Beloved,
This week marked the beginning of our church-wide study of Ecclesiastes. As the men gathered Tuesday night to discuss the opening verses—most of which focus on the vaporous vanity of work—the word pessimistic kept coming up. The reality of our near-approaching death casts a large question mark over the meaningfulness of our earthly vocations. We toil for a few years only to be buried in the dirt and leave behind our life savings—perhaps to be squandered by others, or, if we’re among the fortunate few, used wisely. But when you’re a decomposing corpse, who really cares?
Death mocks us. It laughs at our attempts to make our lives count through our work. It reveals just how futile and elusive our pursuit of happiness through the accumulation of stuff really is. Even billionaires never have enough—and then they lose it all when they draw their final breath.
Vocational nihilism is the only logical conclusion for anyone living in this fallen world who refuses to reckon with God and His gospel grace. If you make work and wealth the chief ends of your existence, rather than means to the chief end of glorifying and enjoying God, then your fast-approaching funeral stands as a damning indictment.
Since returning from Emma’s funeral, I’ve kept a picture of that beautiful little girl on my desk. It reminds me just how ephemeral and elusive life is. One moment Emma was here, and the next, she was gone.
It will be true of you and me, too.
Without God, facing the reality of our inevitable and unpredictable death is both terrifying and disheartening. But as someone reconciled to God through the risen Lord Jesus, I’ve found it to have the exact opposite effect.
After Emma’s burial service, Ben mentioned to me that their family had recently finished working through Wilderness: Family Worship in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—a book written by Dr. Beeke and me. He thanked me for how it had helped him and Cherie point Emma to Christ day after day in the months leading up to her death. Then he made a comment that struck me deeply: I have no idea how the Lord is using my labors to work in the hearts of children all over—some of whom may not live to see their seventh birthday.
I had gone to the funeral hoping to be an encouragement to my brother, but—as is often the case in my relationship with Ben—he ended up speaking words that lit a fire in my bones.
Now, every time I look at Emma’s picture, I’m filled with urgency. Life is fleeting. Eternity is near. And coming to terms with my own death—and the mortality of those around me, including my boys and the kids in our church—is compelling me to seize every moment and labor with all my strength for the glory of Christ and the good of souls.
In a mysterious way I can’t fully explain, the death that has been agonizing has also been energizing. For we don’t truly live until we reckon with the vanity of life. Through the tears of grief, I’m seeing more clearly—not just my work, but my family and everything else. I want to cherish every moment with my wife and boys and not be irritated with them over trivial things. What a gift they are! And I won’t have them for long. Furthermore, what a gift it is to be your pastor! But that won’t last long either. To be clear, I don’t have any plans to go anywhere. If it’s up to me, I’ll drop dead while preaching in our church’s pulpit—some 50 or 60 years from now! But die I will, and so will you. “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10).
So let’s make the most of these few short years! And let’s pray with Moses: “Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” (Psalm 90:16–17). For as the missionary C. T. Studd once said, “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Nick