We Americans get caught up in a flurry of activity. We are always going somewhere or doing something. A few years ago, I saw a large fold out ad in a newspaper. It was two full, glossy pages. The ad had pictures of the new Dodge Durango packed with the accessories for various activities: soccer games, camping, canoeing, gardening, home repair. Underneath each picture was either the word “Go” or “Do,” so in succession the add read: “Go. Go. Go. Do. Do. Do.”
I don’t think the Dodge add team was trying to be philosophical, but they succeeded. This motto illustrates America’s two philosophies of meaning or significance. The first of these is that meaning comes from productive work. This philosophy holds that the only thing that counts is what we do, what we accomplish. The second American philosophy is that meaning comes from pleasure. Adherents here say the essence of live is enjoying all you can every moment. Yet America is finding out that these two philosophies fall short of providing lasting significance to life.
In the movie About Schmidt, Jack Nicholson retires from a successful career in the insurance business. Let’s watch what one of his best friends has to say about how he has lived. [Show speech from the retirement party.] Include text of speech here.
However, as the story unfolds, Schmidt reflects on his life, and he falls into despair because he sees that, although he worked hard and played by all the rules, his life has had no lasting significance. He has not really made a difference in the world. Many people are equally disillusioned and find that the baskets into which they have put all their eggs are empty and filled with wasted years.
Some people choose a different path, and instead hope to find meaning in pleasure. However, they too are disillusioned when they discover that meaninglessness emerges from being weary of pleasure. Ravi Zacharias argues that “we have exhausted ourselves in this indulgent culture.”1 When we seek pleasure for pleasure’s sake, we are propelled into deeper, wilder, more extreme activities in pursuit of pleasure until finally, nothing is gives us pleasure anymore.
I have never seen this truth more dramatically lived out than in Marilyn Manson. When I read his autobiography, The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, I was struck by this truth. His pursuit of pleasure led him deeper and deeper into drug use, into increasingly perverse sexual experiences, and into abusing others for the sheer entertainment value. Eventually he became so numb to pleasure that he turned to self-mutilation under the philosophy that feeling pain is better than feeling nothing. He eventually bottomed out in nothingness, and apparently proceeded with nihilism as his philosophy for life.2
Nitzche, an atheistic philosopher, developed the philosophy called nihilism, or “the philosophy of nothingness.” His unsuccessful search for meaning lead him to believe that there is no final meaning in life. He understood that without anything eternal, human life is finally meaningless, just a peak and a valley on the endless ocean of time.
Throughout history the search for meaning has been part of human thought, but it is especially part of being a 21st century American. We are slowly finding out that comfort, luxury, and activity do not ultimately satisfy. We realize that there must be some way to find enduring significance and meaning. But how? Everything on this earth is temporary. Everything here will die or breakdown.
We have some hope if we are not atheists. We believe in something eternal: God. If we can connect with the Eternal God and his purposes in the world, then our lives can have meaning for eternity. I want us to look at two passages of Scripture that shed light on our quest for meaning. These will lay the foundation for the rest of our discussion today.
First, Ephesians 5:15-20:
So be careful how you live, not as fools but as those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity for doing good in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but try to understand what the Lord wants you to do. Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, let the Holy Spirit fill and control you. Then you will sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, making music to the Lord in your hearts. And you will always give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Next is Romans 12:1-2:
And so, dear Christian friends, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living sacrifice – the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.
So, how can we make the most of the rest our lives? The first step to making the most of the rest of our lives is giving all to God. We give all that we have, all that we are, all that we ever hope to be or have to God.
The passage from Romans 12 says that we should give our bodies to God as living sacrifices. In the Old Testament system, the people of God sacrificed an animal as their offering to God. They killed it and gave it to God. Here the image is of a living sacrifice. It is somewhat different.
Has everyone been in church when they pass the offering plates or baskets? Prophets in the Bible did some strange things to illustrate their points, and I have often thought that a good visual image of what it means to be a living sacrifice would be to put oneself in the offering plate. “Right here, God. You can have all of me.” I have never had the guts to actually do this in church, but I think it makes the point. Being a living sacrifice is giving God everything that we are, our whole lives, our dreams, our possessions, our time, what we say, what we do, our sexuality, everything.
Here is another image. Giving all to God is also like signing a contract that only says, “Whatever God wants. Whatever God wants, I’ll do it, I’ll give it, I’ll go there. Signed Josh, or Bill or Melinde.”
This kind of commitment, this kind of trust only makes sense if God is trustworthy. The good news is that He is bigger, smarter, more loving, and more faithful than we are. The truth is that he is in better shape to manage our lives than we are. It just makes sense to trust him to take care of us.
The Psalms repeatedly affirm that God is a strong foundation for our lives. One of my favorite verses is Psalm 18:2 “The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the strength of my salvation, and my stronghold.” No matter what happens he will take care of us if we trust in him.
OK, here’s the second step to getting the most out of the rest of your life: let God fill you and transform you. Let God change you from the inside out. Real change has to start on the inside. If we let God fill and transform our hearts, our lives will naturally show the results.
The good life is not a building that we can manufacture but a fruit. You can build a building, but no one can build fruit. To produce fruit we can only try to create the right conditions for nature to work, fertile soil, plenty of water and sun.
The good life is a fruit that we can’t work up ourselves; only God can produce in us. Galatians 5:22-23 says “But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
Isn’t this what we all want? Isn’t this what we would consider a good and successful life? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and even self-control. I know there have been many times when I have longed for more self-control.
Consider the options from Ephesians 5 again, “So be careful how you live, not as fools but as those who are wise. … Don’t act thoughtlessly, but try to understand what the Lord wants you to do. Don’t be drunk on wine [or video games or work or the pursuit of pleasure], because that will ruin your life. Instead let the Holy Spirit fill and control you.”
The thoughtless foolish choice is to get drunk on pleasure or work and, thereby, to ruin our lives. The wise choice is to be filled with and guided by the Holy Spirit, and God will produce in us the life we’ve always wanted but could never construct ourselves, the life filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
The real trick here is staying filled with the Spirit. When people first started talking to me about being filled with the Holy Spirit, I thought I could come down to the altar, say a prayer, and be set for life. I quickly figured out that it doesn’t work that way. Often, the Biblical writers talk of God’s on going action in our lives. Go on being filled with the Spirit. Keep being reconciled to God. Always be in the process of being perfected. Life in the Spirit is a day by day, minute by minute journey. We have to give all to God and let him fill us everyday.
The third step to getting the most out of life is to join God in what he is doing in the world. This step is illustrated beautifully in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”
You are God’s masterpiece, but he doesn’t transform people just to sit on the shelf. He has a plan for you. When he was thinking long ago of how he was going to make you, even then, he was figuring out what good things he wants you to do. That is the beauty of being a Christian. God is establishing his Kingdom in the world, and we can be a part of it. Long after this world is gone, what we do with God will still be important. What we do with God makes an eternal difference.
Here is a passage may give some clues as to how to start joining in God’s work. In 1 Cor. 12:27-8, Paul is speaking to the church in the city of Corinth:
Now all of you together are Christ’s body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it. Here is a list of some of the members that God has placed in the body of Christ: first are apostles, second are prophets, third are teachers, then those who do miracles, those who have the gift of healing, those who can help others, those who can get others to work together, those who speak in unknown languages.
In the human body, if we lose a kidney, we can’t keep our blood pure. If we loose a leg, our mobility is limited. If we loose our eyes, we will miss out on part of life.
Every person in this room who is a follower of Christ is a part of the body of Christ, the church. We are the physical expression of what God is doing in the world. We each have different roles to play, and we are each necessary to what God is doing. Something will be missing if we do not plug in and play our part.
You may be thinking, “I’m too far along to make a new start. It’s too late now. Maybe some of the other people here can start over, but not me. I’ve gone too far. I’ve messed up too bad.”
My Mom is the leftovers queen. She can take a couple of pieces of crusty old fried chicken, some left over vegetables, some rice that has been in the fridge for who knows how long, add some spices and a little cheese, give it a French name and voila! We have a dish fit for a king.
God can do the same thing with your leftovers. Your marriage may be struggling. Your career may be on the rocks. It may be months since you’ve had a loving conversation with your children. Wherever you are, give what you’ve got to God. Give him all of the broken pieces, and see what he does.3 He is a miracle worker.
One song that has become a favorite in the church goes like this, “All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife, but he made something beautiful out of my life.”4 That song has become so popular because it rings true with our experience as Christians. We give God a mess, and he gives us something beautiful. The only prerequisite is giving it all to God.
Let’s address one final question: Why should you give God everything and be filled with the Holy Spirit? We’ve hinted at this, but we haven’t come right out and said it. The answers are in Romans 12:1-2.
The last part of verse two says, “Then you will know what God wants you to know, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.” When we are filled with the Holy Spirit and he transforms the way we think and act, we find out that God’s plan really is good and pleasing and the best thing for us. This is the path to true satisfaction.
Verse one challenges us to live our lives as an ongoing gift to God and then asks “When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask?” Jesus died for us. The least we can do is live for him.
Braveheart is one of my favorite movies of all time. The English reigned the Scottish with an iron fist and tyranny, and the Scotts have finally banded together to fight for their freedom. The Scottish are a ragtag bunch of farmers who seem outnumbered and outmatched, and some of the Scotts are thinking about going home. Let’s watch and see what their visionary leader says to them. (Play clip.)
Braveheart Freedom Speech - Awesome video clips here
Sometimes, when we think about living the Christian life, we feel a bit like the Scotts, outnumbered and ill equipped. Run from this challenge, and you can go on living life like you always have. It is true that if you accept this challenge, you may have to give up some things that you have enjoyed.
But when you are old and gray, and you are sitting on your deathbed looking back on your life, would you trade all of the days between this day and that for just one chance to live in freedom? Would you give up all of that time for one chance to live the God-filled life, for one chance to live life like it’s supposed to be lived? This is your chance.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism and a true Christian said, “Only the life lived in total surrender is the life of no regrets.” I can testify to you that this is the most satisfying way to live. My life hasn’t been all roses and oatmeal raisin cookies, but through it all God has been my faithful companion, and he has given me a sure peace and a steady hope that he will provide.
Won’t you join me and countless others? Live with us lives of total surrender to God!
We are going to do an exercise called directed prayer. We will all pray together, quietly or silently, and I will give you directions on how to pray. If you do not feel comfortable praying according to the directions, I invite you to just reflect silently.
First, hold your hands out face down. You can rest them on your knees or hold them in the air, whatever is most comfortable for you. Give God your whole life, the bad and the good. You may need to confess some wrongs. You may need to turn over to God some talents or achievements you are especially proud of. Give God your dreams and hopes for the future. Trust him to work out the future.
Next, hold your hands face up, in a posture of receiving. Receive God’s forgiveness. “If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong” (1 John 1:9). Receive God’s love. “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners,” and “God has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love” (Romans 5:8, 5b). Receive the Holy Spirit. Let him wash over you. Receive him into your heart and life. Receive his transforming power to make you what he wants you to be. Receive his promise for your life: “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the LORD. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope’” (Jeremiah 29:11).
Journaling: (Song: “Beautiful” by Plaid Understanding God)
1.How have you met God or seen him working during the Journey?
2.Paint a word picture of the life you want to live as you leave the Journey.
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