YOLO
Notes
Transcript
Some of you may have heard a saying that became famous a few years ago called YOLO (Teens used to say it a lot, I am unsure if it is cool or not anymore)
But it stands for You Only Live Once
And really the idea behind this is that you only have one life on this earth and so you need to make the most of it.
And some people do not like the phrase because its linked to partying or other things,
But I actually like it because we only are alive for a certain period of time and so we want to live a very intentional and purposeful life.
But the issue is so often we do not live a life that is intentional.
And I found a website the other day that actually shows how we spend our time.
And what they did is they actually broke down how much time we spend doing certain activities throughout our entire life.
And this is what they found:
The average person spends 13 years of their life at work or doing their job.
And then we spend almost an additional 4 years in the car driving places
Women spend 136 days getting ready
Men spend 46 days (Sorry these are statistics)
We spend over 11 years just in front of the TV
We spend 3 years on social media
We spend 4 and half years eating
And then this is the big one. We actually spend 26 years sleeping.
And an additional 7 years trying to sleep
And if you are like me you read this and go “Wow, I am wasting my life!”
But truthfully it makes you think “How am I spending the life that God has given me?”
And How do I make the most out of the time He has blessed me with.
So Today we are going to be talking about this and diving into who we can live a full life.
and so we are going to be in Ephesians 5:1-21 and this is continuing our series Identity,
where we have been looking at our identity in Christ and how it plays out in the world we live in.
And since todays passage is a little long we will be jumping around, but I always want to encourage you to read this passage on you own and also if you can read the entire book of Ephesians at least once during this series.
You will get a lot more out of this series.
So once again we are in Ephesians 5:1-21 and we will just be starting in verse 1:
And it says this:
Ephesians 5:1 (NIV)
Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children
You know this verse is so short but it sets the base of everything else we are going to discus.
Because this verse tells us what our identity is and that is as a child of God.
And if you have been with us during this series you might be getting a little tired of my repeating this every week.
But every week Paul who wrote this letter brings it up.
And the reason he does is because he knows that unless we live into this identity of a child of God, we cannot live the life God has called us too.
And so the first point I want you to get is that in order to live a full life and a purposeful life we need to live into the identity we have in Christ.
And this identity is that we are His children.
Think of it this way your child probably looks like you.
Liam has my eyebrows and then he looks a lot like Arika,
But our children should look like us
and this is also true when we are made children of God.
We look more and more like Christ.
And look what the next couple verses say because verses 2 and 3 tell us how we should look:
Ephesians 5:2 (NIV)
2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
Basically we should be walking in love like Christ did,
but as we are walking or living a life for Christ we should be walking away from our sinful life.
And I love how strong this verse is because it says that this sin and these impure things should not even be “named among you”
Meaning you do not want to touch sin with a 10 foot pole. You want to get as far away as possible from sin.
Its almost like this the other day I was cutting the church grass and if you have seen our yard their is a giant puddle in the back where water will accumulate if it rains really hard.
and I was cutting around this giant puddle and the area I was cutting looked dry but out of no where the tire sunk into the ground and I was caught it the mud.
And so after an hour of trying to get it out I accomplshed to make it worse and my pride is sinking so I finally called someone to help me get it out.
And they got it out immediately with not issue.
But for the rest of the day I did not go anywhere close to that puddle.
And the reason was I saw how stuck I was before and their is no way I am getting stuck again.
But truthfully that is how we should be when our identity is in Christ. We do not want to be anywhere close to something that can make us or someone else get stuck or stumble.
We want to walk towards Christ, but also want to walk away from sin.
And look at the next few verses because it says:
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. 14 This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
Basically what Paul is saying here is that the best life lived is a life in the light.
Meaning that we should allow the light of Christ to shine into every area of our life, and there should not be one place in our life that is unchanged
but also we should have accountability in our life.
Because the issue that occurs is when we have things that we hide in our life because then they are kept in the darkness.
And this is bad with our walk with God, because we trip if we are trying to walk or live in the dark.
If you are a person that likes midnight snacks you know that when you walk down the hall and keep all of the lights off you might fall or trip on something.
And in our lives truthfully God wants to have us live a life in the light so we do not trip and fall.
And like I said we need this first off through allowing Christ light to shine in every area
But also it is so important to have some form of accountability in our lives.
And if your asking what does this even look like? (do I stand up on Sunday morning at tell air out my dirty Laundry? Probably not…
But one of the best and most simple way to do this is just having one or two people that are Christians that you can trust and you can tell anything to (things that you are going through, temptations, addictions, hurts, habbits) and they with not judge you but will push you.
And meet with them to talk about areas you are stuggling with.
If you have ever done something like that it is such a powerful way to shine the light of Christ in our life.
Well look at the last point here in verses 15-17, because the last point is “ the best way to live a full life is to make the best use of your time”
Look at these verses. It says:
15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
You know I do not think Paul knew the exact statistic like we do of how the average person spend their day. But I can guarantee that he did realize that whether it was a t work or with family or wherever.
People do not spend their lives intentionally living.
Because times flies.
I am a first year father and this year has been the fastest of my life.
but that is why it is so important to live an intentional life for Christ. (Because the days are evil) (Time Flies)
And what will often happen is we have things that God has called us to and we push it off or say I’ll get to it tommarow until we forget about it or miss the mark.
I want to end with a story. As a lot of you know I was an intern in Green Bay Wisconsin and there was one man I met while I was there named Jack.
And this man was an older man who was nice but he was also an alcoholic and also had a lot of baggage in his life.
And I remember one day I was speaking to him and He mentioned how He has always felt God calling him to do things and most likely even be in a relationship with Him,
but he would always decide to push it back and now at this point in his life he has discovered that he had a brain tumor and his days were really numbered.
And I remember talking to him and he really understood that their were things in his life that needed to change during his last days.
This was someone who really understood that his days we numbered and that he needed to change what he lived for
But here is the truth: because wether you are young or old every single one of us will have a day where we will breathe our last breath and I can imagine during those last moments we will ask ourselves how did I spend my life.
And I want the anwnser to be I lived a life intentionally living for God and trying to live a life as intentional as possible for Him
And I am really not trying to manipulate your emotions this morning or anything, but I want you to ask yourselves how am I living?
Is it first off with my identity in Christ?
And if its not would you want it to be? you can fill out a connect card)
And if it is am I living where the light of Christ is in my life and am I living intentionally or am I just pushing God’s call?
and that is scary, but what if we lived intentionally enough where I stopped focussing the other things in my life but focused on that I am a child of God.
Will you pray with me?
