Is it possible for you, as a Christian, to waste your life? The Bible says "yes". How can we make sure we live a life that truly counts?

Don’t Waste Your Life – Building Your Coffin
Monday, June 6, 2011
Dr. Death is Dead. The MD who helped so many others take their lives, has now died and not by his own hand. At 83, Dr. Death … Jack Kevorkian … died from kidney problems & pneumonia.
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Dr. Death was a lightning rod on right-to-die issues. He was outspoken in expressing his methods and then carrying them out. He spawned a suicide movement … like 91-year-old Sharlotte Hydorn in El Cajon, California, whose home was raided last week by the FBI for selling suicide kits out of her home. If directions were followed, the “exit kit” was supposed to asphyxiate a customer in minutes. Like Dr. Death, the woman said she was just trying to help people who wanted to end their lives sooner, especially people facing painful deaths. Preparing to die … that’s biblical. Helping yourself to die … that’s another story. What about you? Are you ready to die and meet your maker? And I don’t mean buying an exit kit.
Welcome to HT, I’m CM sharing the Great Story that’s all about Jesus and week of programs called Don’t Waste Your Life and this program called Don’t Waste Your Life Building Your Coffin. Whether you just walked a graduation line, or you are a baby boomer or a senior, how are you living your life. Minnesota Pastor John Piper joins us later in the program and at the end of today’s time together, I’ll be asking you to give us a call at 1-800-654-2836, make a gift to the ministry and get a copy of John’s book, Don’t Waste Your Life. Or you can go online after the program at haventoday.org. Watch the video we have with John Piper, make a gift to the ministry and get a copy of a book for yourself or somebody else. Why am I adding the words building your coffin to the name of this program? Well, that’s the what the old missionaries used to do. They were answering a call from the Lord. A call to live the rest of their lives for Him, on His terms, in places where He would send them. They left with their coffins, because they were giving the rest of their lives to their Savior. They planned to die where he took them. HT opens with a new song that people everywhere are enjoying – Addison Road.
OPEN SONG – This Little Light of Mine – Addison Road
They live in New Zealand, two men retired with time on their hands. Without a lot of other things to do they decided to spend their time building their coffins. I’m Charles Morris and I want to welcome you to Haven Today. We are going to be talking about “what we do when we get older”. Baby boomers in the United States especially are fraught right now with social insecurity. Having “debt loads” and “lost market” investments are forcing a generation to downsize retirement dreams. Maybe we don't need to downsize, maybe we need to upsize – and dream big dreams of not wasting our lives, no matter what our age.

Thank you for starting a new week with us as together we worship the Lord and we seek to serve him together. We're talking about not wasting our lives today and just a little bit later John Pieper will be joining us, so stay tuned for that. San Francisco journalist Chip Johnson is a baby boomer, here's what he says about retirement, “When people ask me about my plans I always give a stock “wise guy” answer. I tell them I plan to buy a double wide trailer, move it to Las Cruces New Mexico and regard any varmint strolling about the premises as a potential fricassee lunch”. I realize it's a bit of a snob answer there and if you're listening to us right now on our Las Cruces station, my apologies, that is the San Francisco journalist talking not me. That has been his stock joke but now he says it's not a joke anymore. He says as a Bay Area baby boomer, suddenly the prospect of his downsizing his lifestyle is not so far-fetched. There are beautiful people living in double-wides and I know a lot of Christians who live in double-wides, the point is that a lot of people like Chip Johnson envisioned a golden retirement, the time to do what you want to do and to live in the most beautiful place of your dreams, maybe on the edge of a golf course or perhaps beside a trout stream and now those dreams are evaporating - it's looking like “lower-cost housing” and “making ends meet” is more likely the scenario. We have a golden opportunity to re-dream our dreams. This retirement dream we have is nothing but a mirage anyway. When we get there it’s going to still leave us thirsty and that is my point. There is another dream we can have that will not be a mirage and I guarantee you it will be deeply satisfying. A dream that will be full of joy and meaning, instead of dreaming about what we always wanted to do you and I can start dreaming about what Jesus always wanted us to do. If we shift the focus off ourselves and on to our Lord, if we start thinking of more ‘free time’ as being more time to pour ourselves into him and his plans - if we think of ourselves as existing for him and living for him and for other people and put that prospect into the future, then the future starts to get brighter regardless of our finances. Jesus loves us and has wonderful plans even for retirement years. Listen to Psalm 92, I’ll start at verse 12, “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, “The Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him”. Do you believe in Jesus? Then you have been transplanted into the Lord's house, he is your dwelling place. No matter where you live when you retire and no matter what your house looks like, you will live in a luxurious house of the Lord. There you will remain vital and green and you will flourish and bear fruit even in your old age. That is a promise from above, a promise from God, that's his plan for our retirement.
Wellington, New Zealand Tom and his friend Roy with time on their hands when they retired didn't really have any hobbies or interests and Tom says “we are old men”, both in their 70s, “and we needed something to do and there isn't much about! We don't want to go and chase little balls around the lawn”. Over a few drinks one day and being capable do-it-yourself handymen they came up with an idea at the pub that they would build their own coffins. After researching it to a local funeral home they measured each other and with Tom Penfold's building skills and his friend’s assistance they crafted a couple of made-to-measure final resting places.
Now that’s a cute story but what it really says isn't so cute. Many retired people have nothing to do but wait to die, there killing time until time kills them. Well we need to shift, for believers in Jesus we have entirely better prospects than that for the future. I Corinthians 15:52, “In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”. What this passage means is that we're not just waiting to die as Christians, we are looking past death to a future. Then the way we look at the future will transform how we live our remaining years. In the very next verse, verse 58 of I Corinthians 15 Paul draws that exact conclusion. He says, “So my dear brothers and sisters, be strong, be steady. Always be enthusiastic about the Lord's work, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless”. People listening to this program for any length of time know Paul Sandberg who sang in the Haven of Rest quartet for many years. For years he was deeply invested in planning, producing and singing the music for the program. Then he had a health crisis and ended up having not one, but two kidney transplants. His days of singing came to an end, but while he was hooked up to dialysis he was still choosing music for the Haven program and now today Paul pours himself into loving our listeners. He calls, writes and visits and is fully invested in giving himself to the Lord and other people. When we asked Paul why wasn’t he taking life easy and playing golf every day of the week, he joked and said, “If I tried to swing a club I'd probably fall down” but then he simply said, “I love it, I love it”. He loves what he's doing and he doesn't want to give it up. He is not just filling his time, he’s not just building his own coffin, and he is not wasting his life. Paul Sandberg is investing himself in the work of the kingdom of the Lord. He is doing something that as the apostle Paul said “is never useless”. The work of the Lord will extend into the future that lies beyond death so we can throw ourselves into it with enthusiasm. People who love their work don't want to retire from it, they don’t have the problem of time to fill. If we begin now, infesting ourselves in the work of the Lord, then even us baby boomers will be building a retirement dream that will carry us right into the presence of Jesus. We won't be bored, we’re going to love it. Ephesians 2:9-10, “Salvation is not a reward for the good things we've done, so none of us can boast about it. We are God's masterpiece; he has created us anew in Christ Jesus so that we can do good things, he planned for us long ago.
John Piper clip


CLOSING SONG - Take My Life - Chris Tomlin and Christy Knockles