TIME
How much time do you have left?
At 15-17 years old, you don’t think about your death and you shouldn’t.
But at 46, the end starts to be more of a thought.

It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting right where you were and in a flash, 30 years has gone by. In another flash, I’ll be my father’s age – 76 years old with the end very near.

For some of you, you are seniors.
High school never seemed like it would end and in a flash, it has.
Some of you are now thinking about college and you’re scared. But trust me, those 4 years will be gone quickly and in just a few years, you’ll be working.

In a flash = you will be going to work 5 days a week. High school will be a distant memory and college will be over.

Even now as you reflect, doesn’t kindergarten seem a long time ago but yet also something you wish you could go back to? Wasn’t life a heck of a lot easier as a 5 year old?

So we’re going to talk about time and where your story fits into the timeline of life

Moses – born a Hebrew was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter. He became the Prince of Egypt. He discovered his heritage and killed an Egyptian while defending a Jewish slave. He flees Egypt and goes to the middle of nowhere. He becomes a shepherd. He spends 40 years essentially doing nothing. All day long every day, over and over, tending sheep.

But God has a plan for him and sends him to Egypt to free the Hebrew slaves.

Moses wrote Psalm 90. It gives us a great picture of how we are to view time. We are to view our lives in the context of God.

As a teenager, you think life is all about you. And for the most part, it is. Your whole world tends to revolve around you. You are focused on you. When you walk into a room, you immediately think “What does everyone think of me”.

But at some point in the natural progression of your life, you’ll begin to learn life isn’t all about you and you’ll start to ask “So then, what’s the point?”

As Moses says in this Psalm, “From everlasting to everlasting – it is God”.
God turns people back into dust saying, “Return to dust you mortals”. No matter how cool, how popular, how rich, how famous you are…at the end God will say to you, “Return to dust”

“A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by – or like a watch (3 hour shift) in the night.”

If we think in 3 hour terms while God thinks in 1,000 year terms, how long is your life in God’s perspective.

It’s like the government debt clock showing how fast money is spent.

You work your entire life and save money and when you die, you’re estate owes the government $400,000 in taxes – before your family can even write the check, the government has spent the $400,000

All you’ve worked to accumulate – your whole life’s work – spent in 5 seconds.

That is you life….PFFFHT….gone….in an instant, your life is gone. “Like grass – new in the morning, withered at night.”

The point of all this isn’t “Your life doesn’t matter”, the point is that our life is so common, so quick, snap of a finger and over – that it is futile to try to create something meaningful on your own.

Our only hope for purpose and meaning is to inject what time we do have into something much larger than “my” story – to inject it into what God is doing, his grand scheme.

‎"Seek and you shall find". All other things can be sought and NOT found --money, pleasure, power, fame, health, peace, security or worldly success. Only God is guaranteed.

Man chases after pleasure and money and power and fame and no matter how hard we chase after it, we never reach it. You can never reach pleasure. You can taste it but you can never own it, possess it. Fame and power are always short-lived. Money – you can spend you whole life accumulating money but there is always going to be someone else who has more than you do. You can’t ever “win” the money game. No amount of money ever truly satisfies man.

Have you ever thought, “If only I get that new iPad or that new BMW – if I get that, I’ll be totally happy” How long does that last?

You can chase these things all you want but you will never find happiness in them.

So if we realize that our time is limited and that in reality, we are quite small, it changes the focus of our life.

Look at President Obama – he was elected with this huge mandate. He was hip and cool. He was young and vibrant. He spoke passionately about hope and change. America got drunk on his charisma.

The power of America was shifted to him and he made a fatal error we are all so prone to make, he began to think all of this was about him. His legacy. His mandate to re-arrange society and fix all of our problems. He started to focus not on the economy or on jobs but on passing a piece of landmark legislation – something that he would go down in history for having done. And so they passed healthcare reform.

The American people didn’t like it. 60% of the voters didn’t trust it but he pushed it through. He thought he knew best and knew what we needed and he failed to listen to the people that put in office.

He was handed power and the people trusted him. He took that power for granted and assumed it was all about him and he just suffered the worst Congressional defeat in more than 60 years. He no longer possesses the power he did.

When we make it all about us – what we can accomplish, what awards we can win, what promotions we can get, what attention we gather…it never turns out well. 2 things will always happen – 1) we’ll run out of time before we “get there” and 2) history will never speak highly of us.

This is what happens to most dictators – Kim Jung Ill in Korea, Hitler, Hugo Chavez in Columbia – when it shifts from being about the people to being about their legacy, their place in history, it always goes off course.

Moses – of all people given his role in history – could have turned this thing and made it all about him. After all he parted the Red Sea. But Moses knew…

“Our days may come to be 70-80 years if our strength endures; yet the best of them are trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.” PS 90:10-11
In other words, if we could truly see the power of God, we’d give him all the honor he is due. Moses got closer to God than anyone ever has and it turned his hair white.

If we could be in God’s presence for just 1 second, we’d drop all this crap of “It’s all about me” and we’d gladly give him our 70-80 years to serve him however he saw fit.

When Moses asked God what the people were to call him, God said, “I am”. When they came to arrest Jesus, they asked him if he was Jesus and he said, “I am” and the Bible says those standing there fell down - overpowered by God’s word.

“Teach us to number our days” PS 90:12
How many days until your birthday? Until Christmas? Until you get to go on that trip or attend that concert? If you have ever counted days, this is what this verse is saying.
We should realize that our days in this life are numbered. There is a beginning and an end.

Embrace these days and know God gave them to you and they aren’t about you. We live to reflect God’s glory….not ours.

There is a grander story at work
I have a small but important role
The story isn’t about me
My glory is quickly going away.
I want to maximize my days in God’s story
It is about you Lord….not me.
Use me.
Show me where to live beyond self – to put down my desires so I can love and help others.