Certainties Concerning Ourselves

The point: Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

The common experience of writing the wrong year (e.g., 1975 instead of 1976) illustrates the awkward adjustments to a new calendar year, serving as a relatable entry point to the sermon's theme.

You've already begun to experience the awkward adjustments to a new calendar year. It won't be long before you are forced to do so. You kids, when you go to school tomorrow, if betting were legitimate and I wanted to make some quick money, I would bet that some of you are still going to write January 1975, and then you're going to say, oops, 76, right? Those awkward little adjustments to the fact that we've entered a new year.

0:05 - 0:39 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin applies the uncertainty of life directly to unbelievers, warning against squandering opportunities and presuming upon future time. He uses the parable of the rich fool and…

The story of people fretting at a TWA baggage claim, unaware they were moments from eternity before eleven of them died, vividly illustrates the suddenness of death and the uncertainty of life's events.

Little did those people think who stood around that carousel in TWA,

13:23 - 13:28 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not play Russian roulette with your soul by remaining in your sins.

The analogy of playing Russian roulette with a six-chambered pistol is used to powerfully convey the madness of facing another year out of Christ, presuming upon life amidst its uncertainty.

My friend, don't play Russian roulette with your soul. Well, I've got through 75. I hope I'll make it through 76. Do you know what I mean when I say don't play Russian roulette with your soul?

16:36 - 16:55 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The second certainty is the brevity of life, even if the Lord tarries. Martin uses James 4:14's metaphor of life as a vapor and Psalm 90:10's description of life's swiftness…

The image of vapor from a clothes dryer vent, appearing for a moment and then vanishing, illustrates the extreme brevity and insubstantiality of human life as described in James 4:14.

Some of you have dryers. And in a winter day, where the vent goes outside, and your mom's running the dryer, you see that vapor comes out. And it's there, and if the dryer shuts off, in less than three seconds, every trace of it is gone. James says, that's your life.

18:48 - 19:08 Read in full sermon

The point: Live consciously aware of the brevity of life as a powerful motive for how we live as God's people.

Job's comparison of days to a weaver's shuttle, swiftly moving from one side of the loom to the other, illustrates the rapid passage of life from infancy to old age and death.

It was Job, an old patriarch, who said, our days are faster than a weaver's shuttle. Have you ever seen an old loom? Have you ever seen an old loom? Where the shuttle that carries the thread goes through?

21:57 - 22:12 Read in full sermon