worship is to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Look just down a few verses at Ephesians 6:4. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” We didn’t look at the whole context for either of these passages. But if you scan the section, you will see submissional relationships: wives submitting to husbands, children submitting to parents, slaves submitting to masters. In all three of those relationships, the one in authority owes something to those who submit to them. A wife must submit to and honor her husband. Good. But a husband must love and care for his wife. It’s easy for us to see the ugliness of a man who doesn’t love his wife, but always asserts his own authority and demands his honor. It’s dishonorable. In the same way, parents must recognize we hold that same attitude when we demand obedience of our children according to verses 1 through 3 in this passage, but neglect the ministry and care of verse 4. If you’re a parent, hope to become a parent, if you’re a grandparent, or if you just know someone who’s a parent, this passage needs to be in your repertoire. Notice in verse 4 who Paul commands. This command is addressed to fathers. Paul knows the word for parents. He uses it in verse 1. But specifically he gives these commands to fathers. This doesn’t deny or neglect the role of mom in the home, but it does say dad is the leader, and dad is ultimately responsible for the way these things play out. Mom’s influence is significant. She is a fundamental, essential help, laboring alongside her husband and with all of his trust in these things. Five Ways Parents Provoke Their Children The first command here in this passage is do not provoke your children to anger. In the context when Paul writes this, in the ancient world fathers were viewed to have an authority that far exceeds what we view a father’s authority to be today, to the point of the father having the right to put family members to death on a whim. There’s no legal check to his power. God’s view of fatherhood is so far from that one. It is so far from domineering control. Paul’s first desire for fathers and parents in the church is that the children would not be provoked to anger. To provoke your child doesn’t mean that you always make decisions they would approve of. It doesn’t mean that you become child-centered in your thinking. This is what it means to provoke your child: it’s a continual, repeated pattern of treatment that builds up until it boils over in anger, frustration, resentment, bitterness. It’s a tragic picture, a child who’s embittered against their parents, who are actually the primary source of God’s wisdom and care and love. One commentator notes how a child is like a flower that closes off to storm clouds but opens up utterly unfurled to the light and warmth of the sun. Parents hold great influence over their children. They can cause their children to shut down and shut out in anger, and likewise they have the greatest influence in watching their children bloom to full flower. So parents must take care not to provoke. There are some great lists in different resources of ways that parents often provoke their children. Here are some from the book The Faithful Parent by Stuart Scott and Martha Peace. A proud parent won’t be able to admit that they are wrong, and they will demand that their children quickly admit when they have done something wrong. A proud parent will be quick to shame their child publicly. There’s a despairing parent who’s always glass-half-empty, always recounting regrets and failures in parenting. Not only will they struggle to be an encouragement to the child, but they will be motivated by fear and are often therefore unp

Opening Prayer and Why We’re in Leviticus on Easter Lord God, thank you for this morning. Thank you for an opportunity to celebrate your resurrection. Lord, it is such a sweet truth that so often throughout our lives we forget or put on the back burner. I’m grateful that we live in a society where, even though most people do it wrong, they at least set aside a day to remember that you have risen. As we come to your Word this morning, as we open up the book of Leviticus, help us remember and be in awe of what it means to be in your presence and of how significant an act it was for you to go to the cross. In your name, amen. Well, he is risen. All right. This is not a church that does that very well, so I figured we’d try. This morning I’m doing one of our NGM lessons. It covers five lessons the kids are going over over the next several weeks, because we don’t have NGM today and we don’t have NGM on the 25-year anniversary service. So this is our Leviticus overview. The last time we touched the kids’ curriculum, we were in Exodus back in February. I don’t expect anyone to remember it, so let me lay the groundwork for what we’re talking about today. In Exodus, God’s presence returned to his people, but there was still a significant distance. So God gives them sacrifices, priests, the Day of Atonement, and then says, “Now live like people who belong to me.” That is the arc of what we’re going to be talking about today. The main point of our story this morning is that God built an entire system to teach his people that earning their way into his presence is impossible. However, we sit on this side of Calvary, so we must remind ourselves daily of this distance that the cross had to cross. It happens to be Easter. It wasn’t planned this way, but as I reviewed what I was supposed to teach, I thought, man, this is a perfect preview to Resurrection Sunday. From Sinai to Separation Let’s open up our Bibles, and we’re actually going to start in the book of Exodus. When we read together, we’ll be reading in Exodus 33. But let me give you some background. In our February NGM lesson, we walked through three chapters in Exodus. God brought Israel to the base of Mount Sinai. He had carried them out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea, fed them manna, and when they arrived at the mountain, he spoke to the entire nation. God himself, out of the fire and the smoke and a shaking mountain, directly spoke to his people, giving them the Ten Commandments with his own voice. They were terrified. They begged God to stop talking. They told Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen, but don’t let God speak to us or we’ll die.” So Moses stepped in as a go-between. He went up into the thick darkness where God was, and the people stayed at the base of the mountain. This was the first time in the story where the need for a mediator was obvious. Then God gave Moses seven chapters of a construction plan for a tent: measurements, materials, furniture, fabrics, detail that feels endless in a reading plan. And he did it because he wanted to live with them. The people had just begged God to stop talking to them, and his response was, “No. Make me a tent. Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” The tabernacle was his answer to the distance that sin had created. He is both holy enough to kill anyone who touches that mountain and willing to live in a tent in the middle of their camp. That’s the tension the gospel shows us. While Moses was up on that mountain receiving those plans, Israel was at the base making a golden calf. Aaron, the guy who was the voice for Moses, who had walked through the Red Sea on dry ground, asked for every piece of gold and melted it down and said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you from the land of Egypt.” He assigned the credit for what Yahweh had done to a piece of metal that had barely even existed in that form. Then he put God’s name on it: “Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh.” So he made this graven image and then named it God. This wasn’t just rejecting God. It was redefining him. God told Moses he was ready to destroy them. He said, “Let’s start over.” Moses argued with God, not on the basis of Israel’s character, but on God’s. He appealed to God’s ownership of the people, God’s glory, God’s promises to Abraham. So God relented, but 3,000 men still died on that day. The sons of Levi went through the camp with swords. These were everybody’s friends and brothers, and Israel felt the weight that their sin had caused. Then Moses went back up to God and said, “If you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out from your book which you have written.” Moses said, “Take me instead.” And God said, “No.” He said, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book.” Moses couldn’t ransom them. He could not be the mediator. He could not be the true payment for their guilt. That’s where we ended two months ago. We ended at Exodus 32. We knew that God is just, because God killed 3,000 men for their sin. And we knew that God is merciful, because he carried forward a people that didn’t deserve to be carried. After the golden calf, God tells Moses he’ll still give Israel the land. He’ll still send an angel to drive out their enemies. But he says this in Exodus 33:3: “Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey, for I will not go up in your midst because you are a stiff-necked people, lest I consume you on the way.” They still get what they were promised. They’re going up to the land. But they don’t get the most important part: God. And the text is very clear about the reason. God didn’t withdraw his presence as punishment. He did it to protect them: “lest I consume you on the way.” His holiness is so pure that his presence among a stiff-necked people would destroy them. That word stiff-necked is an agricultural term. An ox that stiffens its neck against the yoke refuses to be led. You can pull all you want; you’re not moving that ox. He’s stiff-necked. He won’t be led. That is what God was calling Israel: a people that would not be led. He speaks to them and they build a calf. He commands and they do what is right in their own eyes. The text doesn’t hold Israel up as an example of repentance. They mourn when they hear this news. They strip off their jewelry as a sign of grief. But this is the same people who will grumble for 40 years in the wilderness. They didn’t really understand what they did. They just didn’t like the punishment. God didn’t just refuse to dwell in their midst. He physically separated himself from them. Moses takes the tent of meeting and pitches it outside the camp. Exodus 33:7 says he put it a good distance from the camp. So if you want to seek Yahweh, he’s not in your midst anymore. You have to leave the camp. You have to go a good distance. You have to see a physical picture of the reality that God is not existing among you anymore, because God’s glory and human sin cannot coexist. Then Moses goes into that tent and prays. He doesn’t point to anything in Israel. He reaches for God’s own character. Moses says, “You have said, ‘I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’” His intercession rests on God’s initiative, not Israel’s improvement. That word favor is the same Hebrew word that shows up throughout the Old Testament for grace. It’s unmerited. It’s already in motion before Moses opened his mouth. This is the picture of New Testament grace. Paul says in Ephesians, “By grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves. It’s a gift from God.” The pattern is the same with Moses. God moved first. The entire sacrificial system in Leviticus exists because God chose to be gracious. Israel didn’t design it. God did. So when we read Leviticus, we should read it thinking, this is a gracious gift from our Lord. Every word in this book is a way God made so that he could be among his people. The next morning Moses climbed Sinai alone, and God descended in the cloud and stood there with him, and he called upon the name of Yahweh. In Exodus 34:6–7, God speaks about himself: “Then Yahweh passed by in front of him, Moses. And Yahweh called out, ‘Yahweh, Yahweh, God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and truth, who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.’” In these verses, God is defining himself. He calls himself compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin—three different words for sin, and God forgives it all. Then, in the same breath, God says he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. He forgives sin and he punishes sin. If you don’t feel the tension in that sentence, you’re not paying close enough attention. How does a God who abounds in lovingkindness and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished deal with a stiff-necked people that he’s chosen to love? This isn’t resolved in Exodus. Frankly, it’s not resolved in Leviticus. Every sacrifice, every priest, every Day of Atonement is God saying, “I’m holding both of these truths at once, and I’m giving you a system to live under while you wait for the real answer.” The Question Leviticus Exists to Answer After Moses’s intercession, after God proclaims his name on the mountain, and after the tabernacle is finally completed, the people built it exactly as God commanded. So God keeps his promise. Turn a couple of pages to Exodus 40. “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle, and Moses was

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The following is an AI-generated rough transcript of the Equipping Hour. It may contain inaccuracies.  in headings, replace X with the actual timestamp seconds if you want; currently set to rough breaks. --> Opening and Introduction Smedly Yates: Well, good morning. Happy Sunday. Welcome to Grace Bible Church this morning and to Equipping Hour. This morning, we’re going to be doing a follow-up from an equipping hour that Jake taught on January 11th on dementia. And that was, Jake, that was riveting and encouraging. And I thought you taught us everything we needed to know, but apparently you didn’t. Because the numbers of follow-up questions from that equipping hour broke all records. So we’ve sort of accumulated those questions. And let me just encourage you, if you didn’t get a chance to listen to that equipping hour from January 11th, pull it up on the website, go back and listen to that. And this morning, what we’re going to do is just put the questions that many of you asked in person and submitted. Or just get to ask those of Jake in front of all of us. And so Jake really is going to give most of the answers here. I don’t know if I have a whole lot to say. Other than these are the questions we got, Jake, help us. So with that, let me open us in a word of prayer and we’ll get started. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your kindness to us. We don’t deserve to have physical ability endure in this life. We don’t deserve to have mental capacity sustained in this life. We truly only deserve condemnation under your wrath for our sins. And so anything that you give to us, we pray to use as a gift, as a stewardship, to use well and for your glory, and to be content and to trust you as things diminish. And we thank you for the preparation, for mental decline. You’ve already given us from principles from your word. We pray even now as we discuss caring for one another and seeking to glorify you in personal worship in our physical existence that you would be honored as we listen and apply and are strengthened and sharpened to help others. We ask all this in Jesus’ name. Amen. I’m going to start with kind of a personal question that came in, Jake, and it goes like this. If I try not to get dementia, you gave us a lot of helps, dietary exercise, sleep, some of those things that were really helpful, practical things. So if I’m doing those things, if I’m trying not to get dementia, am I expressing distrust and dissatisfaction in God and his sovereignty? Stewardship, Planning, and God’s Sovereignty Jacob Hantla: Maybe. So, yeah, we spend a lot of time talking about the practical ways that you might want to steward this life and this body that God’s given you. The big hitters were exercise, right? We said if there’s one that you can do, it’s that. But there’s a lot more. There’s a, but if you’re doing those things, is that sinful? It might be. There’s a way to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. Planning, though, is not unbelief. Planning like God doesn’t exist is unbelief. or planning like God’s way isn’t best in your selfishly, arrogantly grabbing after your own desires. That’s unbelief. That’s sin. So the issue isn’t whether you should steward, but it’s whether an action that you’re saying is stewardship is actually a mask for control, pride, and fear. Proverbs 27:12 says the prudent sees danger and hides himself. There’s a way to see that. Where you see danger, you hide yourself from it. You take planned steps in order to avoid it that actually roots itself from fear of the Lord. And that would be right. And in contrast, it says the simple go on as if that danger isn’t there and they suffer for it. So there’s nothing inherently righteous or right and just saying, I’m going to trust the Lord and use that as a mask for just lazy thoughtlessness. Similarly, there’s nothing righteous at all in saying, I don’t want what I fear is coming and I’m going to grasp after what I want. But James 4, you guys might want to open there. This is, a really, really helpful section of scripture for planning. And it reveals why we actually have to, at the heart of all of this, guard our hearts, not merely do the right thing. James Chapter 4. And this is in the context of the warning, or the command to humble yourself from verse 10, humble yourselves before the Lord because God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. And now, he says, come now, verse 13, you who say today or tomorrow, we’re going to go into such and such a town, spend a year there trade, and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? You’re a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will do this or that. So the take home from that is not don’t plan, don’t run a business, but rather as you run it, run it as one who actually embraces and recognizes your temporalness, your weakness, your dependence, and God’s sovereignty. Smedly Yates: If we zoom out from the topic of dementia, and we just think about the principle underlying that, we’re dealing with the realities of God using human means in his sovereign plans. If we rephrase the question, we might say, is it sin and distrust of the Lord to study for your chemistry exam? No, of course not. Can you sin by studying for your chemistry exam without thought toward God and exalt your own pride and intellect and your hard work? Yeah, that’d be wrong. A godless, practical, atheistic approach to effort would be sin. But a laziness that says, well, I’m just trusting in the Lord, but I’m not going to go apply for a job, study from my exam, practice for the athletic endeavor, or whatever is sin the other way. And I love the example of evangelism. We know that God will save people, but we know that God uses means to do it. So is it a failure to trust God when I go out and share the gospel with people? No, it’s actually the obedience that God uses as a means to accomplish his ends. Now, I can’t control the results. So you can be faithful, worshiping the Lord, telling others how great Jesus is all day long and nobody gets saved and God is honored and we trust him. Jacob Hantla: Yeah. There’s two biblical, I love the illustration. It’s throughout the Bible of horses and chariots. You can write down Proverbs 21:31 and Psalm 20:7. In Proverbs 21:31, it says, the horse is made ready for the day of battle. Who does that? We do that. The people do that, and they go, battle, but it says, but victory belongs to Yahweh. And similarly, in Psalm 20:7, this, this was actually one of my favorite passages in fighting cancer. I stole it from Piper in his book, Don’t Waste Your Cancer. He says, some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we trust in the name of Yahweh our God, which doesn’t mean go to battle with slow horses and broken down chariots, it’s wise to get the best you can. If you know that you might be facing a future with dementia or anything else you might face, chemistry test or other health problem, be diligent to plan, but do it in a way that when you don’t get dementia, it wasn’t your effort that gets the glory. It was Yahweh’s. And if you get dementia anyway, you say, it was the Lord’s will. It’s best, I trust. Reverse Sanctification and Dementia Smedly Yates: A question came through, and really there were several facets that sort of get at the same kind of question. But people wondered, and this comes obviously from people who have worked hard to care for people with various forms of dementia. But it seems like Christians at times can experience what looks like reverse sanctification. Is that what’s going on there? Have people been abandoned by the Holy Spirit when behaviors change in mental decline. Jacob Hantla: Yeah, I think probably about five, six of you asked that question with very particular circumstances in mind. And the question doesn’t overstate the reality of what occurs. So reverse sanctification. Sanctification is the process of progressively being conformed to the image of Christ from the point of salvation, usually, and normally for a Christian, until the point when they finish well, die, and are taken home, and then glory. But that doesn’t always happen for Christians. The reality is sometimes in dementia, some Christians become more childlike in their faith. It’s not inevitable that your sanctification will reverse. And I don’t think that’s the right term. It’s the observed reality that we see. But sometimes their faith becomes more simple, but not less godly. They might tell the same stories over and over again. Or if you imagine sometimes what happens in dementia, your existence in the moment is separated from what’s gone before it. So you’re always disoriented. That’s terrifying. And so you see the Christian in those moments having a childlike trust questions that you feel bad for them, but they are trusting the Lord in a real way. But sometimes, and this is the words of Dr. John Dunlop, wrote a book on the Christian and dementia. He goes, dementia can indeed change personalities. It has transformed wonderful, loving, godly people into tyrants. And that happens. I’ve seen, you see somebody who was self-controlled loving. and as they progress into dementia, they curse. They use language that’s not befitting a Christian at all. There’s inappropriateness in all kinds of ways. And so what’s going on there? I think it’s helpful. I’m going to do another physiology lesson. Bear with me, I promise it’s worth it. It helps me. So there’s some types of dementia, especially that there’s one we talked about called frontotemporal. What does that mean? It’s the area of the brain in which it happens. And it changes the way that your brain physically works. So there’s an, I’m going to oversimplify a little bit. So, but this is, this is helpfu

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Introduction: Facing the Fear of Losing the Mind Welcome to our equipping hour this morning. We have an exciting topic—one that I think the church needs to consider and not shy away from. We’re spending the next hour pondering the Christian in dementia. I once promised to teach on this, and here we are. One of the most frightening questions, though we rarely ask it aloud, is: What happens if I lose my mind? Not just my job or independence, but my memory, personality, and self-control. Dementia threatens not only our lifespan but seems to strike at the core of who we are—our very self. It raises fears about identity, sanctification, sin, dignity, and even God’s goodness in ways few illnesses do. Today, I want us to think clearly, biblically, medically, and pastorally about dementia. We don’t get to ponder this as spectators; dementia will likely affect each of us personally, or someone we know and love. The church must be prepared to walk through this, to support those who have it and those caring for them. As the Bible tells us, when sin entered the world, death entered through sin. Death doesn’t only end life—it breaks our bodies along the way. Minds fail, capacities fade. Dementia is one of the most painful reminders that we live in a fallen world. It’s more than forgetfulness or aging. As minds go—our own, or those of loved ones—we groan with creation, waiting for the renewal of these broken bodies. What Is Dementia? We all have a sense of what dementia is, but let’s clarify. Dementia isn’t one disease; it’s not normal aging. It’s an umbrella term for a syndrome: a progressive decline in thinking that interferes with daily life—memory, judgment, language, behavior, and more. It’s not the same as delirium, which is sudden confusion from illness and is often reversible. Dementia is a slow, steady, irreversible decline in thinking, memory, judgment, language, visual-spatial skills, and even self-recognition—sometimes all the way to complete incapacity. About one in ten Americans have dementia. That’s the odds—look around, and a significant number of us will likely end life with some form of mental incapacity. Alzheimer’s is the most common, about 60–80% of cases, but there are many kinds. Alzheimer’s is characterized by abnormal proteins in the brain—amyloid beta plaques and tau tangles—which accumulate and damage neurons. Ultimately, you lose memory, language, basic functions, even the ability to swallow, leading to death by malnutrition, dehydration, or aspiration. There’s also vascular dementia—caused by circulation problems, not protein buildup. Your brain requires remarkable amounts of oxygen and nutrients, and if blood flow is compromised (from strokes, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.), you get dead areas of brain and a steady progression of impairment. There are other types—frontotemporal, Lewy body, Parkinson’s-associated dementia—but the key is that dementia is not normal aging. Theological Roots: The Fall and Its Effects Where did dementia come from? Ultimately, the Fall. We weren’t created with minds meant to fail like this. In the garden, Adam and Eve—and those after—lived with bodies that didn’t fail so catastrophically. But when sin entered the world, death entered through sin, and our bodies began to degrade. The Fall had real effects on our physiology—cells, synapses, blood vessels, DNA, sleep, metabolism, and certainly our morality. The Fall is where dementia ultimately comes from, but there are also proximal, avoidable causes. Causes: Proximal and Ultimate Dementia is a disease with causes—some avoidable, some not. I mentioned amyloid plaques and tau tangles—these come from failures of cellular cleanup. The brain is physical, and like every organ, it will wear out. Vascular dementia and others are linked to high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, smoking, sleep apnea—things that lead to dementia over years of cumulative insults. There are genetic risks—genes “load the gun,” environment and time “pull the trigger.” Aging compounded over time is a factor. Importantly, dementia is not God’s personal judgment against specific sin. It is evidence of God’s judgment on the world, but not proof of weak faith or failed sanctification, even when evidences of sanctification seem lost. Dementia is not the loss of the image of God; the image of God isn’t stored in the hippocampus. It may be evidenced through thinking and action, but remains even when those fade. Should Christians Try to Avoid Dementia? How can we avoid dementia? Why should we even try? Should we just say, “If God wants me to have dementia, so be it”? I don’t think that’s right. It’s estimated that 40%—four in ten cases—could be avoided by addressing modifiable risk factors. So, as we think about the probability, we should also steward our bodies as gifts from God, maximizing our opportunity to serve and glorify Him in this short life. If you lose your mind, it’s not the end of the world—there is an eternity to come. This life’s difficulties are not worth comparing to future glory for those who trust Christ. And yet, God gives us these bodies to honor Him. We can trust Him with whatever He allows. Don’t cling to life as ultimate, but use your body for His glory. 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 says your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit—you are not your own, you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body. It’s wrong to use the body for sin; likewise, it’s wrong to neglect your body through laziness or lack of self-control, and so miss opportunities to glorify God. That’s why it’s fitting, in a sermon on dementia, to say we should avoid it, but for reasons different from the world’s. How to Avoid Dementia: Medical and Practical Steps What can we do? There’s no cure—treatments may delay or stabilize symptoms, but prevention is where we focus. Even then, we’re only tweaking statistical probabilities, not exerting full control. Still, 40% of cases are likely avoidable. The most powerful tool? Exercise. Moderate exercise—20–30 minutes a day—reduces dementia risk by 38–45%. More exercise yields greater risk reduction, up to a point. A 2022 JAMA Neurology study (78,000 people, 10,000 steps daily) found a 50% risk reduction. Next is sleep. A single night of sleep deprivation causes measurable accumulation of Alzheimer’s-related proteins. Chronic sleep deprivation increases risk further. During deep sleep, your brain’s “glymphatic” system washes out waste proteins—God designed this as a gift. Appropriate sleep (7–8 hours) is protective; too little or too much increases risk. Hearing is another factor: every 10 dB of hearing loss increases dementia risk by 10–20%. Severe hearing loss raises risk fivefold, but hearing aids can cut risk by 50%. Social engagement and hearing input matter for cognitive health. Diet matters too: diets rich in vegetables, whole grains, nuts, fish, and healthy fats (e.g., Mediterranean) are protective. Avoid sugars, refined carbs—they lead to metabolic problems and raise dementia risk. Obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and unhealthy cholesterol are all independent risk factors. Avoid head injuries, smoking, alcohol, and maintain social involvement. Still, you can do everything right and still get dementia; there’s a heavy genetic component. These are risk reductions, not guarantees. For instance, the APOE4 gene can dramatically increase risk, but doesn’t determine destiny. We act as faithful stewards, not out of anxiety or a desire for control. If God allows dementia, we trust Him and keep doing what’s right. Faithful Stewardship, Not Control Keep your body as healthy as possible so you don’t miss opportunities for good works. If God takes away those abilities, He remains the same God who loved, adopted, and prepared good works for you. That good work may be simply trusting Him in your inability. These difficulties aren’t worth comparing to the coming glory. We don’t fear death; we trust God with our lives. While we have working bodies and minds, let’s use them as faithful stewards. Prevention steps are wise because our bodies are gifts, and love and good deeds benefit from strength and good thinking. Still, odds and chances are not ultimate—God is. “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” Personally, I fear dementia because I fear losing control, but I must embrace—not just acknowledge—that I’m not in control. Embracing God’s Sovereignty: James 4 and the Vapor of Life Let’s look at James 4:13 and following: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city…’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’” This isn’t resignation to chance; it’s confidence that the Lord, our Father, is sovereign and good. I don’t relate to Him as a capricious king but as a loving Father. Whether I live or die, whether my brain works or not, I’m where my Father wants me to be, for my good and His glory. If you’re living for yourself, trusting in yourself, none of this applies. God is your judge, not your Father. Don’t trust yourself—you will fail, you will die soon. Trust in God through Jesus, not just to make life better, but to undo the effects of the Fall and make you a new creature, fit for eternity in a body that cannot fail. God Rules Over Dementia God is sovereign over dementia. Dementia is a grievous enemy from the Fall, but it’s not random, ultimate, or sovereign—God rules over every detail. He will glorify Himself by life or death, health or dysfunction, until He raises and restores these bodies. The difference between a maximally functionin