00:01when you feel like you've wasted years
00:04and Jesus can still use what is left.
00:10That's an important thing
00:11because I think a lot of us look back at our past and think,
00:15hey, you know, in our youth we wasted so much time.
00:19Maybe into adulthood we continued to waste time.
00:23But you know what?
00:25We all have what time we have left.
00:28And it's up to you and me how we decide to use that time.
00:33Jesus thinks about it too.
00:35He cares about us.
00:37And he has a message for you today.
00:40You know, you can reach a point in your life
00:43where the hardest thing to face is not what happened to you.
00:47It's the quiet thought that keeps coming back when the room gets still.
00:53I've lost too much time.
00:55And maybe you look at old pictures and feel grief instead of memories.
01:00Maybe you think about the years you spent afraid or angry or stuck or just distracted.
01:08Maybe you were addicted, depressed, broke, confused,
01:13or trying to survive something nobody really understood.
01:18Or maybe all of the above.
01:23And you may not say it out loud, but deep down you wonder if the best part of your life
01:30already passed
01:31while you were just trying to hold yourself together.
01:35And that's a heavy place to live when you think about it.
01:39You know, and it gets even heavier when you believe in Jesus, but still feel the weight.
01:45You see, now you're not only dealing with regret,
01:50you're also dealing with a question.
01:52If God was with me, why did so much of my life feel wasted?
01:59And that question can sit in your chest and it can make prayer feel strange.
02:04It can make hope feel risky.
02:06And you may want to believe something good is still ahead,
02:10but part of you is scared to trust that again.
02:16I get it.
02:17I felt the exact same thing.
02:20You know, and I want to say this plainly, though.
02:24Feeling like you've wasted years does not mean your life is over.
02:27It means you're finally awake enough to grieve what hurt you.
02:33You know, that grief is not proof that God has left you.
02:38Sometimes grief is the place where Jesus starts telling the truth.
02:43The truth to you in a way that you can finally hear.
02:48And one of the most overlooked things Jesus ever did
02:51happened after he fed thousands of people.
02:55I want you to think about this.
02:57When everyone had eaten,
03:00he told his disciples to gather up the leftover pieces
03:04so nothing would be lost.
03:07That sounds small until you're the person who feels like
03:11broken pieces are all you have left.
03:14Jesus did not treat leftovers like trash.
03:18He cared about the fragments.
03:21He made sure what remained was gathered.
03:26And that should stop you for a second.
03:29Really, it should.
03:31Jesus is not only Lord over the full basket.
03:35He's Lord over the broken pieces, too.
03:37And he does not look at the parts of your life that feel scattered
03:42and say anything like,
03:44there's nothing here.
03:46He says,
03:48bring me what is left.
03:52The years of regret.
03:53The lessons you learned the hard way.
03:57The compassion you gained through pain.
04:00The humility that came from failure.
04:04The patience that was born in waiting.
04:09None of that is useless when you place it in the hands of Christ.
04:16We often think God only uses clean stories.
04:20But Jesus never taught that.
04:24He called people in the middle of messy lives.
04:27He met a woman at a well whose past probably made her feel disqualified.
04:34He did not pretend her life was fine.
04:37But he also did not reduce her to what had happened.
04:41He gave her living water right there.
04:45In the place where she was tired and carrying her empty jar.
04:52That's what people miss.
04:54You see, Jesus did not wait until she had a perfect timeline.
04:59He met her in the middle of a life that she actually had.
05:04That means he can meet you in the middle of yours.
05:09And there's also a teaching of Jesus that I think a lot of people misunderstand.
05:16You see, Jesus told the story about workers
05:19who came into the vineyard at different times of the day.
05:23Anyway, it's a parable.
05:25And some came early.
05:27Some came late.
05:29The ones who came late still received generosity.
05:33Generosity that they did not expect.
05:37And that story bothers people because we want life to be fair by our measurements.
05:43But when you feel like you came late to your own life,
05:48that story, well, that story becomes oxygen.
05:54Jesus was showing us something about the heart of God.
05:59God is not limited by the hour you arrived.
06:03He can still be generous in the evening.
06:06He can still give meaning when you think the day is almost gone.
06:11He can still call you into purpose.
06:15Into purpose after years of confusion.
06:19Your late start does not scare him.
06:24That does not mean the pain did not matter.
06:28It doesn't mean that the lost years are not going to hurt.
06:32But Jesus does not heal by pretending.
06:34He heals by entering the truth with you.
06:39He can sit with the regret without being swallowed by it.
06:43He can look at the damage and still see a future.
06:47He can tell you the truth about your past without making you hate yourself.
06:53You see, some of you have been carrying guilt that no longer belongs to you.
07:01You call it wasted time, but some of those years, some of those years were survival.
07:08You were doing the best you knew how to do to live with the strength that you had.
07:14Maybe you should have made some different choices.
07:17Maybe there are things you need to own.
07:23But owning your mistakes is not the same as burying yourself under them.
07:29And Jesus never told broken people to stay buried.
07:34Think about Peter.
07:36He denied Jesus three times.
07:38That was not a small mistake.
07:41That was the kind of failure that can define a man forever if shame gets the final word.
07:49But after the resurrection, Jesus came to Peter with a question.
07:55He did not say, how could you waste your calling?
07:59He said, do you love me?
08:04Then he gave Peter work to do.
08:09That's the mercy of Jesus Christ.
08:12He does not ignore failure, but he does not also let failure own the rest of your story.
08:20He brings you back to love.
08:23He brings you back to trust.
08:26He brings you back to the next faithful step.
08:32And maybe that's where strength begins for you.
08:43Strength begins when you stop handing your future to your regret.
08:49You can admit the years hurt.
08:52You can admit you wish you had done things differently.
08:56You can cry over what you cannot get back.
09:00Then, you can still get up with Jesus and say,
09:05Lord, show me what faithfulness looks like today.
09:12Because today matters.
09:14Today matters more than shame wants you to believe.
09:19Regret always tries to make the past louder than the present.
09:23Jesus keeps calling you into this day, not because yesterday did not matter, but because this day is where grace
09:34can be received.
09:36This day is where obedience can begin again.
09:41And this day is where healing can take one honest step forward.
09:49You may not be able to rebuild everything at once, but you know what?
09:54That's okay.
09:56Jesus never asked tired people to fix their whole lives in one afternoon.
10:02He said, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
10:10Rest, not pressure, not a lecture, rest, real rest for people who have been carrying too much for too long.
10:23So, maybe the question is not, can I get those years back?
10:28Maybe the better question is, can Jesus redeem what those years has left behind?
10:36And the answer is yes.
10:38Not in a cheap way, and not in a way that erases the pain, it's in a much deeper way.
10:46You see, he can turn wounds into wisdom.
10:50He can turn regret into humility.
10:53And he can turn survival into compassion.
10:57He can turn your life, a life that you thought was too late, into a purposeful testimony that helps somebody
11:08else keep going.
11:10You are not too late for Jesus.
11:13You're not too damaged for his hands.
11:17You are not too far behind for his mercy.
11:41Do not measure the rest of your life by the years you regret.
11:45Measure it by the one who is still standing in front of you.
11:51Because, you see, your life is not over because you lost time.
11:58Jesus is still here.
12:00And when Jesus is still here, grace is still moving.
12:06Strength is still possible.
12:09And what remains can still become holy in his hands.
12:17My name is Douglas Vandergraaf, and I believe in Jesus Christ.
12:22God bless every single one of you.
12:27Every single one.
12:32Bye-bye.
12:33Bye-bye.
12:34Bye-bye.
12:34Bye-bye.
12:35Bye-bye.
12:35Bye-bye.
12:36Bye-bye.
12:36Bye-bye.
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