Louie Giglio - What On Earth Are You Doing With Your Life?
Hello Passion City Church. What an amazing day to be in church together, and I love this journey that we are on, a matter of life and death. And today's message is, again, gonna be one of those kind of messages that I think at the end of it, we all just take a moment to take stock of our lives. And I wanna jump right in today, and someone said to me after last week, they said, "I like it when you start your messages and say, 'Today, I'm gonna shifting into teaching mode.'"
So, I don't know if that was that they don't like it when I shift into preaching mode, or they just really do like it when I shift into teaching mode. But again, today, shifting a little bit more into that zone. We always open God's word, we always look to God's word and all we really wanna do here is proclaim God's word. But when it comes to you and I looking at our eternity, we have to take our queues from God Himself. We can't take somebody's opinion, we can't take somebody's advice, we have to go to the one who gave us life in the first place, and today, that's what we're going to do once again.
If you have your scripture, I'd love for you to turn to the Book of 2 Peter 3. And today we're talking about that little line, you know which one I'm talking about? That little line that you and I have in common. It's the line between the year that we we're born and the year that we die, the date that we took our first breath and the date that we took our last breath, and most of us on our headstone where our bodies are laid to rest, is going to be a little line. You're like, "No, no, no, I'm not gonna have a little line, I'm going to be cremated, and so there won't be anything like that for me. I'll be in the ocean or in the wind, or you know, in the forest, or wherever".
Well, even in that case, there's gonna be an obituary written about your life, and at the top of that obituary is going to be the date that you were born, the date that you took your first breath, and the date that you took your last breath, and in between is gonna be something that is on every headstone and every obituary for every person who's ever lived on this planet, and that little line is called the dash. And I wanna ask us today, what are we doing with our dash? I didn't anything to do with the moment I was born, and on my obituary headstone, whatever, it's gonna say 1958 as the first date, I don't know what is going to be the last date, but I do know there is gonna be an opportunity in between and that opportunity can be leveraged and echoed in eternity if I take my queues from God Himself, and I let Him speak into my life about the future.
Here's the thing, death is coming. Either Jesus is coming, praise God if that happens, or death is coming. And for most of us, we don't know, death is coming, none of us know when Jesus is coming, but for most of us, we don't know when death is coming. Some of you can see death coming, some of you are in a situation or circumstance right now where death is near and you're aware of that, but for most of us in this gathering, we don't know when our last breath is going to come. But we do know today that we still have the dash, we do know today that we still the opportunity, we do know right now that we have the ability to take this breath that God is giving us today and to use it in a way that allows it to last forever.
The text is waking us up today to this reality, and Peter is writing to us, and this is what he says beginning in verse 8, "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends," now, if I can just pause there for a moment, it's gonna be impossible to forget this one thing he's about to say to say to us, yet, he's cognizant of the fact that in our humanity, we can even forget the most important things in life.
And so he says to us, "Don't forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understands slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting," underline this next little phrase because these thoughts about an eternal destiny either with God or apart form God are weighty things, but you must see the heart of God in the midst of the weighty things. Here is God, "He's patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance".
See, the Lord isn't losing His patience with the world today. He's not saying, "You people have lost the plot. You guys have absolutely gone off the rails. This is craziness going on. I'm just gonna shut it all down". He's saying, "I'm being patient today, as crazy as it is, I'm being patient today. Why? Why am I allowing it to go on? Because I want someone else to come to repentance, because I don' want anybody to perish, I want everybody to come to repentance, to come into a right relationship with me through what Christ has done, and to be with me, not only on this Earth, but into eternity".
That's what God's heart is for you and me. "He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The Heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the Earth and everything in it will be laid bare". Wow, what a future that is coming. "Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be"?
And then He answers for us, "You should be... or you ought to live holy and Godly lives as you look forward to the day of GOD and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the Heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with His promise we are looking forward to a new Heaven and a new Earth, the home of righteousness. So then," again, "dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, and blameless, and at peace with Him".
He's saying there's a day coming and it's coming like a thief. In other words, we're not gonna see that day coming. There's a moment coming when our lives end and our dash comes to a close, and none of us really can see that coming, it comes like a thief, and when it comes, the end of time comes, God's changing everything and making everything new. But I love what He says at the beginning of this passage, He says, "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day".
Which in a way is saying that our lives sort of are long in God time, but also it's saying that our lives are short in God time. And the way that I've said it over the course of the last few decades is this, you and I all think we're gonna live forever, we all think this moment of recompense is somewhere way down the road in the distance, but in reality, we're al living five second lives on planet Earth. God's trying to help us see that. James 14, "Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes".
I'll never forget someone leading the generosity moment here and they brought up one of those spray bottles that you use around the house with the cleaner in it, and they had it on the mist setting, and they were talking about the brevity of life and they were just spraying that little mist and it went, and then it was gone, and it was gone, and it was gone.
And this is what God is saying, that is life, life is not a statue that is standing there forever, life is a mist that is here today and gone tomorrow, and in that moment we realize our lives lasted five second long, our dash was brief. He says it a different way in Psalm 90, "The years of our life are seventy or even by reason of strength eighty, yet their span is but toil and trouble they are soon gone and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you, so teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom".
Psalm 39:4 and 5, "Oh Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days, let me know how fleeting I am. Behold you have made my days a few handbreadths; and my lifetime is as nothing before you; surely all mankind stands as a mere breath". And then James writes it this way, "Come now, you who say, 'Tomorrow or today we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade, and make a profit,' yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life"? Here it comes again. "For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance. And all such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin".
He's saying, once again, a little poof, and then gone. your time on Earth, whether it's 70 years, or you had great strength, and you got 80, or whether it was 15 or whether it was 42, your time on Earth was a... and a little cloud of mist appears and it's gone. And what God is saying today is what happens in the mist determines eternity. Life is short, but eternity is long. And what we do with the mist impacts our relationship in Heaven with God. Doesn't get us to Heaven, we already talked about that, that is all because of the finished work of Jesus, but our future in Heaven is greatly impacted by the choices we make in the mist on Earth, and our time here is brief and God is wanting us to see it today. You may be famous or you may not be so well know in your mist.
You may have a lot or you may have a little. You may have three houses or you may always rent a condo. You may have a big family, or you may be single on your journey. You may make a boatload of money, or you make sorta just get by all the way along. It doesn't matter what the Earthly state is, the thing we all have in common is this, whatever glory there is in our life on this Earth, whatever adventure we go on, whatever party we're a part of, whatever business we build, whatever we are doing to invest our lives in, all of it is so brief. And even the biggest, most famous life you can imagine, it is the mist, and then it is gone. It is a match that burns bright but it doesn't last very long at all, and then it's done.
And God is saying today, "What are you doing with your dash"? And I believe He's wanting to wake us up today to understand that the enemy's working on us to say, "I've got time," and God is saying today is, "Okay, yes you do have time, but it only last five seconds. And so what are you doing with the time"?
I think a lot of us are thinking, "Man I'm just gonna, you know, keep rolling as much as I can". And Jesus speaks to that in Luke 12. He says that "someone in the crowd said to Him," in verse 13, "'Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.' And Jesus replied, 'Man, who appoint me judge or an arbitrator between you?' And then He said to them, 'Watch out and be on your guard against all kinds of greed.' Why? Because, 'Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.'" in other words, the one thing you don't wanna do with your dash is get thins mindset, in your thinking that, "I'm just gonna get as much as I can while I'm here on Earth and enjoy it as much as I can while I'm here on Earth because Louie, I agree with you, I believe there's a forever, and I believe there's a Heaven, and I hope I'm going to it, and I don't know a lot about what Heaven is but I know that I've got an opportunity down here, so I'm just gonna rake it all in and build it up as high as I can".
And so He told them this parable, He said, "The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. And He thought to himself 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'" Now, this is not a a first century problem, this is a right now problem because when we're driving around the city, everywhere you look, you see these storage units that are going up. Some of them are four, five, six stories tall because apparently we don't know what to do with all of our stuff either. And this guy got success, His crops are producing, and now he says, "I don't have any place to store my crops". And so he said, "This is what I'll do, I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones and there I will store my surplus grain. And I'll say to myself, 'You have plenty of grain laid up for many years, take life easy: eat, drink, and be merry".
Now, can I just interject for a moment? God isn't against us going out and enjoying a nice meal, He isn't against us going for a hike on a beautiful mountain side, He isn't against us going and walking on a beautiful sandy beach, He isn't against us enjoying creation and each other and enjoying life. What He's speaking into right now is a mindset that says, "Hey, I've got time. I'll worry about the things that really matter later in life. I've got a lot of time on my hands to do what I wanna do and then to think about the things that I really ought to do, and then the things that I really wish in time and eternity that I had done. I've got a lot of time for that".
And Jesus is saying, "Not as much as you think, and the time that you do have is a lot more brief than you've ever imagined". "God said to him," this is not what you want God to say to you, "'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you've prepared for yourself? This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.'" He said, "That was a great plan you had, except for one thing, you didn't know your dash was ending today".
And once that moment comes, there is no turning around. You know we all start with a heartbeat and there's a moment where there's just a heart beep. I mentioned before but Shelly, myself, my sister, her husband, one of our nieces, we were right there when my mom experienced that moment where the heart was beating and then it just beeps. And you and I are all moving toward the beep. We have the beat by the grace of God, we have breath in our lungs by the grace of God, 22,000 of them a day, by the grace of God, 900 gifts of breath in an hour, a heart that is beating in our chest, but we're all moving toward the beep. And Jesus is saying, "Be ready, be prepared for what is ahead and bring all that back today into the dash and make the dash count".
I think the bi product for us, if we're really seeing what God is saying today is it puts humility into our flow. A proud man, or a proud woman, or a proud person walks around and says, "You know what? I'm in charge. I'll build a bigger barn. I'll do what I wanna do this year and I'll consider what God wants to do next year. I'll have it my way for a minute and then I'll think about having it God's way, or maybe I'm not ever gonna think about having it God's way because I don't even know if there is a God. I'm just gonna have it my way and max out".
And it's that famous quote that is again, just slicing right into the reality of that, "We plan, God laughs". Everyone of us knows that, right? We plan, God laughs. Because God is sovereign, He sees it all, He understands it all and He goes, "Well, that looks all amazing how you got all that lined up just right. And thank you for asking me to bless all the things that you've lined up just right, but actually, there's gonna be a turn here, and an uphill climb here, and a really low valley here, and a left hook over here. I'm gonna be with you in it all but the plan that you've laid out is not exactly how it's all gonna go".
And when we understand that, what does it do for us? It doesn't defeat or deflate us, it just puts us in a posture of humility of waking up in the morning and going, "Praise God, you woke me up today. Praise God that I have another opportunity today. Praise God that my dash is still in motion today. Praise God that I have a heartbeat and not a heart beep today, and that makes me wanna stay low, and stay connected, and to stay in awe, and to stay humble as I move through life".
But the second thing I think it does is it want, it makes me wanna have precision. It makes me wanna walk through life, and if I am just a mist and there it is, and then it's gone, if I am just a match and I have a five second life, I wanna aim the five second life at the bulls eye. I don't wanna just, you know, be firing off words, and ideas, and projects, and not really consider what counts, because I wanna be precise in the decisions that I make.
CT STUDD was an amazing missionary to China, sacrificed so much to spread the story of the grace of God through Asia. And he wrote these words, "Two little lines I heard one day, traveling along life's busy way, bringing conviction to my heart, and from my mind would not depart, only one life too soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last". Only what's done for Christ will last. We were with friends recently and we were just underscoring the two things that last forever, the souls or men, and the word of God. These two things last into eternity, the souls of men and the word of God.
So, with my dash, I wanna be precise, I wanna be focused on the souls of men. With my dash, I wanna be precise, I want my dash to be connected to, informed by, woven into the living breath of God on a page which is the holy scripture. I want my life to be in the word, informed by the word and proclaiming the word so that the souls of men can come to life and have relationship with God right now and into forever, I wanna be precise with my life. I wanna move humbly, but I wanna have big dreams, and I wanna have big dreams but the end of my big dreams, I wanna have a precise purpose, because I, right now, am speaking it into the dash but there's gonna come a day when the dash speaks and tell the world about me, and while I'm still speaking into the dash I want the dash to be precise.
You know, I was, for a month or so now, I've been just meditating in this collection and there's so many things that don't match up in especially western Christianity, and I hate that phrase really but that's where we are and that's where we live, we live in a free country and we live with a lot of opportunity. And yes, persecution is coming for those who hold the word of God, persecution is right now actually for people who claim the name of Jesus, but not like what has been happening around the world where our brothers and sisters are in prison because they had a Bible in their home, they're in prison because they talked about Jesus at their work.
And I just been thinking, "What is it gonna be like in Heaven"? And it just makes us ask the question, "What on Earth am I doing? What on Earth am I doing? Am I just building a family? Am I just building a business? Am I just building a life? Am I just building a future? Am I just doing what I want to do? What on Earth am I doing"? Because I really firmly believe more than ever, right now we don't necessarily need more preachers. Now, I'm not against more preachers by the way, if you've feel God calling you to preach then you say yes to God and you go for it.
What we need are gifted people in ever sphere of life who wake up in the morning with a sense of humility in their heart for the breath of God and walk into their day with precision. "I'm the best surgeon of this kind in my city, but when I woke up today I wasn't thinking about all the surgeries that I was gonna do today, I woke up today thinking about the souls that have been in the work of God". "I'm the best short seller. I understand the market, I understand volatility, and whether it goes up or down, I make money, and I am one of the best. But I woke up today with a sense of brevity, and humility because I am a mist that appears and is gone".
"Oh, I'm top, top, top in our organization. I've been written about in business journals and articles. People know my name and they invite me to come to their seminars. I can get paid a pretty good little chunk just to go and do a 45 minute talk, and I make bank. But I didn't wake up thinking about that today, I woke up today with humility and precision. And I said to God when we started this day together, I said, 'God help me impact the souls of people today. I wanna be connected and tethered to you and to your word. Because I know all the rest of this stuff is just stuff in bigger barns. I know the rest of this stuff is stuff that somebody else is gonna deal with, somebody else is gonna own, somebody else is gonna enjoy somewhere else down the road when my five seconds on Earth are over. I want to be able to answer that question, 'What on Earth are you doing?' by saying, 'I am using my five seconds for the things that lasts five trillion, billion, million seconds.' I'm leveraging my life for God. And the thing that God really wants us to know today is you don't get to do it over again".