Clock Is Ticking—Got-R-Done!
Isaiah 60:1-6 (John 9:4) John 9:1-12
Last week, we looked at God’s invitation and commandment to slow down and to get to know Him—to take time to fall in love with His Son—to spend the time learning to follow Him and to let go of the whirlwind lifestyle that twists us up and tires us out. Remember, Jesus said, “Come unto Me, all who are weary and burdened by life—and I will give you rest.” But the rest of the story is that there is work to do, and the clock is ticking.
In this morning’s gospel passage, Jesus takes the time to miraculously heal a man who had been born blind, and what Jesus says, and what He does is critical for us, here at the beginning of a new year.
1. God has work for you to do Jesus said, we must do the work assigned to us by the One who sent me….” (v4) Notice Jesus doesn’t say, “I’ve got work to do”. He says, “WE” have work to do. Ministry is always a “we” proposition---a partnership with the Holy Spirit and usually a partnership with other believers. And this is important to us because look what happens here in the gospel story—Jesus & His disciples are walking along and they notice a man who had been born blind. The disciples begin talking, not about the man or his need, but talking about blame-- “Who’s to blame” for this man’s blindness? In this story, there is a blind man, a crowd, there are the disciples, and there is Jesus. Now, everyone knows that the man is blind—they see his sad state of affairs—his obvious need, but only Jesus does anything about it! Everyone else talks about it…but no one else does anything about it.
At this time in history—right here and right now; God has work for YOU to do—significant work---eternal work. “What can I possibly do for God?” “I’m not qualified---I’m not trained”. Listen, there are NO experts in life or faith. We’re all on this planet for the first time. Did you know everything there was to know when you graduated high school or college? You still had to go into the world and get on with life—learning as you went. Were you already an expert your first day on the job? No, you learned as you went. How many of you were experts at parenting when your first child came along? Didn’t you learn as you went? Do you see my pint? NO disciple knows everything, but we don’t have to---we learn as we go under the leadership of God’s Spirit. We may not know how or what or where, but God does! Remember---we’re supposed to “Follow”, not lead. We don’t have to be an expert to do the work God has for us.
One of the world’s greatest testimonies came from someone who was not an expert orator or professor of Biblical studies---He was a man who had been born blind and who met Jesus! “All I know is this, he said, “I was blind and now I see because of Jesus.” His work was to bring glory to God. Our work is the same, though we each have different assignments. Jesus said, “You’ve got important work to do”. But Jesus says something else very important here. Not only do you have important work to do, but He says, “your time is limited”
2. The Time we Have is Limited
“All of us must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the One who sent me, for there is little time left…” I read an article the other day that said, if you are 35 years old, you have 500 days left to live. Now what they meant by that is, if you subtract the hours you spend sleeping, and eating, and waiting in line and at the doctor’s office or personal care duties, then that leaves the average person, aged 35—only 500 days left to live. That’s kind of sobering, but no one knows for sure how much time they have---though it is usually less time than we think…and the clock is ticking.
Sue Ellen—51 years old.
Jack—24 years old.
We all have less time in this life than we think, and yet we often busy ourselves with relatively unimportant things. We aren’t very good at prioritizing our time or our lives.
Summitt---what would you take out? (Prioritize)
Where, on your list of life & time priorities is your family? Your work? Your T.V.? Your recreation & entertainment & sports? Where does following and serving Jesus rank?
Jesus said, “As long as I am in the world, I am the Light of the World”. And AS He was saying that, He was making the clay and applying it to the eyes of a blind beggar. Jesus knew He had a limited time to accomplish the work His Father assigned Him. So do we. But time is limited for others too.
(Climbers on Mt. Hood in Oregon)—urgency!
Civil Air Patrol—night falls, and everything stops. Jesus said, “we’ve got to quickly do what God assigns us, because time is short---night is coming”.
There is a world of people out there—people Jesus died to save—people who are in desperate need of hearing the gospel—and meeting Jesus—people dying and headed for hell…and the clock is ticking.
I saw a bumper sticker a while back that said, “Jesus is coming—Look busy” God doesn’t want us busy just for the sake of being busy---the church of Christ has done that for far too long. The disciples were busy discussing blame while a beggar suffered. The Church of Jesus today is often all wrapped up in its work of the busyness of meetings, and programs, and discussions, and task forces, and paralyzed by political correctness—and all the while, people are dying and going to hell.
But being a Christian, a disciple of Jesus is not about committee meetings, though they have a place—and it’s not about church attendance—though that is important. And it’s certainly not about being politically correct. In fact, political in-correctness was the reason Jesus was killed. But being a Christian is about wearing the yoke of Christ, the yoke of a servant and helping people to experience the love of God in such a way that they are drawn to Christ.
These are people whose clock is ticking and they need to know that God is for real! They need to know that God loves them! They need to know that they can have a life changing, soul saving, joy giving relationship with God through Jesus Christ. You know that and I know that. Let’s just Git-R-Done!
