New Year’s resolutions - did you make any?
Any new things or improved things on your agenda for 2019? Any goals? Anything bigger, or better? Why do we even think in these terms? Why do we make resolutions? We want to make sure we do some thing. We want to make sure we don’t do that other thing. More of this. Less of that. We resolve, we make up our mind about it. And there’s a reason behind that. We want to be sure to do some thing, because of this other thing. This other goal, this other overarching purpose towards which we are striving. We perhaps want to cut back on carbs because why? Maybe because we want to lose weight, or get into shape? And there’s a why behind that. Maybe because we want to be healthier and live longer? A better body. A better life.
Maybe you don’t have any new resolutions in 2019. Maybe you feel things are going good, and you just want to stay on target. Steady as she goes. Maybe you’re not in to resolutions period. Maybe you’re just a hand-to-the-plow nose-to-the-grindstone kind of person. One day at a time. Each day has enough care of its own, right? But how do you know if you’re even plowing in a straight line? What if your plow has strayed into someone else’s field? (Or what if you weren't even in the right field to begin with?) We need to look up every once in a while, get a read on where we are - and how we’re doing. I would suggest that Socrates was spot on when he said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” That’s because without examinations, you don’t know how well you’re doing. So, if you’ll permit me, I’d like to do a little life examinating this morning, and if you’d rather I didn’t, you’ll have to bear with me, cuz I’m going to do it anyways. Help us consider how well we’re doing...
I’m in good company here, cuz Jesus was quite intent on life examinating. Look at your life, He said.
Luke 12.15-21 Then He said to them, “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
Beware, He says. Look out. And look at your life. Examine your life. And be constantly vigilant and guarding against greed. Greed is about stuff. It is that spirit which wants what it doesn’t have. It is the spirit of more. But, Jesus says, life is not about stuff. It’s not about me, or my stuff. Not ever. Never does my life consist of my physical possessions. It is not about the physical. Physical stuff will never ever fill the yawning chasm in my soul, what Pascal called the infinite abyss. Life is best lived, true life is found, on the soulish level, the level on which we amass wealth towards our Creator. It is about the eternal. Let’s talk about that.
Many resolutions - and the lives they produce - are colored by the American dream. My life before coming to know Christ was a sincere and full-on pursuit of that dream. And just what is the American dream? My idea of that was a good wife and a good job so that I could make enough money to own a good house and a good car. And then of course I’d want a bigger car and a bigger house - and maybe a bigger wife? Bigger and better - and more - isn’t that the American dream? Or what it has become? At one point I think it was about freedom. God, family, country - roughly in that order. It was the land of opportunity. Which meant hard work. Sacrifice. And hopefully owning just a small piece of that land. But given enough time, hasn’t it for most Americans become more about bigger and better? And more stuff. The bigger the better. The more the better. A bigger and better body? Bigger and better video games. And vacations. And storage units. And stadiums. Stadium seating. Super-size value meals. Even in our churches. Bigger and better. And more. And it’s not that there’s anything wrong with bigger or better. Better is usually better. And as to bigger, I do think what really matters is not physical size or quantity but the size of the heart. But can you see what Jesus is saying here? It is never about what I have - or don’t have. Both the materially poor and the materially wealthy have the same ability to frame their life - and their resolutions - in terms of physical possessions - OR in other terms. Jesus is saying, we should define our lives and examine them based on how rich we are towards God. Being rich towards God. Treasure in heaven, He called it.
Matthew 6:20-21 “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Investing in those things which last forever. Those things which last forever. And what are they? What are those things which last forever? I can think of three: God, His Word, and people. The souls of people. The ones sitting next to me. The ones living all around me. Multi-billions of them on planet earth. And that’s what life should be about. With all our resolution making and life-examinating, here’s the multi-billion dollar question: to what end? To what end? In the end, what? What then? What now, in 2019, needs to be informed by the answer to the what-then question - and what kind of impact does it make, what kind of investment does it make in the things which last forever? How does it bring more of God and His Word to bear on my soul? What kind of difference does it make in my soul, and in the souls of those around me?
Because, see, when we talk about the soul, we’re talking about who you are. The eternal you you were designed and created to be forever. The story of you, who you are and who you are becoming and how that fits into forever. And you and I are, in the truest sense, eternity now. We are immortal souls, living in the present, but designed to live forever with our Creator. C.S. Lewis:
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - 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 splendors.”
To that end, there are three absolutely critical parts to your story, and to mine. One day, when we have gone on to our eternal destination, and the story of your life and mine is written, the reader’s digest version, the shortest version possible, will have 2 four-digit numbers and a line in-between. Three parts. It might look something like this:
2000-2019 (I’ll pick on Letourneau freshmen here.)… The year of your birth, a dash, and the year of your (physical) death.
What if that second number for you was 2019? I’m not wishing that upon anyone, mind you. But what if you knew somehow that this next year would be your last? Would it make any difference as to how you live? The choices you make in the coming year? Your resolutions as we begin the new year? How you write your story? This morning I would like to suggest those numbers, those bookends, are not the most important parts of your story. We do tend to focus on the numbers when the stories are written like this. There’s the year you were born, the year you died, and a line in-between, which of course is everything in-between. There’s that little ol’ line in-between. Everything that takes place in-between the two numbers - THAT makes all the difference. We’ll call it the dash. We need to talk about the dash - far more important than the numbers. But then there are two things missing from every one of these stories, when they are written like this. There’s the prologue, and there’s the epilogue. The most important parts of every life story are in fact the prologue, the epilogue, and the dash.
The prologue is what comes before the story starts. Because the story actually starts before the story starts. Your story started before your story started. Before that first number. The story in-between, the dash, all the what-now, finds its meaning and context from the prologue. It’s like walking into a movie ten minutes after it started. Chances are you’re going to be lost. You don’t understand how what is happening now fits into the bigger picture. The prologue is vitally important if you want to understand the story.
The epilogue is what comes after. Or it’s the denouement. Or it’s one of those scenes after the credits - smart movie-goers know that you don’t want to miss those. Or it’s the sequel - don’t wanna miss the sequel. Cuz as it is with so many great stories, there’s going to be something after the credits. The story is not finished yet. And even after you and I die, after that second number, the story isn’t finished. There’s a huge scene after the credits, the mother of all sequels, THE encore of all encores, and this one you don’t wanna miss!
With all our resolving and resolution making, as we ask the question, What Now?, I want us this morning, in the here-and-now, to consider the question of What Then?, of eternity. Eternity now. The afterlife - as well as the before-life. It’s the prologue, and the epilogue to each of our stories. And then the dash - that is eternity now. It is how should we then live - today, in the coming year, in the here-and-now, in light of all that has been going on throughout the course of history, and in light of what is yet to come. Living now in light of eternity. Eternity now.
Isn’t that the gift which was given to Ebenezer Scrooge? Did anybody watch A Christmas Carol this year? Or read the book? Scrooge was given the chance to examine his life by getting a glimpse of those same three time frames - the ghost of Christmas past, the ghost of Christmas present, and the ghost of Christmas future. And it gave him a soul reboot. Let’s see if we can’t do some of that same examinating this morning.
The past, the prologue if you will, is of course what we refer to as history. It is what - and all - that has come before. For our purposes at least, all that is RELEVANT. And when it comes to “relevant” history, it is rightly said that, history is His-story.
History = HIS-story [timeline]
Because before all other stories there is this other Story, His Story, the Story of the Ages, the story of our glorious breathtakingly good Creator God, the in-the-beginning God, Who in the beginning created everything there is and set out gathering a people for Himself, a people who make His name famous, who celebrate and spread the knowledge of His goodness to the ends of the earth and to the end of time and beyond, forever and ever. All of history in fact to this point has been primarily about this one story, this one thing - the increase of His infinite glory. The fame of His great Name. Talk about bigger and better.
And like every great story, there is a complication. A conflict. There is an enemy, an antagonist. He has sown tares in the wheat! Poisonous weeds. He deceived the very first man and woman into disobeying God, spiritual rebellion, at which point death, and brokenness of every form, entered into the story. Into everyone’s story. This spiritual rebellion spread to every one of their descendants - to us! - and eternal life was lost. Souls were lost. They were taken captive by this enemy. Every man woman and child on planet earth. Priceless souls, designed to bear the glorious image of their Creator, to enjoy His consummate goodness and to give glimpses of His breathtaking goodness to all around.
Enter the Hero. Jesus. All great stories need a protagonist, a hero. He came to defeat the enemy, to conquer death, and heal the brokenness. Salvation. To rescue, to seek and save the lost. To release the captives, to redeem and buy them back from the enemy. The price of this freedom, of course, was His blood. That was the price He paid to secure our release from sin and death. This salvation of course is only accessed by those who receive Him, who put their trust in Him.
And thus you and I are born into THIS story, His story, this grand march of history towards the summing up of all things in Christ. The Hero of His-story. My story? Your story? Is He MY Hero? Is He yours?
Eternity Now is about how my story and your story dovetails with His Story, with the history of mankind, with the greatest story ever told, one which our Creator God has been weaving and crafting since before the beginning of time. And history, HIS-story, marches on, inexorably, towards a great and grand finale. There is something more to see, a HUGE scene after the credits of your life and mine have played. The epilogue.
This epilogue, the denouement, is when all things will fully and finally be subjected to Christ. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
(cf Revelation 20.11-22.5)
Forever and ever. That is a really long time. And that is the greater part of the story. On the timeline of your and my story, we’re talking about a really really long line, one which reaches back for millennia, and which stretches out into the future for forever - and my life, and yours - our in-between, our dash, is actually little more than a speck. It’s a tiny pixel on the big screen of heaven. And yet, even this tiny pixel was worth the price which Jesus paid to ransom it.
Matthew 16:24-26 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
My life. And yours. And that of your neighbor. And your enemy. The surpassing value of one soul. Priceless. Worth more than all the riches in the world. Irreplaceable, He says. Eternal, like the God Who made it.
And the truly mind-boggling thing is that each of our tiny pixels has the native capacity to impact eternity. My OS, if you will, has the potential to change the course of history, to change the narrative for the priceless souls of those whose life-paths intersect with my own. My life can - and is being remade to - make a difference in eternity, to make an eternal difference in the lives of others. C.S. Lewis continues:
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else 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 the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal."
Jesus said it Himself, not in so many words. If anyone wishes to come after Me, He must deny Himself, and take up His cross and follow Me. It is all about living for Him. Living for what He wants.
Contrary to popular belief, Life is NOT about me. That does seem to be the pervading message our culture is sending, isn’t it? It’s all about me? It’s all about you. Be all that you can be, Have it your way. I’m lovin’ it - and that’s what’s most important, my happiness. You deserve a break today. It is the dawning of the age of the threefold self. Me-myself-and-I. I want what I want, when I want it. The consummate consumer. Bigger and better - and more. Consumerism. The protection and promotion of my interests. me.com. It’s all about me, and what I’m getting out of life. What I’m getting out of school, my church, my marriage. And if I’m not getting anything out of it, I’m getting out of it.
In this regard, we follow the One Who was completely counter culture. As un-American as one could be. In the story of His life, we read that He made it NOT about Himself. He denied Himself. He emptied Himself. And made it all about eternity. He made it all about you and me, so that we could make it all about Him. Because in the end, it is NOT about me. It is so not about me. It’s about Jesus. It’s His story. My story ultimately is not my story - it’s His story - or should be. It’s about following Him, wherever He leads. It’s about the priceless value of a soul - what will a person give in exchange for their soul? What can compare to the worth of just one soul? Just one soul gained for heaven? Just one soul rescued for eternity? Jesus said, just one soul is worth this much… (arms stretched all the way out...)
Self-denying, cross-carrying, life-losing Christ-followers. Treasures in heaven. Investing in God and His Word, and helping others to do the same. Making the dash count for forever. Eternity is really long. Life is really short.
Again, I quote C.S. Lewis: "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next."
CT Studd put it this way: "Just one life, will soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last."
How are you and I, how will we be living for eternity this year? For those things which last forever? God, His Word, and the souls of people? With all our resolving, let us be resolved to live this next year as if it were our last, and as if our eternity depended on it.
To quote Jonathan Edwards: "Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live. Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can, with all the power; might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of." (emphasis added)
In closing, a final thought from Lewis: "If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by an offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
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