So the series is called a matter of life and death. We will not rewind even though

you know I want to. Life is a dash, it's brief. In that dash we all have

opportunity and what we do with that dash determines our eternal destiny.

Mine is 1958, I know that sounds archaic but that's the reality. Dash, I don't

know where the other number is going to land. Your numbers will be different but

the dash will be the same. The year you were born is different than the person

possibly sitting in front of you. The year you die may be different than the

person sitting behind you but what is equal to you and the person sitting in

front of and behind you is that there is a dash called life. It is a gift from

God. It is not something that we earned on our own or even deserve. It is the

kindness of God called common grace, called the gift and the precious miracle of

life and you have it. And what you do with it and what I do with it matters

because we are headed to somewhere that lasts forever. We have talked about the

beauty of heaven and we talked about the reality of hell. And if you don't believe

in hell you need to go back a couple of weeks and let Jesus talk to you.

Because Jesus did, in fact, believe in hell so much so that he gave his life

brutally on a cross to pay the penalty for our sin to open a doorway for us to

go into the presence of God forever. He would not have done that if we could have

helped one more old lady across the street and done one more good deed and

somehow made it into the righteous presence of Almighty God. But Jesus knew there

was not another way for people like us to get into the presence of a God like our

God. And so Jesus came down and he made a way for us. And what we learned at the

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