Sermon for 8/4/96
“Seize the Day!”
HoHum:
B. The movie “Dead Poet’s Society”
1. Gather ye rose buds while ye may, the old time is still aflying, and this same flower which smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.
2. Carpe Diem, Seize the Day!
3. The human race is filled with passion. Poetry, beauty, romance, love these are what we stay alive for.
4. Sucking the marrow out of life.
5. Strive to find our own voice- Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.
6. The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?
WBTU:
** Are these Biblical concepts?
A. Eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die.
B. Bible commands us to do what we can today.
D. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
E. Two traps:
1. Older people- Yesterdays- we look back. Do not live in the present.
2. Younger people- Tomorrow will be great. Do not live in the present.
F. The present is all that we have.
Scripture text: Psalm 118:24
Thesis: We need to live one day at a time, in the present. Because of this we need to make the most of every day, Carpe Diem. This is true for three reasons:
For instances:
I. All we have is today.
A. Yesterday has gone.
1. Yesterday was terrible. We look back with regret.
2. Yesterday was great. We look back and want to go back.
3. Did not use it well. What might have been?
4. Jerome K. Jerome says that men have been looking back to the good old days of fifty years ago ever since Adam’s fifty-first birthday. Of course, these good old days were not so good when we were actually living in them.
5. My grandmother.
B. Tomorrow has not arrived.
1. Bored in today. Children who are bored. Teenagers most heard words.
2. Tomorrow we will be enthusiastic. Get older and better.
3. Thus do we, by postponing life, tend to squander our finest opportunities and to miss the choicest joys.
4. Proverbs 27:1- Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.
** Repeat the verse.
II. Today is all we can manage.
A. We cannot handle both yesterday and many tomorrows today. When I get discouraged, bogged down.
1. A juggler.
2. Regrets over yesterday.
3. Thinking about today and tomorrow.
4. Matthew 6:33-34- But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
5. Suicide. Mr. Clovis Chappell “I was having a hard time today. But worse still, I saw a troop of tomorrows coming to me even more drab and gray and forbidding than today. The present and the future taken together were more than I could stand. Therefore, I flung out of life altogether!” I say this as a warning to all who are considering suicide. In the movie Dead Poet’s Society this is so sad. Such a bright future but threw away today thereby destroyed all of the tomorrows.
6. Try all three. Mr. Chappell “How many thousands crack up every year because they try to manage two days at once- sometimes even three! They try to live yesterday, today, and tomorrow all at the same time. No wonder they find the task too great!
7. We can do much in one day.
A. Sins. Overcome then today. Anyone can stop one sin in one given day. My own experiences. Go over list of sins. Repeat verse.
B. Overcome yesterdays. “When my dad left home, it just tore up my world,” cried a young husband as he talked with his wife. “I was nine and lost five pounds.” His eyes clouded with pain. He looked down and leaned against the washing machine. “Guess that’s why I’ve never liked to rock the boat or confront things head on.” “I thought he left because of something I’d done, somehow I caused it. I was sure that if I could just be good enough, keep quiet enough maybe my parents would get back together again.” “But that was thirty-five years ago...” For most of his life this father of three had dragged scarred anchors of memory behind him. In the weeks after this talk he and his wife took hold of the spiritual knife of prayer, and cut him loose from the crippling childhood ropes of fear and guilt. What heavy anchors are you dragging through your life? Isn’t it about time to cut them loose?
** Moses, Rahab, Matthew, Paul, Mary Magdalene
C. Secure a good tomorrow.
1. If we have a good today, tomorrow will take care of itself.
2. I Tim. 4:8- For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.
3. Esau, He refused to look ahead. It is true that he forgot tomorrow, but his real tragedy was that he misused today. Had he used his today rightly, his tomorrow would have taken care of itself. But squandering today, he lost tomorrow.
** Repeat the verse.
III. Today is all we need.
A. James 4:13-17- Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
B. Brevity of life- Quality. Don’t wait. It could result in something you regret for the rest
of your days. I realized this anew when I read an article that appeared in mid-April back in ’85 in the Los Angeles Times. A lady named Ann Wells writes:
My brother-in-law opened the bottom drawer of my sister’s bureau and lifted out a tissue-wrapped package. "This," he said, "is not a slip. This is lingerie." He discarded the tissue and handed me the slip. It was exquisite; silk, handmade and trimmed with a cobweb of lace. The price tag with an astronomical figure on it was still attached.
"Jan bought this the first time we went to New York, at least eight or nine years ago. She never wore it. She was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is the occasion."
He took the slip from me and put it on the bed with the other clothes we were taking to the mortician. His hands lingered on the soft material for a moment, and then he slammed the drawer shut and turned to me.
"Don’t ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you’re alive is a special occasion."
I remembered those words through the funeral and the days that followed when I helped him and my niece attend to all the sad chores that follow an unexpected death. I thought about them on the plane
returning to California from the Midwestern town where my sister’s family lives. I thought about all the things that she hadn’t seen or heard or done. I thought about the things that she had done without
realizing that they were special. I’m still thinking about his words, and they’ve changed my life.
I’m not "saving" anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event -- such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, the first flower blossom.
"Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it’s worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now.
I’m trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that would add laughter and luster to our lives.
And every morning when I open my eyes I tell myself that it is special.
C. Why get up in the morning? Today. We have salvation. We have nothing to fear and we should be joyful.
1. Psalm 118:19-29
a. Open for me the gates of righteousness; I will enter and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord through which the righteous may enter.
1. What is the gate of the Lord?
2. John 10:9- I am the door; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
3. I am the way, the truth and the life....
4. We have no righteousness.
5. My babies and the hallway.
B. I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation.
1. Jesus Christ through his death and burial and resurrection. You have become salvation. It is a free gift.
2. God answered man’s most basic spiritual need. Many people in the Old Testament longed to see this day.
3. We should be thankful for the rest of our lives.
C. The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
1. We rejected the stone. WE killed our Lord and Messiah.
2. Capstone= the stone on which a building was built.
3. Acts 4:10f- Then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is “the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.” Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.
4. The Lord has done this. It is marvelous in our eyes.
5. There is a certain beauty for man in the passion of Christ. Worthy is the Lamb.
D. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
1. Day can refer to a 24 hour period.
2. The day of salvation. 2000 years long. We need to rejoice in the day of salvation.
3. I Peter 1:8-9 - Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
4. We should be joyful, this the days of salvation. A Hindu trader in India once asked a missionary, "What do you put on your face to make it shine?" With surprise the man of God answered, "I don’t put anything on it!" His questioner began to lose patience and said emphatically, "Yes, you do!" All of you who believe in Jesus seem to have it. I’ve seen it in the towns of Agra and Surat, and even in the city of Bombay." Suddenly the Christian understood, and his face glowed even more as he said, "Now I know what you mean, and I will tell you the secret. It’s not something we put on from the outside but something that comes from within. It’s the reflection of the light of Jesus in our hearts.
5. You can look at someone and tell that he is a genuine Christian.
6. We should be glad the King of all glory came to set us free. God cares. He loves.
E. O Lord, save us; O Lord, grant us success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. From the house of the Lord we bless you.
1. Triumphal entry.
3. The King has come and the King is coming. John 14.
F. The Lord is God, and he has made his light shine upon us. With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession up to the horns of the altar.
1. Matthew says, “The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” Jesus was the light that came into the world.
2. This is a picture of the Lord Jesus on the cross. He was our sacrifice for sins. The perfect sacrifice. At the scene it was gruesome, but for us it is a festal procession. Victory out of the gloom. Combining the Triumphal Entry with the crucifixion. The emphasis on joy and rejoicing.
G. You are my God, and I will give you thanks; you are my God, and I will exalt you. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.
1. J. Vernon McGee- My friend, I wish I could somehow express to you the fact that you and I ought to praise the Lord. In my flesh I am cabined and contained and have all kinds of hang-ups. I wish I could open up like a flower and express my praise and thanksgiving to my God! Oh, my friend, to fall down and worship Him, to praise His name and glorify Him is all important. He loved us and gave Himself for us. May our love today go out to him in adoration and praise.
2. A good reason for living.
2. When does God offer salvation? Today.
A. Leave past with God.
B. God will take care of tomorrow.
C. Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
D. The story is told of a family that moved into a new community. They were promptly visited by two elders and the preacher of a nearby church who cordially invited them to attend the services on the Lord’s Day. The man assured them that he would come just as soon as he got straightened out. Several months passed, and he still hadn’t put in an appearance, so the minister called again and repeated his
invitation. But he received the same reply. The fellow hadn’t yet gotten everything straightened out, but he’d be there just as soon as he did. A few weeks later he died, and his widow asked to have the
funeral services in the church. The preacher graciously agreed. It was indeed a sad affair. Later when a member of the congregation asked the preacher if the man was a Christian, he answered, "He never attended services here, and no one can recall ever hearing him give a testimony of his faith in Christ, so I can’t say. I only know he was a man of his word. He promised to come to church just as soon as he got
straightened out -- and he did!"
Conclusion:
A. How do we live one day at a time?
1. Seek the Lord everyday.
2. Day is done, leave in his hands
3. Refuse to be discouraged.
4. Since every day is a gift from God, I live each one enthusiastically for Him.
5. Philippians 3:13- Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
B. Invitation. Today is the day of salvation. Seize the Day. Repeat the verse.
