Gracepointe Church (Dover, OH)
Gracepointe Church (Dover, OH)
The Brevity of Life | Shawn Miller
Guided by Solomon's wisdom in the book of Ecclesiastes, we explore the fundamental importance of remembering our Creator, especially in our youth. Through rich imagery and age-old teachings, we discuss how actions devoid of God's presence result in emptiness, urging listeners to prioritize their relationship with God above all else. We highlight the core duty of humanity—to fear God and keep His commandments—and emphasize living with an eternal perspective. As Psalm 90:12 reminds us, applying our hearts to wisdom allows us to make a lasting impact in God's kingdom, ensuring that the 'dash' of our lives is filled with purpose, love, and intentionality.
The title of the sermon this morning is the Brevity of Life. And as I was talking at home this morning, one of my boys asked me what are you going to preach? What's the title of the sermon? And I said the Brevity of Life. And he got this puzzled look on his face. So I decided maybe I should explain what I mean by the brevity of life In simple terms. It is the shortness of time or the duration of time. So maybe I should retitle it the shortness of life or the short duration of one's life.
Speaker 1:I'm going to take you back 30 years. I'm going to take you back 30 years. How many of you were born 30 years ago or were not born 30 years ago? Please raise your hand. Not born? So if you're under 30, all right. So there's quite a few, thank you. There's quite a few people that would not have been born at that time, 1994, back in the youth group at Maranatha Church. How many of you were in that youth group at Maranatha Church in 1994? Joe, you would have been close just before your time. Okay, I know Kim and Monica would have been Conrad. Schrock might have been Rosie, a little bit younger yet.
Speaker 1:Well, back in 1994, we had a few happenings happen in our youth group that got us as a youth group to finally think okay, what is God trying to tell us? It happened with me going home from my then girlfriend's place one Saturday night at 12 o'clock. I was coming down 39, close to Shrocks of Walnut Creek, and then the last thing I remember is coming down past Shrocks and the next thing I remember is waking up startled and I had just crashed my car in the back of a park pickup beside 39. I had fallen asleep, I walked away with a seatbelt burn, my car was totaled, but I didn't even have to go to the hospital. I walked away basically uninjured. A week later, one of my friends from the youth group was traveling over to faith mission and he fell asleep, totaled, his car, walked away uninjured. A week after that, another one of my friends from the youth group was going out to Indiana and he fell asleep, totaled, his car, walked away uninjured, totaled, his car, walked away uninjured. And a week after that, another one of my friends in the youth group had a terrible accident on 39, and he was Kenny Schrock. He was a brother of Conrad Schrock, conrad and Judith. He was in the hospital for a number of months and then he passed away in October of 1994.
Speaker 1:In August of 1995, we had another one of our youth group killed in a farming accident, josh Miller. He was at the time dating my now wife, marnita. In September of 95, I got married to Julie Troyer and seven months later she passed away because of a brain tumor that we had no idea of. In a year and a half's time we had five accidents and three deaths out of our youth group, out of the chorus, the Maranatha chorus, and it got our attention to where we finally said okay, god, what are you trying to tell us? What are we doing or what are we not getting?
Speaker 1:The brevity of life, the shortness of life what inspired me to preach this sermon this morning after just coming through the joyful holiday of Thanksgiving? Actually, I struggled with it. When I felt God leading me to preach this sermon this morning, I felt like, okay, what are people going to think? Am I trying to be a Debbie Downer after just coming through Thanksgiving? No, I'm not trying to do that and I'd like for this sermon to be brought in the attitude of positivity. What can we do at our young age before our life is over? What is the reason for living? So I'd like to bring it in the context of positivity versus negativity. But what did inspire me to preach this sermon this morning? What did inspire me to preach this sermon this morning?
Speaker 1:So, as I've mentioned numerous other times, our trip to North Carolina was life-impacting for me. In North Carolina, I saw firsthand the devastation that can happen quickly. There were as many lives taken through the Hurricane of Helene. A few weeks after we came home, we got the news that Brent's father passed away. Okay, I have a friend right now whose mother is terminally sick with cancer. And then, of course, my own life experiences.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of people in the audience here today that have lost loved ones over the last number of years. Some of you have lost close friends. Some of you have lost close friends. Some of you have lost life partners. Some of you have lost close family members. And to all of us I hope we can still say that God is good.
Speaker 1:Life is brief. I pulled up the obituary page on Miller Funeral Home website. The average US life expectancy currently is around 76 years of age for men. It's a little bit longer for ladies. I pulled up the obituaries the first two pages on Miller Funeral Home website just to look at the ages of the people that have passed away within the last month. Of the people that have passed away within the last month, they go like this, starting from the latest 70 years old, 93 years old. Then there was an infant that there was no age for, just said infant. Then there was a 17-year-old, and then a 41-year-old, and then an 87-year-old, and then a 41-year-old, and then an 87-year-old, and then I stopped at Brent's dad was 73. Brent's dad, I didn't know him well, but from what I've gathered and heard, he was an above-average man in the way he served, but he died just a little bit below the national average of life expectancy.
Speaker 1:The brevity of life. The purpose of this message this morning is simply to reflect on the brevity of life and the importance of living with purpose. Living with purpose by loving God with all of our heart, our mind and our soul. James 4, verse 13 through 14. Come now, you who say today or tomorrow, we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make you profit something we all want to do. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life For you are a mist or a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes, or a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes. I've asked Jaden to bring the tea kettle with some hot water and a glass, and I'd like to try to just create a little bit of a vapor for us to get a perspective of what our life is in view of eternity. To get a perspective of what our life is in view of eternity. James says it is a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Just go ahead and pour a cup of hot water. I'm not sure if we can get steam or not. There it is. You see it for a little while and then it passes away. Thank you, that is what our life is in view of eternity. Our 70 years in view of forever is as a vapor that passes away quickly. Is as a vapor that passes away quickly.
Speaker 1:I couldn't help myself but to look up the leading causes of death in the US today. Number one is heart disease. Number two is cancer. Number three is unintentional or preventable injury. The 17 year old that that passed away, whose obituary was on the website I checked. He had a motorcycle accident, something that was not intended, something that could have probably been avoided. Number four stroke, then chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, chronic liver disease and kidney disease. Our bodies just simply wear out. Our bodies aren't made to last forever, our physical bodies that God created.
Speaker 1:King Solomon speaks of this, and I would like to spend some time in looking, taking a brief look, at what King Solomon, what his life consisted of, and then what he wrote for us in Scripture. Solomon started out well. He built the temple, he asked God for wisdom, and he is still known as the wisest man that ever lived. He started out extremely well because he knew and obeyed God's commandments, but then he fell away from God and then, at the end of his life, he wrote this beautiful, poetic summary of his perspective on life, the book that we today call Ecclesiastes. Take your Bibles and turn to 1 Kings, chapter 11, and I'd like to read verses 1 through 11 before we dive into Ecclesiastes. 1 Kings 11, 1 through 11. 1 Kings 11, verse 1.
Speaker 1:Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, moabite, ammonite, edomite, sidonian and Hittite. Women from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel you shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods. Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives who were princesses and 300 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord, his God, as was the heart of David, his father, for Solomon went after Ashtaroth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he did not wholly follow the Lord as David, his father, had done. This was after he had started out well. Then Solomon built a high place of Shemesh, the abomination of Moab, and for Moloch, the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods. Verse 9,. And the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded.
Speaker 1:Now turn your Bibles to Ecclesiastes, chapter 11. Ecclesiastes, chapter 11, and I'd like to start in verse 8 of chapter 11, and I'll read through verse 8 of chapter 12. Now keep in mind what I just read in 1 Kings, and keep in mind that Solomon started out obeying the commandments of God and having a close relationship with God. Commandments of God and having a close relationship with God, doing the things that God instructed him to do as king of Israel, following in his father, david's footsteps. And then we read what we read in chapter 11, when he started to fall away from God. Now keep that in mind as we read, start reading in Ecclesiastes, chapter 11, verse 7, actually verse 8, and this is Solomon's writings.
Speaker 1:So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all, but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity. Rejoice, o young man, in your youth and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things, god will bring you into judgment. Remove vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body. Body for youth and the dawn of life are vanity or useless or empty. Now let's go into chapter 12, starting in verse 1. Also Solomon's words remember also your creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near, of which you shall say I have no pleasure in them. Do you think he was thinking back at the time when he started drifting away from God?
Speaker 1:Then he launches into a very poetic and metaphorical description of advancing age, and I'm going to be adding some things as descriptions to what I have studied, what most commentators think he is saying in his poetry and metaphorical descriptions Verse 2, before the sun and the moon and the stars are darkened descriptions Verse 2. Of somebody aging and the strong men are bent, referring to the aged, legs and knees beginning to sag and the grinders cease because they are few. Talking about our teeth, they start falling out. Some of you are smiling, chewing becomes more difficult and those who look through the windows are dimmed. There's a reason I'm wearing glasses, because my eyes were not what they used to be, and the doors on the street are shut.
Speaker 1:Older people tend to stay inside more. There's been times when Mernita and I looked at each other and said we'd just rather stay at home tonight. It's too cold to go away. The doors on the street are shut and when the sound of the grinding is low, hearing becomes more difficult when the sound sorry, I just read that and one rises up at the sound of a bird waking up easily, can't sleep. I'm only 51 years old, but I it's amazing how, if I go to bed and I fall into my first sleep and I wake up, I have a hard time falling back to sleep again. Some of you, younger ones still don't have that problem, and all the daughters of song are brought low.
Speaker 1:As we get older, our voices and our hearing diminishes and it has to do with losing the appreciation for beauty, for singing, for music. They are afraid also of what is high and terrors are in the way. Older people struggle with fear. We're not as strong as we used to be and we don't feel quite as confident at times. The almond tree blossoms, the hair becomes white and sometimes it starts falling out. The grasshopper drags itself along, the ones active become weak and the desire fails. The desires and passions of life weaken and fade, and that can include a host of things.
Speaker 1:Then he says because man is going to his eternal home and the mourners go about the street. So what is he saying here? At the beginning of the passage he starts with saying remember also your creator in the days of your youth. At the end of a man's advancing age is his eternal home, not just the unknown, grave and darkness, and I thank God for that. This morning, solomon chooses to end this descriptive passage by using one of the first Old Testament mentions of our eternal home. I did a little bit of research and up to this point in Scripture in the Old Testament, there is very few mentions. There's some things that allude to our future home or something after life, forever, but very few times where it's actually stated of man's eternal home.
Speaker 1:Then he launches into before the silver cord is snapped. So he says before. So my question that I had was okay, before what or what should we do before this happens? And I think he again was telling us remember your creator Before the silver cord is snapped or the golden bowl is broken or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain or the wheel broken at the cistern. What Solomon is simply telling us is one final plea Before you come to the end of life, don't forget God. Don't forget God, the images that he creates here with the silver cord, the golden bowl. He's talking again about our body and our life. I think with him using the silver and the gold, he's implying that we are of value, but this life here will end because of its brevity, and then he goes and the dust returns to the earth as it was and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Folks, this morning, we have an average of 70 to 80 years here on this earth to make a difference. The question I have for myself and all of us here this morning is what difference are you making in the short span that you have?
Speaker 1:In walking into a cemetery and I'm sure you've heard this analogy before, but I'll use it again there's two dates on every tombstone the birth date and the death date, and in between is that little dash. What am I doing with my dash today? What are you doing in your youth? Do you remember whose you are? Remember thy creator. Solomon says everything we do without God involved, everything we do on our own at the end of our life, is useless, it is vanity, it is empty. I'd like to jump back up to verse 1 and spend some time in just dissecting verse 1. Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near, of which you shall say I have no pleasure in them.
Speaker 1:Solomon implies that in our youth we are most likely to discount eternity. Like I mentioned, I'm 51 years old and in the group this morning I think maybe I know Moses. Maybe Carlos's are older than Marnina and I Steve, so there's a few of us at about the same age and I would imagine, with where we're at in life, we probably Ivans you're getting close to that as well we're probably us older ones probably think of what's going to happen in the next 30 years, more than a lot of you younger ones do that are in your 20s or 30s or, for sure, in your teenage years. This morning, for all of us, but especially for you as youthful, do not forget God, do not forget who created you, do not forget who created you, do not forget whose you are.
Speaker 1:We are not our own being. We were created by someone, so therefore we are His possession. We own nothing of our own. None of us existed on our own. We were all created. When we are in the prime of our lives, it is at times difficult to remember that life is only a short prelude to eternity. I am not my own. I did not come into existence on my own strength. I was created by the one and only creator. Because of this, I am not my own. I belong to my creator. If you make something very special and unless you give it away if you make something very special for yourself, you call that a prized possession and you put your stamp of ownership on that piece and you're not about to give it away or have somebody else take it. That's me in the eyes of my creator. That's me in the eyes of my creator. That's you in the eyes of your creator. We are not our own.
Speaker 1:Adam Clark said this, as in youth, all the powers are more active and vigorous, so they are capable of superior enjoyments and that is very true believe, hope, pray, love, obey and bear your cross than it will in your old age, and that is very true. This morning, as we were talking, one of my boys and I were talking about the sermon theme and he just made the statement that I think is very true. If we forget God in our youth, we will blame God in our old age, and I think there's a lot of truth to that. If we forget God in our youth, we will perhaps blame God in our old age. We will perhaps blame God in our old age. So how do we remember the Creator that made us in our youth? I know there's so many things going on and life is so busy, it seems right now. Every weekend there's some kind of activity to do. During the week we want to make money so that we can live well, and then we also know that god is calling us to work in his kingdom. So how do we coordinate remembering our creator in the days of our youth, when we have energy and we have lots of things to do, and then, as we get older, we get more responsibilities? How do we coordinate all this?
Speaker 1:I think it comes down to what is the intent of my heart, what is my priority list? Priority list, and it starts with Jesus. When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, jesus said this very familiar. We quoted it this morning you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment, and a second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.
Speaker 1:Now I would like to go back into chapter 12 of Ecclesiastes, and I would like to read verses 13 and 14. This is Solomon. At the end of the book of Ecclesiastes, the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, for God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
Speaker 1:The positive encouragement that I would like to leave with us this morning, and especially to you in your prime of life and in your state of youth grab the dash between your birth date and your death date and live purposefully for God, between your birth date and your death date, and live purposefully for God. This doesn't mean going into what we sometimes say full-time ministry. We should all be in full-time ministry, no matter what our job is. This doesn't mean quitting your job tomorrow and doing something different than what you're doing right now, but it does mean, in whatever you're doing, do all because of your love for your creator God. Whatever you're doing, don't do it for your own personal gain or to bring glory to yourself. That's the only tangible thing that we can latch on to this morning is love for God, love for people, making a significance versus a success. We are called to be significant in God's kingdom. What are you doing with your life this morning? How am I? How are you living your life today? Am I living with an earthly perspective or with an eternal perspective? Remember, 70 years is as a vapor that passes away quickly in light of eternity.
Speaker 1:Psalm 90, verse 12, goes like this so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. This morning, folks, life is brief. We don't know who the next person possibly in this group, who the next person will be that won't be here. Only God knows that. But my encouragement to myself and all of us this morning is while we're here, while we have breath, love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might, and your neighbor as yourself. Love God, serve people, give Him all you got in the brief time that we are here.