What About Death?
Recently, I listened to the late Steve Jobs commencement address at Stanford University on June 12, 2005. Steven Paul Jobs was best known for co-founding the Apple Inc, NeXT and was the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar. He died at age 56 due to complications from pancreatic cancer. The following is an excerpt from one of three stories he told. Story one was about connecting the dots. Story two was about love and loss and his third and final story was about death (cited below). You can read the entire address here, "You've Got to Find What You Love".
“My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Jobs said, “I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” That’s not a bad question, but for the believer Paul tells us of our real and necessary struggle: “ For I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate. However, if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, that the Law is good. But now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I do the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me…Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.” (Rom. 7:15-20, 25)
Jobs said, “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there.” Well Steve didn’t know what the Lord told us through Paul: “but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sakes. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith” (Phil 1:20b-25)
Jobs said, “And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it”. Well that is true for now but if Christ returns in our lifetime this will take place: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who remain, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” (1 Thess. 4:16-17).
Jobs said, “…Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new”. We can understand this perspective from the vantage of an unbeliever, but we know the best invention is the gospel of Christ that delivers us from all our sin. Death is not about clearing out the old, but transitioning to our best and eternal life in heaven, “absent from the body and to be home with the Lord.” (2 Cor. 5:8)
Jobs said, “Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” God’s “dogma” is worth living out and it must “drown out your inner voice” as the truth that sets us free (John 8:31). We do not follow our “heart and intuition” that can get “tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14), but we follow the Lord’s rooted way that grounds us in living a life that pleases Him.
While death is an enemy for sure, Jesus defeated death for us and the Lord tells us we will live beyond death, in the meantime you and I are to consider ourselves “dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 6:11)
Pastor Jeff
“Judging a church worship service based on how it made you feel is one key sign it wasn’t God you were going there to worship.”