The Hinge Pin

"The Hinge Pin"

Colossians 1:17

Certainly someone must recognize what I have in my hand.

(If someone says, “A hinge”)  Not exactly.  It’s only part of a hinge.  I need another part to make it a hinge.  This other part looks like the first, but it’s different.  The second part is not identical, but it corresponds with the first.  They fit together.  They were made to fit together.  So, once you put the two together, you have a hinge.

Actually, that’s not quite right, either.

There’s still another piece missing.

I found out about this other piece when I was a kid.

Somehow, some way, I noticed that one of the hinges on one of our doors was not quite right.  Something was sticking up.  I pushed on it, and it slid back down.  I was fascinated.  I pulled it up.  I pushed it down.  I pulled it all the way out.  I got up on a chair and pulled the upper pin out.  “I wonder why those things are in there?”  I remember thinking to myself.

I found out when I closed the door.  The door came out and fell down.  I thought that was keen.  I went around to all the doors in our home and took all the hinge pins out.  It wasn’t out of maliciousness or some kind of childish prank.  It was just that I was kind of proud of myself for figuring out how something worked.  For some reason, it absolutely fascinated my 7 or 8 year old mind.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t equally fascinating to my mom when all the doors she went through fell down.

Then I had to go around and put all the hinge pins back in.  I found out it’s harder getting the pins in than it was getting them out.  The whole door has to be just right or the pin won’t slide in place.  Trying to hold the door still and steady while trying to get the pin in, as a kid by myself, wasn’t as fascinating as pulling them all out.

I think I remember all that because, like I said, it was the first time I had figured out how something worked on my own.

I was just entranced by the simplicity of how it worked.  You just put this pin in here and it’s held together and it functions as it’s supposed to.  You pull the hinge pin out and it’s a disaster waiting to happen, as my mom found out.

It looks like it could work without the hinge pin.

And it might for a while.  But before too long, the door will fall.

So, what have I got here?  (Hold up one side of a hinge.)

(If they say, “A piece of a hinge,” say…)  Not exactly.

What this is, is a person.

It doesn’t look like a person.  But it is a person.

(Holding up the other side of the hinge)  And what is this?

(If they say, “It’s the other side of the hinge, say…)  No; actually this is God.  I know most of your pictures of what God is like do not match up with this.  But this is God.  It kind of looks like the human over here in this hand.  But they are much different from each other.

Remember in the story of creation, in the first chapter of Genesis?

When God created humans, what does the story say?  It said we were created in the image of God.  So there is some kind of semblance between ourselves and God.  But mostly, to me anyway, what it means to be made in the image of God is that God made us to fit in with our Creator.  When humans come together with God there is an important connection that’s made.  When we are joined to God, it feels like a perfect fit.  When we connect up with God, we work like we’re supposed to.  So, the more we are connected to God, the better off we are going to be.

The problem is, we think we can do it better on our own.

Or we think we are independent enough that we are able to live life solo.  We think we don’t need God’s other piece to fill out our own.  We think we don’t need to fit in with God.  We don’t need connection.  Or, maybe it’s outright rebellion.  Just a step at first; then another, then another.  It starts with pulling ourselves apart.

A guy got a job painting a yellow line down the middle of the streets in a town.

After three days, the foreman complained, saying, “The first day you did great—you painted that yellow line for three blocks.  The second day wasn’t bad—you did two blocks.  But today you only painted the line for one block.  Keep that up and I’ll have to fire you.”

On his way out of the foreman’s office, the guy looked back and said, “It’s not my fault.  Each day I just got farther away from the paint can.”

That’s what happens in our relationship with God.

At first, we make a break for it.  We loosen ourselves from God.  (Pull the hinge pieces apart.)  Then, step-by-step, we get farther and farther away.  As someone put it once, “If we are not feeling as close to God as we used to be, who moved?”  We need to find some way, if we really want to remain close to God, of staying joined.

God has provided that way.

With this.  And this is?  (If someone says, “The hinge pin,” say…)  No, this is Jesus Christ.  I know this doesn’t look like the pictures you have seen of Jesus.  But this is Jesus Christ.  God wants to be inter-connected with our lives.  God wants to be a part of all that we do.  Deep in our hearts, I think we want that as well.  We want to be connected to God in a meaningful and everlasting way.  In a way that will not and cannot become separated.

So God provided our Savior Jesus to make sure that happens.

We get connected up with God.  Then Jesus makes himself the hinge pin of that relationship.  Jesus connects us to God in an intimate and unbreakable bond.  We are connected to God forever through Christ—and God with us.  We work and function as we are supposed to.  We live lives of usefulness, purpose, contentedness and peace.  All because of the hinge pin—Jesus Christ.  Our Bible verse for this morning from Colossians says that in Jesus, all things are “held together.”  Everything depends on Christ, the hinge pin, to hold it together—if the hinge pin is in place.  If it is not, weakness and self-centeredness is the result.

So, (hold up one side of the hinge) what is this?

(If they say, “God,” or, “A person,” say…)  No, actually this is a husband.  It may not look like a husband, but it is.  And, (holding up the other side of the hinge) what is this?  Right, a wife.  Now you’re catching on.  Together, they make a marriage.

Well, sort of.

A lot of couples try to make a marriage with one of these two pieces.  One of them ends up doing all the work, making the marriage work.  Or, with just these two pieces.  They do fit together.  They were made by God to fit and compliment each other.  That’s God’s design.  Remember what Adam said when he first saw Eve?  "At last, bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.”  So similar. So similar, they fit.  The Bible story goes on to say, "That's why a man leaves his father and mother and  cleaves unto his wife."

But then remember our Bible verse:  “In Jesus Christ all things are held together.”  Just fitting together isn’t enough.  Just coming together—the “cleaving”--isn’t going to give that relationship enough strength when stress comes.  The couple needs to do more than just come together; they need to be held together.

The ability to come apart is too easy.

What is needed is this.  (Hold up the hinge pin.)  And what is this?  Right, Jesus Christ.  Not until Jesus Christ is allowed to be made part of that relationship will the relationship become strong and solid.  With the hinge pin, with Jesus Christ, the two truly become one.  As long as that relationship is held together by Christ, focused on Christ, instead of on self, it will be held together.  The two shall become one.  That is the promise.

So, (hold up one side of the hinge) what is this?

Actually, this is a parent.  It doesn’t look like a parent, but that’s what it is.

(Holding up the other side of the hinge) And what is this?  Right, this is a child.  The same “held together” principle applies.  You can be bound together by all sorts of ways with your children, or, as children with your parents.  But there is a part that is needed in every parent-child bond, no matter how old you are, so that you are bound together.

(Hold up the hinge pin.)  And that part is?  Yes, Jesus Christ.  When you pray with your children/grandchildren, when you read scripture with your children/grandchildren, when you have some kind of devotional time with your children/grandchildren, when you attend church with your children/grandchildren, you are acknowledging the hinge pin, Jesus Christ.  You are making sure that pin stays in place.  You are making that special relationship strong and whole.

I could go on and on.  All of this is true for you and your friendships, you and your co-workers, you and all Christians, you and God’s creation.

In Christ, all things are held together!

The Kingdom of Light

"The Kingdom of Light"

Colossians 1:12-14

(We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul -- not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives.  It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in the kingdom of light that he has for us.  God rescued us from the dead-end alleys and the power of darkness.  God has set us up in the kingdom of light in the Son He loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.  Colossians 1:12-14, MSG)

A couple of weeks ago, we passed the summer solstice—the longest day of the year, the first official day of Summer.  The long, hot days of summer have been upon us.  But at the same time, since we have passed the summer solstice, that means the days are gradually getting shorter and shorter.  What that means is, the days will be the same 24 hours, but the amount of sunlight we will see, will be less and less. We are now moving toward the winter solstice, the shortest day of daylight of the year—ever increasing darkness.  Back and forth, between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness.

Another way to look at this is the times in our history, where people have come to our country from their home country—a place of darkness to, hopefully, a place of light.   When the first pilgrims came to this land, they were coming for one main reason.  Freedom.  They were coming to escape oppression.  They were coming so they could worship freely.  They were coming to escape the persecution of those who wouldn’t allow them to express their Christian beliefs in a way they desired.  It was a religious freedom that brought most of the new colonists to this country.  Once they got here, they knew they had found that freedom -- that they had been brought over from a land of oppression to a land of liberty, from a place of darkness to a place of freedom and light.

That’s how Paul described to the Colossian Christians what had happened to them when they came to believe in Christ.  That’s what he told the believers they should be most thankful to God for:  that they had been brought over from the kingdom of darkness and now had become residents in the new kingdom of light.

In the ancient world, a conquering army would take the defeated people, lock-stock-and-barrel to the conquerors land.  The vanquished people would be blended into the conqueror’s culture.  They would gradually lose their identity, becoming members of a new way of life with a new people.  That’s what Paul is saying God did for us through Christ.  God had to conquer us and our old life -- the life of darkness -- and take us, like captives to a new and different life -- life in the kingdom of light.  Some of us may not have been, initially, happy about the change.

For a time, the two ways of life would overlap.  That overlapping time would be the time of our conversion, of our initial coming to belief in Christ as Savior.  We go through a time of disorientation.  To which kingdom do we really belong?  We aren’t sure.  We have feet in both the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light.  But conversion, God’s conquering of us, puts us on the road of a long journey into a new place.  We find that our life becomes one of movement toward an ever increasing light.  We begin to see, on the horizon, and then become more and more a part of God’s kingdom of light.  We understand, in a progressively greater way, the will of Christ, our new ruler and King.

Notice that Paul uses the phrases, “kingdom of his dear Son,” and “kingdom of light” as synonyms.  The dear Son is the one “who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.”  These terms help us understand what it means to be people who are now in the kingdom of light.

But I think we’ll understand even better what it means to be residents in the new kingdom of light if we realize what light itself can do.  When I was a pastor up in Nebraska, there was a man in the congregation who had seasonal affective disorder—that condition where the decreasing daylight causes emotional, physical, and psychological problems.  It began to really get to him starting in the Fall, as the days get shorter, and we enjoy less and less light.  He helped me understand just how important light is to life.

Many of our bodily functions, at least a hundred, have daily rhythms.  They go through their work in a routine way, day after day.  They complete a cycle every 24 hours with more precision than the atomic clock in Colorado.  These rhythms are genetically programmed, but it takes more than genes to make them work.  It  takes sunlight.  Light coming in through the eyes gives these rhythms their ability to function.

Sunlight coming into the brain through the eyes is transferred to a little pine cone shaped gland called the pineal.  It’s about the size of a pea.  That gland then kicks off a hormone that gets into our blood stream that allows these bodily functions to go through their genetic routine.

If there were no light coming into the pineal gland, the many rhythmic functions of the body would resemble an orchestra without a conductor, all those bodily functions playing their own tune to their own timing.  It would be chaos.  If light is absent, temporarily disrupted, or markedly reduced, this creates a significant disturbance in our bodily and emotional stability.  All controlled by the sunlight.

When Paul wrote that we have been rescued from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of light, could he have known what he was saying?  Without the light of Christ in our lives, stability is gone.  Emotional and physical well-being has its roots in the kingdom of Christ.  True Christian spirituality has to do with the body and the soul.  The more we are in the light of Christ, the more we will feel secure and in synch with the way we were created to be.

The kingdom of Christ -- the kingdom of light -- has to do with daily rhythms of body and soul that need to be synchronized.  But that can’t happen as long as we are living in the kingdom of darkness.  The kind of God-light that needs to get into our lives, and transform us, can’t happen if we stubbornly remain in darkness.

Can’t you just feel it when your life gets out of synch?  All the daily rhythms that make life feel good, are disrupted.  All our systems are on red alert.  The man I mentioned, from my congregation in Nebraska, would experience severe symptoms during the winter.  Psychologically, he would experience ever increasing depression.  He became lethargic.  He would get illnesses and body aches that were hard to diagnose as to their origin.  His mood would swing from fun-loving to flared temper tantrums.  He would sleep too much, then he wouldn’t be able to sleep for days.  All his systems were more and more out of synch.   And the doctors couldn’t figure it out.

Then, by chance, he read about this seasonal affective disorder.  He changed out all his light bulbs in his home and office with full-spectrum lighting.  Within a week he was showing signs of huge improvement.  Then all the symptoms went away.  It all had to do with the kind of light that he needed, especially in the winter.

Similarly, when we feel all out of synch spiritually, we might need to check how much Christ-light we are letting in through our eyes.  Have we retreated back into the kingdom of darkness?  Are we using an artificial kind of light that really doesn’t have the power to make the kinds of changes in our lives that Christ's light can?

The pineal gland plays a major role in every aspect of human functioning.  Research has shown that this little gland is the regulator of reproductive functioning, growth, body temperature, blood pressure, motor activity, sleep, tumor growth, moods, the immune system, and the very length of our lives.  And without sunlight, that little gland, being unregulated can create dysfunction in one or many of those body and emotional processes; as it did in my friends life.

Playing off of what we know about the pineal gland, I think you can make the jump to understanding how important it is for our wholeness to be a part of the kingdom of light.  To be rescued from the kingdom of darkness.  Notice that little word “rescued.”  Most people don’t just voluntarily walk out of the kingdom of darkness.  It has to be a rescue effort.  God, through Christ, had to covertly invade this world and take us hostage so we could see the reality of the difference between the two kingdoms.  Otherwise, it may have never happened.

I want to briefly comment on another quality of light that I learned as I journeyed with this man and his light deprivation disorder.  Light heals.  Different colors of light have a healing quality to them.  Over 100 years of research have been done on the ability of light to heal and nourish the body.

The body absorbs light, not only through the eyes, but the skin as well.  Our bodies are literally photo-receptors of sunlight.  The full spectrum of light coming in through the skin nourishes and heals our bodies.

Research has shown that different colors of light enhance healing in different kinds of injury or illness.  Has anyone, with a broken bone, undergone light therapy?  Certain colors of light heal breaks faster.  Doctors who work in this field have isolated different sections of the human body that respond positively to different colors of light, or combinations of colors of light.  There are 12 main colors that have been found to have amazing healing and restorative qualities:  red, orange, yellow, lemon yellow, green, turquoise, blue, indigo, violet, purple, magenta, and scarlet.  The colors turquoise and emerald green were found to have the widest range of healing powers.

Isn’t it interesting that, in the book of Revelation, the color most associated with God and the throne of God is emerald green.  To be brought into the kingdom of his dear Son means to be bathed in the healing light of God.  It means to have every part of our body and soul shined upon by the reviving and recreative and healing light of God.

To continue to be in the kingdom of darkness is to go without God’s potent and embracing light that heals us from sin and sets us free from breaks and disruptions that seek to do us harm.

Think of all that light does for us and means to us.  Light enables us to see and understand our world.  To see light and absorb light is literally life.  Light brings freedom.  Light lifts the spirit and increases our hope.  Light has to do with creation, conversion, and healing.  Conversion is new creation.  Conversion is our entrance into the kingdom of light of our God.

What a wonder it is, to be brought by God into the kingdom of light, the kingdom of His dear Son -- which is the only way wholeness of life can be had.  Thank God that you are not in the dark anymore.  Thank God that you have been rescued and brought into the kingdom of light.

If Only...

"If Only..."

Galatians 6:1-10

"If only..."

"If only I had gone this way instead of that way".

"If only I had made this choice instead of that choice".

We've all heard stories of missed opportunities.  I'm sure each of you could tell your own stories of times you zigged when you wish you would have zagged.

Two friends went for a car ride together.  Walter was driving, and he took his friend Arthur for a ride way out in the country.  Walter drove off the main road and onto a dirt road, through a grove of trees to a large open plot of land.  A few horses were grazing, and a couple of old shacks remained.

Walter stopped the car.  Both men got out.  Walter started describing to Arthur, with great vividness, the wonderful things he was going to build.  He wanted his friend Arthur to buy some of the land surrounding his project, to get in on the ground floor.

Arthur thought to himself, Who in the world is going to drive 25 miles for this crazy project?  The logistics of the venture are staggering.

Walter explained to Arthur, "I can handle the main project myself.  But it will take all my money.  The land bordering it, where we're standing now, will in just a couple of years be jammed with hotels and restaurants and convention halls to accommodate the people who will come to spend their entire vacations here at my park." Then he said, "I want you to have the first chance at this surrounding acreage, because in the next five years it will increase in value several hundred times."

Looking back on that conversation, Arthur said, "What could I say?  I knew he was wrong.  I knew that he let a dream get the best of his common sense, so I mumbled something about a tight money situation and promised I would look into the whole thing a little later on."

"Later on will be too late," Walter warned as they walked back to the car.  "You'd be better to move on it right now."

And so it was that Arthur--who was Art Linkletter--turned down the opportunity to buy up all the land that surrounded what was to become Disneyland.  His friend, Walter--Walt Disney--tried to talk him into it.  But Art thought he was crazy.

If only...

If there was anyone who never said, "If only..." it had to be the Apostle Paul.  He was a person who took all the opportunities God gave him and never said no.  We don't know much about the very first opportunity given to Paul.  Here is all it says at the beginning of Acts 13:

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

That's it.  The Holy Spirit said, like Walt Disney, I have this great plan.  I want Paul and Barnabas to be a part of it.  The Holy Spirit didn't ask, like Walt Disney did of Art Linkletter, if Paul and Barnabas wanted to be a part of the grand plan.  Just, "Set them apart for me" and "send them off." We aren't told if there was any stuttering going on, or negotiations.  It sounded like Paul and Barnabas were given an opportunity, accepted it, and went out with it.  It was the way they both worked with God throughout their lives.

Imagine if in Men's Bible Study, or in Women's Bible Study, the Holy Spirit makes it suddenly known that John Cochran and Joel Curtis were to be sent to Chicago and New York City to proclaim the gospel; or Shannon Squires and Tonie Graber were being given the opportunity to go to the Central African countries and be ambassadors for Christ.  The Holy Spirit's will is clear; away you go.  Here's an opportunity.  Take it.  Go.  Would you?  With no more information than the Holy Spirit wants you.

Like I said, I don’t think Paul ever missed an opportunity that was given him by the Holy Spirit.  Even though we would hem and haw after hearing the meager discussion that the Holy Spirit wanted a couple of us to take off for some undetailed mission, Paul never did.  He listened.  He accepted.  He went.  That’s Paul’s thrust in this part of his letter to the Galatians:  seize the opportunities given you to do good in the name of Christ.

In this part of his letter, Paul switches motivations.  The main motivation Paul used in the early part of the letter is along the lines of dealing with the consequences of the judgement of God.  Here in the ending part of the letter Paul is trying to use incentive rather than motivation.

If you’re not sure what the difference is between incentive and motivation, maybe this will clear it up.  One corporation had a workshop for everyone in the company about employer-employee relationships.  No one was getting the distinction between incentive and motivation.  Finally, a factory worker stood up and said, “When the boss tells me that if I increase my production to a certain number of units a day, I’ll get a raise, that’s incentive.  When he tells me that unless I increase my production to a certain number of units per day I’ll be fired, that’s motivation.”

Here, Paul is trying to use incentive.  That is, that we will reap what we sow, he said.  If we “sow to the Holy Spirit”—that is, if we do what the Holy Spirit asks us to do, we reap eternal life.  That’s incentive.  The carrot of eternal life is held out before us.  All we have to do to gain that eternal life is be obedient to God’s Spirit.

But gaining that eternal life is not easy.  Paul wrote, “And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.”  The Holy Spirit is asking every believer to live a life of well-doing.  By doing so, we gain eternal life.  That is, Paul wrote, “if we do not lose heart.”  In other words, it can be so hard to be a well-doing person, a person who does good to all (all).  The word for “lose heart” in the Greek that Paul wrote in literally means to “faint in your souls.”  J.B. Phillips translates this phrase with, “throw in your hand.”  In other words, give up.  Give up because the task looks too hard.  Give up because doing what the Holy Spirit is asking us to do by being good to all people, is just too much responsibility.

I’m looking forward to the Olympic games this summer.  Hopefully some athletes will show up, especially after reading this week that the police force in Rio has run out of money.  If that doesn’t scare people away, nothing will.  Anyway, there was one Olympic Games I was watching the swimming events.  I can’t remember what year it was.  The event was the 4 X 200 Freestyle Relay event.  The gold medal was coming down to the last swimmer for the US and the German team.  The final swimmer for the German team was the world record holder for the individual 200 Freestyle race.  The US swimmer could have “thrown in his hand,” so to speak, and convince himself he’d never win.  Just swim his best and expect to lose.  It would be easy to lose heart.

The German took an early lead in the last leg of the relay.  It looked like the Germans were going to be the winner.  The commentators even thought so.  The race was over.  But the anchor on the US team slowly gained ground.  Closer and closer.  In the last 5 yards the US swimmer caught the German swimmer and out-touched him at the wall to win the gold for the US.  It was one of the great upsets in those games.

Trying to take every opportunity to do good to all people feels like having to swim as the last swimmer in that race.  How will you ever accomplish what it is up to you to do?  Especially when you start thinking about all the people you want to have nothing to do with.  It is hard to do good to all people.  We could say to the Holy Spirit, “You don’t know what you’re asking.”  Opportunities for doing good can be costly to us.  We may have to give up what we want.  We may have to curb our anger, even when we feel it’s justifiable.  Instead of confronting someone with anger, we would have to learn to confront in love.  Going the extra mile with someone, may be difficult because you didn’t even want to go the first mile with them.

To push ourselves way beyond our comfort zone of extending kindness to all makes it so very tempting to just throw in our hand.  Give up.  Lose heart.  Lower ourselves below what the Holy Spirit is asking us to do.

But to lose heart and grow weary in showing kindness to all, means we will miss opportunities the Spirit has brought our way.  I’ve been watching a series on Netflix about Marco Polo.  Before Marco Polo made it to China, his father Nickelo and his uncle Matteo made it in 1271.  They were given an audience with the great Kubla Kahn.  Kubla Kahn at that time ruled all of China, all of India, and all of the East.

The Kahn, as he was called, was attracted to the story of Christianity as Nickelo and Matteo told it to him.  He said to them, “You shall go to your high priest and tell him on my behalf to send me 100 men skilled in your religion and I shall be baptized, and when I am baptized all my Barons and great men will be baptized and their subjects will receive baptism too, and so there will be more Christians here than there are in your parts.”

But because Nickelo and Matteo didn’t like Kubla Kahn and felt like he was deceiving them or manipulating them, nothing was done.  Nothing was done for about 30 years, when a couple of missionaries were finally sent.  Too few too late.

It baffles the imagination to think what a difference to the world would have been made if in the 13th century, China had become fully Christian.  If in the 13th century, India had become fully Christian.  If in the 13th century, the East had be been handed to Christ.  The opportunity was there in spades.  But Nickelo and Matteo Polo folded, threw in their hands, lost heart, and threw away one of the greatest opportunities in all Christian evangelism, simply because they didn’t think the Kahn was worth them doing this good for him.

Verse 10 reads, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”  There is one little word that can be translated a couple of different ways, and the different ways make an interesting difference.  The word could be “as” or “while.”  “…as we have opportunity…” or, “…while we have opportunity.”

“…while we have opportunity,” carries the meaning of “while we have time.”  That could be a reference of our time, of how much time we may or may not have left to live.  With the time we have, may we take opportunities to share the kindness of Christ with all people, no matter who they are.

I was talking with my son Ryan about last weeks sermon about the shootings in Orlando.  I told him how I tried to make the point that the main reason for the shootings was the violence that resides in all of us.  Again, this week, a supposedly devoted and Christian mother senselessly shot and killed her two teenage daughters then was shot and killed by police.  No one knows why this happened, exactly.

But for Ryan, the meaning that came to him about all these shootings is how precarious life is.  None of us knows how much time we have.  Those two teenage girls woke up one morning last week not knowing that by the end of the day they would be both shot dead by their own mother.  A bunch of people were excited to be going to a night club in Orlando, not knowing many of them would be shot dead.  Travelers were at the airport in Istanbul, Turkey this last week, excited about catching their plane, and a bomb goes off, killing 40 people.  Life is precious because it is so precarious, Ryan said.  Which means we all have to do as well as we can with who we are because we never know when our lives will end.  Do what you can, do the best you can, NOW, because you don’t know.  I liked his perspective.  It may be what Paul was trying to say, “…while we have opportunity…”

The other possibility is “…as we have opportunity…” which carries the meaning of, “as the opportunities are presented to us by the Holy Spirit, take advantage of them.”  It’s been said that opportunities are like eggs—they come to us one at a time.”  But I would add that once we take advantage of one egg—one opportunity—another will come, then another, and another.

And notice it says, “…as we have opportunity…”.  That means it’s all about the opportunities, not us.  It doesn’t say, “As you feel like taking advantage of an opportunity,” as if it’s about you.  The promise of eternal life that Paul mentions is about the opportunities the Holy Spirit gives us, that we grasp, and then grasp another, and another, as they come.

From the story I started this message with, it appeared that Art Linkletter was kicking himself because he didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to buy up land around the proposed Disneyland.  I’m not sure if we kick ourselves because we lost an opportunity to do good to someone else, as we were directed by the Holy Spirit.  Remember the incentive, Paul talked about:  eternal life as reward.  And think about how all these awful events that end people’s lives makes us think about how precious life is in its precariousness.  Do good, now; take advantage of the opportunity to do good, now.  Because you never know.