This week we welcomed a new year. None of us anticipated the things we have experienced in the past year. But hindsight is 2020. At least that his how the saying goes. And it is the title for today’s message. Not only can we say hindsight is 2020, we can now say “2020 is hindsight”. We will take a look at Ephesians 5:15-21 where we find principles of wisdom and we will apply those principles of wisdom to our experiences from the past year and try to carry some of that wisdom into the year to come. It has been a difficult year. And underlying this message is the belief that there is something of value in every difficulty. In our rush to be done with 2020 let’s not miss the value that God can bring out of these experiences.
This week I returned home from vacation. It was fantastic, but it started rough.
It takes a lot of extra work to take time away from work. The weeks leading up to vacation got real busy. I was also scrambling to finish some classes I was taking. The semester ended the 4 days before vacation started. Then we noticed that our flight had been changed, we were now flying out at 3am. We adjusted our plan, we would go to sleep early so that we wouldn’t have to fly tired. And I could have fallen to sleep early. I was so tired from the push of the last few weeks that I felt like going to sleep in the early afternoon. But we still had to pack. To add to the madness, my family had decided to do a homemade Christmas gift exchange this year. I procrastinated and was still working on my homemade gift just minutes before leaving for the airport. I didn’t go to sleep early. I didn’t sleep at all!
I was beat but I also felt a bit of surprise and satisfaction that I actually got my work done. It was hard, but I was leaving for vacation. We made it to the airport, through security, and to the gate. At least that part was done. That first flight to Seattle was torture. It was hot, felt trapped in my mask. Most the time I wasn’t sure if I was asleep or awake. Then we had the second flight from Seattle to Phoenix.
We arrive in Phoenix exhausted. But we made it! It felt good to be done with airplanes. After getting our luggage we followed the signs to the Rental Car Center. We saw shuttle buses and a crowd waiting to get on them. But they kept driving past us with a bunch of empty seats. We slowly figured out that the crowd was a line and that the empty seats were intentional, each bus only took 15 people to allow for social distancing. So we waited. We finally boarded the shuttle and made is to the Rental Car Center . Once again, it felt good to be done with another hard leg of the trip.
I had reserved a car online a few hours before leaving home to the airport. I reserved a compact car, it was a really good deal. The lady helping me looked at my family and our luggage and she knew compact wasn’t going to work. There was not way we were going to compact enough to fit. So I paid for an upgrade and she gave me the choice between a full size sedan or an SUV. My brain was too tired to make a decision, I think she could tell, so she just made a note on my reservation and told me to head on down to the parking garage and make a choice after seeing the options.
In the parking garage another lady directed us to the full size sedan, no options. I loaded some of the luggage and realized it just wasn’t going to work. So I tried to explain to her that we were given the choice and she tried to explain to me that it doesn’t work that way. She was entirely sure that I didn’t understand and I was pretty sure she didn’t understand. I tried to be nice about it, she didn’t. I told her what the lady at the counter said, she told me that the lady didn’t know what she’s doing. Fortunately, that lady at the counter was getting off work right at that moment. She saw us as she walked to her car and came to our rescue. The two of them argued for a bit and finally gave us the SUV. We stuffed our luggage in and drove off before they could changed their minds.
The car rental mess was done and it felt good! We still had a 2 hour drive before we would arrive at the home where family was waiting to welcome us. And we made it! Tired, grouching, and in need of a shower, but so glad to be done with that long and difficult trip.
It feels good when a difficult experience comes to an end!
Many of us are coming into 2021 the same way I staggered into my vacation. We are tired and grouchy and may even need a shower. We know that not everything changed with the date on the calendar but we are just glad to be done with that year.
But here is the trouble. Feeling glad that it is done isn’t good enough to move us into the next thing well. My vacation was excellent! And not because I was done with the travel but because I recognized that I had pushed myself too hard and I rested. If I didn’t pay attention to what I actually needed I easily could have pushed my tired, grouchy self all the way through vacation. I could have spent my time complaining about how difficult is was to get there and returned just as exhausted as I arrived.
It is not enough for us to celebrate the 2020 is done. To live well this next year we must learn from the experiences of past year.
And it has been a difficult year. I found some 2020 quotes that were collected by Stephanie Osmanski in a post for parade.com. https://parade.com/1129275/stephanieosmanski/funny-quotes-about-2020/
- “2020 is a unique Leap Year. It has 29 days in February, 300 days in March, and five years in April.” —Unknown
- “Day 7 of social distancing: Struck up a conversation with a spider today. Seems nice. He’s a web designer.” —Unknown
- “My life feels like a test I didn’t study for.” —Unknown
- “For the first time in history we can save the human race by laying in front of the TV and doing nothing.” —Unknown
- “Coronavirus has turned us all into dogs: We roam the house looking for food, we’re told ‘no’ if we get too close to strangers, and we get really excited about car rides and walks.” —Unknown
- “If you had asked me what the hardest part of battling a global pandemic would be, I would have never guessed ‘teaching elementary school math.’” —Simon Holland
- “If there’s one thing that scares me more than an apocalyptic end of the world, it’s the possibility that if my kids fail at homeschooling they have to retake it.” —Three Time Daddy
- “2020 was like looking both ways before you cross the street then getting hit by an airplane.” —Unknown
It is good to find humor in some of the difficulties but there were some experiences in 2020 that we just can’t laugh about. Like the 83 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and the 1.8 million deaths. The turmoil of social justice issues. The ugly and contentious US elections. The more than 10.3 million acres that were burned by wildfires in the US in 2020, including 5 of the top 20 largest California wildfires ever. And the hundreds of thousands of people displaced and suffering because of it. We have felt these difficulties on a local and personal level. Navigating this past year had been so hard!
But hindsight is 2020… or is it? Now that 2020 is over, are we really able to make sense of it all? No, the year is over but the struggles are not resolved. We don’t know what 2021 will bring but we know that it will be hard too.
It feels good to be done with 2020 but there are some really unhealthy ways we could come away from it. We could limp into 2021, angry and fearful, frustrated and deflated. We could turn to destructive coping mechanisms and try to escape reality by going deeper into unhealthy habits. If all we do it run from the hard thing then hindsight will never be 2020. We didn’t choose how 2020 went but we choose how we respond. There is value in the difficulties we have experiences and we want to be live better in 2021 because of them.
In Ephesians 5:15-21 Paul urges believers to live in a way that is wise. And he lists some wise principles for life. We are going to consider four of these ways that hindsight can be 2020, four ways that the experiences of 2020 can give wisdom to live better in 2021.
Ephesians 5:15-21
15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1. Hindsight is 2020 when we apply it to our own lives!
Verse 15 says, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise.” The KJV says, “See then that ye walk circumspectly” and the ESV reads, “Look carefully then how you walk.” The Greek word that is translated as “careful” means with exactness. It can also be translated as carefully, strictly, or distinctly. We are called to examine life in a diligent, accurate, focused, and disciplined way. And our own lives are the object of the examination. “Look carefully then how you walk.”
This is a self-focus that is not self-centeredness. We spend much of our attention thinking about ourselves but looking at other people. What if we flipped that and actually cared more for others while giving careful attention to how we live?
There are so many other things that pull our attention away from meaningful self-reflection. And 2020 has presented us with plenty of other things occupy our attention. A clear example of these potential distractions can be seen in the lives of the people that Paul wrote this letter to.
Ephesus was a happening place! Hang with me for a bit of history here. There is a point to this. It was the capitol city of the Roman province of Asia and referred to as the “Gateway to Asia”. It was a major port city connecting international trade networks. Ephesus was ethnically diverse. It was also the center of pagan worship, dominated by the cult of the Roman goddess Diana (and her Greek equivalent Artemis). Temple of Artemis was over 500 year old at the time of Paul’s writing. It took 120 years to build and became one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. One 2nd city travel writer described it as “surpassing all buildings among men”.
The practices of the cultic worship were wildly immoral. Temple prostitutes lined the street as sexual acts were a central part of their worship rituals. This false religious system was such a part of the culture that when Paul preached there it impacted their economy and threatened the temple because he spoke against idols (Acts 19:23-41). When Paul wrote to the believers living in this immoral cultural he addressed them as “God’s holy people” or “the saint” in Ephesus. They are set apart from all of that. And Paul specifically encouraged the Ephesians to put on the full armor of God to be able to withstand the devils schemes (Ephesians 6:11). The devil was scheming in Ephesus!
To these people Paul writes, “Look carefully then how you walk.”
Their culture presented two major ways they might have been distracted from this diligent self-reflection. And they are so relevant to us in 2021.
First, it would have been easy for the believers to take the focus off of holy living and be swept away in the current of the culture they were surrounded by. And some did. We read that believers in Ephesus lost their first love for God (Revelation 2:4). Paul tells the church to not even have a hint of those thing that are improper for God’s holy people (5:3). They do it, but you can’t! He tells them that God’s wrath is coming on the sinful practices in their culture (5:6). He warns them not to be partners with their pagan neighbors (5:7). They once lived in that darkness but they no longer did(5:8). You get a since of the immortality in their culture when Paul writes, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.” (5:11-12)
It would be so easy to for our hindsight not to be 2020 because we don’t apply it to our own lives for holy living. Why should we? That is just not what our culture does. 2021 is not a good time to be swept up in the ways of the culture around us.
A second possible distraction was the temptation to condemn all the evils around them and have no attention left over to focus on personal right living. We have seen some of that this past year, from Christians. Energies given entirely to identifying what is wrong and speaking violently against it on social media. It is possible to give so much energies attempting to reform the world and that we neglect the responsibility to reform our own lives.
That is exactly what some of the Christians in Ephesus did. When Christianity was adopted by the Roman empire in the 3rd century, Christians were no longer persecuted. But persecution wasn’t over. It was the pagans turn and they were persecuted in the name of Christianity. The Temple of Artemis has a long history of destruction and reconstruction and in the 3rd century it was in need of repair. But in the late 3rd century Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius I made a decree that punished the practice of pagan rituals and later specifically forbad all cultic worship of the gods. This emboldened Christian mobs to destroy pagan holy sights. Archbishop of Constantinople John Chrysostom was referred to by Cyril of Alexandria as “the destroyer of the demons and overthrower of the temple of Diana”.
How easily we can turn our religious zeal from the reformation of self to the reformation of others. And too often, it is politically polluted, pious, unjust. The pagan worship was filled with the wrong spirit, but it was also the wrong spirit that persecuted those worshipers.
Hindsight is 2020 when it is applies to our own lives. If we leave 2020 and our Christian experience is consumed by disappointment in the church, or frustration with the immorality in the world, or agendas to reform everyone else then we are applying our memory of 2020 in an unproductive and unhelpful way. We so easily go there. Our own spiritual live are starving and in need of careful attention but we are too busy complaining about all the things we don’t approve up out there.
I listened to Carey Nieuwhof interview Jon Tyson, two influential Christian leaders. Jon leads a church in New York City where there were major outbreaks of COVID-19. Carey asked Jon to share a few things that have kept him from burning out as a leader in 2020. As part of Jon’s answer he said, “I can tell you about COVID rates in Wuhan. I can tell you about Korean cell phone tracking. I can tell you about the global economy. I can tell you about how the British prime minister is doing. But do I know my actual neighbors’ names? So, I’m giving my attention to that which I actually have no agency, and so I’ve tried to take action where I have agency.” He added, “Very few people will be given the cultural influence and power to actually shape history, but all of us have unlimited agency to shape the world around us.”
https://careynieuwhof.com/episode363/
Author Neil Postman called this the “low information to action ratio.” Technology has made it possible that we have all this information about things too remote to take action on. We try to know everything about the things we can do nothing about but we don’t give much attention to things can do everything about. We must focus our attention were we actually have influence. I can’t do much about the global economic instability but I could pay care for my personal emotional stability through it. We have seen some of what 2020 has done in culture and politics and church but what has it done in you?
There is wisdom here when Paul says, “look carefully at how you live!”
Hindsight is 2020 when we apply it to our own lives. If we come away from 2020 with a disgruntled focus on all the things that need changed out there and don’t allow any of these experience refine our own life, then we missed it. We can benefit from the hindsight of 2020, but not that way.
2. Hindsight is 2020 when we embrace the opportunity!
Verse 16 says, “making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” That is the NIV translation. I also appreciate the wording of the KJV, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”, and the ESV “making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” There is some time that needs redeemed from 2020. It might not have been the best of times but we can make the best use of the time! There is unique opportunity in every obstacle!
For some inspiration I recommend doing a YouTube search for Aaron Fotheringham.
Aaron was born in 1991 with Spina Bifida, a birth defect of the spinal cord, which resulted in Aaron not being able to use his legs. He learned to get around with crutches until he became a full-time wheelchair users at the age of 8. He would go to the skate park with his dad and brother and watch from behind the fence as his brother enjoyed skateboarding. One day his brother told him to drop in. That is, to go the top of the ramp and ride his wheelchair down. His dad and brother helped him to the top of the ramp and pushed him off. He fell hard. Multiple times. But then he rode one out and he was hooked.
“I literally have wheels attached to my butt, how could that not be fun?”
Aaron Fotheringham
There were a lot of opportunities taken away from Aaron by not being able to use his legs. But there were unique opportunities presented by being in a wheelchair. With some practice after that first drop in, Aaron pulled off a 180 degree turn in his wheelchair. He started competing. When he was 14 he spent the summer at a camp in California attempting backflips, in his wheelchair. He fell into the foam all summer long. Then the last day of camp, around 9pm, he did it. Then he did it in an official setting 2008. Aaron was not done. He landed a double backflip in 2010. Went on to set 6 news records, 3 record in one day, and two in the same jump. And he invented a new sport in the process, Wheel Chair Moto Cross. He is an inspiration. He doesn’t see his wheel chair as a problem but he has wheel to do the sport he loves. He didn’t see a disability but a special ability. He didn’t see his wheelchair as a obstacle but an opportunity.
When scripture calls us to make the most of every opportunity it doesn’t deny that there will be difficulties, it says “because the days are evil”. We are to live in the midst of evil and setback and make the most of the unique opportunity that each obstacle brings. 2020 had plenty of evil, and there is opportunity in all of it. If we are willing to drop in on those ramps, we will find more success for Jesus than if the opportunities never came!
If we are still waiting for Jesus to come back in 30 years, and I have grandkids, and they ask me what I did in the global pandemic of COVID-19, I don’t want to just tell them about the newsfeeds I followed and the movies I watched. I don’t want the most exciting memory to be my ridiculous toilet paper collection. I don’t want to have to admit that I just took a year off. I want to tell them about the miracles I saw God do. I want to tell them about how God used tragedy and frustration and inconvenience and discouragement for good. I want to tell them about how I learned and grew! I want to tell them about the unique opportunities that I embraced. Hindsight is 2020 when we embrace the opportunities!
And there are some unique opportunities in the difficulties of 2020!
In the desperation of 2020 there is an opportunity for revival!
Revival rarely comes in times of ease and comfort. People are reconsidering their beliefs. There is an openness to spiritual things, for a while.
In the de-centralization of church in 2020 there is an opportunity to re-centralize church!
We have missed the connection of a weekly in person service with no limitations. But it has moved us away from and event driven, building-centered operation to a more lifestyle driven, Christ-centered movement. Ideally, if we take this opportunity, the central activity of church will no longer be congregations sitting in pews but individuals living out God’s love in the world. Ministry will not be organization driven but individuals will get support from the organization to live lives of ministry. The lack of children’s programming will call parents to be disciple makers in their own homes. Church will not be about coming in but going out.
In the suffering and death of 2020 there is an opportunity to face our own mortality!
As we see how fragile life is we might decide to live more intentionally. Instead of pursuing the nearsighted, self-indulgent culture that stores up treasures on earth we might forsake self-reliance and long for heaven.
In the “new normal” of 2020 there in an opportunity to shape a new normal!
We may not like the phrase, but if there is going to be a new normal, let’s stop resisting it and start working to shape it for Jesus. There were a lot of things about the old normal that didn’t look like Jesus. There were norms in our homes, work and church that needed disrupted. We had fallen into ruts. Let’s use the disruption as a fresh start to shape a better normal.
In the limited in-person connection of 2020 there is an opportunity to connect online!
I don’t prefer Facetime, Zoom or social media. But what an opportunity to connect with others! 2020 has pushed us into an online space that we needed to be leveraging for God’s glory.
In the mandates to stay away in 2020 there is an opportunity to get away!
We have resented quarantine and isolation but in those very things are opportunities to get away, to have more time at home, to be less spread out. Sure, we don’t like things being shut down, but take the opportunity to rest, to simplify.
In the unmet needs of 2020 there is an opportunity to serve!
Whenever there is difficulty there is the opportunity to help others get through it. serve others. We should not run away from all the difficulties around us but run toward them in service.
When you look at the obstacles what opportunities do you see? We must shift our thinking from the opposition to the opportunity, from the prohibitions to the possibilities. Ok, try this, identify at least one thing that you are currently frustrate with, and then reflect on it until you have identified one unique opportunity for good. Embrace that opportunity for God!
3. Hindsight is 2020 when we understand God’s will!
Verse 17 says, “ Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”
What is God’s will? Jesus told us to pray, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What does that even mean? It means that God actually has desires. There are things that He wants, things that please Him! And He does what He pleases (Psalm 115:3). God does not act against His will. But there are things that God wills what He doesn’t do. He longed to gather Jerusalem but they were not willing (Matthew 23:37). God has pleasures and our responses to Him can satisfy those pleasure.
We try so hard to understand all those details that don’t make a difference. In verse 10 we are call to try to understand what pleases the Lord. Our goal is not to understand everything but to understand God’s will in everything.
When we don’t understand God’s will things don’t make since! We see the pain but not the purpose!
When we don’t understand God’s will we miss the value in the difficulty. What is God’s will in your COVID fatigue? What is God’s will in your unemployment? It is not only a disaster, God is at work in the disaster.
When we don’t understand God’s will we will spend our efforts in the wrong ways. It is like God makes a Christmas list, and we decide to get him a gift but never bother to look at the list! And we direct our energies and orient our lives around things God doesn’t want.
When we don’t understand God’s will we become preoccupied with what everyone else is doing, and miss what God is going. We have to know what Trump tweeted and what the Biden administration is planning, and what our governor is thinking.
When we don’t understand God’s will we become obsessed with our own.
And none of that will bring 2020 clarity to our hindsight. But hindsight is 2020 when we understand God’s will.
4. Hindsight is 2020 when we are filled with the Spirit!
For many, this past year has been a time of spiritual discouragement. For others, it has been neutral. But it is a time to be spiritual red hot. We should not just be tolerating it, or getting by, but going deep.
Verse 18 highlights what we so easily do, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit”. Getting drunk on wine is a numbing action! It is a choice to distract. It is a pleasure and indulgence impulse. How are you choosing to numb 2020 instead of going deep with Jesus? When we are empty we have to be filled with something. What other things are you filling your emptiness with other than the Spirit?
In the remainder of the text Paul lists 4 actions that clarify what it looks like to be filled with the Spirit.
- Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs
- Singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,
- Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
- Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Being filled with the spirit is something that is seen relationally in the way we interact with one another and with God.
What is it going to take for me to become totally dependent on Jesus? To be full given over to Him? To seek to be filled with the Spirit? If 2020 didn’t expose our great need for dependence on God what will it take?
2020 is hindsight! But it can be more than a hard thing we managed to survive. It can shape us to live better in 2021. Rather than limping away from 2020, let’s be launched by the Spirit of God into 2021 with renewed life. Make some resolutions with Jesus about the ways you will look carefully at how you live, make the most of every opportunity, understand God’s will, and be filled with the Spirit.
When we live like that hindsight is 2020!