Text: Ephesians 5:15-20Sermon
August 17, 2003Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.At noon on April 10, 1912, 2300 souls set out for the adventure of their lives the ship Titanic. It set sail from Southampton, England headed for France, Ireland, then to America. At the time of their departure, the world called the Titanic unsinkable, the passengers might have called it the ship of dreams.For the very rich on board, their dreams might have been for the grandchildren one day to sit among the elite of society and recall how their grandparents were on board the maiden sailing of the Titanic. For the very poor, their dreams might have been that would simply have grandchildren and that they had a better life than they did.
Just over one hundred hours later, 7 out of 10 of these dreams lay dead in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. Of course the problem with statistics as this, we hear them all of the time, but they never really seem to be real. They are just numbers. To put this into some perspective I marked this morning's bulletins to represent that statistic. Look at the front of your bulletin to see if there is a red mark in the upper right hand corner. While you are looking I want you remember that the population of Pawnee is similar to the number of people on the Titanic when she set sail.
Ok, I would like for those who have that red mark on their bulletin to stand up. Look around, if God had decided in 100 hours Pawnee would suffer the same fate as the Titanic, those standing would survive. The rest of us would have our dreams lost!
From the top of the world, to the bottom of the sea in just over 100 hours shows how precious life is. What this little exercise shows us is that life is precious, but we already knew that didn't we? We know this and live our lives accordingly, right?Well, someone who has more time on their hands than seems healthy, sat down and calculated how much time an "average 70" year old spent living their life. According to their calculations people who knows how precious life is and how we it should lived slept 32.9% of that life. They worked 22.8%. So of this precious life, 55.7 percent is either working or sleeping. Of the remaining 44.3 % they have determined that the third most precious activity is (any guesses?) watching TV, 11.4% of this precious life. If you can't calculate quickly in your mind, this percentage, for example, translates into the fact that 8 years of your life is spent watching television. Next comes eating, 8.6%, then traveling, 8.6%.
Furthermore they determined that we would spend 5.7% of our life being sick and 2.8% getting dressed. Now if you can mentally calculate the total of these points, we know that of 70 years of our lives 65 years worth of these years is accounted for. That leaves 5 years for living the precious moments of our lives. To this, these statisticians have determined that the average 70 year old has spent only 1/2 year in religious matters. So live is precious be we only spend 4 1/2 years living those precious.
Now I know that there are those here this morning who are over 70, so if these statistics are for only the first 70 years of your life then you can really wait and live our the great days of your life after 70. Well..... listen again to this morning's lesson?
Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.Sisters and brothers, the Apostle Paul gives each one of us God's message on how we should live our lives as Christians. From this, there seems to be several lessons for us to learn.
First, the one that should already be obvious, our time on this earth is limited. But in case this point has not already been made this morning, listen to what the Psalmist wrote in the 90th Psalm: Each of us lives for 70 years- or even 80 if we are in good health. But the best of them bring trouble and misery. Indeed, they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Ann's VW was recalled for a faulty ignition coil so I took it over to Tulsa to be fixed. While I was waiting I pick up a magazine talking about military issues. There was a story of the military pilots who first flew around the world, etc. There was an article talking about the decision our military personnel must make around their 15-years of service. It talked about the retirement bonus offered and how some took the $30,000 and spent it on cars or houses. Others invested it wisely. The implication was that when they were ready to retire from the private sector many would long forget about the cars they had bought or how the rest was spent. Others would have over 1 million dollars to enjoy. We must make choices, some good, others?
According to Peterson's version of the book of James, our God reminds us, "And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, "Today-at the latest, tomorrow-we're off to such and such a city for the year. We're going to start a business and make a lot of money." You don't know the first thing about tomorrow. You're nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing."
This brings us to the second of Paul's point. We should make the most of every opportunity. The reason for this, according to Paul is "because the days are evil."
Dr. Richard A. Swenson, M.D., who has been director of the Future Health Study Center and fellow at the Paul Tournier Institute has written a number of books such as: The Overload Syndrome: Learning to Live Within Your Limits and Relief For Overloaded Lives I-II. He writes how we are to make time to find time. He wonders if we are tired of running around wondering what the definition of "spare time" is? But there are blocks to us using our time wisely (perhaps it is the modern extension of Paul's days are evil statement). Dr. Swenson writes that we are overloaded with commitments, possessions, work, and information. Sound's familiar, according to the statistics, these are what we spend more than 90% of our life on!
The third point the Apostle makes may be a difficult pill to
swallow. Paul tells us to understand what the Lord's will is. Now this is not what our will is, but God's will for us. When was the last time you listened to hear that word? When was the last time you might have even looked for this word?
Sisters and brothers what do you really think God wants you to do? Even if you are so busy using up the 99.3% of the average life not doing religious things, you must then use those .7% of your life wisely! Take time to pray, take time to read the Bible, look for the words that have your name on them, and trust me there are there or you will hear them. Don't be so bogged down in those matters of life that drain your life, look for the things that make life truly precious!
This brings us to the last of Paul's points of living the Christian life, he writes, be filled with the Spirit.
William Shakespeare's pen wrote Hamlet's Soliloquy that says,To be, or not to be: that is the question:What consumes us is the ultimate question. Paul wants us to understand that the controlling influence that is to consume our lives should be the Holy Spirit. In the same vein as Hamlet the Apostle Paul writes in the book of Romans,
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
...Make sure that you don't get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed. We can't afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don't loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!Sisters and brothers as we consider these points God gave to the Apostle Paul, perhaps we should pause and ask ourselves, "What makes life deeply worth living?" Is it the items we spend over 90% of our life living, or is it found in that last 7 tenths of a percent of what we do? Think of what life would be like if we simply tithed our life to God? Why according to the statistician, we would only spend more time sleeping, working, and watching television. Isn't God worth as much as these three?
Perhaps you could take a piece of paper or two this week and whenever you do things estimate how much time you have spent on them -- shopping, sleeping, eating, brushing your teeth, talking on the phone, visiting with friends, watching TV, reading a book, reading the bible, praying and ....
Then add up these estimates. Then remember the words of our Lord who says, "Don't hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or-worse!-stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it's safe from moth and rust and burglars. It's obvious, isn't it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.
Is your time spent on earthly matters, or does your time show that the place you most want to be is going to be heaven?Words of Institution
August 17, 2003Matthew 26.26-29 -- New American Bible
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, "Take and eat; this is my body." Then he took a cup, gave thanks, 16 and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, from now on I shall not drink this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father."If you have comments or suggestions, email me at fccpawnee@mail.com
