Sermon Tone Analysis

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*If I Only Had One Month To Live*
/Ephesians 5:15-17/
 
Josh Hunt has written about meeting a friend for breakfast one morning.
During the course of their meal, Josh learned that his friend Randy had cancer, and the prognosis was not good.
In fact, Randy said, he had been given only six months to live.
On his website, Josh wrote that he had a question for his friend Randy: “How does the thought of dying in six months affect your day to day life?”
Randy replied, “I am going to just try to help as many people as I can as much as I can for as long as I can.
What else can I do?”
 
Then Josh wrote, “What would I do with my life if I only had 6 months, 182 days, to live?”
He went on to describe several different things that would change in his life.
He mentioned that he wouldn’t worry about his diet anymore, that he could eat whatever he wanted.
He felt his family life was in good shape already, so there wouldn’t be any repair work to be done there.
He thought he would like to take a vacation, but mostly he said that he would like to just live life, that he would like to have some normal days mixed in with all the special things he would want to do.
But then he wrote:
/If I only had 182 days left, I would want to make each one of those 182 days a masterpiece.
I would want to live each day free of grumpiness and boredom and anxiety.
I would want each day marked by love, joy, peace, zeal, compassion, faith and hope.
/
/ /
/If I had only 182 days left I would savor the texture of the oatmeal, I would appreciate the blueness of the sky, I would enjoy the smell and taste of morning coffee.
I would think about God more and problems less.
I would sing more and worry less.
/
/ /
/If I had only 182 days left I would want to make each moment a masterpiece and squeeze all the life out of every moment I have left./
(http:~/~/www.joshhunt.com~/mail116.htm,
accessed April 17, 2008.)
That’s really something to think about, isn’t it?
But let’s narrow it down a bit.
What if you knew your life was going to end in /thirty/ days?
Kerry and Chris Shook have written a book which has quickly become a New York /Times/ bestseller.
It’s entitled, /One Month to Live, /and the opening words of their book are “If you only had one month to live, what would you change?”
What would I change?
What would I do differently?
I would write letters to my wife and family members, expressing my love for them, so they would have those words to read after I am gone.
I would write about my faith in Christ, how I came to know Him, how I have followed Him and sometimes failed Him, and how I know that He is faithful from everlasting to everlasting.
I would throw out or give away a lot of “stuff” that I’ve been keeping “just in case.”
Sometimes I would sleep late, and sometimes I would get up to see the dawning of the day.
There might be a night or two when I would set the alarm to go off in the middle of the night, just so I could go outside and look at the stars.
I would listen to my favorite music.
I would clean off my desk!
I would spend at least three of those days at the beach with my family, and at least once I would walk barefooted just in the edge of the surf at night until the sun came up the next morning.
I would write and rewrite and rewrite my last sermon, making sure that it said exactly what I wanted.
I would grill a great, big tender steak, and then savor each bite as though it was the only taste I would have of that steak.
Then I would eat all the ice cream I wanted.
I would call some old friends, and thank them for being a part of my life.
I would get in touch with some of my schoolteachers, and make sure they understood what a remarkable influence they were on me.
I would get permission from a landowner, who would allow me to take long walks through his woods and fields, simply for the pure enjoyment of seeing what God is doing in nature.
I might try to see Niagara Falls, or the Grand Canyon, and relish each moment of the beauty and magnificence of this world, knowing that the wonders which await me cause these to fade away in insignificance.
But most of all, regardless of where I was, and whom I was with, I know that I would pray more, and read my Bible more, and use the time to sweeten my relationship with Jesus in preparation for when I would finally get to see Him face to face!
And I would take advantage of whatever opportunity came along to encourage others to surrender their lives to Christ—while they still had time.
What would you do differently?
Or narrow it down even further.
What if that 182 days, which became 30 days, now is only /one/ day?
How would you spend what you knew was going to be your last day on earth?
If this sermon were to be my last, what kinds of things would I want to leave with you?
What if this conversation I’m having was going to be my last—are the things I am saying right now how I want to be remembered?
My behavior in this day—is this how I want people to remember me?
Would my last letter be written differently?
Would my last email be more loving and kind?
Would I value the moments as they slipped away?
Would I hear the birds singing, or really watch the children laughing?
Would I get around to spending time with those I love?
Or would I rush through that day as I have too many others, too busy for family and friends, and too preoccupied to spend any time soaking my spirit in the Bible, or to fellowship with the God before Whom I would soon stand?
Some would say, “That’s morbid.
I don’t want to think about it.”
Listen!
It’s not morbid at all.
It just helps us to refocus our priorities and realize that every one of us has a limited amount of time on the earth.
And most of us would make some adjustments, even if very small ones, if we knew we had only a short time left here.
Another question the Shooks asked in their book is *“What keeps us from living this way now?”*
If those are the changes I /would/ make, what keeps me from doing those kinds of things right now?
As we look at the past year, or last month, or yesterday, or even just this morning while the day was still young and fresh, what can we say that we have done to improve our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, or to fortify the condition of our souls?
What evidence could we offer that we took advantage of the time we had to nurture our relationship with the Lord Jesus?
In Ephesians 5:15-17, Paul has just reminded the Christians there that their lives used to be quite different.
Christ had replaced their bitterness and anger with the true love that comes from God.
He had brought light into their darkness, so they in turn could be light in the darkness that still surrounded them on all sides.
Wisdom had replaced foolishness.
But now he tells them—and us—that we are to live our lives /“making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”/
He was saying to them, “You’ve wasted enough time living like that.
Don’t waste any more!
Buy back the time you have left.”
Then he tells us, /“Understand what the Lord’s will is.”/
Scientific studies have shown that ten out of ten people eventually die.
In fact, more than one hundred fifty thousand people die every day.
And none of us knows when that day will be for us.
Whether we are young or old, none of us knows when the time will come for us to step over to the Other Side of Eternity.
Every second that passes is one that is gone forever.
There was an ancient statue called “Kairos,” which is the Greek word for “time” in the sense of “opportunity.”
It’s also the word Paul used in Ephesians 5:16.
The statue was of a rather handsome young man with wings on his feet.
The back of his head was bald, but the hair on the front of his head was long and fell down across his eyes.
That sounds rather strange, until you consider the significance.
The wings on the feet suggest swiftness, that opportunity comes quickly and passes us by unless we grab hold of it.
That he has a lock of hair on the front of his head and is bald on the back indicated that while he is easy to catch as he approaches, yet when he passes and the moment of opportunity has gone, he cannot be caught.
Once the moment of opportunity has come we must reach out and grab it, because when it is gone, it is gone forever.
So before too many more days go by, before Kairos runs past, let’s take a good look at how we can redeem the time, or buy it up, while it is still available to us.
*1.
Apply Biblical principles of wisdom, v. 15*
We covered verse fifteen in detail last week, but look at it again in light of verse sixteen.
They are actually one sentence in the original, so we need to read them that way.
/“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”/
The Bible makes a direct connection between wisdom, and how we spend our time.
For example, Psalm 90:12 reads, /“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”/
Adoniram Judson was a missionary years and years ago.
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