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 On May 20, 2000, 40,000 college students spread out on the damp, grassy fields of Shelby Farms in Memphis, Tennessee. They didn’t gather for a rock concert or a sporting event. They were there to hear a preacher. And what they heard that day changed many of them forever.  

Pastor John Piper began his sermon that day with a story. He said this:  

“About three weeks ago we got news at our church that Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards were killed in Cameroon.  

Ruby Eliason. Over eighty. Single all her life. A nurse. Poured her life out for one thing: to make Jesus Christ known among the sick and the poor in the hardest and most unreached places.  

Laura Edwards. A medical doctor in the Twin Cities. And in her retirement, partnering up with Ruby. Also pushing 80. And going from village to village in Cameroon.  

And the brakes give way, over a cliff they go, and they’re dead instantly. And I asked my people: Is this a tragedy?

Two women, in their 80s almost, a whole life devoted to one idea: Jesus Christ magnified among the poor and the sick in the hardest places. And twenty years after most of their American counterparts had begun to throw their lives away on trivialities in Florida and New Mexico fly into eternity with a death in a moment. Is this a tragedy I asked?  

It is not a tragedy. I’ll read you what a tragedy is.  

I’ve got a little article here from Reader’s Digest. . . . This is a tragedy. The title of the article: Start Now, Retire Early. . . . “Bob and Penny took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.”  

That’s a tragedy. That’s a tragedy, and their are people in this country that are spending billions of dollars to get you to buy it. . . . “Don’t buy it!” With all my heart I plead with you, don’t buy that dream.  

The American Dream: a nice house, a nice car, a nice job, a nice family, a nice retirement, collecting shells, as the last chapter before you stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account with what you did.  

“Here it is Lord, my shell collection! Look Lord, my shell collection!” . . .  

Don’t waste your life. Don’t waste it.”  

 

Watch the entire sermon here.