Love Deeper (John 12:1-11)

I love deeply. I love Almighty God. I love His Son Jesus. I love the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing, exciting and strange, through my life. I love my job. I love this place. I love what I get to do even though it sometimes makes me want to scream. But I really do love my job. I get to do things that matter. I get to sit surrounded by the biblical wisdom of the ages. I adore the Bible – every time I turn around there is something fresh and challenging there.

I love my Monica. I love holding her hand. I love her squinting eyes, messy hair and rumpled flannel pajamas when the lights come on in the morning. I love teasing her about her accent although I pray she never loses it. I miss her when I’m working. And I love my two girls – I am certainly the most blessed of fathers. My three girls are a constant source of joy and laughter. I love my parents; they have been a constant, steadying Christian influence my entire life. I love my friends, although I sure wish I had more of them and more time for them.

I love my story. I love my neighborhood. I love our simple apartment. I love my new Hush Puppies and the great new socks I found a few weeks ago at Sam’s Club. I love food, cars, action novels, photography and good football games. I love movies and music. I love my computer and my iPod. I love road trips, rowdy oceans and hot coffee on cold mornings.

My life is filled to the brim with all sorts of love. So if there is one area of this “Live Like You Were Dying” conversation I don’t need, it is this part about loving deeper. I’m good here!

Yeah right! Let’s open the Bible and see an example of what loving deeper truly looks like, shall we Kevin? Open your Bibles to the first eleven verses of John 12 and just think for a moment about loving deeply...

Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance. But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.” Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money, he often stole some for himself. Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” When all the people heard of Jesus’ arrival, they flocked to see him and also to see Lazarus, the man Jesus had raised from the dead. Then the leading priests decided to kill Lazarus, too, for it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus.

This is a gorgeous Scripture passage, isn’t it? What a love moment! This passage models what it means to love deeper. If we’re interested in learning to live like we are dying, there are four loving deeper lessons we can learn from Mary in this story. Mary loves deeper…

Love Unusually

Mary loves unusually. Mary is not driven by religious protocol, societal norms or some false sense of duty, expectation or propriety. Mary does not speak a word here. Mary does not explain or ask for permission. Mary’s love is unusual – it is a heart overflowing into action.

How unusually do we love God or the people around us? How extraordinarily does the love we have within us express itself? Do we offer only a “standard issue” love that is proper, required and expected or do we go far beyond that? How unusually do we love?

I have a couple of good friends from our Ely days who know something about loving unusually. While they are in Ely, there are all sorts of people in and out of their humble trailer. They are constantly doing unexpected, unusual things to let people know they are loved. Just a couple weeks ago, completely out of the blue, I got a nice card in the mail with a $200 money order in it for Elim Church. No particular reason; just their way of blessing me and telling me how much they miss our times playing hand and foot together. They are preciously unusual!

When my Grandmother Hanson passed away years ago while I was in college, it was a very painful loss. She was warm hugs, a gentle ear, cookies and apple pie to all of us. It was very hard. Yet at the reception after the funeral, I was deeply comforted by four of her Luther League friends approaching me, asking if I was the “steak dinner” grandson. Huh? But as we talked, it turned out, years before, on a whim when no one else in my family happened to be home one Saturday evening, I made a surprise candlelit steak dinner for Grandma, put on a suit, picked a bouquet of dandelions and went over and picked up Grandma and brought her over to the house for supper. My sweet Grandma Hanson loved and remembered that evening and proudly retold the story so many times, her Luther League friends got sick of hearing it!

I’m so glad I did that! There was nothing at that memorial service more comforting to me than knowing my sweet grandmother knew I loved her unusually. And that is the gorgeous irony of learning to love unusually. That silly, insignificant, teenaged, dandelion steak dinner on a boring Saturday evening now means ever so much more to me than it ever could possibly have meant to her! Living like we are dying means we learn to love unusually as Mary did.

Love Lavishly

Mary also loved lavishly. It is hard for us to fathom the lavishness of this moment. And I’m not just talking about the value of the perfume, although that was certainly lavish. If we were to place this incident in today’s financial terms, it would be as if this red, gladiola smelling perfume imported from India cost somewhere between twelve and fifteen thousand dollars. This may well have been Mary’s life savings or entire inheritance. Or it may have simply been a reflection of how very wealthy her family was. But in any event, it was a lavish, extravagant waste of money in the eyes of the people in that room. It was the silly rich girl flushing money away on the Teacher that could have been very well used in all sorts of other meaningful ways. While John tells us Judas objected, the other Gospels say all the disciples were upset.

This was disturbingly lavish love and not simply because of the costs involved. Mary humiliated herself. Every time Mary appears in the Gospels, she appears at the feet of Jesus! She lowers herself to servant status. As a matter of fact, by letting down her hair, she lowers herself even to immoral woman status, possibly even creating a questionable situation for Jesus in the eyes of others. She was lavish in her love. She was shameless in her love. And yet because she was, it is entirely possible Jesus went to the Cross still smelling of the sweet fragrance of Mary’s love. The lavish quantity of Mary’s love left a sweet fragrance that filled the whole house (and probably a fragrance lingering on Jesus for many days). Isn’t that sweet?

When was the last time you loved God or someone around you lavishly? When was the last time you allowed love to carry you completely and wonderfully overboard, in the best and sweetest sense of the word? And please understand this isn’t just a financial or material love. Love lavishly displayed doesn’t have to have hardly anything at all to do with money or material things. Lavish love is about giving lavishly of our selves in all sorts of creative ways.

My friend Larus is a very busy guy. As a computer guy living in North Carolina, he is constantly working. But when his mother’s health failed and his father needed to move, my friend loved his parents lavishly. He did all sorts of lavish things for them, too numerous to recount. He loved lavishly. Living like we were dying means we love God and others lavishly.

Love Now

But Mary didn’t just love Jesus unusually and lavishly, she loved Jesus now. She didn’t wait for a better moment. She didn’t delay or procrastinate. She didn’t wait for others to love Jesus. She didn’t wait for love to be easier. She didn’t wait for Jesus to be more popular and acceptable. Mary didn’t wait for anything. She didn’t procrastinate her love; she loved now.

I wonder how many of us think love is a good idea, but just not right now. We need to reconsider that attitude! Refusing to love now has enormous consequences. William Barclay was quoted in an old issue of Leadership years ago saying, “More people have been brought into the church by the kindness of real Christian love than by all the theological arguments in the world, and more people have been driven from the church by the hardness and ugliness of so-called Christianity than by all the doubts in the world.” I think he was right about that.

If we’re waiting for a better situation, better people or a some sort of better moment to love as we should, we are almost certainly not loving as though we were dying. Delayed love is not deep love. That is not unusual or lavish love for God and others. Jesus taught us that even the pagans can love and give of themselves for those who love them back. But as followers of Jesus, recipients of the most unusual and lavish love in the universe, we’re supposed to love better than that. Love unusually, love lavishly and perhaps most of all, love right now. And yet it is very common for us to withhold or delay our love. Cartoonist Erik Johnson drew a cartoon years ago of two people angrily leaving a worship service as one of them said to the pastor, “Hey, I'd like to see you love MY neighbor.” If we wait until we finally get a good neighbor to love, we will probably never love as we should. Loving deeper means loving now! We don’t simply love when love is easy, obvious or deserved. We love before it is deserved. We love as we have been loved. We love because our lives have been risen from the dead. We love because, in one way or another, Jesus has given us back our Lazarus. We love now!

Love Courageously

But that takes courage. Loving deeper means loving courageously. Loving deeper means loving when others don’t understand what we’re doing or why we’re doing it.

How tragic is it that Mary’s unusual, lavish and immediate love of Jesus caused a cranky squabble among the disciples? Instead of being deeply moved by the loving heart of this dear sweet sister, the others angrily second guessed her. How typical! Instead of being positively challenged by her, they were negatively exposed by her. Her unusual display of love was not properly understood. And as something of a side note, how tragic is it that Jesus’ love and resurrection of Lazarus does not cause an outpouring of love among the religious leaders of that day. They resolve to kill the miraculous evidence of the unusual, lavish and immediate love of Jesus. Just like the love of Jesus, our love is frequently not accepted or understood.

But loving deeper means we accept that. Loving deeper means loving courageously. It means accepting the fact that others will not often understand our loving behavior. It means offering love that only Jesus himself might understand and fully receive.

Marian Liautaud shared a wonderful story about courageous love years ago. She said, “Sometimes I feel left out of the world my husband, Dan, shares with our son. They share experiences I would never think of offering Danny. Like the time Dan got off work at midnight and decided to wake up our son to frolic by moonlight in the first-fallen snow. The neighbors wondered what all the noise was at that hour, but I smiled at the thrill little Danny was having and the gratitude I felt for the man who was giving it to him.” Courageous love doesn’t worry much about what the neighbors might think. Courageous love only cares about the little boy.

Courageous love cares about figuring out how to even more courageously love. Donna Hutchinson told a cute story years ago about her friend’s daughter. She said, “One day, my friend's daughter, Britney, came up to her and said, "Mommy, I know Jesus lives inside my heart. But how do I tell him I love him? Do you think if I write 'I love you' on a piece of paper and eat it, Jesus will get the note?” Isn’t that sweet? Courageous love just wants Jesus to get the note. Loving deeper means loving courageously. Mary loved courageously.

Living like we are dying means loving deeper. The great preacher Philips Brooks once said, “Duty makes us do things well; but love makes us do them beautifully.” Living like we are dying means we want love to drive us to do things beautifully. May God help us do so!

Amen.

Speak Sweeter (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11)

Last week we began a simple, thirty day conversation about “living like we were dying.” Driven in large part by the popular Tim McGraw song of the same title, this morning we come to the part of the song about speaking sweeter. If we knew we only had thirty days to live, we all know it would change the way we talk to people around us. We would speak sweeter.

But speaking sweeter doesn’t always come naturally, does it? It is much easier to be negative, cynical, complaining and critical of the world and people around us. With everything going on in the world, with all the difficulties of this life, with all the admittedly dumb things people constantly do, speaking sweeter is not something always coming naturally or easily.

I know this is a hare-brained idea, but wouldn’t it be great if somebody invented a slick machine to help us stop complaining? Wouldn’t it be useful to have some sort of training device to help guide us on a path toward speaking only sweetness? Let’s think about that…

Okay, maybe that isn’t such a great idea. Maybe this speaking sweetly business is just like all the rest of the following Jesus stuff. Maybe we should just go back to the Book again. Open your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, page 1082 in your pew Bibles. Interestingly, the Apostle Paul is writing to a group of people who are confused about how much time they had left. They were wondering about how soon Jesus would return. So Paul explained things.

Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

As we studied Romans 13:11-12 last week, we saw the same themes emphasized there we see here. Live with a clear sense of urgency, eternity and priority. Don’t waste a moment!

But it is the last verse of this passage drawing our attention this morning. In light of all these urgent, eternal things, stop worrying and grousing; encourage one another and build each other up. The Bible has a great deal to say about different way to encourage and build others up, but I’d like to suggest just three critically important steps for us to work on today.

Be Grateful

I suspect the first one might be the most important. The more I study Scripture and the longer I spend in ministry, the more I’m coming to believe that much of the bitterness in our speech and behavior comes from our own ingratitude. We are cranky, cynical, complaining, mean and bitter toward the world and each other mostly because we’ve lost our gratitude. We’ve forgotten all God has done for us. We’ve forgotten the blessings God has poured out on us. We’ve stopped appreciating God and the people around us for all the good they genuinely bring into our lives. And so speaking sweetly becomes something we have to work at doing instead of something flowing happily out of us naturally as we live, move and have our being. And unless we make a conscious choice to reject ingratitude and concentrate on all the things for which we should be grateful, we will always struggle to speak sweetly into the world.

The world around us does not want us to be grateful. This world wants you and I to believe our church is second rate, our job is pointless, our car is slow and ugly, our skin is flawed, our body deformed, our bank account small and our country pathetic. This world does not want me grateful for my wife or children. This world does not want me happy with my five year old Suzuki or small apartment. The devil doesn’t want us to be grateful for anything!

But that isn’t the message of the Bible. God tells us to be grateful for everything! Paul challenges us in Colossians 2:7 to let our “lives overflow with thanksgiving for all He has done.” The Bible begs us to understand that our satisfaction is where our sweet speech is born. If I’m filled with gratitude, sweetness follows. Gratitude is the foundation for all speaking sweetly.

Centuries ago, St. Benedict took sins of ingratitude far more seriously than we typically do today. Grumbling was a serious offense against community life. In his rule for monastic living, St. Benedict said, “First and foremost, there must be no word or sign of grumbling, no manifestation of it for any reason at all.” And good Benedict took this so seriously that he also included a wonderful line in his guidebook describing the appropriate response to a monk who was creating discord by grumbling and ingratitude. “Let Father Abbot send two stout monks to explain the matter to him!” Complaining and whining in a monastery got you a couple of monk bouncers named Bruno and Guido! Perhaps this would be a good solution here today…

Maybe not. But what do you think Paul meant in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, when he said, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” Are there any exceptions listed there? Of course we’re going to go through tough things, difficult situations and painful disagreements as we struggle to follow Jesus together. But don’t let anything steal away your gratitude – gratitude is foundational for any ability to speak sweetly.

Be Encouraging

The second speaking sweetly choice we need to make relates to encouragement.

We speak sweeter to the world around us when, overwhelmed with gratitude for God and others, we consciously and constantly make the decision to be an encouragement to the people God has placed around us. Speaking sweeter means choosing to be encouraging.

Understand the power God has placed in each of us. Understand the importance of just one kind word at just the right moment. Understand the incredible power of the tongue.

I wonder if any of us fully understand the power Almighty God has placed in our tongue. It is almost creepy, isn’t it? I am honestly and regularly unnerved by the power of the tongue. The tongue has the power to destroy or build up. I can wreck someone for years with a bitter comment, but just one encouraging word can also sustain someone for years. As Mother Teresa once said, “Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.” God has given each of us stunning power to encourage others around us. Use it!

Anybody remember Norm Peterson from the old sitcom Cheers? I loved Norm. I am still deeply grateful for my buddy Norm! Norm was a perennially unhappy guy, swilling beer, miserably married, miserably employed, yet always making people laugh. Remember his most famous quotation? Somebody asked Norm how his day went and Norm responded, “It’s a dog-eat-dog world and I’m wearing milk bone underwear.” I wonder how many people around us are like old beaten down, beaten up Norm from Cheers? Don’t you think that’s the way many people around us experience the world each day? Don’t you think an encouraging word makes a difference to the shattered people around you? Of course it does, so encourage them!

Let’s face it. Any idiot can sit back and find what’s wrong with a situation. Any idiot can easily find fault in someone else if that’s all you’re looking for. It doesn’t take hardly any sort of intelligence at all to poke holes in the world around us. Anyone can come in here on any given Sunday and make a list of every last little thing that doesn’t measure up somehow. We can pick apart the sermon, ignore the Sunday school classes, mock the struggling leadership, sniff at the singing and perhaps be completely correct in every one of our critical assessments. We can go out these doors and rail against the government, criticize our boss and coworkers, pick apart our spouse and children and perhaps be technically correct in every word we say.

But that isn’t how Jesus behaves. That isn’t living like we were dying. That isn’t speaking sweetly. Our LORD Jesus taught us how to speak sweetly. Jesus spoke encouraging words from a wellspring of love and gratitude for people. Jesus saw the longing, broken heart inside the icky tax collector everyone despised and he said, “Zaccheus, you come down from that tree. I’m going to your house for lunch today. You matter. Your life counts. You are valuable. I have time for you. I see potential and possibility in you. I’m excited about you. I want to be with you!” Jesus saw past the ever-present, inevitable weaknesses and reached out to encourage. He noticed the bleeding woman in the teeming crowd and stopped to encourage her. Jesus spoke sweetly. Jesus encouraged. Jesus was lavish with his encouragement.

You have an extra insert in your bulletin this morning. Please take advantage of that. When you go home this afternoon, take that little encouragement slip of paper out of your Bible and write a note to someone. Take the time to tell somebody why they matter. And then put that note in the mail. Your scribbled encouragement might be the one thing they need to get through a difficult time. Speaking sweetly means being intentional about encouragement.

Be Praying

Then third and finally, be praying for people. As the writer to the Hebrews encourages, “Come boldly to the throne of our gracious God.” Bring the people around you boldly to the throne of God. The New Testament tells us we have all been made priests, by the power of the Holy Spirit within us, to intercede for others around us. We are grateful, we are encouraging and we are constantly speaking the names of others sweetly to God in prayer. The Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:18 we are to “pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all Christians everywhere.” I wonder if perhaps the sweetest way of speaking to people might actually be to speak to God about people.

One of my favorite writers on prayer, Jim Cymbala of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, told the story of his wayward daughter Chrissy in his book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire twelve years ago. After two and half years of agonizing over her awful behavior, the entire church stopped what they were doing one Tuesday evening and held a prayer meeting for her. Thirty two hours later, on a Thursday morning, their broken daughter showed up at their home unannounced, tearfully wanting to know who had been praying for her on Tuesday evening. She had a dramatic experience of God at the very moment the entire church was on its face praying for her. She turned her life around and hasn’t looked back since.

While not every prayer story has a dramatic ending like that, every prayer story matters like that. Every prayer we offer on behalf of another person is sweet speech into the heart of God. And as a bonus, when we are genuinely praying for someone with whom we may have a personal difficulty, prayer also serves as a healing balm on our relationship with that person. It is almost impossible to pray for someone for very long and continue to be mad at them. Prayer is not only sweet speech on their behalf; it is sweet speech onto our wounded heart as well.

A doctoral student was speaking to visiting lecturer Albert Einstein at Princeton in 1952 and somewhat arrogantly asked, “Sir, what is there left in the world for original dissertation research?” Einstein immediately replied, “Find out about prayer. Somebody must find out about prayer.” There is something mysteriously powerful about prayer we need to investigate.

Eugene Peterson, in his book Earth and Altar, says “Prayer is political action. Prayer is social energy. Prayer is public good. Far more of our nation's life is shaped by prayer than is formed by legislation. That we have not collapsed into anarchy is due more to prayer than to the police. Prayer is a sustained and intricate act of patriotism in the largest sense of that word--far more precise, loving, and preserving than any patriotism served up in slogans. That society continues to be livable and that hope continues to be resurgent are attributable to prayer far more than to business prosperity or a flourishing of the arts. The single most important action contributing to whatever health and strength there is in our land is prayer.”

Norma Goodrich told the story, in an old Christian Reader, of a visit with her daughter's family, “My husband went into the bedroom to pray. Our curious 3-year-old granddaughter followed him and came out saying, “Grandpa’s in there praying, and there isn't even any food!” Folks; prayer is not supposed to be just a traditional, mealtime deal! Prayer is the sweetest speech of faith. So pray for the people around you. Be praying.

If we are honestly interested at all in truly living like we were dying, we will learn how to speak sweetly into the world and into the lives around us. We will be lavishly grateful to God and others. We will be aggressively encouraging and we will be constantly praying.

May the LORD bless you and keep you! May the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you! May the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace! May the LORD speak sweetly to you as you begin to speak sweetly to others!

Amen.

Kitty Loves The Dot

“I have seen all the things that are done under the sun;
all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”
~ Ecclesiastes 1:14

In May of 2002, five prison guards supervising an outdoor work detail at Uganda’s Kotido prison saw a rabbit escaped out of the garden. All five of the guards went chasing after it, while the 31 prisoners they were supposed to be guarding ran off in another direction. Neither the rabbit nor the prisoners were ever recaptured. One of the escaped prisoners was a mass murderer accused of killing 17 soldiers and six others during an ambush.

We can cause a lot of problems chasing after the wrong things, can’t we?

We regularly chase money, love, pleasure, knowledge, popularity or a dozen other transitory things only to eventually discover we are chasing after the wind. Sooner or later, the cotton tail inevitably disappears up the trail and we turn around to discover we have not only lost the speedy, attractive bunny we were chasing so feverishly, but we have lost all we were supposed to be closely guarding. And the ripple effects of all these losses can sometimes be staggering. Sometimes a bad guy escapes we cannot recapture.

So don’t chase the bunny!

Guard your time with God. Guard your time in the Word. Guard your family. Guard your heart and mind. Guard your joy. Guard your holiness and purity. Guard your worship. Guard your church. Guard your neighborhood and community. Guard your country. Guard “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--guard such things.” Guard what God has given you to guard in this life. And don’t chase the bunny!

A couple weeks ago, Tesia and I rescued a beautiful 3 year old cat named Bella from the Humane Society. She is a pretty cat with hazel eyes, grey tiger stripes and a perfectly white chest and feet. She is very sweet, but a little fearful. In order to break through her fear, we bought a bunch of toys for her to play with. While she doesn’t care for everything we bought, Monica can amuse her for hours with a simple, little grey mouse dangling by a string from a stick. Whenever Bella sees Monica, she whines for more mousy play time. Bella always wants to play.

But Bella’s very favorite toy is my laser pointer. Kitty loves the dot! Kitty will go crazy chasing the little red dot around the apartment. It is almost embarrassing what I can get Bella to do with my little red laser dot! I can get her to zoom up the hallway and back again. I can get her climbing the walls and furniture. I can get her to run into things. I can get her to weave her head back and forth like she’s watching the ultimate tennis match. I can get her to run around and around in circles endlessly and then turn her around and make her do it all again the other way. I can do anything to her because kitty loves the dot. The dot is kitty cocaine.

Do you see the metaphors? Isn’t the devil constantly running bunnies and dots in front of us, hoping we’ll run ourselves to exhaustion chasing after them? Hoping we will leave unguarded all those truly precious things that matter?

Don’t let him get away with it this year! Guard the truly good things God has given you. This isn’t a game we’re playing. We don’t need to chase after all the things the world is chasing. We’ve already got what we need.

May God grant us all the wisdom to see the bunnies and the dots for what they are! May we chase nothing and guard all good things well!

Amen.

Live Like You Were Dying (Romans 13:11-12)

That’s life, huh? What would it mean to live that life like we were dying? If you got word you had only 30 days left to live, how would your life change? How would you spend your time? How would it impact your relationships? How would you prepare for eternity? What would you do that you’ve never done before? How would God want you to live those 30 days? What would you do with this precious life you’re currently clinging so desperately to? For the next 30 days, we’re going to think about these simple questions together.

I’m not typically a big country/western music fan, but there is a very popular, fun Tim McGraw song prompting a lot of thought-provoking questions recently. I like it very much! It is one man’s “live like you were dying” journey condensed into 4 minutes. Give it a listen sometime…

I wonder. Are we fully aware the death rate for our congregation is currently projected to be 100%? Statistics can deceive, but this is a statistic with very little room for interpretation! None of us are exempt. None of us will escape. The Bible makes this clear to us from Genesis to Revelation. And because of this, the Bible also makes it clear we must live each precious day of our lives in light of the fact of our looming death. Not in some morose or depressing way, but in abundance. As we realize the brevity of this life, Jesus encourages us to fully enjoy the abundance of this life. Live each precious moment of this life fully aware of the fact that each moment is a decision preparing us either for an eternity with God or an eternity apart from Him.

Jesus, as He was describing Himself and His ministry, in John 10:9-10, said something very interesting. He said, “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Are you experiencing this life in all its fullness? Jesus didn’t come to give us a better list of rules or form of religion. He came to give us life and life abundant. Are we enjoying that? Where do we even start a good conversation about these things? I’m glad you asked! Open your Bibles to the 13th chapter of Romans, verses 11-12 (page 1036). There are three distinct challenges God wants us to notice in these two verses. The Apostle Paul is talking about right living and he says, “Another reason for right living is that you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for the coming of our salvation will soon be here. So don’t live in darkness. Get rid of your evil deeds. Shed them like dirty clothes. Clothe yourselves with the armor of right living, as those who live in the light.”

Do you hear the urgency in Paul’s words? Our first challenge this morning is to live with a sense of urgency. Get off the stick, folks! We don’t have all day to make up our minds on these things. We don’t know how much time we’ve got on this earth. We don’t know what tomorrow may bring, nor are we even assured there will be a tomorrow. We must live each precious day with a sense of holy urgency.

One of the most dangerous words in the English language is “someday.” Someday I’ll make things right with my parents. Someday I’ll take that trip. Someday I’ll have more time for the kids, for the church, for my friends. Someday I’ll talk to my friend about Jesus or go back to school, take a risk or do something different with my life. And then someday gets ripped away from us for one reason or another and we feel angry, cheated and robbed.

Someday is a sneaky thief stealing away this day! Don’t let it do that! Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 6:27-30: “Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?”

Trust Almighty God to worry about someday. Make up your mind to pay attention to this day! Not frantically, breathlessly or in some new, more exhaustingly busy and undisciplined way, but urgently paying attention to this day because, as the psalmist wonderfully declares in Psalm 118:24: “This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

It is later right now than it has ever been. You are dying! So let’s live with a sense of urgency! Resolve to live the next seven days without regrets. Not living in the past, not worrying about the future, but embracing each day as a gift. Not taking life for granted. Let’s resolve to make that our testimony in this first week of this conversation. Let’s get urgent!

The second challenge of our Romans 13 passage relates to our eternity. As much as it is a mistake to take today for granted, it is an even bigger mistake to take eternity for granted. While we must learn to urgently embrace today, we must never think today is all there is. We must live with a sense of eternity. We must understand that the good work of salvation begun in us will one day, very soon, be carried on to completion. We are all rushing headlong toward our eternity. We are all about to stand before God and give an accounting for what we did with the life we were given to enjoy. We live each moment fully aware that this life is only the very beginning of our eternal lives. We live in the sure and certain knowledge that how we choose to live this life will largely determine how we experience the eternal part of our life.

There’s a wonderful story about Winston Churchill’s funeral I’ve told many times. The old man left instructions that not one, but two buglers would play at the close of his memorial service. Those two buglers stood high above the audience in the dome of the cathedral. The first bugler played “Taps,” but the second bugler, before the last note of Taps faded away, played “Reveille.” Do you see? One song tells us that day is done, but there is another bugler. The final note played on this life will be only first note played on our eternity. There is coming an eternal song calling us finally get up in the morning. The moment of our death is only the very first moment of our eternity. We live in that eternal awareness.

The writer to the Hebrews makes these things plain: “We die only once, and then we are judged.” And that’s why Paul says, in 2 Corinthians 4:18, that “we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” We live each day in urgent awareness of the eternal importance of each day, longing to involve ourselves only in those things with eternal value. We refuse to spend our time chasing after all the things that wear out, go out of style, break down, collect dust and ultimately end up on a garbage heap somewhere. We refuse to accept the marketing spew urging to us to consume, consume, consume. We live in urgent awareness not simply that “Taps” will soon be played over us, but that “Reveille” will also. We live with a sense of eternity.

The third and final challenge of Paul’s words to the Romans is a logical outgrowth of the first two. We live with a sense of urgency. We live with a sense of eternity. And because we have this clear sense of urgency and eternity swirling within us, we also live with a very clear sense of priority. In Paul’s words, we find it necessary and obvious to take off some old, worthless, sinful, unimportant clothes and choose more urgent and eternally important ones instead. If we are truly going to live like we are dying, we must embrace very clear priorities.

We must take off sin and temptations to sin. That stuff is completely obvious. We all know that. But that certainly isn’t all. If we honestly and urgently believe we are dying, there is a bunch of stuff we just aren’t going to care about any more. We’ll refuse to accept a frantic pace of life. We’ll take that stuff off as we choose to slow down, savor, linger and enjoy each day. As the psalmist said in Psalm 46:10, we will joyously learn to “be still, and know that I am God.” Our priorities will change as we joyously learn to embrace the better way. A very natural cycle of Sabbath rest and reflection will peacefully reenter our lives. We will take off the insane pace of this world, walk slower, drive slower, and leave lots of sloppy gaps on our Palm Pilots. We will take off this world’s desire for “the good life,” whatever that is. We will refuse to allow this world to define the quality of our lives any longer. We will have different priorities from all those around us who haven’t yet figured out their terminal and eternal conditions. We will take off all sorts of stuff and we will put on the wonderful things that matter.

We will put on time for God, for friends, family and church. We will put on time in the Bible. We will put on the courage to say and do all the things that need to be said and done. We will put on only the truly good stuff. To live like we are dying means we have a very clearly defined, very urgent, very eternal sense of priority.

When I heard Dr. Richard Swenson speak at a Trout Lake Camp Men’s Retreat years ago, just days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he addressed this issue of priority very bluntly. He spoke about the powerful Cantor Fitzgerald bond trading firm, which until that terrible week occupied floors 101-105 of the North Tower, doing billions of dollars in trades every year. He asked all the men in attendance that weekend one simple question. In the all too brief time period between the planes hitting the building and the towers coming down, who did the 685 Cantor Fitzgerald folks who lost their lives that day make a point of calling before they died? A lot of cell phone calls were made by those dear folks in their precious final moments. Did they call car dealers or real estate agents? Did they call bankers or brokers? Did they call rich and influential power brokers to score yet more deal while they still had the chance?

Of course not! We all know the answer to those questions. When our awareness of death becomes urgent, when our sense of eternity becomes vivid and real to us – our priorities immediately change. We take off the old clothes of this world and put on entirely new ones.

Interestingly, when I went to Dr. Swenson’s website this week attempting to refresh my memory of this Cantor Fitzgerald story, I noticed a recent addition. A new link had been added to the home page; a eulogy for Dr. Swenson’s ten month old grandson who died last summer of complications from a birth defect in his heart. As I read the very touching eulogy written by Dr. Swenson’s son Adam, I was powerfully struck yet again by what our priorities in life ought to be. When our awareness of death becomes urgent, when our sense of eternity becomes vivid and real to us – our priorities can’t help but change. In the five years immediately following the 9/11 attacks, Cantor Fitzgerald vowed to give away 25% of its annual profits to the families of those lost in the attacks. As of September 2006, they have given away more than $180 million dollars! Why would a profit monster like that give away one quarter of its profits? Why would they do that? When urgency and eternity properly enter our thinking, our priorities change.

As we begin this “live like you were dying” conversation, there is a verse I want to leave us to ponder. It is Psalm 90:12. I want us to meditate on this verse throughout this week especially. The psalmist prayed, “Teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom.”

Make the most of the time you’ve been given. Carpe diem – seize this day!

As I was thinking of these things, I found myself strangely drawn to a short video clip Meredith Dahlquist posted on Facebook on New Year’s Day. I know it isn’t the highest quality video. It is just a little baby boy playing and laughing with his father. For some reason, ripping up paper with Daddy strikes the little guy’s funny bone.



Do you suppose it is possible, as Jesus calls us to pick up our cross and follow Him, as Jesus calls us to live each day as if we might die the next, as Jesus passionately calls us to come to the precious table and join our lives to His and to each other…do you suppose this simple little video might be the sort of wonderful, laughing, in this present moment relationship Jesus had in mind for each of us? Sure – we bump our heads from time to time. Sure – we fall over occasionally. Sure – stuff gets torn and messy and damaged and wasted in the process. But always there is laughter. There is always the trust, faith and expectation. There is always the interaction. And always, always, always there is Daddy. Always there is me and Him and this precious moment I will never, ever get back and I hope to never, ever, ever forget.

May we choose this day to live like we were dying! May we truly wake up and fully understand the urgency and eternity stuffed into this moment. May the laughing and lovely priorities of this Table truly become ours this year in a way we never imagined possible!

Amen.