Wake Up Now: Steward Today's Opportunities for Eternity

``Let me ask in a different way. If you had twenty four hours left to live, what would suddenly become important to you? Would you spend the day scrolling? Would the argument still seem worth it? Would you finally make that phone call? Would you tell your son that he's that you're proud of him or your daughter how much he means to you? Would you finally forgive that one person? Or might you finally surrender that area of your life that you've been holding back from God? Life isn't merely short. The danger is that we become so focused on our plans for tomorrow that we miss what God is doing today. [00:47:55] (41 seconds)  #PrioritizePresence

And then right in the middle of that, James James asked maybe one of the most sobering questions in all of scripture. He asked, what is your life? Because really that's the issue, isn't it? We're we're making plans. We're building careers. We're we're scheduling next month. Some of us are planning out next year. We're assuming tomorrow and James suddenly stops. He stops the entire conversation and he asks, what is your life? And before we can answer, he answers it for us. You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. You're a vapor, a breath, a puff of air on a cold morning, visible for a moment and then gone. [00:50:16] (49 seconds)  #LifeIsAVapor

Because apparently, and this is this is something that goes way back to the early church days, but it's possible to know Jesus and still become spiritually sleepy. It's possible to believe all the right things and yet drift into complacency. To become so comfortable that that that we begin living as though this world is all that there is and eternity can wait for later. And Paul says, no. You know what time it is. The hour has come, wake up. Not because the world is getting darker, not because Rome is becoming more hostile, but because every passing day brings them closer to standing before Jesus. [00:40:27] (42 seconds)  #WakeFromComplacency

Because one day every one of us will come to the end of our lives and and we'll each have to answer the question, what did we do with the time that God entrusted to us? Who did we love? Who did we serve? Who do we point towards Jesus? Because the goal is not to live with in panic or under guilt. The goal is to live with purpose. To wake up now and faithfully steward today's opportunities before they become yesterday's regrets. So let me ask you this. What opportunity for eternal impact are you assuming will still be there tomorrow? [00:59:42] (42 seconds)  #StewardYourTime

Because the enemy knows he doesn't have to destroy a believer. He just has to distract him enough away from the things that matter most. And before we know it, we're not running away from God. We're simply just drifting away from him. One distracted day at a time. But Paul's command to the Christians in Rome to to wake up was not an isolated occurrence. It wasn't a problem that that just happened to those in Rome. Even Jesus wrote a letter to the to the church in Sardis telling them to wake up. [00:42:50] (39 seconds)  #ResistDistraction

And so suddenly this conversation isn't just about how we spend our time. It's about what God is inviting us into. It's about the people he's placed in our lives. It's about the neighbor across the street or the coworker in the office next door. It's about the son, daughter, or friend, maybe a family member who still needs Jesus. Church urgency is not panic. I want us to be clear on that. Urgency is love with eternity in view. Hear that one again. Urgency is love with eternity in view. [00:53:33] (38 seconds)  #EternalUrgency

And the reason that verse hits so hard is because we don't live like it's true. We assume we'll always have another opportunity. There'll be another chance to obey, another chance to fix things, another chance to share Christ. We assume there will always be a someday. I want you to hear this. Someday is where obedience goes to die. Hear that again. Someday is where obedience goes to die. And and here's where this gets bigger than us because because James isn't merely telling us that our lives are missed. He's saying that every life is a missed. [00:51:06] (43 seconds)  #SomedayKillsObedience

We live in a world that that that we're constantly stimulated in. The phone buzzes, the notifications keep coming, the next episode auto plays before we've even decided whether we wanna watch that or not. We scroll when we're bored. We scroll when we're anxious. We scroll when we're lonely. We scroll because we don't know what else to do with the quiet. We're overstimulated, but we're spiritually under awake. And somewhere in all the noise, the enemy is singing us his lullaby. You've got time. Deal with it later, tomorrow, someday. [00:42:06] (45 seconds)  #StopScrollingStartLiving