Live With Passion

Let's talk about savoring every moment as we continue this series one month to live. I want to ask a quick question, just a quick show of hands. How many of you have ever seen the movie The Bucket List? Anybody ever seen that? Most of you here. Here's a quick plot synopsis for those of you who haven't seen it. It's about two guys. One is named Edward, one is named Carter, played by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. And in the movie, these guys discover that they just have maybe a month or two or three left to live. And so they decide to make a bucket list of things that they'd like to do before they die.

And in the scene I'm about to show you is where the bucket list is first discovered. Jack Nicholson's character in the hospital room where the two have their beds notices a crumpled up piece of paper on the floor. And he picks it up and starts to read it. And this really upsets Carter, Morgan Freeman's character. What are you doing? What is this? Come on, give it back. What is it? Give it back. What's on the floor? I didn't know it was a state secret. My freshman philosophy professor signed this exercise in forward thinking. And he called it a bucket list. We were supposed to make a list of all things we wanted to do in our lives before we kicked the bucket. Cutesy. Anyway, I wrote down things like make a million dollars, raise the black president, you know, young man's wishes. I was gonna redo the list, but then... Help a complete stranger for the good. Laugh until I cry. Not to be judgmental, but this is extremely weak. It's pointless now.

I would argue the exact opposite. All right, that's it. What are you doing? You'll rewrite that song. How would you write or rewrite your bucket list? Grab your message notes. These will help you follow along with the message. And I get to give you some practical tools through this series of message notes, too, to really help you write and then finesse and rewrite your own bucket list. If you had just one month to live, what would you do? As we start out this morning, I actually want to hear from you. What would you do if you knew that you had just one month left to live? Just kind of raise your hands and I'll call on you and then just shout out your answer. What would you do if you had one month left?

Yeah, right over here. You would forgive. Interesting. I would forgive if I had one month left to live. And I bet there's somebody specific you're thinking about, too. Yeah, the hand over there. I would give all my money to homeless people. I'd give my money away and do an act of charity. This is good. Forgive and give all my money away to homeless people. But I just want to remind you, just pretend you're not in church. And let's hear some of the other things that would be on your list. Those are good, though. Those are good. Yeah, two hands right over here. First, the woman in the middle there. Yes? I would give my grandkids the best time of their lives. I'd give my grandkids the best time of their lives. Your grandkids may be hoping for that diagnosis now that they've heard that. No, I'm just joking. I'm just joking.

Yeah, right over here. Gentle, sir, what would you do? Yeah. I'd go skydiving and perhaps shorten your prognosis by doing that. Yeah, what would you do? I'd visit the Holy Land. How many people would have that on their list? They'd visit the Holy Land. That's what I'm hearing a lot of. Anybody else? Somebody over here. What would you do? Yeah. I would travel. That's good. Anybody else? A couple more. What would you do? Yeah. I'd get my pilot's license. And then maybe you could help the gentleman who wants to go skydiving. That's perfect. You guys ought to talk. Yeah, one more. Right over here. Pardon me? I'd go to Estonia. How many of you have that on your bucket list? I didn't think so. That's good, though. There's something specific there.

How many of you, if you're honest, a quick show of hands, this whole idea of thinking about your own death kind of freaks you out a little bit? You're uncomfortable with it, right? Well, God knows that. God knows it's not our default mode to be thinking, "Well, what if I died? What would I do with the rest of my life?" And that is why there are so many verses in the Bible that actually urge us to consider our mortality because thinking about that after you get over the heebie-jeebies really adds a lot of vitality to your life today. And I want to start out very quickly with a review of that concept because we talked about this last weekend in verses like James 4:14. How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog. It's here for a little while, and then it's gone.

And they just discovered that some ancient manuscripts, the most ancient ones, say, "Unless you live in Aptos." No, I'm just kidding about that. But, you know, I've been researching the statistics on death, and I found something fascinating. This just in, apparently one out of every one of us will die. It is universal. And so we do need to think about it because it happens so quickly. I came across one comedian's take on aging that I personally really relate to as I approach 50 very rapidly. He said, "Do you realize the only time in our lives when we like to get old," and just kind of as a demonstration of that, I just realized I need my reading glasses to help me read this comedian's observations on aging. He says, "The only time when we like to get old is when we're kids. When you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions. How old are you? I'm four and a half. You're never 36 and a half, but you're four and a half going on five. And then you get into your teens, and now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, even if you're ahead. How old are you? I'm going to be 16. You could be 13, but you're going to be 16. And then, the greatest day of your life, you become 21." Even the words sound like a ceremony. "You become 21." Yes, but then you turn 30. What happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk. He turned. He just soured. And then it goes downhill. You're pushing 40. And before you know it, you reach 50. But wait, you make it to 60. They didn't think you'd make it, but you did. And so you become 21. Turn 30, push 40, reach 50, make it to 60. You build up so much speed that now you hit 70. And then you get into your 80s, and you reach bedtime. And then into your 90s, you start going backwards. I was just 92. And then if you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. I'm a hundred and a half. I love that, and I hope every single person here lives to be a hundred and a half. But even if we all do, I guarantee you that life just moves at such a rapid clip.

In fact, here's a verse that we touched on last weekend, too. I love this. In fact, let's read Psalm 90:12 together. Let me hear you. "Teach us to realize the brevity of life so that we may grow in wisdom." It is just wise, the Bible says, to think about the things that we're suggesting you to think about during this series. Our family went up to San Francisco the week after Christmas. It was a lot of fun. And some of us went down to the Hyatt down at the Embarcadero to look at the Christmas lights. And we walked right past Old St. Mary's Church, which is on California right at the corner of Grant and California near the edge of Chinatown. And what always intrigues me when I see this church is its clock tower. Because right under the clock, you see a verse from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 4:23. "Son, observe the time and fly from evil." Now, as I walked past that, I glanced up there, and I'm kind of an amateur history buff. I've been inside the lobby of the church where they have a great history display with old photographs. And it just kind of dawned on me, knowing that we were about to do this series, I wonder how many people have looked up at that reminder of the brevity of life over the years.

I mean, I think back at the photographs I have seen of the existence of this church. In fact, this is the earliest photograph I've ever seen of Old St. Mary's. This is from about 1853. And I want you to look at the ships in the distance there in the harbor. Do you notice something? They're all sailing ships. It was a different era, the end of an era that humans have been living in for centuries and centuries, the era of the sailing ship. And St. Mary's was the tallest building in the city at the time. Fast forward late 1800s, the city of San Francisco starts to grow up around it. That clock tower has seen a lot of history. And then this one right after the earthquake, all around it, buildings are destroyed, lives lost, clock tower is still there. During World War II, they built a servicemen's center in the basement right under the clock tower. Half a million sailors walked in under that sign on the clock in just over three years. And now, of course, it is dwarfed by skyscrapers all around it.

And as we're running past that clock, I looked up and I thought of all that history. And I thought, how many people over the years saw this reminder in the nick of time, although they didn't know it? How many men and women read it the day before the earthquake? How many World War II sailors read it just before they were deployed, perhaps never to return? It's worth considering this. In Ephesians 5, starting in verse 15, Paul paraphrases that verse from Ecclesiastes. He says, "So be careful how you live. Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity. Don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do." It's kind of like that Chris Allen song. He was the winner of American Idol a little while back. He had that hit song this last year called "Live Like We're Dying." That's what these verses are talking about.

So let's explore that in a little bit more depth this morning, specifically how to live with real passion. Live with real passion. You know, I've noticed when people know they have limited days left, they live with passion. They enjoy every sunset. They savor every meal. They soak in every conversation. And my goal this morning is to give you some basic tools that you can use this week to put some passion for life back into your life again. Now, I got to cover a definition here. What do I mean by passion? A lot of people make passion synonymous with excitement, but it's not. Excitement is something different than passion. Excitement comes and goes. For example, for Christmas this year, I got some amazing dark Swiss chocolate, my favorite food item on the planet. I was really excited for that chocolate. I mean, really excited. But I ate it all. And now I'm not excited anymore, okay? That's not passion. Excitement comes and goes. Passion is deeper. Passion is like a perpetual motion machine. Passion is what bubbles up in your soul. Passion is what gets you up in the morning. Passion is what you live for. And when you find passion, your life is brighter, you're more focused, you're even more creative, and you're well motivated.

In fact, I'll say this. Passion always outlasts profit as a motivator. Would you agree with that? In our culture, in American culture, a lot of people think that profit's the best motivator. What, is it going to be profitable to me? Then I'm going to do it. But you will find that you endure far longer when passion for something drives you and not just profit. In the book of Numbers 14, there's an interesting scene. The children of Israel have just been released from slavery in Egypt. How many of you have seen the movie The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston? Okay, so in Numbers 14, this is the end of the movie. The credits roll. And what happens next? They've been released from slavery. They're on their way into the promised land. But almost instantly, when things don't go exactly smoothly, most of the people lose their motivation. Because they had a profit motivation. They thought they were on their way to bigger and better things. Well, they are, but not quite yet. And so they start to complain. They don't want to move another foot forward. They start to say, "It was so much better when we lived back in Egypt. We want to go back to Egypt now." And God gets upset with them. And he says, "These people are saying bad things about me." And he really kind of complains to Moses about the people instantly losing their passion for the promised land. But then he says something interesting. "But my servant Caleb, this is a different story. He has a different spirit. He follows me passionately." I don't know about you, but I want to have a Caleb spirit. I want to have a motivation that lasts. I don't want to live my life looking in the rearview mirror. I want to follow God passionately.

So how do I live with passion again? How do I love life and not just live life? Three quick points. First, of course, I need to find it. I need to find my passion. God has made you with a heart that beats faster about certain things. He put you on earth in order to passionately pursue certain things. And he wants you to stay fervent. Stay zealous. Stay passionate. Look at Romans 12:11. "Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord." I like the way the message translation puts it. "Keep yourselves fueled and aflame." And in the New Living Translation, "Serve the Lord enthusiastically." It's okay. The Lord wants me to live with passion, but how do I find my passion again? Well, again, the whole point to this series is how clarifying, how clarifying this question is. What would I do if I had one month to live? Now, we've set it up last week, and this week I want to just challenge you right now. I'm throwing down the gauntlet. I want you this week to actually make a list. Write down everything you think you'd do in answer to this question. Make your bucket list.

Now, it's going to take some time, but don't look at this as homework. This is life work. So sit down and just start writing. Get maybe 50 or 100 things on the long list. Just stream of consciousness. I did this this past week, and I thought I'd get 100 things right away, but I sat down and I kind of stalled out just below 30, and I thought, "Wow, how come I don't have more on the list?" But I left the list out with my pen on my desk here, and then as the week went on, I added a few more things, and I think I'm edging up to about 50 right now. But what I mean here is very detailed, just stream of consciousness. Write down some things you would love to do, some things that you're passionate about, some things you want to do if you had one month left to live.

Now, with that said, I know what some of you are thinking, but René, if this is really an uncensored, unedited list, not every passion that people might think of is necessarily a good passion. Yes, very true. Just because it's a passion does not mean it is a great idea, all right? In fact, as an illustration, I don't know if you saw this commercial, but they were playing it all through the football games last weekend. And I don't know this guy. I don't want to judge him because maybe he got quoted out of context or something, but this is just fascinating. Watch this. I like being at the Super Bowl because that's where the action is. There's only 70,000 people in the stands, and there's millions out there that want to be there. The people who go to the game with me call me Mr. Excitement. I'm heavily focused on the game, and I don't talk to the people sitting next to me. I've missed weddings. I have missed babies being born, but I have no intention of missing the Super Bowl ever. Now... And I'm proud of it! I've missed weddings, I've missed babies being born, and when I get to the Super Bowl, I don't talk to anybody. But that is my passion. Not every passion in life is necessarily worth it.

And so what you've got to do is look at your list of passions and go, "Okay, is this a great idea? Is this even a doable idea?" And then after you do your stream of consciousness thing, unedited, uncensored, then you look at that long list and make a shorter list. I'm not saying you censor your long list, but you circle what you really want as part of your life now. Because obviously there's some stuff that's not worth it, and there's some stuff that you just can't make a part of your life right now. Like one item on my bucket list was eat a full bar of Swiss chocolate every day, and my body would explode if I tried to do that, so that item I couldn't circle. Or another thing was quit my job and preach an inspiring last lecture type sermon that you guys then post on YouTube after I die, and in my death I inspire billions. Obviously I can't make that a part of my life now, but what can you actually make a part of your life right now?

You go to the longer list, then you circle those items. What's the kind of stuff that made it on my shorter list? I think I've got about 20 things that made the cut, but let me just read you some examples of five of the things that made it on my shorter list. I want to spend quality time with my wife more often, like regular date nights. Quality time with my kids. Get away regularly to reconnect with God. That's so important for pastors, and it's something that's important, but not urgent, so it often doesn't get done. I want to take my wife to the Bible lands, to Greece, to Israel, before I go. I want to accept more invitations to preach overseas because that's a passion for me. Those were all items on my longer bucket list than I circled because they can realistically be part of my life now, and I think they're worth sacrificing to make a part of my life.

And here's what will happen. Out of those things will arise one... Listen, will arise one or two passions that you really hold dear. Now, it could be totally different. God made us all with different passions, but for example, some of you might say, "I really want to make a difference in an overseas orphanage in the developing world while I can." Or others might say, "I really want to write sort of a mini biography of my life and how I came to the Lord and the thinking that went into my journey of faith, and I want to self-publish it so that my family can have it for years to come and my story doesn't get forgotten." Those might be things that come up out of this longer list that emerge to the top, things that you're passionate about.

Now, let me give you a couple of hints as to finding your passion in the longer list. Number one, as I heard one pastor say, "Finding your passion is not just about asking, 'What do I like?'" Finding your passion is not just about asking, "What do I like?" You've got to also ask the question, "What do I hate?" What gets my ire up? What gets me incensed? Often that's a key to finding your passion. Legalism gets my ire up, a key that my passion is really preaching the gospel of grace. I look at my wife as an example. She's one of these people who is wired so that injustice really gets her ire up. Now, nobody loves injustice when it happens to them, but Laurie really sees injustice more broadly in the world and notices it and reads newspaper articles about it, and it really gets her ire up. I have watched that passion develop into a passion specifically for a children's home called Little Flock Children's Home in a rural area near Chennai, India. These are mostly orphans who have no place else to go. Most of them are from the Dalit caste in India, the Untouchables. My wife Laurie goes with a bunch of people from TLC every year to serve there. I've been there. Our youngest two kids have been there. She's on the advisory board. They're leaving in two weeks for another trip. It's really become her passion. Why? Because she says, "I am treating these children like I would like to treat the whole world, and I can't do that. So I treat them like I wish we could treat all orphans." It's become a passion. And God has given you a heart that beats for certain things, certain causes, certain people, and that is part of His will for your life.

And here's a second tip. This is easier to see in others than in yourself. So ask other people who know you well, "What would you say is a passion of mine?" What would you say is my passion? Laurie and I had a discussion about this last night, and it was just so enlightening. So once you get your list, you circle a few items on your list. You say, "Is any passion coming to the surface?" Then I'd encourage you to put it through the grid of the last verse in your notes under this point. See where it says this. 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. And in the next verse He says, "And the second command is like it, 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.'" So once you get all this stuff, just stream of consciousness, you circle a few things that you think are ultimately important, and then you ask, "Why do I say, 'Don't ask this question first? Don't put it through this grid first?'" Well, because I want you to do stream of consciousness first, just unguarded, just write down what you'd like to do if you had one month left. And then you circle a few items that kind of come to the top, and then you go, "How does this go through this grid, where I love the Lord with all my heart and I love my neighbor as I love myself?" And that helps you kind of do the last filter, where you're separating selfish passion from a godly passion. And a selfish passion really isn't passion, it's just lust. You know, you have a lust for this or for that, or do you have a godly passion for this? And asking yourself this question really helps to filter out that list.

So you find your passion. You find those things that you really want to dedicate your life to. Now, a lot of people actually get to this point if you ask them about it, but they don't get to the next two points on our notes. Number two, you got to follow it. You got to follow your passion. Don't just leave these things on a list. Actually do them. The writer Irma Bombek once said, "Everyone has dreams, but some people put their dreams in a box, and every once in a while they open the box and say, 'Yep, still have dreams, they're still in there.'" Now don't just leave them on a list. Do them. Look, the Bible says, "Give yourselves completely to God since you've been given new life, and use your whole body as a tool to do what's right for the glory of God." It's about discipline and actually doing it. So here's the question. How can I specifically pursue the items I circled?

Now wait, don't flip your notes over to page two. Go back to page one. You see where that question is at the bottom of the notes on page one? I want you to take your pen or pencil and put a little star by that question. Matter of fact, just prick your finger with your pen and put some blood by that question, okay? Because that is the most difficult question of the day. It's one thing to have this list. These would be my bucket list, and isn't it cute to write these things down? But it's a whole other thing to say. This is what I've got to change to live my life as if I'm dying. Now again, just stay on point one, because I want to stay on this question, because this is what it's all about here. I'll give you an example of one of the things that made it to the short list for me. I already told you. One of the things on the list was spend quality time with my kids. We have three kids, ages 20, 18, and 12. They're growing up fast. This is an item with a bullet on my list here. Spend quality time with my kids. That's good, but that's general. And so you go to this question. How can I specifically pursue the items I circled? I wrote down some things, and I want to give you an example of some specific action steps.

Number one, I wrote, ask follow-up questions to their answers. That would be helpful. A lot of times I'll ask my family questions, and they'll give me an answer, and they'll go, okay, and back to my Swiss chocolate bar. This is delicious. I need to shut down my internal dialogue of me barely listening to their answer, of me answering the question in my mind before they say it out loud. I just need to learn to be a better listener. Now, this is all action steps under one item on my bucket list, which is spend more quality time with my kids. Number two, don't get on the computer to work until the kids go to bed. If I'm going to write that sermon, "Dear Twin Lakes, I'm Dying," this is my last sermon, I'm not going to do it until they're in bed. I'm not going to take time away from them. Number three, say yes to all the dad-do-you-want-to questions. You know what I'm talking about? My kids love to read. We're a family of readaholics, and sometimes they'll light a fire in the living room, and they'll be reading in there, and my 12-year-old or 18-year-old will say, "Hey, Dad, come into the living room and read with me. You know, come in and just read by the fire." Yet so often I say, "Well, I'm busy right now, or I'm doing this project right now. I've got to get this done and set it off to church." I want to say yes to all the dad-do-you-want-to questions. "Dad, do you want to ride bikes? Dad, do you want to go to the beach? Dad, do you want to go to your room and leave me and my friends alone upstairs?" You know? All of those questions, because the time is rushing past when I'll ever hear those questions. Again, to follow your passion, what I'm saying is don't just dream it. Do it!

Don't just dream it. Do it! Some of you, you long for a closer relationship with your wife or with your husband. You wish you could have a better marriage. Well, we've got a marriage seminar coming up in February. Sign up for it. Look, grab your bulletin. Just look at the cover of it right now. You see those bullet points out there where it says, "Coming Events." We've got World Outreach Week coming up. We're going to take a two-weekend break in a couple of weeks from this series and look at World Outreach and then go back into the series again. But under there it says, "Men's Dinner, 6.30 at TLC." Some of you guys, I've heard it probably a hundred times from guys in this church. "I had closer Christian friends." Well, what are you doing about that? Why don't you decide to come to the men's barbecue? Just show up. You don't even have to pre-register. Just show up to the barbecue. The topic there is going to be staying pure in an X-rated world. We all struggle with that. Let's not pretend we don't. Let's just be real and show up and make some friends. Or the last item there on that bullet list, the unshakable marriage seminar coming up at the end of February. Don't just dream about it. Go, "Hun, let's go to the seminar." And let's get it going. Pastor Jim and his wife Susie are also, in a couple of weeks, leading a retrovie weekend. It's for couples with really troubled marriages. And you can get ahold of him through the same contact info that's on the bottom of the bulletin about that other marriage weekend. If you dream of it, live that dream right now. Get practical.

So passion. Find it. Follow it. Get specific action steps. And put your faith into practice. And then you have to remember to. Number three, fuel it. Fuel your passion. Don't run out of gas. Now maybe you're thinking, "I'm already out of gas." I'm so tired. You know, "René, I'm just, I'm wiped out. I relate." I've been feeling so busy the last couple of weeks, and whenever I'm too overloaded with my schedule, I just start going through the motions, right? Can you relate to this? My emotions get numb. My soul starts to dry up. I quit living with passion. And the thing is, I'm my own worst enemy on this. I just sort of naturally gravitate to an overcrowded schedule. That seems to be the way I'm made. Anybody like me on this? You naturally gravitate to too much stuff in your schedule. Anybody right now feel like, "I am wiped out. I can't, there's not enough time in the day to get everything done."

Anybody relate to that? How many of you are actually too tired to even raise your hands right now? That's what I think. Okay, look at how Jesus fueled his passion. I love these verses. "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place where he prayed." Okay, so, "And then I loved this. Simon and his companions went to look for him. And when they found him, they exclaimed, 'Everyone's looking for you.'" And Jesus replied, "Oh no, there are still needs that I'm not filling. There are people I'm letting down. I feel so guilty. Where are they? Let me please do everything they ask of me." No, that's not what he says. The perfect Son of God says, "Let's go somewhere else." Don't you love that? Jesus Christ is saying, "I've got to find someplace they can't get to me." Hey, if he needed it, so do you. And don't feel guilty about it. Get rest. Get exercise. Get away. And most important, get time with God.

I love this translation of Colossians 2:6–7. Just as you trusted in Christ to save you, trust Him too for each day's problems. For some reason, that was two dots I didn't connect early in my Christian life. And this verse just got me to a whole new level when I realized what this meant. "Live in vital union with Him. Let your roots grow down into Him, and draw up nourishment from Him. Go on growing in the Lord, and become strong and vigorous." Well, what's this talking about specifically? Again, the question is, what needs to change in my life to really fuel my passion? How do I grow up strong and vigorous? Well, you do the kinds of things Jesus did in those verses. You get away, you spend time with God. And one of the things that I love about this series is because we're challenging you every day to spend time with God. We've got the daily devotions attached to the sermon, which I encourage you all to do. I kind of walk you through the process of making that list, circling the crucial items. But we also have this one-month-to-live guidebook that we've got available in the back. And what happens is when you spend time with God every day in this series, through the daily devotions in the notes, or through this guidebook, you find you fuel your passion.

Why is that? Because God is a passionate God. God is not just some Mr. Brain up there in the universe. The Bible says God is love. God is passionate. And so when you spend time with a passionate God, you find that you get more passionate, too. And honestly, I can't wait to see what happens in this series as we go through it during these weeks. I think God's going to do miracles in marriages, miracles in lives. He's going to enrich souls. I can't wait to hear what he's going to do through this church in the community. I am very stoked about it. But now let me close with this thought. Living with passion is great. But the Bible says there is one thing that is even better than that, believe it or not. And the Apostle Paul talked about it. He said, "For me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better." Now, how could he say that? This is such a great cure for those of you who are God, all the heebie-jeebies thinking of your own death. Paul's like, "I know my time's limited, and I love living." He said, "Man, I live with joy." You know, in Philippians, the book that this is a quote from, the whole book is about how he lives with joy every day. He rejoices every day, lives with joy. But he goes, "As joyful as my life is now, dying's even better." How could he say that? Because he knows that when he dies, he will be with the object of his passion. He'll be with the one who passionately loves him. That's Jesus Christ.

See, all godly passion starts with understanding God's passion for me. Did you know that the Bible says God is passionate for you? He's so passionate for you. He came to earth and suffered and died for your sins to save you. That's what the whole Bible's about. That's the story that this church is here to tell. I'm not just here to try to convince you to believe that a god exists. Frankly, I don't know whether believing that a god exists is going to make that much difference to your life. This church is about something much different than that. It's about allowing you to sense, to tap into, to experience, to fill yourself the object of the passion of the god who exists.

We started with a clip from the bucket list, and I want to end with one other clip from that movie. Edward and Carter create their list together, and since Edward is a multi-millionaire, conveniently, for the plot of the movie, money is no object, and in this little scene they're off to do some of the things on their list, and they are flying over the polar ice cap. It's indescribably beautiful. Love flying over the polar cap. Love the desolation. The stars. It's really one of God's good ones. So you think a being of some sort did all this? You don't? You mean, do I believe if I look up in the sky and promise this or that the biggie will make all this go away? No. And 95% of the people on Earth are wrong. Life has taught me anything. It's that 95% of the people are always wrong. It's called faith. I honestly envy people who have faith. I just can't get my head around it. Maybe your head's in the way. Carter, we've all had hundreds of these discussions, and every one of them always hits the same wall. Is there a sugar plum fairy or not? And nobody has ever gotten over that one. So what do you believe? I resist all the ifs. No big bang? Random universe? We live, we die, and the wheels on the bus go round and round. What if you're wrong? I'd love to be wrong. If I'm wrong, I win. I'm not sure it works that way. While you're not claiming you know something, I don't. I just have faith.

Now that is a fascinating clip, with a lot of points for discussion there. But first, I think Carter is absolutely right. I don't think it works that way. I think you need to decide now while you have life. But second, and finally, I think one thing Edward just didn't get was that believing in God is about so much more than whether or not some supreme being exists. It's about receiving his passion for you, his love for you today. Belief is so important. You know, he said, "I firmly resist all beliefs, but unbelief is costly." I did a funeral yesterday for Chrissy Welty, 85 years old, and she passed away a godly woman. She was one of our deaconesses. Many hundreds of you knew her. Everyone who met her said she was so kind and so tender-hearted, so compassionate, so serene and graceful and sweet. How did she get that way? I preached her funeral yesterday with her Bible in my hand. There were all kinds of things she wrote in her Bible, and on one page, one thing she highlighted, and it was this. The most costly thing to us is unbelief. The most costly thing to us is unbelief. That is so profound. Unbelief just robs you of so much. Unbelief leads to cynicism. Unbelief can rob you of passion. Unbelief brings hopelessness. Unbelief just costs too much. And I think one of the things that made Chrissy who she was was that she understood that and determined to believe. Even through the tough times, and she had plenty, she believed. She believed that God had a purpose for her. She believed that God had amazing plans for her life, but most of all, she believed that God had passionate love for her. And when you believe that, really believe that, that belief can truly change everything and help you live a life with greater passion than you've ever imagined.

Let's bow in prayer before our passionate God right now. Heavenly Father, thank you for your love for us. And I just want to pray for every single one of us, Lord, that we would over the next few weeks in this series really just become the person you created us to be with the passions that you gave us. Now specifically, Lord, I want to pray for those who may be struggling with belief and unbelief. And I pray that they would just be honest before you in this moment and maybe pray, "God, I want to believe. I envy those who believe, but I don't know how." I pray that they would pray that prayer that even some of Jesus' followers prayed in the Bible. "Lord, we believe, but help our unbelief." That's a good prayer. I pray that right now in the silence of their hearts, they would just say, "Jesus, I believe, but help my unbelief. Come into my life. I want you within my life. Forgive me of my sins. As best I know how, I want you to be the Lord of my life. But help me. Honestly, God, sometimes I have doubts and unbelief also mixed in all together in there. God, help me through this series to find firmer reasons to live with passion for you and with you in my life." And Lord, I pray for every single one of us that you would just do miracles in our lives as we realize our days are numbered. And so we want to savor these good days you have given us and live for your glory. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.