** How Are You Living Your Dash? James 3:13-18
What if you knew for sure that you have just 30 days left to live? How would live out that one month? What things would you do? What would matter enough to focus on and what would suddenly become unimportant? What would consume those 30 days and what would be discarded?
** I want to challenge each of you, for the next 30 days and beyond, adopt a one month to live outlook on life.
If I had one month to live, surely it might open my eyes up to seeing my blessings as blessings, rather than bearing them like burdens. Maybe I would make that phone call that I’d put off for many years. Maybe I would ask forgiveness for a wrong that I had committed. In my personal life and in the pastoral ministry I have seen people call others to their bedside as they neared the end of this life to take care of many things. 
The dying person may have made tremendous confessions, or ask for forgiveness as they attempted to right many wrongs. This may sound noble, but is it? Is it noble to live for years with bitterness, regret, disappointment, pain, sin, and then, when it’s in fact the most convenient, unload those burdens on those who will be left behind as we pass into the next life? Is it noble to make it right when there’ll be no responsibility or burden of living right after that?
**At the end of our lives we often see things with clarity. I’m convinced that it’s because at the end, all of our false pretense is stripped away. Now we have nothing to shield us from being honest with self, with others, or with God.
** I want to invite you to commit within yourself to living life as though it were your last 30 days. Deeply invest into the material from this message today.
taken seriously, we have an opportunity in front of us to grow deeply as individuals and widely as a church. Join me in this journey. My deepest desire is that the Holy Spirit will use this message to affect some spiritual growth in all of us.
TEXT: ** James 3:13-18 (KJV)
¹³ Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. ¹⁴ But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
¹⁵ This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. ¹⁶ For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. ¹⁷ But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. ¹⁸ And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. PRAY
**We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. A man named Harold Kushner once wrote, “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.”
Indeed, our time on this earth is limited. No matter how uncomfortable it is for you or I, there is one universal principal in this life; it will end for us all. The question is not “how do I avoid death.” Rather, it is “how do I avoid not having lived.” The reality of our own mortality should not paralyze us but rather fuel us. My life and yours is happening right now, this second!
When I was a child I remember thinking how great it would be when I got bigger, stronger, more independant.
When I got older, not bigger, I remember thinking how wonderful it would be when I could get out on my own and make my life what I wanted it to be.
As a young adult and newly married and later with a son, I remember thinking how great my life would be when Becky and I would settle down back home and start working and accomplish our dreams. Then one day it occurred to me that I was always looking off to the future and not really living for that day.
It occurred to me that my life was happening right then, not some day down the road!
May be that some of you who may be in your later years, think excessively on the past. Dreaming is important but forgetting to live now places the future before the present. Remembering the beauty of yesterday has great value but living too much in the past robs us of the present. ** Life is happening right now.
** How we live fuels our today and what happened in the past should instruct our present. Life is today’s activity, what’s happening right now in your life. I heard a fellow tell of his fascination with old gravestones, their dates and inscriptions. He said he often wondered about their lives, even though he never knew them or anything about them. He was just fixated about the past.
He said he remembered looking at some grave sites wondering what kind of people they were. What was their life like?
On a gravestone, there are typically** two dates and a dash in between. Sometimes there’s a passage of Scripture or a few words about the person:** great wife, husband, mother or father. A friend to mankind, and so on. These words seldom really capture even a portion of the life that the person lived.
However, between the two dates, a dash makes a statement. Our lives, all that we are, all that do, all that makes up our existence, are what we did in the dash. So and so was born on such and such a date, lived life in the dash, and then died on such and such a date. Know this.** We are presently, each one of us, living in the dash. Here is something you need to remember; ** We don’t get to choose the length of the dash, only the breadth and value of the life we live in it. How are we presently using our dash? Are we in a mad dash to pack in as much as possible into our dash? Are we dashing to live, speedily pursuing things that really don’t matter and won’t last?
**“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalms 90:12 NIV) God has called us to live fully in the recognition that our days are limited so that we will recognize the value of this moment, this moment, and now this moment. Life is short so in its brevity, live your life so there will be meaning when you are gone!
Our time is in the hands of the sovereign God of creation. **He does, though, give us the choice about how we will use the time we are given.
God determines the length of our dash, we determine its breadth and value .
For some, when learning that they only have 30 days to live, they wouldn’t have to change much at all. There are those who are confident that they have, in fact, not been wasting their dash.
For these people the news of 30 days to live is shocking, painful, and while they mourn for the hurt of those they leave behind, they rest assured that they have been living each day as the great gift of God that it is.
If you are one of these people that is great! If you are not, the next 30 days or so is about becoming one of these people. In the grand scheme of things even the longest life of 100+ years is relatively short.
** “Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (James 4:13-14 NIV)
But don’t view the brevity of life as a means of discouragement. Accept what is and learn to know what it means. ** God wants your life to matter no matter how many years you have.
** “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (II Timothy 4:6-7 NIV)
We won’t use our dash perfectly, no matter how hard we try, but if we’re not intentional about how we use it, we won’t even experience a portion of the victory in this life that is available to us in Christ.
For the next 30 days or so, I want to invite you to be honest with yourself.** No change was ever taken place in the heart which didn’t deal with itself honestly.
Too many people want to put their past behind them without every focusing on what’s in front of them. Far too often we want change but we’re not willing to be honest about the things that we need to change. ** Victory never comes cheaply.
If we knew that we only had 30 days to live we would likely right some wrongs, we would love those we have neglected to love, forgive those for whom we harbor some bitterness, and we would probably see our lives in radically different terms.
But ** why wait until then to get it right? The two great errors with this is that 1^st, there are those who say I am too young to care, I’ll get it right later. 2ndly, There are those who say, I am too old too care, it’s too late or I already got it wrong or at least, as right as I’m gonna get it.
Hear the command of the Lord:** "In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:26-32 NIV)
Older Christian, ** there is no expiration date on the command of God. Younger Christian, we are not promised tomorrow. ** Will you make the next 30 days count in a way that has lasting impact on the rest of our dash?
The dash poem