Following On

For the next two weeks, I want to preach the sermon pastors do not preach at a funeral. 

It’s a common thing.  I’ve seen it several times in my ministry … kids who spend a lot of time preparing for their wedding and not much time preparing for their marriage.  They talk about the dress they’ll wear, the floral arrangement, the people they’ve invited and the colors they have chosen.  They spend months planning every little detail.  But then, when the wedding is over they don’t know what to do.  They spent all their time planning for the thing that didn’t matter and none of their time planning for the thing that did.

Something pastors know is that ‘this life is short and eternity is long.’  So many people spend their time planning for this life and almost no time preparing for the life to come.  I recently saw a list of 15 ridiculous reasons for why people don’t come to church.  Let me give you 5 of them.  Reason #3 - both of my girlfriends attend church so I don’t have to.  Reason #6 - gas prices are too high.  Reason #8 - my wife cooked bacon and our entire family ended up smelling like bacon.  Reason #10 - I couldn’t get the lid off the peanut butter jar and therefore couldn’t come.  Reason #13 - somehow I always get hemorrhoids on Sunday.

What they are really saying is that, “We have decided that the life of here and now is more important than the life of there and then.  I’m so busy with the now that I don’t have time to prepare for eternity. 

In Luke chapter 12 Jesus tells about a rich businessman who has so much grain in his field that he no longer has a barn big enough to store it.  In Luke 12:18 he says, “This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.”  Then God said this to him in verse 20, “You dimwit! This very night your life will be demanded from you, and then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” 

Jesus was saying this: prepare now, prepared today.  Live life in the way that you will wish you had.  Life is short and eternity is long.  Prepare for eternity.