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CARPE DIEM - SEIZE THE DAY
Ecclesiastes 11:7-12:1
I. Seize the day.
A. The potential and tragedy of
youth.
"Grass Rides" and
monument in Ipswich.
Monument from Harvard library
in middle of glen.
Dedicated to bright, gifted young
man - who died in 1912.
Recalls movie with Robin Williams,
"Dead Poets Society"
Vivid scene: he shows students
pictures of school athletic
teams
from previous century.
They are young and vibrant - and
dead.
Life is short.
Seize each day and make it
count.
B. How much do you get out of life?
1) Can life truly be fulfilling?
2) Only God can make it so.
II. Life is meant to be enjoyed.
A. Life is good.
1) Creation has much light and beauty.
2) Enjoy time in this world.
a) There are many things we
cannot know.
b) There is one we can -
life.
1> Choose life over
suicide.
A> Suicide of Kurt
Corbain.
B> Death-obsession
of youth culture.
B. Youth is good.
1) God wants young people to be
happy. 11:9
a) Follow heart and eyes -
sounds dangerous.
1> Not hedonism, responsibility
emphasized.
2) Don't idolize youth.
a) I am not young anymore.
1> Takes me twice as
long to get up from skiing spills.
b) All our years can be
cherished. (11:8)
III. There are always
limits.
A. Positive statements are harshly
balanced with negative.
1) Enjoy life - darkness is
coming. 11:8
2) Be happy - you will be
judged. 11:9
3) Banish anxiety - youth and vigor
mean nothing. 11:10
B. Judgment is coming.
1) Death in view?
2) It should be a great
motivator.
In 1982, "ABC Evening
News" reported on an unusual work of
modern
art - a chair attached to a shotgun.
It was to be viewed by sitting
in the chair and looking
directly
into the gunbarrel.
The gun was loaded and set on
a timer to fire at an
undetermined
moment within the next hundred years.
The amazing thing was that
people waited in lines to sit and
stare
into the bullet's path!
They all knew the gun could go
off at point-blank range at
any moment, but they were
gambling that the fatal blast
wouldn't
happen during their minute in the chair.
a) Very foolish, but no more
foolish than not taking God
into
account.
b) Defying God leads to
self-destruction.
3) Immediacy of death should
motivate us.
A university professor once
told of being invited to speak
at
a military base one December.
There he met an unforgettable
soldier named Ralph.
Ralph had been sent to meet
him at the airport, and after
they had introduced
themselves, they headed toward the
baggage
claim.
As they walked down the
concourse, Ralph kept disappearing.
Once to help an older woman
whose suitcase had fallen open.
Once to lift two toddlers up
to where they could see Santa
Claus.
And again to give directions
to someone who was lost.
Each time he came back with a big smile
on his face.
"Where did you learn to
do that?" the professor asked.
"Do what?" Ralph
said
"Where did you learn to
live like that?"
"Oh," Ralph said,
"during the war, I guess."
Then he told the professor
about his tour of duty in Viet
Nam,
about
how it was his job to clear mine fields.
He had watched his friends
blow up before his eyes, one after
another.
"I learned to live between
steps," he said.
"I never knew whether the
next one would be my last, so I
learned to get everything I
could out of the moment
between when I picked up
my foot and when I put it
down
again.
Every step I took was a whole
new world, and I guess I've
just
been that way ever since."
The abundance of our lives is
not determined by how long we
live, but
how well we live it.
Christ makes abundant life
possible if we choose to live it
now.
C. We need a goal worth reaching.
1) Our ways matter to God.
2) He will hold us accountable
for how we live.
IV. The priorities of the life that
matters.
A. The test of eternity.
1) All we can give is our time.
a) When we work, we are paid
for our time.
b) When we play, we are
taking "time out."
c) Life is a series of decisions
regarding how we will
spend
out time.
2) All of Ecclesiastes stands
under weight of eternity.
a) Without God, life is
meaningless.
3) Does what we are doing make a difference
in eternity?
a) Jesus tells us not to be
preoccupied with the mundane.
Matt. 6:28f
b) We are always very close
to the next world.
B. The test of humanity.
1) Only people last forever.
a) Death is real, but life
isn't short.
Listen to how C. S. Lewis
describes how we should regard
our next door neighbor:
"It is a serious thing
to live in a society of possible gods
and
goddesses.
You need to remember that the
dullest and most uninteresting
person you can talk to may
one day be a creature which,
if you say it now, you would be
strongly tempted to
worship.
On the other hand, they might
be a horror and a corruption
such
as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.
All day long we are, in some
degree, helping each other to
one
or other of these destinations...
There are no ordinary people.
You have never talked to a
mere mortal.
Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations - these are mortal,
and
their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.
But it is immortals whom we
joke with, work with, marry,
snub, and exploit -
immortal horrors or everlasting
splendours."
2) Serve others, better them,
love them.
C. The test of conformity.
1) Measure goals and priorities
by this - does it conform me
to
Jesus Christ?
a) We need to ask if we are
becoming more like Jesus. Phil 2
2) Bow knee before Jesus now, not
when forced to later.
V. Know God now.
A. Many young people drift when
thinking about their place in life.
Tony Campolo
tells the story of a college sophomore who
entered his
office and plopped down in the chair.
He said, "Doc, I've
decided to drop out of college."
Campolo
leaned forward and said, "Why in the world do you
want
to drop out of college!?"
A glassy veil dropped over the
student's eyes as he looked
longingly out the window of
the office as he said,
"I need to find myself,
Doc.
I need to peel away all the
layers that have been laid on
me;
I need to peel away the layers
of identity created by the
church and by my parents
and by my friends and by society;
... all the expectations and
definitions created for me
by others -
I've got to peel them away and find the
real me."
Campolo
just shook his head and asked, "What if, after you
peel away all these
socially prescribed layers;
after you pull away all
the layers created by the church
and your family and
your friends, you discover
THAT YOU'RE AN
ONION!!"
The young man was stunned.
Then Campolo
continued, "Now that may sound crazy, but what
do
you get if you peel away all the layers of an onion?
Nothing!
The onion is nothing but the
sum total of its layers - there
is
no center!
And many people spend there whole lives trying to peel away
all the layers of their
identity only to discover at
long-last
that there is no "real me"!"
I believe that our identity -
who we are - is not something
we
find; rather it is something that is created.
It is not something within us;
it is something created from
the
outside.
Who we are is determined by
what we are committed to - it
is
determined by what our purpose is.
Many people commit themselves to good
things.
But if the good things they
commit to are limited to this
life, then they are
ultimately false - nothing under the
sun
is of any lasting value.
When you are committed to God
and his service, you are
working
for things that will make an eternal difference.
B. Positive approach to life must
rest on something substantial.
1) Cheerfulness, courage - even
sound morality - are not enough.
2) Be godly!
C. Our greatest challenge in life is
the right commitment.
A) Remember God - not just
mental, commit ourselves to him.
D. Now is the best time.
1) Responsiveness of youth.
2) Believe when times are good,
not when disaster arrives.
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