The Final Appointment

Sermon Notes

[Ecclesiastes 7:1-3] A good reputation is more valuable than costly perfume. And the day you die is better than the day you are born. [2] Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties. After all, everyone dies--so the living should take this to heart. [3] Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us.

SORROW shapes us more than HAPPINESS.

[Ecclesiastes 9:2-4] The same destiny ultimately awaits everyone, whether righteous or wicked, good or bad, ceremonially clean or unclean, religious or irreligious. Good people receive the same treatment as sinners, and people who make promises to God are treated like people who don't. [3] It seems so tragic that everyone under the sun suffers the same fate. That is why people are not more careful to be good. Instead, they choose their own mad course, for they have no hope. There is nothing ahead but death anyway. [4] There is hope only for the living. As they say, "It's better to be a live dog than a dead lion!"

Life is UNSTABLE and death is INEVITABLE.

[Ecclesiastes 6:12] In the few days of our meaningless lives, who knows how our days can best be spent? Our lives are like a shadow. Who can tell what will happen on this earth after we are gone?

Death should be a motivation for us to use our TIME effectively.

[Ecclesiastes 10:8-9] When you dig a well, you might fall in. When you demolish an old wall, you could be bitten by a snake. [9] When you work in a quarry, stones might fall and crush you. When you chop wood, there is danger with each stroke of your ax.

[1 Corinthians 15:50 NLT] What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever.

Death is God's way of giving you ETERNAL life.

[1 Corinthians 15:54-57] Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: "Death is swallowed up in victory. [55] O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" [56] For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. [57] But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Even in death Jesus gives us HOPE.

[Matthew 6:19-20] "Don't store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. [20] Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.

Our legacy isn't in the WEALTH we gain but in the difference we make.