Intro 1: Good morning, everyone. I want to welcome you once again to our church. And this morning, we're going to switch things up a little bit because we often talk about... We, I, me, Russell, myself, I talk about the future hope that we have and it's real. And that doesn't go away, and it doesn't change. But the sermon title says it's later than you think. So, before we dive just a little bit deeper, let's take a moment. Let's pray together, shall we?
Opening prayer: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity. We thank you for this time to be here. God, I pray now that you would watch over me in this moment as I try to expound on your word through the spirit. Guide me, teach me, help me to be a vessel this morning, right now. Jesus’ name, amen.
Intro 2: For the last couple of years, you have heard me exclusively talk about our future hope, our future suffering, our future struggle, our future trial, our future glory in God. All those things are real. All those things don't change. All those things don't go away, but it's later than you think. And I was watching a movie just a few days ago with my family and one of my son's good friends, Matthew, who's here today, and there was a line in it that was not original. It's from ancient Rome from a few popular musicians. Enjoy today, it's later than you think. Carpe diem, seize the day.
It's the great paradox of Christianity because we learn about and we read about our future hope, our future home, heaven, where we're going, what we're living for. Not the things of this earth but the things of heaven that Jesus has promised us, that he assured, that he sealed when he died on the cross and then when he rose again from the dead. But here we are another, Sunday morning, the church isn't filling up and I'm glad that you're here. Maybe you're watching online, maybe you're watching with a group of people. Maybe you're watching alone. It's later than you think. Those words have been playing on repeat in my head every minute of every day, in every task that I do.
They have been shaping the way I'm thinking, the way I react, the way I respond, the way I engage, the way I work, the way I walk around my house. It's later than you think. It's later than you think. It's later than you think, Russ. Jesus got 33 years and his ministry was just a period of three years that we really read about in what is our modern day, Bible. And there's got to be more to the story. There are two sides to every story. And as humans, we say somewhere in the middle lies the truth. And the truth of the matter is, it's later than you think.
I got a piece of advice not too long ago that is now circulating online, and I suspect the person who gave me that advice probably got it from social media. But it's simple. At any given moment, anytime you're flaring up, anytime you're upset, you're angry, that you feel like your temper is going to fly off the charts, pause, close your eyes, even if it's for half of a second. And imagine you are 40 years older than you currently are right now, and this is the only moment in that span of time you are ever going to get, especially when it comes to those of us with children. It's the only time you're going to get to respond to this situation in this way, in this set of circumstances, which is true.
So, he posed a question, how would you react if your 80-year-old self, for me, looked out at this moment and said, "Is that what I would do? Was that the best way to handle it? Is that the best way to bridge this gap? Is that the best way to have this conversation?" And the answer is no. It's later than you think. My twins are 11. I have a few more summers with them if I'm lucky, where they really want to engage with me all the time, where they want to play outside, where they want to play basketball, where they want to play soccer, where they want to throw a baseball, where they want to go play with the dog in me. And suddenly those days won't happen anymore. They'll have distinct lives of their own with activities and friends that are seemingly more important than time with dad and time with mom.
And the Bible talks about these phenomena in more ways than one, in several verses scattered throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. We find references all over the place. Water from the rock with Moses, the parting of the Red Sea, the flood, the promise of never having a flood hit the earth again, the almost sacrifice of Abraham's son, the birth of a child to Sarah in her late age. It's later than you think is not as negative as maybe I once thought about or even initially when I heard it thought about.
So how do we process this information? What do we do with it? My first response to you is, I don't know, but I think God has other plans for that. And fortunately, he and I have been talking more often lately than not, and I'm happy to report that to all of you because we all get periods where we're low, we forget, our mind and our hearts wander away from him. And every now and again, we hear that subtle reminder. It's later than you think. You know what I'm going to say now. He's calling you. He wants you. So, we looked at a couple of verses in the Psalms this morning. We peeked at a few in first Peter two, which Pastor Fela read last week as well too, which is a great way to tie in week over week here. But how do we apply these things? How do we figure out what it is we want to do and how we want to do it? So, we're going to talk about a couple of those things, and I've got some visuals for you here this morning.
But what I'm going to ask today is throughout the entire context of the rest of the message, every time you feel yourself drifting off because you do it, you know and I know you do, and I see it when you do, I do it too when I'm sitting there, every time you feel yourself wandering to a different place, thinking you'd rather be somewhere else or you have so many other things to do today alone, I want you to pause. Even if you need to tune me out for another couple of seconds and think to yourself, it's later than I think. What does God want to teach me today? It's later than I think. How does God want to humble me today? It's later than I think. How is God going to use me today?
And that leads me to my first point.
Point 1: How is God going to teach me today?
How is God going to teach me today? And we all learn in different ways. We all process information uniquely. Some of us are readers, some of us are visual, some of us need to get up and move around, some of us need to really process things out loud. Others of us like to go into rooms quietly and digest information and come back and read more. Some of us love to have conversations. Some of us can't stand to have elongated conversations. Some of us fall right in the middle where some days we love long, deep philosophical chats. And other days we walk by you with a quick wave, "how you doing? Good to see you," and we go about our business. I know that. I feel that. I am that person. And unfortunately, my wife gets the brunt of that some days when she calls me on the phone wanting to talk.
That gets the brunt of that some days when she calls me on the phone wanting to talk. But what I can tell you now and what I'm working on now is it's later than I think. What does God want to teach me in a conversation I'm having with my wife? What does God want to teach you in a conversation with me? How do we react? Well, that's interesting because the book of Romans, God says, "Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Not life, not death, angels, demons, present nor the past." But the problem is that's the divine perspective, that's God's perspective.
But our reality as humans is that all that separates us from the love of Christ, at least in our own minds, at least in our own hearts. The death of a loved one divides the way we feel about Jesus. Not the way he feels about us, but the way we feel about him. The loss of a job, moving to another state, problems, struggles with our past, not knowing what's coming in the future, how we're going to deal with it, how we're going to pay the next bill, how we're going to feed the family, where the mortgage payment is coming from, where the car payment is coming from, how we're going to put gas in the tank, separates us from the love of God.
My past separated me from the love of God, but it separated me. It didn't separate God from me. It separated me from God. I was the one who ran away. I was the one who chose to ignore. I was the one who said, "Forget it, God. You don't know me. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what you're doing. You know what? I'm going to..." I remember it. I didn't write it down. I remember it.
I had a conversation with God. I was a teenager. I was about 15. And I had hit a low point. And on my little twin bed in my small house, in the heat of repair, basically everywhere, I looked at God and I said, "I'm going to figure all of this out without you." And I chose it. I picked that point in my life to say, "No. I don't love you. I don't need you. I don't want you." And I can't imagine how much that must have hurt my Father in heaven. Still loving me the same. At 15, still telling me, "It's later than you think, Russ." There I was.
So, I have this conversation with God because at 15 you know everything. At 30 you know everything, at 40 you... We think we know everything all the time.
What is God trying to teach me? A very blunt and clear lesson followed by a series of follies, accidents, mistakes, tragedies, problems, struggles, trials that are too many to go over for a singular point in a sermon, that all led me back to one truth. I need God. And moreover, I want to be a part of God's life. I want to be a part of the kingdom. I want Him to love me.
And see, the thing is God had to teach me that. And maybe He's got to teach you that too. Do you want God to love you? Think about it. Think about it.
Think about all the things you did just last week. How many times did you disappoint yourself? How many times did you disappoint somebody else? How many times do you know you were doing something ridiculous, and you did it anyway? We all make the mistakes. We all have the problems. And God says, "It's later than you think. You've got a long way to go, but it's later than you think."
Proverbs 3 says, "Trust in Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and he will make your path straight." And it goes on. "The God who loves us, the God of grace, the God of purity, the God who upholds us, the God who forgives us." But you've got to do your part. And here's where we confuse all of it. Here's the spoiler for the end of the sermon because we've got two more points to go. Your pathway to heaven, your gate, part of your ticket, it's later than you think.
Now, we believe because we believe. And I have never once stood up here and tried to push an agenda or tried to twist your arm because God, who loves me, who forgives me, who protects me, who provides for me, has never once tried to twist my arm. Even when I was 15 years old, telling him out loud I hated him, telling him I didn't need him, screaming at the heavens. Not once did he force me. My Father waited patiently to teach me that suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces hope, and hope is not foolish. Hope in God never fails.
That's what I want you to leave with this morning. That's what I want you to remember. God's hope never fails.
Point 2: How is God trying to humble me today?
Well, my notes are over there. Here I am walking around, trying to remember the things I wrote down, the things I said. And what I want to do is get right behind this pulpit, and I want to read to you like I always do. But God wants me to humble myself before Him and get away from something I'm comfortable with and move beyond it, then talk to you like we're having a conversation.
So, I'm trying, and I'm uncomfortable. And I might look calm on the surface, but my heart is racing. I am terrified that I'm going to forget something and I'm going to stumble, but I'm going to fall. But then I realized, you don't know what I wrote. You don't know what I want to say. Is that the point? I know what's there. I worked hard on this.
But in the end, God wants me here and there, and not behind this, because he is humbling me today to trust him so that I trust in the abilities he gave me, the talent he gave me. And maybe I'll mess up, maybe I'll forget a line. Maybe I'll say a word that does not belong. I'll stumble, I'll slip. I'll say, "Lazaruth" instead of Lazarus because sometimes my speech impediment just kicks back up out of nowhere from childhood.
Maybe I'll slip and say a funny word in prayer when I'm trying to combine "heart" and something else that ends with a T. A bunch of you heard it. But what does humbling look like? The Bible tells us to humble ourselves before God, to humble ourselves before authority, to respect the authority here on Earth is we respect our Father in heaven. So how do we humble ourselves? And there's a great story. It's out of the UK, a small school. The teacher and a couple of students going to a science fair. And they worked for months to produce this long chain reaction of events. And they tested it in the school. It worked- (18 min)
... reaction of events. And they tested it in the school. It worked several times in a row, and they were excited. And I wish I had images of it, I couldn't find them. I found the story. But it was one of those devices where one piece leads to another, to another, to another, that ultimately performed some simplistic tasks, like pouring a cup of water.
And as the teacher tells the story, he said the students were so excited and so engaged. But in the transport of the system, one small piece, one tiny little piece, a toothpick that was supposed to be glued down, that helped an incline plane push a ball downward, shifted in transportation. And when they set the reaction up, that tiny shift, millimeters is what he said, changed the trajectory of the ball forever and the machine failed, the glass didn't pour.
And they were trying to figure it out because on the surface everything looked great. But they were so mad, so upset, they went back, and they broke the whole thing down. As they were breaking it down piece by piece by piece by piece by piece, they realized this one small flaw is what stopped everything. And they were completely humbled by that. They couldn't believe that something so minuscule would throw off the entire weight of the experiment, would cause it not to work.
But it's funny, isn't life that way? One little thing goes wrong, one bump in the road, especially in the lives that we lead. Because let's face it, while they're hard and they have their challenges, life's pretty good. Life can be pretty darn easy most days. We can pay our bills; we know where our meals are coming from. We can stay warm in the winter; we can stay cool in the summer. And if we can't, we have friends who warmly invite us in. But one little piece, one little problem, one tiny little thing throws us completely off.
That should be enough to humble us. That should be enough to teach us where our priorities lie. What's humbling you today? Is there a toothpick under your foot that just has you leaning a little bit? Or is it something bigger? Is it something more catastrophic?
And the problem is maybe you don't see it. Maybe it's right in front of your eyes and you're blind to it. How is God going to humble you today? Nobody likes to be humbled. But we humble ourselves before God to respect the authority and the fact that God is the one in control, God is the one in command. And He is, first and foremost, our king, and then He’s, our friend. And we have a God who loves us and who is both things at the same time. A ruler overall, but gentle and kind enough to know our name, to know our needs, to know our wants, to know the desires of our heart. It doesn't mean He's going to fulfill them all. If that doesn't humble you, knowing that the God who always was, always is, and always will be, created the heavens, the one who created the earth and who created the infinite cosmos, loves you and knows you. Maybe it's scary.
It was to me as a teenager. Scared the life out of me because I knew the things I did. I knew the way I behaved. I knew the way I acted. I knew the way I reacted. I knew the way I treated people. I'm surprised you had a crush on me in high school because I think if you knew the real me, you never would have. You wouldn't have even liked me, let alone loved me. It's later than you think.
Point 3: How is God going to use me today?
How is God going to use you today? Well, it's later than you think. And I think about this and the aspect of every relationship I have, my wife, my twins, my in-laws, my family, my dog, my friends, the staff I have at work. What am I going to do? How are they going to use me today? Am I going to be harsh and sharp with my words? Or am I going to try to remember a time in life where I was the one learning, I was the one coming up, I was the one with the questions. I was the one without the experience. How can I show an appropriate amount of grace?
But then I thought, "Does God show me an appropriate amount of grace, or does He show me an abundant amount of grace?" For all the mistakes I've made, all the ways I've messed up. No, God shows me an abundance of grace. He gives me an abundance of mercy. In fact, it overflows in my life. And there's no reason it should. I don't do anything special; I don't do anything.
In fact, I feel like, especially when I'm here, like right here, I really don't deserve any of it. And the truth of the matter is that I don't. And neither do you. But a few thousand years ago, God looked down from heaven. And I wonder if He thought, "It's later than I think. Time to send in Jesus."
I have so many questions for God. So many questions. And they range the spectrum. Why did you take my mother? Why did I get hurt? How did I get so lucky finding a woman and children that I'm fortunate enough to be married to and be dad to? How did my career seemingly do so well? Is it going to keep going well? Did it go well? Did I serve? Did I act? Was I a good messenger? Was I arrogant? Was I proud? Was I rude? Was I boastful? Was I humble? Was I responsive? Was I not reactive? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do the good die young? Why do people cut me off in traffic? Why can't I figure out simplistic middle school math? Why did I have to have to struggle so much to understand you love me?
And I don't know the answer. But one of my teachers in fifth grade gave me an analogy. We were talking about how we need to be the salt of the earth. And one of my friends said, "Well, hey, look. The world's like a big potato. And a potato without salt is disgusting. Let's make the world taste good again." So, oftentimes, I think about the world like a potato.
But in that same conversation, Mr. Slaughterbeek, who I don't know where he is today, what state he lives in, but he was my fifth-grade teacher, my homeroom teacher. And I remember two things. Well, more than that, but we were talking about when we get to heaven and what that looks like. And I remember, with tears in his eyes, he said to all of us, "Guys, I think by the time you get there, you're going to be so overjoyed to meet God, all those questions are going to go away, and you're just not going to care because you're going to be so happy being in God's presence."
You're going to be so happy being in God's presence. It's not going to matter anymore. The more I thought about that, a little bit older I get, I think, how is God going to use me today?
Conclusion:
And here's where it ends. I don't care. I don't care how God uses me. Not in an apathetic way or a negative way or whatever. In a…Do whatever you want. What are you going to do, Lord, to teach me? And how are you going to humble me? And how do I get to be used today? Who do I get to talk to? Who do I get to connect with? What verse are you going to put on my heart in a moment where I think it means nothing and it means everything to somebody else? You don't need me to memorize the Bible cover to cover, but you want me to read it every day. Sure. You don't need me to pray with my eyes closed, my hands folded for hours on end, but you want me to talk to you all day and I'll do that. Oh, I'll have conversations with you all day long. And I hope, and I pray that I get to hear the answers for the things that you teach me and the ways you want to humble me and how I get to be used. Because, Lord, I don't care how you use me. Just use me for your kingdom.
Am I going to get to preach? Am I going to get to teach? Can I lead the children's choir? Can I start a youth group? Can I be a volunteer at VBS? Can I talk to someone in the street? Can I smile at a stranger? Can I send somebody a good text message? Can I bake somebody some cookies? Can I make somebody's day with a small, simple act that might seem meaningless to me, but means everything to somebody else? How, Lord, will you use me?
How exciting it is to be loved by God. AS THE PRAISE TEAM COMES BACK UP, I want to remind you that it's later than you think, and that is not a bad thing. Let that shape your mindset. Let that help you figure out where the next thought is going to come from. Let it guide the way you pray. Let it guide the way you read the Bible. Let it guide your interaction with your spouse, with your partner, with your children, with your grandchildren, with your friends, with your business partners, with your boss, with your staff. It's later than you think. You see, but for God, it's always the right time.
So today you've got a choice. Today you have a choice like every other day of your life. You can choose to let God teach you something. You can choose to be humbled. Sometimes we don't get to make the choice, it just happens. And then you can open your heart to be used by God.
And there's going to be days where you don't want to be used. There's going to be days where you're tired, where you're exhausted, where you feel like you have too much to do, and then God is going to put you inside of a meeting, put you inside of a conversation, put you inside of a phone call, put you inside of a Bible study, put you at a baseball game, at a soccer game, at a basketball game, at wherever, and he's going to say, "That's where you're supposed to be. That's the conversation you're supposed to have. That's the friend who's going to encourage you on a random ride to the store. That's the wife who's got your back through everything or the stupidities you've done. That's the sister-in-law who sends you random messages just to make you feel good for no other reason. That's the father-in-law who before your very first sermon, when you had a better head of hair, less weight on you, and were terrified out of your mind, ready to burst into tears, tapped you on the knee like you were going to give me serious advice and told me a joke because you knew I was terrified. You knew I was scared. You knew I didn't feel ready.
It's what, six years later, whatever the number is, I still don't feel ready. Every time I get up here. I still feel like I don't belong here. But every Sunday, whether I'm conducting, whether I'm sitting with my kids, whether I'm doing this, God tells me, "You belong." And that's what He's telling you this morning. You belong, Marcella. You belong, Jose. You belong, Maria. You belong, Matthew. You belong, Elsie. You belong, Sam. You belong, Paolo. You belong, Rosa. You belong, Joe. You belong. You Belong. You belong to me. Imagine that the God who created everything, you belong to Him. There's a lesson for the day. That's humbling, isn't it? It's time to be used for God's purpose, so be open to it because God loves you. He really does. Let's pray.
Closing Prayer: Dear Lord…
Benediction:
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing! …To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!
