Take It Easy

Take it Easy

2 Timothy 3:10-16

Many, many, years ago, I can remember my own graduation. I walked down that aisle and was handed a piece of paper, or a diploma as some call it, and as I was walking back to my seat, I was thinking, “Finally, now I can take it easy!” No more school; no more homework; no more people telling me what to do. I am my own man.

I had no plans for any college. Which in that day was not all that uncommon. But to all the young people who are here today, learn from my mistake. Now later in life I did attend but have never completed college, but if you listen to me talk very long that is pretty evident. But now days, a college degree is just about a must. But all I wanted to do was to get married and have a bunch of kids. Now mind you, that dream went down the tubes, and I thank God for that. I wanted to just take it easy.

Now as I try to teach my own boys, my job as a parent is not to be there friend as much as I would like to be. But my job as a parent is to train them for what’s ahead of them. Life. One of my favorite old TV shows was “Wonder Years”. Kevin Arnold, Wendy, Paul. The reason I like that show is that it reminds me of my years of growing up in the 70’s. The friends and memories I made, and to me those were truly the “Wonder Years”.

I would love to go back and relive those days again. Because what I found out was that after graduation, it was far from easy. I didn’t just get to work a part time job; it was a full time job. One of my first jobs after graduation was construction. And on my first day I got to operate a backhoe. They handed me a mattock and a shovel and said see that pole over there, I need a ditch dug 24” to run a water line. It was about that time that I started thinking, “Maybe college would not have been such a bad idea”. So my jobs starting out were what they would call, “manual labor”.

And guess what. People still told me what to do. I thought when I got out of school and went out on my own, those days would be over. But boy was I wrong. Even if you have your own business, someone either the government or some other official telling you how to run your own business.

The point that I am trying to make is that life is not easy. And for those of you who have or will be graduating this year, your life is just about to really begin. In the next few years you will be deciding what you will do with your life. Maybe who you will be doing it with. Where you will be doing it at. Some of the most important decisions in your life will be made in your next few years. So this morning I would like to share with you as to how to have a successful life.

No matter what stage in your life you are at this present time, if you follow these simple instructions you can have a successful life as well.

The first thing that you need to realize is…

You have a Choice (Vs.12-13)

Life is full of choices. Some of you right now may be sitting her thinking of your choices for what you will be eating after church. And life is full of choices. Will I go to college, which one will I go to? Will I marry and whom will it be with? What will I do, where will I live? Life is full of choices.

But the most important decision in life is the one concerning your relationship with Jesus Christ. You don’t have to hope you are saved. You can know that you are saved. There is no guesswork to it, you either are or your not.

1 John 5:12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Pretty simple. Maybe those who are confused about it don’t understand how you get saved in the first place. You can go and ask people if they died today where they would go and most would tell you heaven. But if you ask them why they think they would go there, you will hear many different things. I was a good person. I tried to do what was right. I always helped others. My grandfather was a pastor. You cannot earn your way into heaven and you don’t inherit your way there. John 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.