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Looking at Life Through the Rearview Mirror
A sermon by Dr. Paul Powell
Guest preacher at First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Ray Charles said, “Live
every day as though it were your last and one day you will be right.” Well, the
Bible keeps reminding us that we need to live our lives with the end in view.
And one of the places is does that is Psalm 90, verses 10, 11, and 12 and this
is what the scriptures say, “The days of our years are three-score years and
ten.”
By the way, I read from
the King James Version. I’m from East Texas and that’s all we would ever use
King James Version Red-Letter Edition, Jimmy Swaggart autographed—anything less
than that’s not authentic.
So, anyway, “The days of
our years are three-score years and ten. And if by reason of strength they be
four-score years, yet as there is strength, labor and sorrow for it is soon cut
off and we fly away. Who knoweth the power of thine anger, even according to thy
fear, so it thy wrath. So, teach us to number our days that we may apply our
hearts unto wisdom.”
Now the key verse is
verse 12: “So teach us to number our days that we may apply our heart unto
wisdom” (vs. 12). He has reminded us that the days of our years are threescore
and ten.
A score, of course, is
twenty. Three score and ten would be seventy. If we happen to be extra strong we
might live to be eighty, that’s still above average. The average person in
America lives to be seventy seven point nine years of age, but then we are soon
cut off even at that age we are soon cut off and in the light of that he says,
“So, teach us, remind us to number our days.” To count up how few they are, so
that we may live wisely.
Now this truth is set
against the backdrop of the eternal nature of God. In fact, this Psalm begins by
saying, “Lord, thou hath been our dwelling place throughout all the generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth or before you formed the earth and the
world, from everlasting unto everlasting thou are God.” He is saying that God
has always been and God is eternal, but we are not. We are here just for a
little while—our time on this earth. And so, in the light that we need to learn
how to live wisely.
He has a series of
contrasts to remind us of how brief our days are in contrast to the eternal
nature of God. For example in verse four he says our days are like a “watch in
the night.” A watch in the night was that four hour tour of duty that a soldier
would pull as he marched around the wall of the city guarding it. In the wee
hours of the morning that four hours may have seemed like an eternity, but in
reality it passed very quickly.
He says in the next
verse that our days are like a flood. I think you speak of it and we do in Texas
as a “flash” flood. It rains up in the hills and the hills catch that water and
they send it down, a wall of water, and it can be calm and serene down in the
valley below and then suddenly that wall of water comes and there is
destruction and death and it’s all washed away in a moment.
That’s a picture of our
lives. In that same verse of scripture, he says, “Our life is like a sleep.” In
the original that words means a dream. You know sometimes where you’re dreaming,
especially if somebody’s chasing you, if it’s a dangerous situation, it seems
like that dream just goes on and on and on. But those who study dreams say that
they really only last only a few seconds. And that’s a picture of our life, in
the midst of it, it seems like it’s a long period of time. But in the light of
eternity it passes very quickly.
And then he says our
life is like the grass. You drive along these beautiful Virginia roads in the
springtime and you see the flowers and you go back a couple of weeks later and
the sun has wilted them and they passed away as though they’d never been and
that’s a picture of your life and mine how quickly it passes.
And then in verse nine
he says our lives are like a tale that’s told. Somebody is telling you a story
and it seems like they go on and on sometimes and you want to say to them,
“Hurry up, get to the punch line, what are you driving at?” It seems like the
story is stretched out a long period of time but really it takes just a couple
of minutes and the story is over. And that’s a picture of our life. Now having
painted a picture of our life as passing away very quickly and setting against
the backdrop of the eternal nature of God, he say, “So teach us to number our
days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” Teach us to live wisely.
Well, I’ve found out in
recent days, or I’ve realized that I have lived my three score and ten. In a
couple of weeks, I’ll be 74 years old, so there’s a whole lot more road behind
me than there is in front of me. And I find myself now-a-days looking at life
through the rear-view mirror. Now I haven’t lost my vision for the future. I’m
still excited about what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I know that the road is
short for me. And so I keep looking back through the rear-view mirror to ask
myself, “What have I learned that will help me and help other people to live
wisely in the light of the shortness of life.” There are five things that I want
to share with you.
The first one is the
most important things in life aren’t things. Secondly, all glory is
fading. Thirdly even if you have a pain, you don’t have to be a pain.
Now we may spend a little time there with that one. Number four is only God
is in a position to look down on other people and he never does. And number
five: when you leave, leave a testimony and not a title. I want you to
think about those five things that I have learned about life by looking through
the rear-view mirror.
First of all the most
important things in life aren’t things. Now when you’re young you think so.
I mean house and cars and land, those seem to be the most important things in
life. But as you grow older, more mature, you come to realize the most important
things in life aren’t things. Now that truth dawned on me sort of fresh and anew
a few years ago when my mother-in-law died. She had lived in the same house for
61 years. And as you would imagine, they had, in that house, a life time of
collectables—I mean furniture and pictures and clothes and novelties—things that
reflected them, things that represented them. When the will had been probated we
invited the grandchildren to come in and take what they’d like and they took a
lamp here and a table there and the various parts of the furniture and when they
had finished taking all they wanted, we gave the rest of it to Salvation Army. I
walked through that house a couple of days later—cold and dark and quiet—and I
thought, you know, everything of value has gone out of this house except the
memories. And that day I realized afresh and anew that the most important things
in life were not things. But rather relationships that existed between the
people who lived in that house for 61 years.
A professor walked into
the classroom one day, he has a large-mouth mayonnaise jar and without saying a
word to the class he filled that jar with golf balls and when he got through he
said to the class, “Is the jar full?” and they looked at it, and they said,
“Well, yes.” Then he reached under the counter and he pulled out a box of gravel
and he poured the gravel in that jar, shook it around so it filtered down
between the crevices in the golf balls and then he said to the class, “Now is
the jar full?” And they said, “Yes, now it’s full.” Then he reached under the
counter and he pulled out a box of sand and poured the sand in there and he
shook it around so if filtered down between the crevices and then he said to
class, “Now is the jar full?” They said, “Yes, now the jar is full.” Then he
reached under the counter and he pulled two cups of coffee and poured the coffee
in the jar and he said, “Now the jar is full.”
Then he said, “I want
you to know this jar represents your life and the golf balls represent the
important things in your life—your family, your faith, your friends, the gravel
that represents other things, your job, your car, your house. And the sand, that
represents everything else—that’s the small stuff. Now if you fill the jar with
the sand first, there won’t be room for the golf balls and the gravel.
The same thing is true
with your life. If you spend all your time and the energy on the small stuff,
there won’t be time for the things that really do count—the things that really
are important in your life. So make sure you take care of those things first. So
take time to play with your children or your grandchildren, to take your mate
out to dinner, to get a medical checkup, to play another round of golf, to
worship God because all the rest is just sand.
When he got through, one
of the students in the class said, “Yes, but what about the cups of coffee.” He
said, “I’m glad you asked, no matter how full your life may be there’s always
room for a cup of coffee with a friend.”
What was he saying? He
was saying to us that the most important things in life are not things, the most
important things is life are relationships and you make sure that you take care
of your relationship with your family, your relationship with your friends and
most of all your relationship with God. Whatever else you do, or leave undone,
make sure that you have a place in your life for God and you’re to love him with
all of your heart and mind and soul and all of your strength and remember this
the most important things is life aren’t things, but rather people and God. I
learned that in looking at life through the rear-view mirror.
The second thing I
learned is that all glory is fading. Now my favorite all-time movie is
“Patton.” It’s the story about General George Patton, who commanded the Third
Army as it swept across Europe in the closing days of World War II and sealed
the final victory for our Allied Forces. Patton was a prima-donna but he was a
military genius. The movie closes with his description of the victor parade of a
Roman General coming back from a triumphant military campaign out in front of
this parade of the trumpeters followed by the exotic animals that they brought
back from that foreign kingdom. And then the treasures that they brought back
from the ruler of that kingdom and then the slaves that they captured in battle
and the last thing in the parade was the conquering General riding in his
chariot. By his side his children in white robes. Sometimes they were on the
trace horses in front, but always, always standing right behind the conquering
General there is a slave whispering in his ear, “All glory is fading.” He’s
simply reminding that general that the parade will last just for a little while
and then people will all but forget about you and it. There’ll be another
military conquest, there’ll be another conquering general, there’ll be another
parade and you’ll be forgotten so enjoy the moment, but don’t take yourself too
seriously because all glory is fading.
I’ve come to realize
that all glory is fading, not just in ancient Rome but in modern day Richmond
and in present day Tyler, also. And that truth was impressed on my a few years
ago when I was asked to do the funeral service of Dr. Oren Murphy. Fifty years
he’d been a physician in Tyler. His wife Jeanette had died and I’d conducted her
funeral service and then as the years passed on, he had Alzheimers and so they
sold his house and his furniture and moved him into a nursing home and now he
finally died. The children came back to Tyler and since I’d done their mother’s
funeral they wanted me to do his. So after the service, we were standing down at
the front of the funeral home and people were walking by to visit and a lady
came up to me and said the most unusual thing. She said, “The other day I was at
a little store in a community just south of Tyler and I saw Dr. Murphy’s Medical
School Diploma on the floor leaning against the wall. I asked the proprietor of
that store, ‘where’d you get that?’ He said, ‘I bought it at a garage sale for
25 cents.’ I said, ‘What would you take for it?’ He said, ‘Aw, take it, it’s not
worth anything.’”
I remembered that I’ve
got a house full of diplomas and awards and recognitions that just sort of
naturally come with 50 years of ministry. You know where they’re all headed? Oh,
the kids may not put them in a garage sale immediately; they may put them in a
box and put them up in the attic for a while. But one of these days they’re
going to clean the attic out and they’ll take that box of awards and diplomas
and they’ll put them outside by the garbage can or they may put them in a
garages sale. You don’t think my children want my awards in their house do you?
No, they don’t want mine and they don’t want yours. And it simply reminds us
that all of these awards and recognitions that we get in life don’t mean much to
anybody except to us and when we pass away the significance of all of that
passes away. So don’t take yourself too seriously because all glory is fading
and no body else will take you all that seriously.
When I was a Tyler, I
was the pastor of one of the largest churches in America, from the Red River in
the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south from Dallas in the west all the way
to Atlanta in the east. One of the largest churches and sometimes I felt my
importance and then one day the Lord impressed upon me that I wasn’t all that
important when he reminded me—suppose a group of ladies were sitting around
playing Bridge one day and the phone should ring and the lady of the house
answers the phone and talked for a little while and she’d hang up the receiver
and somebody at the Bridge table would say what was that call all about. And she
would say well I just received word that Reverend Powell died, he had a heart
attack this morning and passed away. You know what would happen? One of those
ladies would say, “Oh my, he was such a nice guy, I really did like him. Whose
bid is it?” And the game would go on. And by the way, the game’s going to go on
when you go on and I’m simply reminding you that all glory is fading. Don’t take
yourself too seriously because nobody else does. And that’s what I’ve learned as
I look through life through the rear-view mirror.
I have learned that the
important things in life aren’t things and all glory is fading. The third thing
I’ve learned is that even if you have a pain, you don’t have to be a pain.
Now, you know life deals some people a hard blow, there’re hardships and
there’re sicknesses and there’re accidents, there’re things that come into our
life. Those things can make us bitter or they can make us better. The choice is
ours. Somebody said that suffering is inevitable but misery is optional. Life is
ten-percent what you make is and ninety-percent how you take it. And I
discovered in life that there are two kinds of pain. You can have one or you can
be one. And the thing is that’s important is that you not be one. There are some
Christians who are so mean, if they were in the arena with the lions, I’d pull
for the lions. And the important thing is that we not let the years and the
tears and the fears of life rob us of our excitement and our enthusiasm and our
joy for living. And that happens to so many people as they grow older and as
they get on down the road in life.
Some time ago I was
called on to do the wedding ceremony for a couple on the 69th
anniversary of their first date together. Winfred and Sue had been sweethearts
in Tyler and then they went away to college and Winfred went to Texas Tech out
in west Texas and Sue went to Mary Hardin-Baylor a little school down in Central
Texas and they met an married other people. Sue had been a widow for 30 years
and Winfred had been a widower for five years. And they moved back to Tyler and
became reacquainted and decided to get married on the 69th
anniversary of their first date together. They asked me to do the ceremony and I
was pleased to do that.
So, I stepped out on the
platform and Sue made it up to the altar fairly well by herself, she was 87
years old. Winfred had a little more trouble than that, he was 90 and he was on
a walker and his 70 year old son had to help him up there. So, I began to start
the ceremony, I said, “Win, do you take Sue to be your lawfully wedded wife, and
do you promise before God and these witnesses to love her, comfort her, honor
her, keep her in sickness and in health and, forsaking all others, to keep thee
only unto her so long as you both shall live? And instead of saying, “I do,” he
said, “I’ll try.” I like that! You know? Ninety years old and still trying.
And that’s what I want for you and that’s what I want for me. So even if you
have a pain and as we get older we have those pains. You don’t have to be one.
Keep that optimistic spirit that positive spirit, keep looking to the future,
keep being willing to go forward and to advance the kingdom of God and the
benefit of your church. Even if you have a pain, you don’t have to be one.
So, most important
things in life are not things, all glory if fading, if you have a pain you don’t
have to be a pain and then number four only God’s in a position to look down
on other people and the amazing thing is he never does that.
Remember that story of
Jesus by the well in Samaria? He had stopped there to rest, sent the disciples
into the town to buy some food. While he was waiting one at high noon one day, a
lady came by herself to draw water from the well. She came by herself because no
respectable person in the city would come with her. She’d been married and
divorced five times and now had a live in boyfriend. And when she came, Jesus
(who knows all things) knew immediately who she was and knew immediately about
her past. But rather than castigate her, rather than shun her, Jesus looked at
her like—no so much in terms of badness, but in terms of sadness. This is not
really a bad women, this is a sad woman. She’d been looking for something all of
her life. Something to fill the emptiness, the spiritual thirst within her and
she kept thinking it could be found in a new man, in a new marriage, in a new
relationship. And so she flitted from man to man, marriage to marriage,
relationship to relationship looking for something to satisfy that deep
spiritual thirst and when Jesus saw her he saw her not in terms of badness but
sadness. What a sad, sad lady. Since they were by a water well, he used that
well as an object lesson. He probably slipped his hand across the well and he
said, “Who ever drinks of this water will thirst again, but let me tell you
about some spiritual water. It’ll be like a spring that wells up within you and
will satisfy you forever.” And when he talked to her about this spiritual water
that he could provide she said, “O, sir, give me that water, that’s what I’ve
been looking for.”
You know it may be that
some woman like that or man like that is in this service today. You’ve drunk at
every well the world has to offer and after all that experience, you’re just as
thirsty, your soul is just as parched and as dry as its ever been. Let me tell
you Jesus is the living water and he can satisfy the deepest longings of the
human heart if you’ll just take him into your life.
One day they brought to
Jesus a woman taken in the act of adultery. They wanted him to stone her to
death. That’s what the Law of Moses said do. But instead of stoning her to
death, Jesus stooped down and started writing in the sand. Now, people have
speculated what he was writing. Some have said maybe he was writing the names of
the men she consorted with. I mean, after all, if she was taken in the act of
adultery, where was the man, why didn’t they bring him? Well, while he was
writing her accuses sort of slinked off into darkness, into the shadows. And
then he looked up and he said, “Woman, where are your accusers? Neither do I
condemn you, go and sin no more.”
Now Jesus did not
condone her lifestyle, he called it what it was: sin. He gave her a clear
command, go and live a life of chastity, go live the way you ought to live. But
Jesus didn’t condemn her and the reason was, she didn’t need his condemnation,
she already lived under self-condemnation. People like that always do. Besides
Jesus came not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be
saved. And she left that day, calling him Lord.
Maybe there’s somebody
like that that’s dropped into the services today. You’ve done things in the past
that you can’t undo. You can’t unscramble an egg, you can’t unbreak a glass, you
can’t undo a deed and you’ve lived with guilt and self-condemnation down through
the years. You don’t have to do that, Christ offers you forgiveness and
redemption today and if you’ll come to him, you will hear him say, “Neither do I
condemn you, go and sin no more.”
Jesus was passing
through Jericho. He was a famous preacher and the crowds gathered along the
streets, much like a parade to see this famous preacher as he walked through. In
Jericho lived a tax collector named Zaccheus. Tax collectors were not criminals
but they were crooks. They gouged people for every penny they could get out of
them and more than that they were traders because they had gone over to work for
the enemy. Israel was ruled by marshal law. Rome controlled the country and they
had soldiers garrisoned in every major city and they hired local people to work
as tax collectors for them and these people were hated and despised by the
general population. Zaccheus was one of those hated and despised tax collectors.
He was short in stature but he wanted to see Jesus like everybody else. He
couldn’t see over shoulders of those in front of him so he shimmied up a tree
out on a limb to get a view of Jesus. And when Jesus walked by and saw him up
there he said something that no respectable Jew would have said in that day, he
said, “Zaccheus, come down, I’m going to have dinner at your house.” Invited
himself home with Zaccheus. Don’t know all that they said that day, but I do
know that before that day was over Jesus said to him, “Zaccheus, this day
salvation has come to your house” because the man realized the error of his way,
God opened his heart to be generous and helpful to the poor and to the needy and
he received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
What Jesus did for
Zaccheus he’ll do for you. I may be speaking to somebody today like Zaccheus.
You find yourself up a tree and out of a limb. Jesus won’t saw it off. He’ll
invite you down to be his friend, to walk with you, to talk with you, to redeem
you because he is the savior and I’m telling you, that only God is in a position
to look down on other people and he never does in scripture. Study it for
yourself; he’s always reaching out instead of looking down. And if you’ll come
to him today, he’ll reach out to you with love and mercy and forgiveness. When I
look at life through the rear-view mirror, that’s what I see, only God’s in a
position to look down and he never does.
One last thing, when
you’re gone, leave a testimony and not a title. Tony Campolo, sociologist,
popular campus speaker, associate pastor of a black church in New York City said
one Sunday his pastor stood before the congregation, the college students were
home, it was probably like Thanksgiving season. And he said, “I want you
students to stand and tell us where you go to college and what you’re majoring
in and what you hope to do when you graduate from college.” And one by one
they’d stand and give their name and where they were going to school and what
they were doing or going to do in life. When they were through he said, “I want
to tell you something. One of these days, all of you going to die and they’re
going to take you out to the cemetery and they going to throw dirt in your face.
Then they going to go back to the church and they’re going to have ham and
potato salad and they’re going to talk about you. What do you think they’re
going to say?” He said, “They’re not going to talk about your titles, they’re
going to talk about what you did in life to make the world a better place.” So,
he said, “I want to ask you when you’re gone, will you leave a title or will you
leave a testimony?”
This is what I want to
ask you, when you’re gone. When you’re three score and ten or up, or maybe your
four score years are up, when you’re gone, will you leave a title or will you
leave a testimony?”
And that’s what I
learned in looking at life through the rear-view mirror. Most important things
in life aren’t things, all glory if fading, even if you have a pain you don’t
have to be one, only God’s in a position to look down on other people, when
you’re gone, leave a testimony not a title.
The scriptures say
concerning Enoch, he had this testimony that he pleased God. Do you have that
testimony? When you come to the end, could people look at your life and mine and
say, hey, this guy, this gal, this boy, this girl—they pleased God.
And then the scriptures
say in the very next verse, “Without faith it is impossible to please him.” A
good life begins when we come to God through faith and trust in Jesus Christ and
then we walk in fellowship with him and we serve him and serve humanity
diligently.
So, Lord, teach us to
number our days, to count up how few they are that we may live wisely.
Put it this way, just
one life will soon be passed. Only what’s done for Christ will last. Give your
life to Christ, serve him with all of your heart and mind and soul and when you
come to then end and you look back through the rear-view mirror, you’ll see that
it was good.
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