Sermon Central
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Time And Eternity: Cast Away Series
Contributed by J John on Nov 28, 2017 (message contributor)
Summary: I remember day-dreaming in a boring lecture at theological college one day, when the lecturer stopped and asked, ’Mr John, will you tell me why you keep looking at your watch?’ I had to think quickly. ’Yes, sir,’ I said. ’I was concerned that you might no
A few years ago, I had a dialogue with an atheist professor. He spent a good deal of time mocking both Christ and my experience of him. In front of me was a fruit bowl, and I ate a tangerine. After I had finished, I asked the professor, ’Was the tangerine sweet or sour?’ He said, ’How can I know whether it was sweet or sour when I never tasted it?’ And I replied, ’And how can you know anything about Christ if you have not tried him?’
God our Father is the maker of everything that exists. He is the Author of the world of nature, and the Creator of both space and time. Without God, there would be no past, present or future: no summer or winter, spring or autumn, seedtime or harvest. There would be no morning or evening, or months or years. Because God gives us the gift of time, we have the opportunity to think and to act; to plan and to pray; to give and to receive; to create and to relate; to work and to rest; to strive and to play; to love and to worship. Too often, we forget this, and we fail to appreciate God’s generosity. We take time for granted and fail to thank God for it. We view it as a commodity and ruthlessly exploit it. We cram it too full, waste it, learn too little from the past, or mortgage it off in advance.
In doing so, we also refuse to give priority to those people and things which should have chief claim upon our time. We need God’s help to view time as he sees it, and to use it more as he intends. It is crucial to try to distinguish between what is central and what is peripheral; between what is really pressing, and what can wait; between what is our responsibility and what can be left to others; and between what is appropriate now and what will be more relevant later.
We need God to help guard us against attempting too much, because of our false sense of our indispensability, our false sense of ambition, our false sense of rivalry, of guilt and inferiority.
We also need God to help us not to mistake our responsibilities, underestimate ourselves, or overlook our weaknesses and to understand our proper limits. We need to realise that, important though this life is, it is not all that there is. So, we should view everything we do in the light of eternity, not just our limited horizons. It is a matter of true perspective.
God is not so much timeless, as timeful. He does not live above time so much as hold all times together. Despite its inadequacies, the film Cast Away is, above all, a timely reminder.
