One Month To Live: Leave Boldly

1 Corinthians 3:12-16 (The Message)

Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you'll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won't get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn't, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won't be torn out; you'll survive—but just barely.

You realize, don't you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God's temple, you can be sure of that. God's temple is sacred—and you, remember, are the temple.

It is my hope, that these few weeks have gotten you thinking. 

Thinking about how you would live your life if you knew that you only had one month to live.  But maybe even more -- how do you want to live the rest of your life --- however long that will be.

What would be your priorities, what are the things that you would want to accomplish? 

Those last three weeks brings us to today --- to what I think is the most important principle of the four.

·         Living passionately

·         Loving completely

·         Living humbly

Today’s principle is: LEAVE BOLDLY.

Leave boldly – we all want to make a difference in life – we all want somebody to remember us and what we lived for.  We want something that will outlive us; we all want a legacy.

Harold Kushner said,

“I am convinced that it is not the fear of death, of our lives ending, that haunts our sleep so much as the fear … that as far as the world is concerned, we might as well never have lived.”

I think, without a doubt, my favorite place is the beach.

If I was to retire tomorrow, and could live anywhere, I would love to live on an island in the Caribbean.

And when I reflect on our children growing up, some of our greatest adventures were family holidays to the ocean.

I can’t tell you how many times we loaded the girls up into our van and drove to Florida for a week of fun in the surf and sand.

And one of my favorite memories is watching, and sometimes helping them build sand castles.

They would build these great castles that connected to one another. 

But it didn’t matter how high they would build the walls and it didn’t matter how hard they would work, because the next morning after the tide had rolled in, we would always walk out to the beach to find that all their hard work from the day before had been completely washed away.

I think that is a great illustration of many things in life.

          You do the dishes --- but a few hours later they are dirty again

          You make the bed in the morning – but that night they are messed up

          You eat --- but a few hours later you are hungry again

          And the list goes on and on

And it may feel like every day at the end of the day everything you do gets washed away, but what’s really happening is you’re building a legacy.

We all want to live a life that matters.

We all want to leave a legacy.

Listen to what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:12-14

1 Corinthians 3:12-14 (The Message)    

Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you'll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won't get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn't, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won't be torn out; you'll survive—but just barely.

You realize, don't you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God's temple, you can be sure of that. God's temple is sacred—and you, remember, are the temple.

Every day of our lives --- we are building a legacy --- and we get to choose what kind of materials we will build with.

And this passage suggests that there are three materials that stand the test of time and will build a legacy that will last.

The first is:  VALUES

These are the core beliefs that we have that come from God.

And if you remember in our good Wesleyan fashion that those values, those convictions come from what we call the quadrilateral.

·         Scripture

·         Reason

·         Tradition

·         Experience

All four should help us understand and develop a core set of values that define our lives

Let me try to illustrate what I am saying.

Let’s say that I tell you that I just found this book that is really inspiring and I think it might just change my life. 

It’s Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Encyclopedia of Modern Body Building.

Imagine that you came up to me and gave me this book and you said to me,

“Steve, I know this getting older (my middle daughter likes to say I am almost 60), this getting older thing is kinda bumming you out, so I know that you are trying to get in shape and that you are exercising. I want you to take this book and the whole church has decided we want to give you six months off just to become like this because we think it would be really great to have a pastor that looked like that.

And so I said, that’s great. That’s wonderful.

So I take six months off, and I come back and you’re so excited.

The great day has finally arrived.

You’re anticipating me looking something like this, and I walk up and . . . and I look exactly the way I look today.

How disappointing.

And you say, “Steve, didn’t you do this? Didn’t you read the book?”

Sure, I read the book. It’s my favorite book now. I love this book. I’ve read it six times. I read it once a month. It’s amazing. In fact, I highlighted all the parts that moved me so deeply. Some parts about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s life really made me cry. It was amazing, and not only that but I also memorized two chapters on his workout plan and I can recite them word for word. In fact, I can even tell you what the Greek word for biceps is. I just studied this thing over and over. It’s my favorite book now.

But you say to me:  “you mean you didn’t go to the gym?”

No, I didn’t go to the gym; I was too busy studying this book.

“You didn’t eat right?” --- No, I didn’t eat right.

“You mean, you didn’t do anything that’s in this book?” --- No, I just read the book. I just studied the book.

I just -- I love it. It’s just so amazing.

And you’d think that’s silly, wouldn’t you?

But that’s what a lot of people do with this book.

They go to Bible studies over and over again, and they come here week after week and hear me or Matt preach, yet they don’t put it into their life.

They don’t live it out.

They don’t make God’s values into their values.

Sure, you can KNOW the Bible from cover to cover, but if you don’t live it out, you don’t really believe it.

If we want to leave a lasting legacy, we have to build VALUES, or CONVICTIONS into our lives.

There is a second material that we must build with if we want to create a lasting legacy and that is CHARACTER.

Character is how we react to situation is life

Character is how we live the values that we claim as our own.

But I want to be very clear here – especially for those of you who have being reading the Shook’s devotional book, One Month To Live. 

This is one of those places where I strongly disagree with them, and was tempted to throw out the baby with the bath water, but the ideas that they present are too compelling to let some of their theology get in the way.

They argue repeatedly that God builds our character especially through the problems, pressures and people that God puts into our lives.  They believe that God allows bad things to happen to us to make us a better person.  I DISAGREE.

Bad things happen – and character is developed in how we respond to them.  But, I do not believe that, God causes them to happen.

One of my favorite passages of scripture is found in the book of Psalms. The 81^st Psalm, when God tells that he can bring forth honey from the rocks.

Character is how we respond, how we react to the rocks of life --- but I don't believe that God does puts the rocks there to chisel away the rough spots.

The third material that we need to build a lasting legacy on is COMMUNITY.

Being connected to other people, other people who are on the same path as you is so important!

It is so important to be in relationships with people who are on the same journey with you in a small group so that you can grow together, people who are going the right direction.  Not people who have it all together, but people who are headed in the right direction and want to journey with you!

If you’re too busy for a small group, then you’re just too busy.

But at the same time, you need to invest yourself into the larger community because together we can make a huge difference.

A few years ago, LARRI (Lakeshore Area Regional Recovery of Indiana), the agency that I helped create and was founding president of in response to the floods in Northwest Indiana in 2008, had a recognition for their volunteers.  It was an amazing event.  I was invited to give a blessing, but the greatest part of the evening was listening to the ways that LARRI had changed people’s lives.  People whose homes were devastated shared about how they were given hope because of LARRI, but the real power was listening to the volunteers – how helping others had changed their lives!

As I was leaving the event, someone came up to me and said: “you should be so proud of what LARRI has become and what they have accomplished.”

That is the kind of community we need to build:  A community that makes a difference in the lives of those who are dashed against the rocks of life.

And when we do that --- we taste the honey that God brings forth from the rocks!

When you think about it, you quickly realize that everything that you own is like a sand castle.  Here today, but gone tomorrow.

Everything gets washed away, except three things:

·         VALUES

·         CHARACTER

·         COMMUNITY

Sometimes we feel like we can’t make a difference.

What can we do?

How can we leave a lasting legacy?

After all we’re not wealthy or powerful?

I remember a great story that was told in one of the Chicken Soup Books:

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed
a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. 

Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”

The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. 
The surf is up and the tide is going out.  If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”

“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? 
You can’t make a difference!”

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish,
and threw it back into the surf.  Then, smiling at the man, he said…”
I made a difference for that one.”

Perhaps Helen Keller summed it up best:

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

If we knew our time on earth was running out, we’d want to do all we could to make a difference for others.

We wouldn’t want the regret of a life misspent and self-absorbed.

We would want to know that we honored the God we love by being the very best stewards of all God has given us.

If we truly want to grow in our character and our faith, then we must be willing to change our goal from one of safety to one of sacrifice.

One of the first and most important ways we can begin to care more about others is to pray for the poor and oppressed throughout the world.

          Pray for their needs.

          For their healing.

          For religious and political freedom.

          For food and clean water and vital medicine.

When we start praying for hurting people, we begin caring about them, and we want to learn more about the details of their lives.

It connects our hearts to theirs.

We’re more mindful of what we have, how we can use it, and why we’ve been entrusted with it.

I need to say one more thing --- if you haven't done as well as you would like in:

          Living passionately

          Loving completely

          Living humbly

          If you haven't built the legacy that you desire

IT IS NOT TOO LATE

Start today --- live as if it is the gift it truly is!

God is willing to forgive us for the past --- it is time to start living fully in the now!

God has given each of us time, talent and treasure.

          How we use them will define our legacy.

I challenge you to leave a lasting legacy.

And if you do that --- then you will leave boldly when the time comes!

One Month To Live: Love Completely

1 Corinthians 1:18-21      

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.

Last Sunday we began our One Month To Live Series. 

I began by asking a rather simple question: If you knew you had one month to live, how would your life be radically transformed? 

I asked you:

Are you living the dash, knowing fully who you are and why you’re here?

Or are you dashing to live, hurriedly spending precious time chasing things that really don’t matter to you?

I hope that you have taken some time this week to wrestle with that question --- because I am convinced it is not only a profound question --- but if we take it seriously, it can be transformational.

As I met with the Monday morning Bible Study, I was asked if I knew the 2004 Tim McGraw song: "Live Like You Were Dying."  I chuckled when asked because it is a song that is on one of my running playlists --- songs that I use to try to encourage me to put one foot in front of the other.

The song really is this sermon series in verse.  But don't worry, I am not going to sing it to you:  But the song says

"I was in my early forties
With a lot of life before me
And a moment came that stopped me on a dime
I spent most of the next days
Looking at the x-rays
Talkin' 'bout the options
And talkin' 'bout sweet time"
I asked him
"When it sank in
That this might really be the real end
How's it hit you
When you get that kind of news?
Man, what'd you do?"

"I was finally the husband
That most of the time I wasn't
And I became a friend a friend would like to have
And all of a sudden going fishin'
Wasn't such an imposition
And I went three times that year I lost my dad
I finally read the Good Book, and I
Took a good, long, hard look
At what I'd do if I could do it all again

I went skydiving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fumanchu
And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying"
And he said
"Someday I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dying
Like tomorrow was a gift
And you've got eternity
To think about
What you'd do with it
What could you do with it
What did I do with it?
What would I do with it?

What would you do with it?

Today is the first day, of this new beginning --- what will you do?

Last week I shared with you the first key component of how we might want to live if we really embraced the idea that today is an unique, special gift.

The idea that I shared is that we must live passionately.

Passion is what drives transformation in this world.

Our passion for this gift of life has the potential to change how and why we live.

To stop going through the mundane routines of the world and instead seeing the opportunities to become a Kingdom difference maker.

Survey after survey that interview persons who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness agree on what they would change if they could go back and re-live their lives.

And that, of course, is relationships.

They would love more completely.

Or as Tim McGraw sang --- They would finally become the husband, that most of the time they weren't --- or the friend a friend would like to have.

I truly believe this is the most important of the four principles that Matt and I will share with you.

When we can learn to LOVE COMPLETELY, it changes everything.

The biggest problem with that is, in order to love completely --- we need to know that we are completely loved.

Jesus life is the perfect example of total love.

Yet, most of us don't see it that way.

We recognize that Jesus loves us --- but we often miss the completeness of it.

The author of John's letter tells us exactly what love is when he writes to us: (1 John 3:16 The Voice)

We know what true love looks like because of Jesus. He gave His life for us, and He calls us to give our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Complete love is sacrificial

·         No agenda

·         No requirements

·         just love!

But while Jesus shows us that kind of love, we often don't think we are worthy of it.

Until you KNOW that you are loved completely by Jesus

·         Until you KNOW that Jesus isn't Santa Claus and checking his list to see if you are naughty or nice

·         Until you KNOW that you are forgiven

·         That there is NOTHING that can separate you from the love of Christ

Paul writes in Romans 8:37-38 (The Message

. . . because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

·         Until we KNOW that, we will always feel unworthy and that unworthiness will keep us from loving completely.

But it is relationships that are the most important things in our lives.

And I don't have to tell you, but relationships are hard.

And what makes them so hard, is our unwillingness to recognize that we are totally, absolutely, completely loved!

Pastor Shook, in his book, "One Month To Live" illustrates that building healthy relationships is kind of like climbing a mountain.  And he suggested that there are three mountains that we need to climb over if we want to build, deep --- lasting relationships.

The first mountain is what he called: The Mountain of Misunderstanding.

From my experience, this is where a lot of relationships die.

Often in relationships -- misunderstandings can pile up quickly and kill a relationship.

In the beginning of a relationship, everything seems so beautiful and wonderful.  And then something happens.

Often it is something of no consequence, but that mole hill soon becomes Mount Everest.

Sometimes it is something rather mundane

Nancy and I were at the mall and while I was waiting for something she went off to look at the map of the mall to see if there was a store she wanted to go to (or at least that is what I thought she was doing.)

At one point I texted her and asked if there was an AT&T store in the mall.

She texted back: "Not at sign"

But the reality is what she was really saying was: "I am not at the map so I have no idea of there is an AT&T store.

Certainly not going to break up our marriage --- instead we were able to have a good laugh about it --- but for others, whom have already built a large mountain of misunderstanding it can become another boulder.

And I know of families that are stressed right now because one supported one candidate and the other supported someone else and they cannot fathom how, this person they thought that they knew could do such a thing.

Misunderstanding can be a huge mountain

The second mountain that we must climb is the Mountain of "Me First"

It just seems to be human nature to say: "I’ll meet your needs if you meet my needs first."

Our nature just seems to be one of selfishness.  But that selfishness created a huge obstacle in relationships.

This is not a new problem.

Paul addresses it when he writes in his letter to the Philippians:

Philippians 2:3-4   (NRSV)

³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. ⁴ Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

The third and final peak in this rocky range is the most deadly – the Mountain of Mistakes.  And we all make mistakes.

Just as we have misunderstandings and the desire to put ourselves first, we all have faults and we mess-up.

Many relationships are forever abandoned on the mountain of mistakes.

Every one of us has been hurt when someone else wrongs us. And it’s so easy when you’re hurt in a relationship to build this mountain of bitterness around your heart to protect yourself from being hurt again.

Relationships can overcome anger. The Bible says sometimes it’s healthy to get angry when you really care about a relationship.

But whenever you become bitter and you hold on to a hurt and you build a mountain of bitterness around your heart to protect your heart from being hurt, it only hurts you and it poisons your relationships and no relationship can overcome the mountain of bitterness that we can build.

If you really love someone, sometimes you’ll get angry.

And that’s okay if you express it in the right way.

These three mountains shape every relationship.

Too often, the climb is too difficult and we give up

          We give up on marriages

          We give up on children

          We give up on friends

          We give up on co-workers

But we don't have to give up.

We can become the kind of person who knows what it takes to get over the obstacles and keep climbing.

To really love the people in our lives, we have to overcome these mountains and learn to work through the mistakes and push beyond our self-interests.

We have to grow in our willingness and ability to pour ourselves into those we love, and empowering them to persevere after we’re no longer with them.

It’s not easy – relationships aren’t for wimps.

And it’s going to take some extra-ordinary help: God’s power to love completely.

So let me offer some quick tools to help with building relationships that are centered in God's complete love.

1.       We need to learn to accept each other as we are.  I am going to use a dirty word to some people --- we have to be tolerant of each other.

Too often we want to change somebody else --- get them to come around to our point of view.  Thinking we know it all.

The world would be a much better place if we would learn to listen (really listen) to each other with respect!

God loves us just as we are --- and we need to do the same.

2.       We need to practice kindness.

We need to cherish every moment and every opportunity because it might be our last.

We need to be the one who makes the phone call, or writes the email, not waiting for the other to do it first.

3.       We have to learn to give forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the key.

I love how Eugene Peterson translates Colossians 3:12-14 when he writes

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

When asked what they would change more than anything else, what people who have been given a terminal diagnosis say is:  RELATIONSHIPS --- they would love more, listen more, cherish more, forgive more.

You have been given a terminal diagnosis --- you just don't know how long you have to live on the earthly existence. 

How you spend that time is up to you.

I invite you to love completely

and to celebrate those things that you are passionate about.

I invite you to love completely because you have been completely loved --- no matter what.

A couple of you said to me this week that you were trying to figure out something drastic to do --- can I offer a suggestion.

Recognize that you are loved completely and LOVE COMPLETELY in return!

One Month To Live: Live Passionately

Mark 12:28-31   (NRSV)

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

One of my favorite places to visit are cemeteries.

When I was a student in North Carolina, my friend Mark and I would often go out riding our motorcycles and stopping whenever we came across a cemetery.

I am fascinated by old tombstones --- looking at them makes me imagine how the person might have lived --- trying to guess what was important to them.

I don’t think that I can visit a historical site and not seek out the cemetery.

A few years ago, Nancy and I were in Boston so she could run that little marathon that they have each spring.  But Boston of course, also has some wonderful cemeteries.  The most famous may be the Granary Burial Ground on the Freedom Trail that is the final resting place of Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, as well as the five victims of the Boston Massacre and Mother Goose (who was a real person).

Erik Ewers, a film editor for documentarian Ken Burns said:

"You look at these tombstones and each tombstone represents an individual life, existence, a career a family history. For me, graveyards are like a thousand untold stories. It spurs your curiosity.''

And one of the things that you quickly notice, when looking at old tombstones, is that a person’s life is often reduced to two dates and one little dash.

When you think about it, we don’t have control over many things in life.

We didn’t get to decide where we were born,

          or who our parents are,

          or which time period and culture we are a part of.

We also don’t get to decide the dates that will appear on our gravestone.

We don’t know when our time on this earth will be up.

It could be next week or next year or decades away.

While we can’t control when we will die, there is one thing we have a vast amount of control over.

We get to decide how we’re going to use our dash.

You get to choose how to spend that little dash of time between the two dates of your earthly existence.

What are you spending yours on?

Are you living the dash, knowing fully who you are and why you’re here?

Or are you dashing to live, hurriedly spending precious time chasing things that really don’t matter to you?

The problem is, most of us don’t really accept the idea that one day we are going to die. 

For some reason we think that we are going to be the one exception to the rule of life.

One of the things that I have witnessed during my 30+ years of ministry is that when someone is given a terminal diagnosis – something happens.

When they know they only have a few months or weeks to live they have an amazing clarity about how they would like to spend their remaining time.

They focus on their relationships, --- saying the things they had always wanted to say.

          They forgave and ask for forgiveness.

They didn’t waste time on insignificant daily routines but made the absolute most of their time left.

If you knew you had one month to live, how would your life be radically transformed?

But why do we wait until we’re diagnosed with cancer or we lose a loved one to accept this knowledge and allow it to free us?

Don’t we want all that our life has to offer?

Wouldn’t life be a lot more satisfying if we lived this way?

I want to challenge you to live the next 30 days as if they were your last – not because you’re going to die in a month, a week or a year.

The point is --- if you live the next 30 days as if they were your last --- then you’ll begin to know how to really live!

To do that, I want to challenge you to do several things.

First, every day, every morning ask yourself the question: “What would I do if I had one month to live”.

Use that question to set the tone for how you chose to live.

Second, you may want to pick up the book, One Month to Live and read a chapter each and every day.  The book is designed as a daily devotional.

Third, take some time and journal every day.  It can really help you focus on where your mind is.

Over the next couple of weeks we will discover four principles that will transform the question, “What would you do if you had one month to live”, into a lifestyle of meaning and purpose.

These four principles are all found in the life of Jesus.

What did Jesus do when He knew He had one month to live?

          He lived passionately,

          He loved completely,

          He learned humbly

          and He left boldly.

Jesus challenges us to do the same.

Listen to what Jesus said in John 10:10. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of. (The Message)

Abundant life is not about believing certain things – it is about living passionately.

And, nothing great ever happens without passion.

The driving force behind all great art,

          all great music,

          all great literature,

          all great drama,

          all great architecture is passion.

Passion is what makes things great.

Passion propels athletes to break records.

Passion pushes scientists to discover new cures for diseases.

Passion is what gives life meaning and purpose.

I can't stand watching NBA games during the regular season because there is no passion until the final 5 minutes of the game. 

I think that is why I love college sports so much.

          The players --- they play with passion

          And the fans do the same

When Jesus is asked what the most important commandment is, he gives a rather insightful answer. 

He answers as any good Jewish man would. 

He replies with the words from the Shema.

(Matthew 22:34-40 The Message) 

When the Pharisees heard how he had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an assault. One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: "Teacher, which command in God's Law is the most important?" 

Jesus said, "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them."

Jesus tells us the most important thing is to love God, and to love God passionately!

It is not easy to live with passion. 

Too often we fall into the same old, same old routine.

Howard Thurman said,

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

When we live passionately we come alive!

Dr. Richard Swenson in his book “Margin” says margin is the difference between your load and your limit.

The less margin you have in life the more stress you’ll experience in your life.

It is kind of like trying to read a book with no spaces between the words and no margins on the page.

          A life without margin is just like that.

Without margin, without space, sentences are chaotic and incomprehensible and a life without margin is chaotic and incomprehensible.

When I put a little margin and space in my life it all makes sense again.

But most of us live our lives without any margin at all.

          We have no margin physically.

          We don’t get enough rest.

          We don’t eat right and exercise.

          We have no margin in our schedules.

          Our calendars are crowded.

          We have no margin in our finances.

          We just live from paycheck to paycheck.

We have absolutely no margin in our lives and we wonder why we feel so stressed and lose our passion in life.

We get so busy in the details that we miss the most important things in life.

I want to offer four suggestions on how we can live a more passionate life.

1.       Do something drastic.

This is not my strong suit. 

I like to follow the rules.

I don’t generally like to take short cuts.

But there is a great story in the bible about some guys who did something drastic.

(Luke 5:18-19 NRSV) 

Just then some men came, carrying a paralyzed man on a bed. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; {19} but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the middle of the crowd in front of Jesus.

These guys were so desperate to connect their sick friend with Jesus, that they cut a hole in the roof of the house to get him in. 

Can you imagine being so passionate about something --- doing something as drastic or crazy?

I want to challenge you to ask a drastic question every day.

If you knew you had one month to live how would you live your life?

What would you do?

What would you not do?

When people find out that they have a short time left to live on this earth, they suddenly realize what matters most --- and more often than not its relationships.

Suddenly people are set free and they say the things that they wish they would have always said.

They do the things that maybe had been on their to-do list for years that were important to them, but they never got around to it because life was too busy.

          Well, guess what?

Now they make time.

They ask for forgiveness from others and they give forgiveness freely to anyone who asks.

Their lives are revolutionized in their last days.

They do the things they wish they would have always done.

If this is what happens to when we find out that our days are numbered then why don’t we live this way all the time?

Why don’t we start living like that now?

The problem is we need to identify what is really important.

Unfortunately we tend to focus on things that don’t last – things that will be broken or forgotten in just a couple of years -- instead of focusing on the things that are truly important.

When we recognize what is truly important, we can begin to become passionate about it.

Then we can start removing the obstacles to achieving those things.

So, cut out those things that don’t matter.

And I know that this is hard.

As I put my list together, I have a list of a couple of dozen things to do – and the truth is, they are all good things.

          There is really not a bad thing on that list.

But if I’m going to really do well and really be focused I’m only going to get a few things done right.

So, how do I decide?

How do I choose between all these things I have to do?

I want to give you a little trick to figure out what’s the most important thing in your life.

          How do you focus in on the most important thing?

The really important things in your life, the things that you would focus on if you knew your time was limited are not the things that come with bells and whistles.

          They aren’t the things that have a deadline.

          They aren’t the things that you’ll be rewarded for if you do.

In fact, almost certainly they will go unnoticed and un-praised if you do choose to do them.

They are things like taking the time to tuck your kids in to bed at night.

Taking the time to really listen to them when they talk.

Spending that time having coffee or taking a walk with your spouse.

Not to try to figure out your calendars, not to figure out when you are going to have repairs done on the house, but just to connect, to tell each other how much you mean to one another.

There are things that don’t have a deadline and for that reason we rarely get them done because our schedules are always full.

So what I want to encourage you to do and what I am trying to do in my own life is to figure out what’s really important, and cut out everything else.

And while we should do this drastic thing of identifying what is most important in our lives we also need to:

2.       Expect the unexpected.

You prioritize your life based on what’s important.

You come up with your plan, but things don’t always go as planned.

Life interrupts you.

There will always be things that come into your life that are crazy and hectic. That’s when you have to lighten up your attitude and just go with the flow.

But if you have created margin in your life --- if you have created the space, when something unexpected, but important comes up, you will have the space to deal with it.

3.       Create space for God

In the middle of our crowded, over-scheduled lives we have to create a space to intentionally meet with Jesus.

The problem is, we begin to say things like –

when things settle down we’ll get around to that.

When I’m not so busy I’ll take care of those important things.

Unfortunately that doesn’t work!

          This is our life.     This is it.

What we’re living right now is our life and we can’t fall into that old habit pattern of saying well, when things slow down, I’ll get around to the important things.

If we’re not doing the important things now they are never going to get done.

And one of the best things that we can do, when we feel overwhelmed with all kinds of things pulling at us – vying for our attention, is to slow down and spend some time with God.

It’s amazing when I do that how God begins to clarify everything and everything begins to fall in place.

It seems like I just have more time in my day to get things done.

Sometimes I feel like I’m too busy to stop and spend time with God, but the truth is, I’m too busy not to.

When I stop and I give God 15, 20, 30 minutes in the morning before I rush off into my busy day somehow it makes the day go better and helps me get done then things that really matter.

Finally, I want to suggest again that you take the time to journal every day.  By doing that you will force yourself to slow down and deal with the question: what would I do if I knew that I had only 30 days to live?

John Maxwell, for years, has kept a sign on his desk that simply says “yesterday ended last night.”

He says it reminds him of no matter how badly I failed in the past, it’s done and today is a new day. No matter what goals I’ve accomplished, they have little direct impact on what I do today.

That’s the power of today.

You can live passionately.

A life of complete fullness and peace.

Not crowded and rushed and hurried and always scared that we are missing out on something, but the fullness and peacefulness that comes from a life well lived.

Psalm 46 reminds us to:

 “Be still, and know that I am God”

Maybe today you feel like you’ve forgotten who you are and whose you are.

Life can become so crowded and rushed that you can’t even remember what’s important or why you are even living.

The way to start remembering is to be still and remember who God is.

As we get ready to sing our closing hymn, I hope that you will take this opportunity to center yourself in God’s love, and slow down so that you can begin looking at what really matters, and begin to live a life full of passion!