You’re Going to Die | Downtown | June 28, 2026

Spring Lake Church – Downtown

Sermon: You’re Going to Die

Teacher: Adam Jackson

Passages: Psalm 90:12, Psalm 39:4–5, James 4:13–17, Luke 12:16–21, and Philippians 1:20–23 

In “You’re Going to Die,” we examine what Scripture teaches about living in light of life’s brevity through Psalm 90:12, Psalm 39:4–5, James 4:13–17, Luke 12:16–21, and Philippians 1:20–23. Rather than living in denial, distraction, or fear, God calls us to live with wisdom, focus, and hope. This message challenges us to make the most of our days, pursue what truly matters, and find confidence in Christ both in life and in death. Join us as we learn to live with eternity in view. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, I did a recent survey and I found out that everyone that was born before 1909 is no longer alive. They refused to fill out the survey. Actually, honestly, the oldest person is still alive. She was born in 1909. Get this, you guys. Ethel Caterham, as of 9 o'clock this morning, is still alive at 116 years old in England. And she has already surpassed the lives of her kids. I mean, think of all the things that she has experienced since 1909. And August 21st will be her 117th birthday. Now, that is surprising to us because of what we would have expected would have already happened by now, as well as the acknowledgement that we understand for each one of us what is in store. And that is you are going to die. And those are five words that nobody really likes to think about. Those five words are not necessarily something that people really look forward to or have a countdown towards, but it's something that is inevitable for each of our future. And yet, how are we to live in light of that certain future that we each have? Good morning, Spring Like. My name is Adam. I am the Bellevue Campus pastor. I also oversee our life groups and our membership and baptism. And so if you have any questions about those areas, I would love to talk with you about that in the lobby. But as Bill said, this morning, we continue in our Uncomfortable series this summer. This is week three of Uncomfortable. You've already looked at church leadership that involves church hurt. We've looked at politics and this morning the inevitability of death. And yet, really, what I want to highlight this morning with that is three life-giving statements for us that are really important for us to understand. The first one is live in wisdom, not denial. Live in wisdom, not in denial. And that comes out of Psalm 90, verse 12, where the psalmist says, Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Really gets to the crux of the question. How are we to see life? Many of us would say life is a gift. Many in this room would say that life is a God-given gift. Now, not everyone that lives assigns it that divine providence. Some would say that life is just a matter of biological processes or that we just happened by chance or some cosmic force, some impersonal force in the universe. And if that's the case, then life doesn't really have any significance to it, any real meaning. Meaning is something that people have to carve out for themselves. It's something that you have to create for yourself, something that you have to discover for yourself. And human life is just one of many living organisms that exist. While this sermon isn't going to be so much about a defense for the fact that God lives, but really coming under the assumption that that is already understood. That in this room we're saying that, hey, we believe that God exists and that he has revealed himself to us that we might know him, that we might know who he is and what life is about based on his word that he's given, so that we can know him. And so that is just the foundational to our study this morning. But really, then understanding that it gets back to this heart of what the psalmist is saying in Psalm 90. Teach us. Who's he referring to? Because there are so many people today that have a voice. So many people that want to teach us. So who is the psalmist talking about? I mean, there's scientists and there's teachers and there's entertainers and there's influencers and there's so many people out there that have something to say about how life should be lived and what's worth living for. And so who is the psalmist referring to? Well, ultimately we see that he is appealing to God. If we want to know what life is about and how life should be lived, we have to get to the source. And throughout Psalm 90, what he is reflecting on is the eternality of God and the brevity of human life. The fact that God has always existed and human life is so very short. And in Psalm 90, he says 70 or 80 years if we're lucky. Actually, he doesn't say lucky. He says if our strength sustains us. Okay, so there is a brevity, there's a shortness to human life that he is acknowledging. And get this, because we live in a time in 2026 with the most technology and the most medical advancement in the history of the world. The most opportunities that exist, and yet every human life comes to an end. Because medical advancement can fight off different illnesses, but it cannot provide the ultimate solution. It cannot fight death. Each of us is going to die, and life as we experience it is finite. That doesn't mean that while we acknowledge the finiteness of life, that people have given up trying to fight that finiteness. Eternal life is something that people have been searching generations for. The fountain of youth is well known and it covers both historical accounts as well as fictional tales. We see today youth is something to be clung to, wrinkles, something to be erased, trying to fight off the hands of time to prevent the inevitable from happening. Found it interesting. There's a company in Scottsdale, Arizona, where people will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to have their bodies, once they've passed, cryo-preserved, meaning their bodies are frozen after they have died in the hopes that someday, whatever illness that they had succumbed to, that they will discover a cure for that, and that they will not only be able to bring a cure to that, but revive that person's life so that they can go on living. And people will spend over $220,000 to have their bodies frozen like this. This is not Indiana Jones tales. This is something that's happening today. Over a thousand bodies, thousands of people having their bodies frozen in Scottsdale, Arizona today in hopes that they might be able to go on living forever. And the psalmist is teaching us here that wisdom is understanding that our days are numbered. But it's not just that. It's not just believing that our days are numbered, it's being taught by the infinite God and depending upon him in our finiteness. And that is the heart of wisdom. Some of you may be familiar with Ben Sass, who was the senator of Nebraska, 53 years old, discovered in uh December that he had pancreatic cancer, was given only three to four months to live. And so Ben Sass has been on many different interviews uh over the last few months, just talking about what he's dealing with. And he is a solid Jesus follower. He has three kids. Two of his kids are in their early 20s, his girls are in their early 20s. He's admitted his young son, 14 years old, like he wants to watch his son grow up. He wants to watch his son play football. He wants to watch his daughters, he wants to walk them down the aisle. And so here's a guy dealing with cancer that now has metastasized. It's in five different areas of his body. He's already gone on to live longer than expected. But this is one of the things that he has said in a recent 60-minute interview. He said, Death is wicked, death is evil, death is not how it's supposed to be. And me getting a cancer diagnosis, again, is pretty small in the grand scheme of things, but it's a touch of grace because it forces me to tell the truth. And the lie I want to tell myself is that I'm the center of everything, and I'm gonna be around forever, and I can work harder and store up enough that I can atone for my own brokenness. I can't. And so I hate cancer, but I'm also grateful for it. I tell a lot more truth to myself than I used to do when I saw it, I was super omnicompetent and interesting. I find that last part so fascinating. Here's someone that is measuring the course of his life now. He's realizing that the end is much sooner than he had anticipated. And yet he's seeing it as a touch of grace, and he's seeing it as an opportunity where the truth of what God has said is becoming all the more real, and he is relying on that and sharing that openly. The psalmist says in Psalm 39, verse 4 Show me, Lord, my life's end and the number of my days. Let me know how fleeting my life is. You've made my days a mere hand breath, the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure. One life. That's it. That's all each of us ever get, regardless of our accomplishments, regardless of our genetics, regardless of our financial uh accomplishments or status, regardless of our social standing, regardless of our faith. One life, that's all we have, from the greatest to the least. Each one is going to die. It's inevitable. We cannot hide from death, we cannot avoid death, we ultimately cannot prevent death. It's a certainty, and that awareness should produce within us a certain humility and yet an earnestness for what life is about. The psalmist does not hide from the recognition of life's brevity. We may want to, but to avoid it is to lose out on the wisdom of living life to the full. And you think about when you plug in your Apple maps to get somewhere, hand breaths isn't an option, right? It's telling you miles. And so, in all the distance that we get used to in measuring things of how long something is, how long of a trip, how great of a distance, he says, your life is this. This is how quick it is, and how quick it's over. And so, even today, with all the modern medicine that we have, there is still the inevitability of death. And even the medical advancements that fight off certain illnesses, still, everything we have is within the sovereignty of God, meaning that you are not going to have one more breath or one more heartbeat than what God gives you. Every single one of them is measured, and that's where the psalmist acknowledges here in Psalm 39, verse 5, that God has made his days a mere hand breath. And that really gives some perspective. I know for me, as I've gotten older, this funny thing that happens with perspective, and that 20 years ago, when I used to look at a guy that is the age that I am now, I used to think, that guy's pretty old. And now I'm that age. And I'm thinking, this age has never been this young. Right? Because perspective totally changes as we get older. Like when you're younger and you see someone elderly and they're saying, Oh, life goes quick, and you're like, Well, not apparently so much. You look pretty old to me, but perspective changes. Life goes so quickly, and so acknowledging that life is short should cause us to focus on what really matters, and it should cause us to rely on God who supplies every breath. And so, when it comes to the uncomfortable topic of death, we should not avoid it, we shouldn't pretend that it doesn't exist, and at the same time, it's not enough just to acknowledge, oh yeah, I know death exists, I know that it's in my future, and it's not about having just a negative outlook on life. It's about seeing it correctly, realizing that it's so much shorter than we realize to live it well and to live it wisely. But what does it mean to live it wisely? And that's what we focus on next with the next life statement. Live with focus, not distraction. Live with focus, not distraction. So James has something to say about this in James 4, beginning in verse 13. He says, Now listen, you who say today or tomorrow, we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make money. Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone then knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them. Now think about this because each of us get used to our routines. We all have our routines. We have our daily tasks, our weekly goals, our monthly uh objectives, our annual aspirations, our family responsibilities, our seasonal trips, our discipline exercise. All of those things are good things. And all of those things are things that life is made up of. In fact, if we were to pull out our calendars now, some of us might have certain dates that are circled or highlighted or we make a big deal about because, hey, it's our wedding day is coming up, or that big vacation, that trip you've always wanted to take, that's coming up. Or the due date is coming up, or retirement date is coming up. All good things. And yet James is warning here against a mindset that makes plans independent of an understanding of the brevity of life and our dependency on God. It's a warning not to assume longevity of life and live independent of God. Because as we see in James 4.13, it's a mindset of many books today, or many people today that could be titled, such as Getting Things Done, Keys to Success, How to Retire Early, Go Hard, Have Fun, Live Comfortable. It sounds like the ideal. It sounds like the American dream. YOLO, fortune favors the bold, live without limits, no regrets, make it count. All phrases that are used to live a life of no regret, a life that is not wasted. And I think, honestly, most people I don't think are living their life thinking, I want to waste my life. I don't want my life to matter for anything. I think most people look at their life and they say, Man, I want my life to count. I want my life to matter. I want my life to have impact. I want it to represent something. And yet the warning is that it's possible to live this no regrets mindset and yet have eternal regret. Because the no regret mindset is just a life of adventure, the life of going after what you want, of all the entertainment and all the fulfillment and all the pleasure and all the things that you think are going to satisfy that don't ultimately satisfy. And so the key to living life, according to James, is understanding how short and fragile life is. But not only that, to live with an acknowledgement and dependence upon God. That is the key. That mindset then is a way of life. It's not just something that we commit to for an hour during a weekend service. It's a way of life, it's a perspective that changes our priorities and our goals because we are never guaranteed the ending that we envision. None of us are guaranteed the ending that we envision because our ideas, our plans, our abilities, while incredible gifts, can be taken away from us in a moment. And so wisdom is understanding the brevity of life and actively looking to and depending upon God. Listen to the words of Jesus in Luke 12. He says in verse 16, and he told them this parable The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. Then he said, This is what I'll do. I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I'll say to myself, You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, You fool, this very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God. So it's better to be poor and wise than rich and foolish. Because no amount of prestige or resources can ultimately prevent any of us from dying. So we have to be really careful not to be distracted by our intelligence, by our abilities, by our resources, by our age, or by our connections. Because the parable that Jesus tells here reveals the uncertainty of the span of our own lives. Because get this in this story, this man was still actively productive. He was successful, he was ambitious, he had the energy for more. He wasn't at the point about sinking of slowing down or downsizing from appearances. It looked like he was still in good health. He wasn't yet worrying about retirement or his golf game. He had dreams, he had goals, he had a hunger for more. He wasn't slowing down, and he wasn't done with life.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Oh, but he was. He was, and he didn't realize it.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Life was over far sooner than he expected. And it's not something that he planned on, he didn't see it coming because not everyone gets a deathbed moment. And yet each one of us have a death sentence. So what does God say? What does he call the person who's incredibly ambitious but ignorant of life's brevity? He calls him a fool. Because success does not make the man, success can also make the fool. And so the wise person is the one who is rich toward God. And the man thought, man, I have all this stuff. And I have all these investments and I have all these things, but he hadn't invested in his spiritual life. And the difference between the wise person and the foolish person is the investments that we make. Are we invested in temporary things or eternal things? It's sobering to realize that one day somebody else is going to be sitting at that desk that we used to occupy, that cubicle space, having that position, living in the home that we used to live in. It's really sobering when we realize within a couple generations, our own flesh and blood will not know our names. Within a few generations, great great grandchildren will look at photos and have to take that photo and say, Who is this? We've had those moments ourselves, haven't we? You see an old photo and you have to go to someone who is this person? Because it's very sobering the brevity of life and the impact that each of us have, that life is so short. And yet, as sobering as a sermon about death might be, and as heavy as this has been so far, it does not end in despair for the follower of Jesus. Because what we see, this last life statement, then because of the brevity of life, live in hope, not in fear. Because life is a gift, as we've seen, and life is temporary. However, what comes next is infinitely better and it's eternal. And we may not like to think about death, but death for the follower of Jesus is a means of something incredibly greater, infinitely greater than anything that we're experiencing right now. Tim Keller was a pastor in New York City for many years. Passed away a few years ago from pancreatic cancer. One of the phrases that he used to say is that death used to be an executioner, but the gospel makes him just a gardener. I love that. And we see really the perspective that Jesus makes on the follower of Jesus as they look at their own life and as they look at their inevitable certain death. We see that reflected in the words of Paul in Philippians 1. Get this in verse 20, Philippians 1 20, Paul says, I eagerly expect and hope that I will no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I'm to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yeah, what shall I choose? I do not know. I'm torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. You guys remember playing Freeze Tag as kids? And the whole objective of Freeze Tag is to avoid getting tagged because if you got tagged, you were frozen and you could not move. There was nothing that you could do except watch everybody else play the game. And quite frankly, I think that that is how some believers view what happens when we die. It's like Freeze Tag, oh, Death got you. Now you're in heaven and you're just observing your loved ones. Like there's nothing better to do. Or some have this view that you just come back as a cardinal and you visit loved ones. And that might sound like, what in the world is all of that about? And yet I've seen that so many times in my social media feeds and in this mid, I don't know if it's a Midwest thing, I've seen it more particularly here, the thought that, oh, I saw a cardinal in my backyard and I know that's my loved one visiting me. Really? That's our hope as followers of Jesus? In believing that a loved one is coming back stuck to eat bird food and in fret of cats, and that they want to come back as a cardinal? That's not hope. And our hope is not that, hey, when we die, we just go on watching our loved ones blow it. Really? That's what you want to watch? 24-7, the reminder of the curse of sin, the reminder of failure, the reminder of distraction, the reminder of everyone blowing it? Really? That's hopeful? That's not what Paul is wrestling with. That's not why he's saying, I'm so eager. The great hope for the follower of Jesus is not that we have 24-7 vision of everything happening on the earth right now. It's when we pass, when we take our final breath, we are with him. It's not that we're seeing other people still living life, it's that we see him face to face in the flesh, our joy made complete, sin eradicated, to be remembered no more. That is what Paul is looking at. That's what he's excited about. That's why he's weighing this out. So the goal of Paul in Philippians 1 is he's saying, to live is Christ, to die is gain. He's saying it's all about Jesus, my life. What it looks like to live my life right now. It's all about Jesus magnified, Jesus known, Jesus walked with, Jesus proclaimed, Jesus pointed to, Jesus demonstrated, Jesus shared. That is what life is to be about. Paul's saying that's what I want to spend all of my energy doing. That's what I want to spend the breaths that I have left doing. The energy, what I put my mind to, what I put my muscle to, what I put my hand to, everything being about Jesus. I want it all to be about Jesus. That doesn't mean that we don't enjoy hobbies or relationships or family or belongings, but those good things do not become ultimate things. Ultimately, Paul says, I want it all to be about him because the man in Jesus parable could say, you know what? I left behind a lot of stuff for my kids to enjoy a great inheritance.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

And yet God says, You're a fool.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Because money, resources, and belongings are not the evidence of a life well lived. Paul demonstrates what a life well lived looks like. Verse 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. As he's looking at fruitful labor, it's not like, hey, how much, how much money am I getting? What are the accolades that I'm receiving? How are people viewing me? No, it's about Jesus. I just want to point to Jesus, my words, my actions, my attitudes. He's saying that is what life is to be about. So as long as I have breath, that's what I want to be doing. And yet in verse 23, he's saying, But I'm I'm torn. Yeah, I want to do that. But I'm torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better. It's better, and now just better, better by far, infinitely better. So, in other words, being with Jesus, dying, taking our last breath, and being with him is not to run our price. It's not second place. That is the goal, that is our hope that we are with him forever. And it's so great. This desire is so great. Where Paul's like, man, I'm torn because I want to be with him. Death is actually the entry point to a face-to-face with him. And yet he doesn't have this mindset that we saw with Jonah a few weeks ago. Remember Jonah, where he's like, Oh, it'd just be better if I was dead. You know, that's not what Paul is like. He's like, Man, I want to be serving Jesus, obeying Jesus, I want to be all about Jesus. But when I take my final breath, it is my gain. And when we think about death, we think about so often as it being a loss. And for us that grieve the death of someone else, even if they knew Jesus, we celebrate that they are with him, and yet we grieve because for us it feels like a loss. We're gonna miss them. But this message isn't so much about how do we deal with the grief of losing a loved one. This message is how do you face your own death? And in that sense, your own death becomes gain. It is not your loss. You have gained everything in him. And so the goal of how we are to live our life now is fruitful labor. Because what is given to him cannot be lost. We follow the one who is the resurrection and the life, the one who has conquered death, the one who said that we will live even though we die, the hope that exists because of Jesus. In a relay race, you are only given so much time to receive the baton. And then over the course of your race, the discipline and the focus that you have is seriously gonna impact the value of how well you run that race. Because the finish line is coming, the handoff is coming, and right now each one of us have been given a baton. On one hand, we've been given the gift of life, the gift of life that this is it. What do you do with the time that you're holding this gift of life for every follower of Jesus? We have been given the words of life, the hope of eternal life. And so, as we're running this race, we need to realize sometimes that finish line is a lot quicker than we expected. We kind of might live with this mindset, oh yeah, when I'm 80, when I'm 90, we're not guaranteed that. The reality for us is that not everyone that used to be in this room is still in this room. I've been reminded of that over the time I've been at Spring Lake. How many funerals? Sometimes it is people elderly, sometimes it's been people in their 50s. Did a funeral for someone in their 20s. Couple years ago, we did a funeral for a four-year-old. We're not guaranteed a long race. But the reality is each of us are running right now. And so how are we running? What is our focus? How disciplined are we running? And here's the incredible hope that we have as followers of Jesus that along this race, our role together is to encourage each other. Come on, let's let's run a focus, be disciplined. Okay, you fella, get back up, get back up, we're not done. Come on, let's go. Keep running to link arms with one another, to encourage one another, stay focused on the price, don't get distracted. Don't live for things that aren't gonna satisfy. Don't live for short-term gain. Live for the one who has made it all possible. That's what we're to be about. Because sooner than later, we're gonna cross that finish line. And when we cross that finish line, it is an incredible celebration. You did it. You're home, you crossed it. And at the same time, to realize we have this opportunity to hand this off before that, that handing it off isn't just something we do as we take our last breath, that all along the way there are handoffs of teaching, of pointing to Jesus, a fruitful labor. Because to live is Christ, to die is gain. Richard Baxter was a pastor in the 17th century who had his own share of difficulties over the years. He had dealt with chronic illness in his life. He had dealt with imprisonment at one point, and he had written this hymn that I just want to close with. It's called Lord, it belongs not to my care. It goes like this Lord, it belongs not to my care, whether I die or live. To love and serve thee is my share, and this thy grace must give. If life be long, I will be glad that I may long obey. If short, yet why why should I be sad to welcome endless day? Christ leads me through no darker rooms than he went through before. He that unto God's kingdom comes must enter by this door. Come, Lord, when grace hath made me meet thy blessed face to see. For if thy work on earth be sweet, what will thy glory be? Then I shall end my sad complaints and weary sinful days, and join with the triumphant saints that sing my Savior's praise. My knowledge of that life is small, the eye of faith is dim, but 'tis enough that Christ knows all, and I shall be with him.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

We shall be with him forever. Amen, church. Let's pray.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Father, we thank you for that immense, incredible, eternal hope that is ours through Jesus. That because of his life, his perfect life that he lived, and his death upon the cross for our sin, him paying that penalty and rising again, God, that our sin can be forgiven and that we can enjoy that eternal life, that yearning of our hearts, the yearning of our souls to be with you, to know you, to enjoy you forever. And God, we look forward to that day, for that ultimate gain. But until then, may we not lose hope. May we not grow weary, may we not be distracted, may we not live in denial, but may we give our all in fruitful labor for you and for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.