TITLE: Living out your Dash (Intro. To One Month to Live)
Text: John 10:10, James 4:14
Date: 5/23/09
Location: Sulphur Spring Baptist church
This I Memorial Day weekend, the weekend every year where we remember those who have gone on before us and especially those who were killed while fighting to protect our freedoms. Many of you have put flowers on your loved ones graves during the last few days, and have reminisced a little about what life was like when they were alive.
Cemetery’s like ours are very interesting, some of the graves back in this old section behind the church date back to the time of the Civil War, which took place in the 1860’s. I’ve got a friend who really enjoys walking around in old cemeteries and looking at the tombstones. Sometimes you can find out a lot about a person from their tombstone. Last Summer when we took a group to Eastern Kentucky, Alvin York, Jeff Fowler and myself got up early one morning and walked around a large cemetery at the top of the mountain. Several of the gravesites were decorated lavishly with lights, flowers, pictures and all kinds of little trinkets. It was obvious to us that some of the men who were buried there were Nascar fans, while others enjoyed hunting or fishing.
Looking at old tombstones, can at times give you a glimpse of what that person was like when they were alive, but when it comes right down to it each person’s life is encompassed in two dates and a dash, the day they were born, the day they died and the dash that separates those two dates.
When you think about it, we don’t have control over many things in life. We don’t get to decide who our parents are, when we were born, what time period we are going to live, or the culture we are going to face. We don’t get to decide the dates on our tombstones.
We don’t know when our time on this earth will be up. It could today, it could be next week or next year or for many of you here today it could be decades away. Only God knows. Our lives are in His hands. But there is one thing we have complete control over, and that’s how we are going to live our lives. In other words how we are going to use our dash.
That’s what I want to talk to you about today. This morning we honored our High School Graduates, who have come to one of those important milestones in their lives. Young people I want you to pay careful attention to this message today because if you will live your lives the principles I’m going to share with you today, I assure you that you won’t regret it.
I want to ask you a question this morning. If you knew you had one month to live, would you live your life differently than you are living it right now? During the next few Sunday’s I’m going to be preaching a series of sermons based on that idea.
In this series of sermons I want to challenge each one of you to live life as though you only had one month to live. 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, Lord willing you are going to live many, many more months and years. The point is if you live the next 30 days as if they were your last then you’ll know how to really live! Over the next several weeks together we will discover four universal principles that will transform the question, “What would you do if you had one month to live”, into an amazing lifestyle of meaning and purpose.
These four universal principles can be seen in the life of Christ. Jesus is our Lord and Master and as His Disciples we are to do our best to become more like Him. It doesn’t happen overnight, but instead is a lifelong commitment.
Now with that in mind, I want to remind you of something. On several different occasions in the Scripture Jesus tried to prepare His Disciples for His impending death. Unlike us, Jesus knew when He would die. He knew the day and the hour they would nail him to the cross of Calvary. He knew because that’s why he came into the world.
So if Jesus knew when He was going to die, it would stand to reason that during that last month or so He would have focused his attention and efforts on the people and the things that meant the most to Him.
From a careful examination of His life we will discover four universal principles that will enable us to really live our dash instead of just wandering through life aimlessly. He lived passionately, He loved completely, He learned humbly and He left boldly. This morning we will examine the first two of these principles.
Look at what Jesus said in John 10:10. “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. NKJV
“I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” (Msg.)
This was the way Christ lived His life on earth. He showed us four universal principles to live the life God made us for.
PRINCIPLE 1: JESUS LIVED PASSIONATELY.
Wouldn’t you like to have a better life, an abundant life? Wouldn’t you like to live life to the fullest? I don’t know what your life is like right this minute, maybe things are going great for you and if that’s the case I’m happy for you. But I know that some of you, if you are honest with yourselves and with God would say that your life stinks right now. If that’s the case I’ve got good news for you this morning. God doesn’t want you to be miserable, he wants you to live a full and abundant life, and if you will follow the four Principles that Jesus lived by I promise you it will be.
Jeremiah 29:11 says, For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
God lays it out there for us. He says that He has a better life for us than we could ever imagine.
1 John 5:11-12 tell us how. “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
John was sort of like Howie Mandell here in the game show “Deal or No Deal.” He was essentially saying the choice is yours “Life or Death -- Deal or No Deal.”
He says you can live your life the way God wants you to and get more out of life than you ever thought possible. Or you can fall for Satan’s lies and live your life the way he wants you to and miss out on everything that God wants for you.
The decision to give your life to Christ and live for Him is the greatest decision you will ever make in your life. Satan knows that as well, and this may surprise you but Satan has come to realize that His most effective argument to keep someone from giving their life to Christ is not to argue with them about doing it, but to simply convince them not to do it right now.
Satan’s argument might sound something like this: “God’s offer is really pretty good. He does offer you the better life and you really ought to take it, just not today. Do it some other day, because today’s not a good day for you to do that.”
And believe it or not He uses the same argument with those of us who are already Christians, but who are struggling with the decision to surrender our lives completely over to the Lord.
As a Christian you know you need to spend more time reading your Bible and praying than you do. You know you need to be more committed to attending church and being more involved in God’s work through the church. Satan agrees with you and say’s “yeah you’re right you do need to do all of those things, but right now isn’t a very good time, you’re so busy maybe someday when things slow down a little bit.”
Unfortunately too often too many of us get stuck in what is called the someday syndrome.
We say “some day when things settle down I’ll really live for God.”
“Some day when I get through this problem in my life then I’ll really be happy.”
“Some day when I’m not so busy at work I’ll spend more time with my wife and kids.”
“Some day when I get that new job or a promotion and I’m making more money then I’ll be able to enjoy life more.”
We all get stuck in the some day syndrome from time to time, but we need to wake up and realize that life is passing us by.
Which reminds me of one of those credit card commercials on t.v. It shows a father pushing his little boy on a swing. He pushes the little boy as High as he can, and when he comes back the little boy has been transformed into a 180-pound teenager, it catches the father by surprise and he is knocked to the ground.
Then you hear the voiceover say, “Life comes at you fast.”
I can relate to that can’t you? It seems just like the other day when I was pushing Leigh Ann in a swing in the backyard and in less than a year she’ll be 16 years old.
It seems like just the other day when I graduated from High School, and now I’ve got a daughter who is in High School.
Life is Short. The New Living Translation of the Bible says it like this: For your life is like the morning fog – it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.
For years, Christian Author and Speaker John Maxwell, has kept a sign on his desk that simply says “yesterday ended last night.” He says it reminds him of no matter how badly he has failed in the past, that it is in the past and that today is a new day. That’s the power and beauty of today. So the first principle of a more fulfilling life is to be PASSIONATE about life and to live for Christ in everything you do.
The Second principle Jesus lived by is that He…
PRINCIPLE TWO: LOVED COMPLETELY.
Look at what Jesus did when He knew He had only a short time left with His disciples in John 13:1 (NIV) “Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love.”
I may be going out on a limb here but I believe if you knew you only had one month to live you would want to do the same thing. You would want to love completely.
You would say the things you’ve always wanted to say and do the things you’ve always wanted to do. I believe you would focus on your relationships with friends and family and do your best to express the full extent of your love to those closest to you.
In the Book the Purpose Driven Life we read a few years ago we learned that one of the reasons God created us was to love and be loved. It sounds real simple, but it’s profound. Unfortunately most people don’t understand the conection between living and loving. You see unless you are loving and being loved you really aren’t living, you’re just existing!
Jesus summed up the entire Bible in a couple of verses in Matthew 22:37-39, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.”
He is saying love God first and then love your neighbors, friends, and family members as much, if not more than you love yourself.
You see, when your life is over it won’t matter how much money is in your bank account, it won’t matter how many degrees you’ve earned, it won’t matter how many awards you’ve be given, it won’t matter how many goals you’ve achieved, all that will matter is whether or not you learned to love.
Did you love God with all your heart? Did you love your family? Did you love your brother’s and sisters’ in Christ? Did you love your neighbors and friends? And did you love those who were hard to love? That’s the question., and in the end that’s the only thing that’s going to matter.
If you knew you only had one month left to live I think you would really focus on relationships. I believe you would focus on Your relationship with God and growing closer to Him, and preparing to meet Him.
I believe you would focus on your family, and your friends. I believe you would do your best to make a significant and lasting impact on the lives of the people closest to you.
I challenge you to live the next 30 days or so as if they are your last. As if you have one month left to live. Then at the end of this month you’ll know how to live because that’s the way you should live.
1 Cor. 13:8 tells us that “Love never fails ….” I believe the Apostle Paul knew the importance of living by these 4 principles. He knew the importance of loving completely. He knew the power of love, and realized that if you love God and love other people, that there is no way on earth that you will ever fail.
So if you need to tell someone how much you love them do it today. But don’t stop there. According to the scripture we read a few minutes ago, when Jesus knew His life on this earth was drawing to a close He showed His disciples the full extent of his love. He did this by doing something simple, something that he wasn’t required to do, but something he wanted to do to help them understand just how much He loved them. He washed their feet. You see Love is not just an emotion it is an action.
Who do you need to show love to today? Love is not love until you give it away. God placed you on this earth to love and you’ll never live until you learn to love.
I want to challenge you to think about a simple gesture or task that you can do for someone you love that will express your love for them. It doesn’t have to be something Big, just do something this week to let them know you love them.
So the First Two Life changing principles we need to remember are:
1. Jesus lived passionately
2. Jesus loved completely
A couple of years ago Mary Anne and I saw a movie entitled “The Bucket List” starring Gene Hackman and Morgan Freedman. Both men discovered that they had incurable diseases and wound up being roommates in the hospital. They became good friends and ended up spending much of the last few days of their lives together, doing things that they had always wanted to do but never took the time to do.
Perhaps the movie inspired Country Music Superstar Tim McGraw to write the song “Live like you were dying.” I had never even heard the song until yesterday, but it’s got a great message, that goes right along with what I’m saying today. So I want to show you a music video of the song which includes scenes from the movie the bucket list.
My prayer for you today, is that you will begin to “Live Like you were dying!”
