“YOLO?”
Raise your hand if you’ve heard the phrase, “YOLO.”
This stands for You Only Live Once, and when we say it, we often mean, “Go for it. Who cares. You only live once, so you gotta seize the day!” I have caught myself saying this off-hand, laughing it off. But beneath that joke is a serious lie: live for now, make this world your heaven.
C.S. Lewis preached a sermon in 1941 in England, during which his nation stood alone against Nazi Germany. In the height of war, death is thrust into our consciousness. And against that fear, Lewis pushed his congregation to look ahead. He said there are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Every person in this room, every person you pass in the hallway, every person you love, and every person you struggle to love, is an immortal being. We are not made merely for seventy or eighty years. We are made for forever. It’s not YOLO, it’s You Will Live Forever (YWLF).
And that means we should live now in light of what is coming. Thankfully, Jesus gives us a glimpse of what is to come. In Revelation, John sees the sky crack open, and all of a sudden, Jesus is breaking through riding a pure white horse. There are many crowns on his head, his eyes are like fire, his bloody robe flaps in the wind, and his thigh is tatted up — King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
And then John sees the Great White Throne. The dead, great and small, stand before him. The books are opened. Everything hidden is revealed. Every life is weighed. Every immortal soul stands before the King.
And in that terrifying moment, there is good news. The Eternal King is also a Savior. Before he comes to judge the world, he came to save the world. Before he wears many crowns, he wore a crown of thorns. Before he sits on the throne, he hung on the cross. He willingly gave his life so that sinners like us could live, not just once in a world that is passing away, but forever in paradise with Him.
And that reminds us of our desperate need to confess our sins…
Prayer of Confession
Father, you know that we are so quick to forget about forever. We get consumed with our stresses of today, our failures of yesterday, our worries about tomorrow. We confess that we fail to treat others like they will live forever. We confess these individual sins to you now in the quite of this moment…
