You’ll Be Dead Soon

We are starting a brand new series today and we're in Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. And if you've never read Ecclesiastes before, or if you have, I wanna invite you over the next few weeks to read it again. And here's the thing, as you read this book of scripture, it's gonna be challenging because you're gonna read some things in it and you're gonna go, oh yeah, that's amazing, like tons of wisdom here, totally agree. And then you're gonna read other parts of it and you're gonna go, does the author of this book, like the guy that wrote it, does he need a hug? I mean, like, because it can feel a little depressing. It's a wisdom book in your Old Testament. And here's the thing, a little background, it's written by a man named Solomon. Solomon, the Bible says, is the wisest man that's ever lived. And by the way, anytime I say that, somebody sends me an email the following week that says, isn't Jesus the wisest person that ever lived? Okay, yes, but Jesus is the God man. Jesus is God incarnate, which is a fancy way of saying God in the flesh. So Jesus is unique. The Bible says that Solomon, regular man, wisest man that's ever lived. And he's writing this book, Ecclesiastes, late in his life.

And he's trying to help you and me in all of our various seasons of life. He's trying to help us to be wise. And here's the thing about Solomon, Solomon had it all. Solomon is not a poor man saying money doesn't matter. Solomon is the wealthiest man that's ever lived. If you put his net worth in modern dollars, he would be a trillionaire. Wealth beyond your wildest imagination. Wealthiest man that's ever lived. He experienced probably more pleasure than any man that's ever lived. And when you read his background, just all kinds of things that he did during his life, wine, women, and song. And he didn't sing much. Just let that sink in. I worked hard on that. I'm gonna say that again. Wine, women, and song, and he didn't sing much. Is everybody tracking with me? Like he experimented with all kinds of pleasure. He built all kinds of things. He was allowed by God to build the temple. He did amazing things architecturally. He built great gardens. He was known worldwide for his wisdom. Kings from other kingdoms would come and ask Solomon for advice. He was uber successful, uber wealthy,

had experienced everything that this life can offer. And here's what he says. Meaningless, meaningless. It's a chasing after the wind. When you read Ecclesiastes and you see meaningless, meaningless, in the original Hebrew, it says this. It's like trying to grab smoke. You ever sat by a campfire and just played with smoke? And your hand's dirty. He says it's like trying to grab a hold of it. He's saying we're all looking for something to fulfill us. But in all of these things that we look for, it's like trying to grab smoke. Like life just doesn't make sense in a lot of different ways. I'll ask you, does your life make sense right now? Have you ever had a time in your life where you're like, what is going on? And Solomon just walks through that. Why is it this happened? Why is it that this happens? It's meaningless, meaningless. We're all looking for meaning and it's like we're trying to grab smoke. And he says, there's nothing new under the sun. And you read that and this sounds really depressing, but the truth is there's a lot of wisdom here. And what Solomon says throughout it is this truth. You and I will be dead soon.

He's teaching us to live life backwards. And he's reminding us that the mortality rate still hovers, I'm gonna say what I say, right around 100%. And you just think about it. All of us are born and all of us are gonna die. Look at any tombstone in any graveyard anywhere, and there is a date of birth and a date of death and a little dash right in the middle, right? Now you are in the dash season of your existence. And on that tombstone, that is the cheapest mark, but it represents the most. This is your one and only life. And Solomon says, look, we're chasing all of these things. It's like chasing the wind. It's like trying to grab smoke. And he's reminding us what life is all about. So today and over the next few weeks, we're just gonna talk about this. And we're gonna remind ourselves that we're all gonna be dead soon so that we choose to live lives of purpose and of meaning under the sun. Anytime I do a funeral, I share the verse of scripture that I'm about to share with you. This is gonna be our key verse for the series. And today's gonna be an introduction, but I wanna invite you to memorize this verse. This is Ecclesiastes chapter seven, verse two. And anytime I do a funeral, I read this verse.

By the way, the purpose of a funeral is threefold. At a funeral, here's what you wanna do. You wanna celebrate the life that is being remembered. You want to remember God and his goodness and grace. And the third thing you always wanna do at a funeral is you wanna evaluate your own life. So anytime you go to a funeral, this verse is gonna call it a house of mourning. Anytime you have that experience, celebrate the life you're there to remember, remember God's grace, but then also evaluate your own life. This is Ecclesiastes chapter seven, verse two. I wanna encourage you to memorize it. Here's what the Bible says. It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting. What did we just read? It's better to go to a funeral than it is to a party. That's what we just read. It's better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting. Why? For death is the destiny of everyone. You'll be dead soon. For death is the destiny of everyone and the living should take this to heart. Here's what I wanna talk about today as we start the series. What will your story be? Specifically, what will people say about you at your funeral?

A few weeks ago, I performed the funeral of my grandmother. She was 93 years old. This time last year, my son and I went to Texas. My family is from Texas and my grandmother, I called her my granny. And she was in an assisted living home. And so my son and I went to Texas to watch the Texas Rangers. We're baseball fans and we have a friend who's an umpire and he helps us with tickets. Tickets, he's a retired umpire now, but he works for ESPN. It's good to have friends like that. You know what I'm saying? And so he helps us with tickets. And so we went to see the Rangers play and my cousin and his son's big Texas Rangers fans met us at the game and we were talking and I was telling my cousin, Danny, I think tomorrow Jackson and I are gonna drive to Terrell and we're gonna see granny. He's like, hey man, cause he's from Texas and that's how we talk. By the way, I've tried to lose this accent over time because when you talk like this, people automatically deduct about 50 points from your IQ. So over time, I've kind of dropped that and let that go. But Danny says, hey man, when you go, he goes, there's no telling what you're gonna get with granny.

Sometimes she's there, sometimes she's not there. He goes, you just don't know. So, you know, prepare yourself. And I'm like, all right. So Jack and I get up, we have breakfast and we drive to the assisted living place. Took us a while to get there. And we walk in and my granny is asleep because at that time she's 92 years old. And so I'm literally looking over the bed at my 16 year old son going, should we wake her up? Like this may be it. Like I wanted to come see her and Jackson, my son loves his great granny, you know? And so we were kind of back and forth. And then all of a sudden she opened her eyes and she looked over at me and she said with a big smile, are you Chad? And I said, hi, granny, I am. And she said, you're so good looking. Love my granny. And so for the next three months, Jack would look at me and go, dad, you're so good looking. And little did I know that would be the last conversation I would have with her. I recently got to do her funeral and we just celebrated her life. And what's great is we didn't have to try and think of anything positive to say.

Like positive things just came to mind. I've done lots of funerals and some funerals are easy. See, because you sit down with the family and you're like, hey, tell me some great things about dad. Tell me some great things about mom. And man, stories just pour out. Tell me something great about your brother, about your sister, about your friend. And stories just pour out. And then there are other funerals that are more difficult. Because I say, hey, tell me something great about so-and-so. And there's crickets. And usually somebody goes, um. And every time I hear that, I'm like, oh man, this is gonna be a hard one. They're like, um, yeah, there were some challenges, you know, and it takes me a while to kind of pull something good out. What are people gonna say about you at your funeral? What will your story be? What will your story be? You wanna live in such a way nobody's gotta lie at your funeral. Because all of us are born and all of us are gonna die, and Ecclesiastes teaches us to think about these things. It's good to go to a house of mourning. It's better than going to a party. Because death is the destiny of everyone. And we should take this to heart.

I'm gonna give you three things to think about when we think about entering into a house of mourning, because it helps us live lives of wisdom. But as we talk about this today, ask yourself the question, what will your story be? Now, look at me here for a second before I give you this. If right now you're going, oh man. I've got so many regrets. If that's you, I'm gonna tell you what you are. You're normal. We all have regrets. And if you're like, no dude, I got a bunch of them. Here's what I wanna tell you. Okay, no, you cannot regain time. You can't. Time is like trying to grab smoke. I mean, you wanna see me time travel? Wanna see me do it again? I can time travel. I'm doing it right now. So are you. And the five seconds ago, that's gone. We'll never get that back. It's just moving. And it's moving forward. And that's the only way it moves. You cannot regain time. But listen, you can redeem it. You can redeem time. And so as we talk about these things,

what will you do with the time you still have left moving forward? Three things a house of mourning does for us. Number one, a house of mourning reveals that life is short. Reveals that life is short. The older you are, the faster time moves. How many of you have had this experience? The reason that is, I have a friend who's in his 90s and his name is Zach and he'll be here this weekend. Love you, Zach. And Zach's poured out a lot of wisdom on me through our years of friendship. And Zach says the reason that time moves faster as you get older is because you're measuring it against all the time you've traveled. So when you got lots of years, one year just seems to move faster. But a house of mourning reveals that life is short. This is Psalm 90 verse 12. Moses actually wrote this particular Psalm. And here's what he writes. It's a prayer. Lord, teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. What he's saying is realize your days are numbered, think about it, and then ask yourself, what will your story be? And in that, choose wisdom. So I looked it up what the average lifespan is for an American right now.

And women, you tend to live longer than men. And so good for you. But I put them both together and did an average. Lifespan right now is 79 years of age. So some people are gonna live a lot longer than that. Some people are gonna live shorter. But 79 years. So teach us to number our days. I took 79, right now I'm 53. So I subtracted 53 from 79, that's 26. And then I multiplied it by 365. How many days are in a year? So if I live to be 79, I've got 9,490 days left. And tomorrow it'll be 9,489. And then the next day it'll be 9,488. Sobering, isn't it? Our days are numbered. And here's the other side to my little equation. and I have no idea. I talked to the Lord and I told him, I'd like to go to 88. And then I just wanna fall asleep and then wake up with Jesus, right? And I wanna be in a really good mood that day and have sound mind and good health. And I have some control over some of that, but a whole lot of it is out of my control. I've done funerals for people that were 80 and I've done funerals for people that were eight. And by the way, the small caskets, they're the heaviest.

We don't know. Our days are numbered, but a house of mourning reminds us of that and reveals that life is short. There's a book that I'll recommend to you. It's called, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing. It's written by a woman named Bronnie Ware. And she was a caregiver for people that were about to breathe their last. And so she started asking questions and she put a bunch of information together and she came up with the top five regrets of people who are dying. I'm gonna give you the five. The first regret, and you can get the book, you can look this up. The truth is you can ask chat GPT and it'll break down the book for you. Okay, it's a very popular book. But here are the top five regrets of the dying. The first regret, I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. Just let that one sink in. I wrote this down, many people regret making major life choices based primarily on others' expectations rather than their own convictions and values. The best way for you to predict the future

is to create it. Just let that sink in. You can predict the future if you choose to pray to God and create it together with him. The first step to getting what you want out of life is deciding what it is you want. And then get really intentional about it. Build your life with God, with the days that you have left. You can't regain time, but you can redeem it. And so choose your own convictions, your own values led by the Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit and create the life he wants for you moving forward. Second biggest regret, I wish I hadn't worked so hard. Oh man, just let that one sink in. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. I saw this reel this week on Instagram. And I typically don't share any of those with you because there's not a lot of great stuff there, are you guys with me? But it was this whole story and it's appropriate. And it was this American talking to this guy in Mexico. And he said, tell me about your life. And the guy in Mexico said, well, I get up every morning and I have breakfast with my wife and then I kiss her and I go off to work and I fish about half the day and then I come home and I play with my kids and then we all have dinner together I might take a siesta, then we get up at night and we play games and then we go to bed again

and then I do it all over again. And the American said, you only work half the day fishing? And he says, yeah, because I make just enough to provide for my family when I do that. And the American said, boy, can I help you? You realize if you started working full days, you could make more money, you could put some money aside and then over time, you could maybe buy a fishing boat and then over time, you could hire some people to run that boat for you and you could buy another boat and then over time, you could make enough money and you can actually work up to a point where you'd have a whole fleet of boats and you could make all kinds of money, it would be amazing. Like you could build like an empire for fishing. And the guy from Mexico said, then what would I do? He goes, oh, that's the best part of it. You can then sell your empire and then just live off that money for the rest of your life. And the guy from Mexico said, how long will it take me to build the empire? And the guy said, oh, about 30 years. He goes, well, what will I do then? He goes, well, here's what you can do again. You could wake up every morning with your wife, have breakfast together. And then you could like fish for like half the day. And then you could come home and like see your adult children, maybe play with your grandkids and then take a little siesta and then that night,

have dinner together and then play games again and then just go to sleep. Isn't that how we think? I was thinking about that when I saw the reel. There's two ways to have enough. More and more, chase that smoke, try to grab it. Or just be content with less. The Bible says godliness with contentment is great gain. Something to think about. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. Third biggest regret, I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. I dove into that a little bit. People often regretted unspoken love, unresolved conflicts, and emotions that they kept hidden. The courage to express my feelings. One of the things that I hate hearing at funerals is I wish I would've told them. I wish I would've said. Or we wait till a funeral, you know, to make it right with a family member. Does somebody have to die for us to make things right? Like, can we not just do it now? Swallow our pride, get over it, forgive. You don't have to trust everybody, that's your own decision. But forgiveness is a really big deal, it'll set you free. And Jesus wants all of us to forgive. But we wanna express our feelings. If you love somebody, you wanna tell them.

Make sure that you tell your kids you love them. Regularly, that you're proud of them. Regularly, that's so powerful. If right now you're thinking, oh, they know, tell them anyway. They're adults, tell them anyway. We never outgrow that. Who do you need to share something with? Fourth biggest regret. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Deep friendships are often neglected amid the busyness of life. And many miss those connections later on in life. The thing about friendships is you have to commit yourself to them. All relationships are inconvenient. By the way, if you're taking notes, please write that down. All relationships are inconvenient. They require commitment, they require a challenge. Every friendship you ever have, sooner or later, that person's gonna be boring. And you're gonna have to choose to stay in it. And then you get past that, then they become exciting again. It's just normal life. Does this make sense? So if you want a friend, you gotta be a friend, and you gotta commit to the friendship. The fifth one of the five top regrets. I wish I had let myself be happier.

Many realize too late that happiness is often influenced by choices, attitudes, priorities, not just circumstances. I'm gonna tell you something about happiness. Happiness is a habit. I used to always tell my boys this. Many of you have heard me say this before. You can get happy in the same pants you're getting upset in. You just choose it. What you focus on is what you move towards. Okay, here is the secret. You ready? Lower your expectations. That's the secret of happiness. Lower expectations. And what are you grateful for? And just combine those two things. You know what's perfect this side of heaven? Nothing. Calm down. Relax. It is not gonna go your way. Did you not figure that out once you passed two years of age? When you were two, you were a spoiled brat, and you threw temper tantrums. It's really ugly when a 50-year-old dude does that. So the waitress messed up your order. Who cares? She's doing best. She's probably a single mom,

and she's working her fingers to the bone. Get over it. The world didn't owe you a perfect plate in that moment. Send it back. They'll fix it. You're good. It's a first-world problem. Get grateful. And everybody said? Amen. All right. And if you're a Jesus follower, and if you do that, and I see it in a restaurant, I'm gonna come talk to you. And I'm gonna tell you to grow up and love the waitress instead of burdening her with your crappy attitude. I don't know why I'm telling you that. That happened this week, and it bugged me. There you go. All right. Life is short. You're gonna be dead soon. And the Bible says to remember that. Your days are numbered, because it'll help you live wisely. Number two, a house of mourning reminds us of what truly matters. Reminds us of what truly matters. Think about this.

If you knew you were gonna be dead one year from today, how would you live your life differently over the next year? What death does is it clarifies. It brings clarity. Suddenly, there's a whole bunch of things that really, really matter that don't matter anymore. So the trick is to live your life remembering what matters and what doesn't. And choose your priorities correctly. Now, here's the thing. We all say, well, these are my priorities, but we don't live according to them. So here's my question. What are the most important things in your life? Like think about it, and then build, listen, build your calendar around that. So if it's my relationship with my spouse, my relationships with my kids, my relationships with friends, if that's what matters most in your life, build your calendar around that. Because your calendar is your life. The two most important, and I don't have a book, but like if it were a book, I'd do it on my phone. The two most important books in my life would be my Bible and my calendar. My Bible is where I figure it out, right? And the calendar is where I live it out. Like be really intentional about your life.

One of the things that we've talked about a lot lately here at the church is every day, spend some time with the Lord and evaluate the previous day. Like post-game analysis. Who do you need to ask for forgiveness from? What do you need to make right? Are you drifting over into sin? Where do you need to repent? Those kinds of things. Remembering that you're gonna die one day brings clarity. If you knew you were gonna die a year from now, you would change some things over the next year. And suddenly those priorities would come to the top of the list in how you're scheduling and planning your life. It's really, really important. This is Mark 8, 36. These are the words of Jesus. He says, what good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul? Okay, think with me here. I'm gonna give you a one-liner and then you can pray about it later, okay? What matters most in life is not what we are accomplishing, but who we are becoming. I'm gonna say that again. What matters most in life is not what we are accomplishing,

but who we are becoming. How many of you, all locations, you're like me, you've set goals? Just a show of hands. Okay, so I get accused of being a visionary, all right? And usually when somebody says that about me, it's a compliment. I'm gonna tell you what vision is. Vision is just a goal. It's just like a dream with a deadline. For those of you who raised your hands, almost all of my goals are accomplishment oriented. Like five years from now, here's where I wanna be. And I think about that monetarily. And I think about that in the realm of what I do for a living. And I think about what we can build together, all those kinds of things. I've really been convicted in recent days. The Lord's been leading me to write some character goals. What kind of person do I wanna be five years from now compared to who I am right now? Where do I need to grow? What needs to change? What do I need to let go of? And what do I need to take on character-wise? What kind of person are you becoming? Your soul is the only thing you're gonna take with you into eternity. It's what matters most about you.

And so this life is about working on the soul, becoming the right kind of person. And one day when you are laying on your deathbed where they're talking about you at your funeral, it'll be soul talk. People aren't gonna say, hey, you know what I love most about him? His watch. His timepiece. That was amazing. That Rolex, whoo. Nobody's gonna care. They might fight over it, but that's about it. What they're gonna care about, what they're gonna talk about is your soul, who you are, who you were to them, what you said, what you did, those kinds of things. Thinking about death and remembering that we're gonna die reminds us of what truly matters. I looked at several studies about the regrets of the dying. Here are the most common regrets, and we just read some. By the way, those five you would see in the Bible, the little list I'm about to give you, you would see in the Bible, what people regret. Neglecting relationships, not pursuing meaningful goals or callings. Impacting people's lives is what matters. No matter what you do for a living, if you wanna make a life out of it, make it about serving people, no matter what you do.

Make it about encouraging people, make it about loving people. Whatever you do, do it to the glory of God, which means you're thinking about others in it. Things people regret, holding onto grudges, worrying excessively about what others think, failing to appreciate ordinary moments, spending too little time with loved ones. Thinking about death reminds us of what truly matters. Third one, the house of mourning. Usually, if we're listening to Jesus and following him, it leads us to repentance, to repentance. To repent is to do a 180. It means we were heading a certain way. Oop, I'm gonna change that. Repent, and you're gonna head the way of Jesus. So make this a repentance moment. What adjustments do you need to make? As we walk through Ecclesiastes over the next few weeks, next week we're gonna talk about seasons of life. For every season, turn, turn, turn. We're gonna do that whole deal, all right? Because there's a time for everything under the sun. So we'll talk about that next week, and we'll build on this over the next few weeks. But all of it is to lead us to repentance. What do we need to change? When we get to the end of Ecclesiastes, he's gonna kind of summarize everything, and spoiler alert, I'm gonna tell you what he's gonna say.

What you wanna do with your life is enjoy it, and remember, you'll give an account to God for how you live. And so how do you need to honor God with your life in a way that you're not honoring him right now? Usually when I ask people, what would it mean to honor God? They start coming up with all these religious rules. Like right now, if I were to say, hey, what would it mean to be holy? What kind of things would come to your mind? Hey, what would it mean to be righteous? You would probably think, okay, righteous people don't do these things. That's usually how we think. This is what Jesus says righteousness and holiness is. He's asked, what's the greatest commandment? And here's his response. This is Matthew 22, verses 37 through 40. Follow along with me and your Bible here on the screen. What's the greatest commandment? Jesus replies, love. Love is the greatest commandment. Love the Lord your God with all, see the word all, your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. So love God with everything you've got. This, Jesus says, is the first and greatest commandment. Verse 39, he says, and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Who's your neighbor? Anybody that shares the same planet with you is your neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself. And then he says, all the law and the teachings of the prophets hang on those two commandments. What does that mean? It means if you get those two right, look at this, you get all of it right. That's what that means. All the law, all the prophets, all the scriptures hang on these two commandments, love God and love people. All right, how do I love God? Funny you should ask. Write this down, John 14, 21. This is Jesus speaking. Here's how you love God. Here's what Jesus says. He who has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. How do you love God? You do what he says. How do you honor God? You do what he says. If you're not doing what he says, you repent and you repent quickly. This is why every day you wanna think about it. How do you love people? You get selfless. You know who my favorite person in the world is?

It's me. Because I think about me more than anybody else. You wanna know who your favorite person in the world is? It's you. You want me to prove it to you? Anytime you're in a group picture, they snap the picture and you walk over to look at it on the person's cell phone, who do you look for first? And then if you don't look great, what do you do? Oh, let's get in here. Oh, let's get in here. Let's get another one. The less you think about you, the more you will love and serve others. And that is a habit and that is a choice and that is a daily thing. But it's what it means to love. If you're taking notes, write this down. This is something we say at Sun Valley. You will have heard this before. In the end, all that matters is God and people. So you'll be dead soon. What will you do with your one and only life? I wanna encourage you to go on the journey with us over the next few weeks. This is going to be a very helpful series. It's gonna be challenging, but it's gonna be good. I love you guys. Let's evaluate our lives

and let's choose to live for what matters most. Will you pray with me? Let's pray. Holy Spirit, give us wisdom of this wisdom. And may we apply it. May we remember that all of us right now are time traveling. and may we choose to redeem the time that we've been given. Life is about relationship with you and relationships with others. And so teach us, we pray. And may we think this week about what our story will be. Give us a heart of wisdom in Jesus name, amen. Amen.