This was my last sermon preached at Mt. Gilead UMC in Georgetown, KY.

If you want to listen to the whole worship service, click this first link below.

If you want to listen only to the sermon, click this second link below.

Luke 12:13-21

Carpe Diem

Well, I can’t believe that this is really our last Sunday together, and this is my last sermon at Mt. Gilead. I always try hard to keep my sermons short, but you know better than anybody that that is not always the case. But I really don’t want to let this moment go by too fast, because it has been an absolute honor to stand before you, stand with you, week in and week out, and proclaim the Gospel together. What I’m trying to say is that I want to seize this moment, seize the day, carpe diem.

Carpe diem is one of the most well-known Latin phrases known to English speakers today. It means “Seize the day” and it originates from the Roman poet Horace. The original quote is a little bit longer and is translated as, “Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the next one.” It expresses “the idea that one should enjoy life while one can” (www.britannica.com). And the poet Horace is not the only one in the world ever to express such a sentiment. The biblical writers do too.

James says, “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will got to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:13-15).

Jesus also taught that we are to focus on the present and not worry about the future. He said, “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matt 6:31-34). Isn’t that the truth!

The Parable of the Rich Fool

And Jesus, in our Scripture this morning, also reveals his agreement with that famous saying carpe diem (“Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the next one.”). He does this in his parable of the rich fool in Luke 12. The occasion for Jesus telling this parable is sparked by a person in a crowd when Jesus was teaching one day. The person demands Jesus to make his brother divide their father’s inheritance with him. Jesus’ response is classic: “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” (Luke 12:14). Translation: I’m not touching this with a ten-foot pole.

Instead of playing the judge and making the decision, Jesus gets at the heart of the matter as he usually does, namely, this son’s greed and desire for money. And I love how Jesus kind of summarizes this whole parable in v. 15: “a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

Some people think that way, even today: the point of life is to get rich and get the most toys and whistles before you die, and that if you do, then you win—you win at life. But actually, Jesus elsewhere says, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matt 16:26). “…a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15).

Now, this is great teaching about money and all, but my sermon this morning is not about money. It’s about what Psalm 90:12 says: “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” It’s about what Psalm 139:16 says: “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” It’s about what Isaiah 40:6-8 say: “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the peoples are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”

Life Is Short

This morning, for my last sermon, I want to urge us all to seize the day. Today. That’s all we have. We have been given right now and we don’t know if we’ll be given the next second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year. We simply do not know, and it is not for us to know. Jesus says not to worry about it. But what we do know is that we have right now, today, and it is our job to do the best we can with it and cherish every moment.

This past year and a half has surely taught us that, if we hadn’t learned it before. This pandemic, this COVID year has been so strange, and it has called into question our whole way of life. Thankfully, things are subsiding. Praise the Lord I can see so many of your wonderful faces now! That only seems right. But it really has been one of those things that forced us all to stare down our mortality. We are feeble creates, as Isaiah and James call us grass of the field that’s here today and gone tomorrow.

And for us and our family, we asked the Lord if he would open the door for us back home, so that we could seize the day with our families whom we have greatly missed for over 15 years, almost half our lives. And in those 15 plus years, we’ve learned this lesson the hard way. We lost two of Paige’s grandparents, then my grandma (the only grandparent I ever knew), and then we lost Paige’s mom. And we’ve learned the hard way that life is short, sometimes way too short.

Seize the Day

We’ve always believed that under God family comes first—above school, jobs, whatever—not because family is an idol, but because God’s word says so. We read earlier this morning that putting our religion into practice means “caring for [our] own family and so repaying [our] parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God” (1 Tim 5:4). And Paul then concludes that “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim 5:8). Ouch! Did you hear that? Those who don’t care for their families have denied the Christian faith and are worse than unbelievers! Man! Perhaps that’s why Mother Theresa once said something along the lines of “if you want to change the world, go home and love your family.”

Well, that’s where our road is leading us. We’re going home and loving our families. And that is not exactly the easiest thing to do, because as we all know family is messy sometimes, and we have some people in our immediate families that don’t know the Lord. And hopefully Jesus will take our weak “Yes” and use our hands and our feet to show those in our families how deep and high and long and wide is the love of Christ.

And that’s what the Lord is calling you to do as well. When you leave here this morning, go home and do your best to show God’s love to your kids, your grandkids, your spouse, your parents, whoever it is. “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” Family is where it all starts: the good, the bad, and the ugly. And family matters to God. After all, he is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we are called his children, the family of God. Yes, our families are imperfect and dysfunctional, but instead of putting the “dis” in dysfunction or instead of putting the “shun” in dysfunction, maybe God can use us to put the “fun” in dysfunction.

The End

I want to end by going back to Jesus’ parable. In v. 19, this rich fool says to himself, “you have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” But what does God say to him? Why is he a fool? Verse 20 says, “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’”

Seize the day, my friends. Life is short. We aren’t guaranteed tomorrow. “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift; that is why it is called the present” (Kung Fu Panda). Go, seize the day, love your family, and change the world. Amen.