Sermon: Coming to Grips with Your Mortality

Author William Saroyan achieved great success in his field. His works were acclaimed in the literary world. His name was a familiar entry on best-seller lists. He received a Pulitzer Prize. Now he lay dying in New York City of cancer, which had spread to several of his vital organs.

One evening, as Saroyan reflected on his condition and what the future held for him, he placed a phone call to The Associated Press. After identifying himself to the reporter that answered his call, he posed a question that revealed the honest, searching sensitivity that had characterized his career. It was a final statement to be used after his death, which occurred in May of 1981.

He said, “Everybody has to die. But I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?” And then he hung up the phone.[1]

Perhaps that’s the way most of us think of death. We know everyone must die but we have yet to come to grips with the realization of it in our own lives. What will be the date? Will it be sunny or cloudy? Will it be winter or spring or summer? How will we die? Will it be in an accident? Will it be cancer? Will we die in our sleep?

I know. Neither do I. But we need to think about it because one of these days it will come upon us.

During the years I have served this congregation, a number of people who used to sit here among us have passed away. I think of Dave Miller, Sr., Wes Strubhar, Sr., Helen Miller, Hazel Silland, Ken and Anne Vaughn, Gwen Burdick, Casey Morrill, Shorty and Eleanor Winters, Margaret Burton, Bob Gosser, Lillian Strubhar - and there are others. These were all good people - faithful members of this church - who died. Which of us do you suppose will be added to the list over the next five years? I don’t know the answer to that question but one thing is certain - sooner or later, your name and mine will be on the list. There will be empty places in the pews where we used to sit. Our bodies will be in the grave and our spirits will have returned to God.

Does this reality upset you? Are my words depressing? Are you thinking right now that you wish I would shut up or talk about something else? Do you wish the prospect of death would just leave you alone? Will avoidance and denial make it go away?

I’m told that newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hearst, when he opened the famous Hearst Castle to public tours, had a single rule that was adhered to strictly. Any visitor who broke the rule was immediately expelled from the castle. The rule was simply that death could never be mentioned.

Hearst had the means to silence others on the subject of mortality - at least while they were guests in his home - but he died anyway.

It is said that the only two sure things in this life are death and taxes. Denying the reality of the taxman can land you in jail. Denying the reality of death could land you in hell because if you don’t think about it, you probably won’t be prepared.

So how can we come to grips with our own mortality? Surely we know that we should handle the issue differently than the unbelievers around us, but how should we handle it?

The early Christian leaders, living close to or during the time Christ walked the earth, had a perspective on their own mortality that was radically different than those around them. If they were alive today it would be markedly different than the perspective of most in our generation. These leaders looked upon death as a gain, not a loss. In Philippians 1:21-23, Paul said,

“For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain... but I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better...”

Paul viewed his own mortality as a plus. How many people do you know with that perspective? How many of us have that perspective? Should we live in terror and dread of death or is there a way to face our mortality with dignity or even like the early Christian leaders - with an attitude of gain?

One way to check our own perspective is to look through the eyes and attitudes of another who holds a different view. That is what I want to do in this message. I want to look through the eyes of the great Apostle Paul and gain a glimpse of his view of his own mortality. Then, once we better understand his view, perhaps we can adopt some or all of it for ourselves.

1 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven; inasmuch as we, having put it on, shall not be found naked.
4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, in order that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.
6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord--
7 for we walk by faih, not by sight--
8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.
9 Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

There are three distinct features of Paul’s perspective on his own mortality in these verses that I want to point out to you. Let’s try to understand what he meant. First, according to these words, Paul had:

Look again at Verse 1: “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

The “earthly tent” Paul is talking about here is our physical body. When it is torn down, that is, when Christians die, we have another body - a house or building not made by human hands.

As you know, no matter how much we exercise or eat right, our present body is wearing out. The new body Paul refers to here is different. It is eternal in the heavens. It won’t wear out.

Most of us don’t spend much time thinking about eternity. If an endless measuring tape represented forever, most of us have only considered seriously the first inch or so. We just don’t think that much about eternal life. Most of our time is spent thinking and reasoning and planning about our present life.

Imagine a 25-foot measuring tape. If the first inch represents the length of our earthly life, the whole tape would represent 300 such lives. Wouldn’t it be encouraging to know that, instead of the typical one inch (a 70-year-plus life span) God was going to give us 300 inches? Would it make living for God worthwhile if we knew God was going to give us 300 seventy-year life spans? Would that raise our hopes just a bit? Sure. What if God offered us four times that much? That would be great wouldn’t it? That would be 1200 seventy-year life spans. What if I told you God was going to give you a thousand full tapes? Not bad, eh? Live for God one inch and He gives you three hundred thousand inches.

Because of the staggering size of our known universe, scientists have developed the concept of the “googol.” A googol is represented by the number 10, followed by one hundred zeros (or 10 to the 100^th power.[2] ). The googol is inconceivably large. But then think of the “googolplex.” The googolplex is a googol raised to the googolth power. If we took that one inch that represents our typical life span and multiplied it not by a hundred or a thousand, but by a googolplex, how many tapes would that be? There would not be enough space on our earth to contain them. There would not be enough space in our galaxy to contain them! A galaxy full of measuring tapes representing the length of our lives would be a pretty good thing, wouldn’t it? But that still isn’t eternity. Double it - that isn’t eternity. Multiply it by a thousand or a million. Make it a universe full of measuring tapes. That would only be the beginning of eternity. And we spend all of our time focused on the first inch of the first tape?

Can you see how Paul could actually be looking forward to the end of his one-inch life span to the beginning of eternity – especially since that first inch contained so much suffering for him?

“We have a building from God,” he says with great confidence, “... eternal in the heavens.” Can you sense his excitement? Can you begin to comprehend why his perspective caused him to say “to die is gain”? When you die in Christ you receive eternal life. Consideration of the end of this “one inch” becomes insignificant.

I suspect that if we spent a bit more time thinking about eternity and a bit less time stressing about our “inch,” we’d be a lot happier. I suspect that we’d be a bit more secure and a lot less worried about what is happening around us and to us.

Just how convinced was Paul of this issue of eternity? Notice in verse 1 he says, “For we know...” Are you that confident? Do you know God is going to give you eternal life or is this something remote to you?

I’m asking you about your faith. Does it mean anything to you? You say you have faith, but do you? Or is it just something you tack on to a busy life then give it no further thought? Why are you so stressed out, Christian? Why are you so worried about all the little details of your inch? God has a universe full of inches to give you and they’re all going to be much better than this one. Your number one concern should be getting into Christ during your inch and staying there!

How did the early Christian leaders handle their mortality? They developed an eternal perspective. We need to do the same.

Of course this piece of marvelous knowledge didn’t remove the harsh realities of this life. Paul admits that, which brings us to our next point. Besides an eternal perspective, Paul had:

Paul didn’t have his head in the sand. This isn’t some “mind over matter” thing. He didn’t say, “pain doesn’t exist” or “pain is no big deal.” It existed and was very real for him and his fellow workers just as it is for us.

Listen to what he wrote later in this same letter. This is recorded in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28:

“I have been through imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches.”

Once we reach a certain surprisingly young age, we start going downhill. No, actually, it might be better to say that it suddenly seems like everything is uphill! Perhaps no one told us that the inevitable stretch called “over the hill” is laid out on an upward grade that gets steeper every year.

“Everything is farther than it used to be. It’s twice as far from my house to the station now, and they’ve added a hill, which I’ve just noticed. The trains leave sooner, too, but I’ve given up running for them because they go faster than they used to. Seems to me they’re making staircases steeper than in the old days. And have you noticed the small print they’re using lately? Newspapers are getting farther and farther away when I hold them. I have to squint to make out the news. Now it’s ridiculous to suggest that a person my age needs glasses, but it’s the only way I can find out what’s going on without someone reading aloud to me. And that isn’t much help because everybody seems to speak in such a low voice I can scarcely hear them.”

Paul speaks of this earthly tent being “torn down” in verse 1. The KJV says, “dissolved.” That’s the way it feels. As you grow older the physical body dissolves around you.

So how do we cope with these unpleasant realities? Paul says in verse 4, “For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, in order that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”

It was the anticipation of the future - when this mortality would be totally swallowed up (I like the way Strong’s Lexicon puts that: it says, “gulped up entirely”) by eternal life that gave the early Christian leaders their good perspective on death.

A little girl went to the back fence of her grandparent’s yard and tried to look through it to see what was beyond. It was a rock fence and there were no holes so in frustration she cried out to her older brother who was also in the yard. He came over and picked her up so she could see over the barrier. “That’s better,” she said.

Sometimes when we can’t see our way through our troubles here, we need to let God’s word pick us up so we can look over them and beyond them to what is to come so we don’t lose heart. The answer to our stresses isn’t necessarily their removal. It’s to look beyond them.

The early Christian leaders handled the prospect of their mortality so well because they had an eternal, yet realistic perspective.

Look quickly at verse 5: “Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.”

The New Testament Greek expositor, Lenski, said that the sentence structure of this verse puts the emphasis on God.[3] His point is that He who prepared us for this purpose of eternal life is God Himself. The prospect of eternal life isn’t ours because of what some fallible man did or didn’t do. God authored the plan of salvation back before the universe began. God planned the events that allowed you and me to have the unmatched privilege to be a part of it all. This wasn’t done by some bumbling human being. God did it Himself. It is part and parcel of His providence.

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."

It is God Himself who has been advocating your eternal glorification! He wants you to have it! When you were baptized into Christ, He gave you the gift of His Spirit to prove it.[4]

If you have ever bought a house you know that when you finally locate what you are looking for and are serious about it, before the owner begins the process that will transfer ownership to you, he expects you to put down some “earnest money.” This up front, “at risk” money is a token of the purchase price to assure the present owner that you are serious about the matter. The house isn’t yours yet, but with the reception of the earnest money pledge, everything is kicked into motion that will lead to the ultimate transfer of ownership. If you and the present owner stay on track with what has begun, the house will ultimately be yours.

God seriously wants you to have eternal life. If you are a Christian, He laid down His “earnest money” as He gave you His Holy Spirit when you were saved.

“Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord--for we walk by faith, not by sight – we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”

Because of their eternal yet realistic perspective, knowing that God was behind the whole thing and had assured it by His pledge of the Holy Spirit, the early Christian leaders could be, as Paul says twice here, “always of good courage,” which is the opposite of being discouraged.

Are you discouraged right now? You don’t have to be. Let the same principles that lifted Paul and his companions out of their momentary troubles and trials lift you. If you try only to look through the back fence you are going to be discouraged. The solution is to look over it.

Writing in MORE STORIES FROM THE HEART, Max Lucado penned the following words, which I’ll use to conclude my thoughts this evening. The choice of how you deal with the rest of your “inch” is yours to make right now. Don’t let the opportunity slip away.

“Hot sun. Salty air. Rhythmic waves. A little boy is on the beach. On his knees he scoops and packs the sand with plastic shovels into a bright red bucket. Then he upends the bucket on the surface and lifts it. And, to the delight of the architect, a castle tower is created.

“All afternoon he will work. Spooning out the moat. Packing the walls. Bottle tops will be sentries. Popsicle sticks will be bridges. A sandcastle will be built.

“Big city. Busy streets. Rumbling traffic. A man in his office. At his desk he shuffles papers into stacks and delegates assignments. He cradles the phone on his shoulder and punches the keyboard with his fingers. Numbers are juggled and contracts are signed and much to the delight of the man, a profit is made.

“All his life he will work. Formulating the plans. Forecasting the future. Annuities will be sentries. Capital gains will be bridges. An empire will be built.

“Two builders of two castles. They have much in common. They shape granules into grandeur. They see nothing and make something. They are diligent and determined. And for both the tide will rise and end will come.

“Yet that is where the similarities cease. For the boy sees the end while the man ignores it. Watch the boy as the dusk approaches.

“As the waves near, the wise child jumps to his feet and begins to clap. There is no sorrow. No fear. No regret. He knew this would happen. He is not surprised. And when the great breaker crashes into his castle and his masterpiece is sucked into the sea, he smiles. He smiles, picks up his tools, takes his father’s hand, and goes home.

“The grownup, however, is not so wise. As the wave of years collapses on his castle he is terrified. He hovers over the sandy monument to protect it. He blocks the waves from the walls he has made. Salt-water soaked and shivering he snarls at the incoming tide. ‘It’s my castle,’ he defies.

“And I don’t know much about sandcastles. But children do. Watch them and learn. Go ahead and build, but build with a child’s heart. When the sun sets and the tides take--applaud. Salute the process of life, take your father’s hand, and go home.”[5]

[1] Cited in Reader’s Digest, Dec. 1981, p. 136
[2] goo·gol ( g›”gôl”) n. 1. The number 10 raised to the power 100 (10100 ), written out as the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. [Coined at the age of nine by Milton Sirotta, nephew of Edward Kasner (1878-1955), American mathematician] --- The American Heritage Dictionary.
[3] THE INTERPRETATION OF I AND II CORINTHIANS, R.C.H. Lenski, Augsburg Publishing House, 1963.
[4] Acts 2:38
[5] Story by Max Lucado. Alice Gray, More Stories From The Heart, Multnomah, 1997, pp. 224-225.