Exit Strategy

Very good, Jeff. I guess that's a preview of what we're going to see in Jamaica with our choir this year. We don't know how we're going to do any of that, but we're going to work that out so we can put the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to shame, maybe this year. So we're going to see, but I did appreciate that piece of music. Let's go right into the sermon. Today, the sermon title is Exit Strategy. Exit Strategy may be a strange title, but I think you'll see where I'm going by the time we get through today and how I feel that this is important. But there's a scripture with this exit strategy and it's Ephesians 4, verse 12 through 13. It talks about, earlier in the verse, about ministers, evangelists at various positions in the church, and it talks about a minister's job is to help for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure and stature of the fullness of Christ. Well, that's part of what this sermon is about today, about equipping you as saints. As I am a pastor, I'm a minister, that's part of what I'm supposed to be doing. So are you fully equipped?

If not, for my Fort Lauderdale brethren and some of the Fort Lauderdale brethren and some of the Caribbean, that may be my fault. That's why I take it upon myself to try to equip you when it comes to Scripture, when it comes to a way of life that God has, when it comes to the kingdom of God, when it comes to actually living this way of life. So let's look at this exit strategy. There are exit strategies that exist in all facets of life. Nations have exit strategies for war, disasters, even if they're rescuing Americans that may be trapped in problems on another soil. Out in the Middle East, it's happened a few times, and they have to have exit stories. How do we get people out of this issue or problem? And you have to prepare for that. Just last summer, I was looking at the embassy in Haiti as they were having this sort of civil war, as they were sides were battling each other politically, but also you had the military and the police department even firing shots at each other. And it was a stressful situation that I needed to go and do some things with the church. But as I looked on the website, the embassy, it basically said, if we're Americans that come in, if you get yourself into it, you better be able to get yourself out. No exit strategy. So that's why I put that off until just before the feast and just made a trip to the airport so we could kind of round things up for the feast. So it is different exit strategies for various things. You need exit strategies in various facets of your life. Perhaps you're leaving a job. Maybe you've quit or you're fired or whatever, but there's different things that have to be put together. Severance pay, vacation, 401ks, all these things have to be worked out before you can officially make a total exit. And so even that is an exit strategy. If you're getting a divorce, guess what? There's things to divide. All this stuff. You have to plan this, of how you're going to exit out of this situation, exit out of this issue, these problems. Even death requires an exit strategy. Yeah, death requires an exit strategy. You might say, well, death is an exit. Well, there needs to be a strategy. Being a pastor, I have dealt with death quite often and still have to, as I do a lot of funerals and counseling and so forth like that. But if you do not plan your exit in this life, someone else is going to have to.

And someone's going to have to handle all those details. And it can be very traumatic when someone has not planned for what happens later in life or even this exit in life. And it can be very traumatic for the family to have to do this.

So my sermon today is really twofold. It's not only about today, but it's about then. Are you a planner or do you just let life happen? Today, do you have an abundant life?

Christ said in John 10, 10, I came that you may have life and live it more abundantly. A few weeks ago, we examined happy. Are you happy today? Today, this day? Are you happy with your life? If not, why not? Because you see, today, the world we live in today, the time in which we live is unique in all of history. Because today, whether you realize it or not, and some people have never even thought about it, but you definitely have to think about it from not only God's perspective, but also yours. Today, we are God's advertisements. We are God's advertisements. We are God's advertisements. You ever thought about that? That you're advertising what God produces in human beings, what God's incredible potential He has for all of us?

We are that advertisement for Him. There have been some memorable advertisements over the years for us who live in America and also for the Caribbean, as you've seen them on TV. So, I put together some of these, in fact, it's eight of the ten most popular, successful advertisements by companies, and these advertisements work. You remember them. They are very memorable. The very first one I bring up is from 1988.

The mantra, a logo I gave a few weeks ago, is, just do it! And it is, of course, from Nike. Nike! Very popular. It sold a lot of tennis shoes, but also it might be interesting sometime to for you to look up and see where that mantra came from. Just do it. You might look at the history because it probably will surprise you that it was actually given and claimed by Nike from a serial killer. And so, I won't go into any more. I'll let you look that up.

It's a very interesting story of Nike and Gary Gilmore. So, the next. Let's look at another one. Coke! Coke! You remember this from very often. It says, it's the real thing. And for decades, a couple of decades, they use this advertisement to sell Coke. It's the real thing. What is the real thing? Well, it's actually just sugar and water, but to them it's the real thing. It's Coke! You remember it as the real thing, and it worked. Next, we have another one from Anheuser-Busch. If you remember some of these pictures there, they this was their most successful as they were selling their beer, and it had these gentlemen that would call each other as they're drinking beer and say, What's up?

What's up? You remember that? And everybody caught it. Next thing you know, everybody up and down the street would meet somebody. What's up? So, it's very successful advertising. People remember. You remember these faces. You remember those words. You remember how it just came out, and that was 1999.

So, it was a very memorable advertisement. Let's go on to another one. Another one. You, Ali, who is this? What do we advertise? It's this beer company put together this advertisement about the most interesting man in the world, and that's what he would always say. Yeah, I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I drink Dosecki's.

And everybody remembered that face, and that was 2006, and they kept that going for a little over a decade. It's very successful as people remember not only that face, but Dosecki's beer, and they remember it. It was a great advertisement. Let's look at another one. Ah, not Whoopi Goldberg. We aren't advertising Whoopi Goldberg, but she was part of the celebrities that got into advertising the milk mustache. The mustache got milk, and various entertainers, everybody just had this little milk mustache. Very successful. People remember that. They know what that is. Let's go on to another one. Ah, there we go. Does she or doesn't she? I didn't realize how long ago they had been, because when I grew up, that was still on in the 60s, and this came out in 1957, and it's Claro.

It's Claro. It's about hair coloring. Does she or doesn't she? I know they used to say, did she dye her hair? But now they say coloring, and so I guess it's supposed to make it sound better or whatever, but it was very successful. They used it. And so you would look at a woman and go, well, I wonder if she dyes her hair or not.

I wonder if she colors her hair. But Claro all said, oh no, our product is so good that people won't know whether you did it or not. And guess what? It worked. It was very successful. Let's go to another one.

Where's the beef? If you remember that lady where she looked in the buns and so forth, and she opened the bun and she couldn't see barely any meat, and she'd go, where's the beef? Where's the beef? And it was a Wendy's advertisement that the woman got very famous for that, because it was catchy. And you thought about it, and plus her voice and everything that they added for it. It was something I know many of you remember, that TV commercial. And last but not least, you might remember this one. I won some Taco Bell as the little Chihuahua dog came out, Taco Bell. And he was very, very famous through the 80s and 90s as he was telling you to make a run to the border, as he wanted you to buy Taco Bell. Well, we remember all this, but I'll ask you a question. Are you memorable? The memorable is this little Chihuahua dog. Well, people remember you. Do they remember you when you have contact with people? So are you memorable? Is God, by you being as advertised, is he getting his money's worth? I know when I had my company back in Tennessee, I advertised on television, radio, newspaper, various different media outlets, and I would always have to look and see, okay, does it pay? Am I getting my money's worth? Are people remembering that ad no matter where it's at, whatever my company was?

God has a lot invested in us. He has part of himself. The Holy Spirit invested in us, as he has put that in. He wants to produce an incredible product, and he wants that product to represent him and to kind of be his advertisements. How are you doing?

How are you doing as an advertisement for God? How do you feel about yourself? How blessed do you feel to be part of God's work at this time? Has God poured out his blessings on you? Do you feel blessed, brethren, even in the very tough times and the rough times that happen in this life? You know, God talks about that in James 1, verse 2 through 4. He says, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials. Well, let's stop there. Now that is something that's just, that's hard to do. Any of us has been through trials, been through problems. It says, count it all joy. Oh, good, I get to have problems. No, the actual Greeks gives it, when it's translated there, means multi-colored trials. Not the same one, the same ditch that you fall into, and then you do it every day. You get up and go, oh, I fell into the ditch again. Oh, I fell into the same ditch again. I fell into the ditch. No, it says, brethren, count all joy when you fall into various trials. Different problems come up from a different area, different aspect. Knowing that the testing of your faith from that trial produces patience, and don't we all need or want patience? I'm, I need it. I need it every day. I don't need to have one day that I don't have patience, because it is a problem with all of us. But let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

So this is what he wants us to do. We're going to have issues, but it makes us stronger. We're going to have these problems, but you also, people get to see us when we have problems like they do, and then how do we handle it? That is part of the advertisement. That is part of God's job of using us as models, models for this is what he's wanting to produce. This is what, this is, this is part of the God plan that a lot of people do, and they don't even think about.

Bring that up because life is precious. Life is precious. Too many of us do not appreciate good health. Do it until we're sick. It's amazing when I get sick or have something come up, and I'm not feeling good. I may have picked up a bug or something, and all of a sudden, I get back home if I'm flying out to one of the countries because you pick so much up in an airport. I'll come back in, and I'll be like, boy, I need to start eating better.

I need to watch what I eat. So all of a sudden, when you get a little sick or something happens, or maybe even you have a little money issue where money gets tight, and you have to knuckle down for a few months to get your budget back in line, and then when you do, you're going, wow, I'm not going to do that again. But life is out there for all of us to live every single day, and it matters how we live it. We see that by just looking at the world around us and the problems.

But there's another aspect to this that we need to look at, and that is there is birth, and there is death, and in between there's life. In between there's life. So we start at birth, and that happens, and so eventually we know death is going to happen. But in the middle of that, there is life. But none of us like to look at death. None of us like to think about, wow, I'm going to die someday. I remember when I was 13 years old, one of my grandfathers died, one of my grandmothers died all in the same year, and then somebody else died a few years later, and my basketball coach got killed in an automobile accident. I remember a friend of mine got hit by a train, and then I remember one of my mentors when I was a senior in high school. Man, I was very close to, I learned so much from. He died. And so at 18, I said, I'm done with this. I don't want to experience death anymore. It's so negative. It just drags me down. So I said, I'm not going to go to any funeral. I'm not going to do any of this. I don't have to do it. I'm not facing death. Well, it didn't take long before more and more things happen. And my life began to be encountering death with relatives, friends with close people, even in the church, as life was coming to an end for various people. And we look even at this video behind me, and it's a time of sorrow as someone has passed. And so here you have the grieving process, and it's something that affects all of us. And we kind of know, where do I go from here? Am I eventually going to end up here? Am I eventually going to be mourning like this young lady sitting here? It's mourning.

Brother and I like to talk and give you an example. And I love this example, and it's not mine. I saw it many, many years ago. But I'd like you to think about your life. Here I am, and let's go this wide. Because the Bible says 3, score, and 10 is about the average age of a person, and if you're blessed, you live 80. And today, 75 to 80 years old catches most everybody. So just think about this being your life. And 80 is a limit, 75 is a limit. Where do you go from here? You realize I'm 61 years old. So you know what? This space in the middle just got a lot smaller. It's just got a lot smaller. Okay, and so this is what I have left in life. Okay? What am I going to do with that? Well, wait a minute. Whatever years I have left, let's see, I got to sleep six to eight hours a day, and I'm also working for however long I'm going to work. So all of a sudden, that gets very small. This is really the time, brethren, that we have left. It's very small. What are you going to do with yours? What are you going to do with the time that you have left? Shouldn't we make the most of this little time that we have left? William Penn. William Penn said time is what we want most, but what we use worst.

I think that's true. Boy, we want more time, but then boy, don't we waste some time. We waste a lot of time. So how short is the time you have left? For some of you who are younger, you may go, I'm a little bit out here, but when you take all the sleep, the eating, the time that you have to work, guess what? It gets smaller. It gets very small. So how short does it need to be for you to say, I need to look at how I'm living today and how I'm planning then.

That time can be very small, but what if you knew how much time you had? If you knew, well, wait a minute, because some of us think, well, I might live to be 75. Well, what if you want, what if I only live to be 65? All of a sudden, guess what? That window, that window of opportunity for me to enjoy life and live life gets awfully small. Very, very small. This t-shirt one time that said, live today like it's your last day on earth, which is kind of silly because if it's my last day on earth, I wouldn't worry about money. I wouldn't worry about this. I wouldn't worry about what I ate, but it makes a point that we should think about life. Life today and then what's next. And that's what I want to talk about because, as the scripture says in 1 Corinthians 15, for as in Adam, all die. For as in Adam, all die.

We're all going to die. No doubt about it. We're going to die. Unless Christ returns in our lifetime, and I thought when I was 20, he'd be, I'd for sure be, but I'm not so sure anymore. And that's really not important. I'd like to see it, but if not, I'll see it hopefully one way or the other. For as in Adam, all die. That is the then. That is the then. Because that is what we need to look at today and then the then. Because what happens then with you in your life? You see movies where doctors come in with bad news. We've all seen various movies that way, and doctor comes in and he says, I've got bad news. Well, it's one thing to sit in a theater, sit at your home, and see a movie, and see that, but what have you really had to experience? That.

Imagine how you would feel if the doctor came in and said the C word. Serious. And, or it's terminal. You have cancer and it's terminal. And so we're going to have to see what we can do for you. You can't imagine that till you've been there. You really can't. And that's why I'm bringing this message because it did make a difference to me. Because I have gone through that. I went through that two years ago. As the doctor came in, had this huge tumor that just kept growing and growing. I tried natural stuff. I tried all this stuff and thought it would, you know, go away, but I didn't realize it.

It was as serious as it was and it just continued to grow and grow. And so a decision had to be made. I went to the doctor and he looked at it and almost his eyes got real large. And he goes, this is serious. I said, well, do you need to do a biopsy? And he said, no, it's too big. We need to just remove it. We have to remove this. And so I said, okay, that's good.

He said, then we'll send it off for tests and see if it's benign or malignant. So I said, okay. So I had to go in and had this surgery done as I removed this mass.

And so then time came to wait. And of course, they said, well, we're going to send it off and have it tested to see. And I may not be anything to worry about. Hopefully we got everything. We got it all. We removed it from your chest and area. So it always takes time in those things.

We're supposed to have your tests in a week. Well, it didn't come back in a week. And so then you had to wait a little longer. And I remember where I was when I got the phone call from my doctor and left me a message and told him to call back. So I went out by the beach, kind of by myself, and I gave a call back. And he said, it's bad news. It was malignant. And it was a rare, very rare type of cancer that doesn't hit many people. One out of millions of people. And I just happened to get it as a malignant Triton tumor. TT. So I, of course, went home then and looked it all up and tried to see what looked on the internet. And yes, it was a terminal type of cancer. And so then what do you do? What do you do when you're faced with then? I was 59 years old. Faced with then. I talked to the doctors and we went in. All along, the first things I had to do was to talk to my wife, tell her, tell my family.

And that's never an easy thing to do. It was one of the first things I did. And then, of course, I went and had a couple glasses of wine to chill out and to go, okay, I got to start planning some things now. And one of the first things I did was call my insurance agent to make sure that my life insurance was still there because that's part of an exit strategy that I had to plan. But we went back to the doctors and after they'd done these tests, and we went to a couple of them and, okay, well, how bad is it? And they go, well, we got, you know, the really bad news is you have a terminal cancer. The good news is you're pretty healthy and with treatment, we can extend your life. Maybe 12 to two months, even 18 months, and maybe even 24 months. Well, I said, well, that's not really what I wanted here. But what about the other side? He said, well, if you don't do anything, it's probably about six months and a year at best, but probably somewhere about six months before you expire.

So one of the things you think about is, and I thought about at that time as you're kind of making your way through the days that seem to drag, what are you going to do? I think about the Tim McGraw song. I wasn't go skydiving or anything like that that he did or talked about doing in a song, but I realized just how important it was that I do some things that needed to be done.

That I handled details that I had put off. That I didn't really have an exit strategy, even though I knew I was. I don't know. We all don't. We all just think we're going to live forever till something happens. And then I thought of all the things that I needed to finish, all the loose ends that I needed to take care of, because to me it was inevitable. I was anointed for the time, and I was hoping that God would give me more time. But I wanted to finish the work that God had given me to do. We had some stuff going on in Haiti, and I wanted to be able to. Our Haiti came around the block soon after, and I wanted to be able to do that. But I knew one of the most important things, and sometimes it's hard to do. And perhaps some of you have had to go in and hear the C word, or hear this, or your chances. But we have to put things in God's hands. And that probably helped me more than anything else. Is realize, okay, I'm in God's hands. I didn't say I wasn't kind of like Hezekiah. I didn't roll over on the side of my bed, and so if you'll just give me 50 more years, I'll do whatever. No, I didn't make a deal with God that I hadn't in the past. But I just kind of figured, well, wait a minute. I need to let Him. I can talk about having faith and trust in God. You can stand up at a podium at a lectern, and you can talk all about faith. You can talk about putting God first. You can talk about trusting God, but really, this is one of the first times I've really had to say, okay, God, either good or bad, I'm going to put myself in your hands. I'm going to do your work. And you know, when you kind of leave it to God, there's some peace. There's some peace that you find that I had never really experienced before because I didn't wake up in the middle of the night wondering if this was my last day. I didn't have to worry about this. So I found peace in it, but I also then thought, well, I'll find some humor. And so I try to find the humor in life, humor in death, humor in trials and so forth. I don't think Mary was very impressed too many times with my jokes that I made about it because she was, you know, she actually wanted me to hang around and bugger a few more years. But one of the things that I found most is to stay positive. You know, when you put yourself in God's hands, when God says, I got you, however long it is, there's something, there's a peace that comes with that that you can kind of go, I feel good about this. I feel good because my focus is now on trying to obey God, trying to live a righteous life, trying to please Him. And then however many days I had left, try to enjoy those. One thing I did do was start eating healthy. That's something I had neglected in quite a few decades. But I say, well, God, if you're, if I'm going to have a little more time, I want to feel good or try to feel good in whatever days I have left. One of the other things that I found was to read the Word. Read the Word. I found myself reading God's Word every morning, even that I didn't do it, but I would do it even more. And then I began to look at scriptures in a different way than I had before. And I began to see how precious they were and how I needed to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So that is how I planned my exit strategy.

That was then. Because it's not like we didn't know it would end, is it? It's not like we didn't know that this life would come to an end. Genesis 3 and verse 19.

In the sweat of your face you shall, in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you shall return. We know that. I had read that scripture many times, but it really didn't hit home until I realized I'm going in the dirt. I get beworm food. This is all there is. And I realized, yeah, but God has blessed me through the years and I needed to thank him more for the life that I had lived and for hopefully whatever days I had left. But I couldn't get away from because from death, dust you came and dust you shall return. We're not immortal yet. Yet. See, death is unavoidable. Brethren, death is unavoidable. Hebrews 9 and verse 27, it says, as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment. So it's appointed for all of us to die. But that's not always easy. That's not always easy to face. But it's a lot easier a lot easier after you face it and have an exit strategy that to realize. So all you're doing is planning. Planning and by planning, it helps you live your life day to day then.

There was a song when I was growing up, an old country song. I don't remember. I just remember hearing it on my school bus. And the song had a line and it says, everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. And I don't remember much about the song. I didn't know much when I was a kid about heaven at that time anyway. But there's only two sure things in life, as they say. Death and taxes. And as you realize if you live in America, it may be taxes and then death. Or it may be they'll even tax you after your death. But there's death and taxes. So maybe that's why Moses wrote in his famous psalm, Psalm 90, that we should number our days. Number our days. God knows the numbers. We don't. So if you number your days and realize that this will eventually become this, there will be no more days.

It should help you to appreciate the time, the life, the life that we've been given. And let me live it. Let me live it. And let me do those things that so that I can have that abundant life that Christ talked about in John 10. You know, we of all people, we of all people on earth, we know what happens after death, don't we? We're not out there like, I don't know, I'm going to heaven or, oh wait, I'm going to burn in hell.

As I have questions, that's one of the big questions I get on the phone sometimes, where somebody will call me and go, do you believe in a hellfire?

My biggest answer to them is, do you? And tell me about it. So I let them kind of tell me about what they believe, and then I can, I try to tell them what the Bible believes. Because there's a lot of people who, in this world, and sometimes in the body of Christ, that just really fear death.

They fear it. They want to do anything. I remember the baseball player Ted Williams, when he died, he had his body and head or whatever put in this lab so they can freeze it and put in these chemicals and so forth. So that when they, in 200 to 300 years, when they find a way to preserve life, that they can bring him back. Some people go to all kinds of extremes to avoid that then. When we look, and even David knew he was going to die, and he said he would, one of the scriptures he talks about going where his fathers went. So part of the equipping of the saint is educating. Part of equipping is educating, and we, all people need to be educated in that way. First Thessalonians 4 and verse 13 says, but I do not want you to be ignorant. Okay, we're all ignorant in certain aspects, aren't we? Jeff's a computer whiz and knows all this stuff. Well, he didn't, I'm ignorant in a lot of the stuff that he knows. In all of our lives, we're skilled in different things. We have certain knowledge. The Greek word ignorant means not to know. So I don't apologize for being ignorant in different aspects of life. I just haven't studied those. So I'm ignorant of that. But here Paul is telling the Thessalonians, but I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, not to know, concerning those who have fallen asleep. Falling asleep is used many times for those who have died. So he didn't want them to be ignorant about what happens after death. Last, it says, you sorrow as others who have no hope. We have the hope. We know. We know what.

We know where we're going to be. We know we're not going up to heaven to play harps and hang around on some clouds or come back and, like they make movies, and we can come back and help our relatives or irritate our relatives or whatever these movies tell us that we can do. We know that's not true. We know what we know what is said. And that should be of great comfort to us. And he was telling the people in Thessalonica at the time, the brethren, because he had taught them. And it's great to have that knowledge to know that I'm not going to be in an ever burning hell fire where the devil in his little red outfit in his pitchfork runs around and sticks my char skin as I'm agonizing in pain forever and ever. And just when I start to get a little, he tortures me again.

No, we know about the resurrections. We know about eternal life. Brethren, the wonderful thing is we know how the movie ends. The other night, my wife and I, we were watching this movie and never seen it before. So I didn't know how it ended. And it was a good little story.

But we were watching it wondering, how is this going to end? And we didn't expect it to end as it ended. I wouldn't say a surprise any more. We just we had no idea how it was going to end. You know what's great? Is you know how the story ends. You know how the movie ends. You know what happened. You know the kingdom of God and how when you understand eternal life, it means forever and ever and ever. So there really isn't an end for us who put our trust in God. That we may have to go to sleep for a while. We may sleep. But we must all understand, all of us have an expiration date.

We just don't know what it is. It's not inside my jacket. It's not on the back of your head.

The expiration date is not stamped. But God knows. God knows your expiration date. Your expiration date. This year, I found the expiration date to be my father-in-law at 97 years of age, Dalton McElroy. I had a great friend of mine. We grew up together. I thought the world of him. We had many, many good times together. It was Ray Breedlove. His expiration date was 62. Humberto Mejica. Expiration date 82 this year. And another good friend, Jim Tuttle.

Jim was 85. I never thought of Jim being that old when they actually said he'd pass. And they saw his ass. I said, man, I never thought of him being that old. But it was an expiration date. And we don't know when it is. A few years ago, probably been what, five or six, seven years ago, we have members in our church, outstanding members in our church in Fort Lauderdale, named Bruce and Vicki Wooliver.

And I thought their expiration date was six or seven years ago, when they had carbon monoxide poisoning. And they came and found them in the house as they had a gas leak. And they had both just went out. The dog had died and went out. And they were inside their home. And their daughter came and had they had to tear down the door. And the medics came to get them. And they basically thought they were both dead.

And I think they went over to Vicki first because they thought she might be alive and basically coated Bruce. But they decided they thought, well, there might be something here. There might be a pulse here. They gave him oxygen. And after a few days of being in the hospital, it might have been a week or so. But they're alive.

God wasn't done with Bruce and Vicki Wooliver. They came as close as probably anybody I know that didn't actually die. Because they thought they even the hospital thought they're not going to live. But they did. Because God was not done with them yet. And they have been of great benefit to the Fort Lauderdale Church, to their neighbors, to everyone. And isn't that what we're supposed to do during this time called today till then? So God extended or didn't really extend their expiration.

It just wasn't time for them to go yet. Do we know? Do we know when our expiration date is? No. But God does. And that's what really matters. So as I end this sermon today, I know this has been different, but do you want to hear the same sermon every week? Do you want to hear the same type of sermon?

Except I just change scriptures and give a different title as I had one minister tell me, oh yeah, most of the ministers only have three sermons and they just give it over and over and over again. But I wanted to do this because this was very real to me as I've had to do some funerals that I've had to deal with death quite a bit just in the last few months.

So here is what I'm giving you in a nutshell. Plan. Plan your exit. Plan your exit. Have an exit strategy. Inevitable. My mother, who is 82, and we will go up and visit her once a year or sometimes more, and we get the chance.

And now she's realized after my father passed seven, eight years ago that she could pass too, even though her mother lived to be 99 and her grandmother lived to be 100, so she'll probably outlive me. But she already has everything planned for her funeral. She has this. She's told us where, you know, what's going to happen. We're going to distribute it to the four kids. She has her will done and so forth like that and how, you know, we're going to, she's going to distribute all the millions of dollars she has to each of her kids.

I know she's listening right now, so she's probably laughing about that one. But people need to plan. You need to plan because it's inevitable, and it shouldn't be something that we in the church fear. It shouldn't be something like I was when I was 18, 19 years old that I ran from because I didn't want to deal with it. But it's easier to deal with it, and then let's live life. Let's live life.

Second, I'd like to talk about is plan your life. Plan your life. Don't just let this just slip away. There's things you want to do. People call, oh, there's a bucket list that I want to do. I don't really have a bucket list, but my wife and you hear that term thrown around quite a bit. There's some things we want to do and things I want to do with her as a couple.

But plan your life and let's live that. Let's live that short time and live it and laugh and have a good time and enjoy what he has given you because every day, brethren, is a gift. And I can tell you it is because it's been two years. They haven't found any cancer. Every time I go back, they're like, I don't know. It should happen. It's gonna happen.

Nobody of the 23 cases I looked at, nobody lived more than 18 months in here. It's been two years. They don't know. Well, I do. He knows the expiration date on this body. I don't have to.

But live every day as it's a gift. And don't forget that you're advertising. You're one of God's great pieces of advertisement there. And then finally, don't ever forget to visualize the kingdom. Don't ever forget to visualize the kingdom of God. Romans 8, verse 38 says, For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So death will not separate us from him. We want to be in his kingdom, and he wants us there in his kingdom. It's a siki first kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Brethren, can we live? Can we live life the way he wants us to live it? Can we also plan an exit strategy? In Egypt, in Israel, they used to have the kings. They would bury all the kings, all in certain places. If they were a good king, they would have this nice burial. If they were a bad king, you just got buried over here. But all the good kings all got buried in the land of the kings or a burial of the kings. And so every king would know that that's where you're going to end up. Brethren, for most of us, or maybe a lot of us, some of us, don't know how to put it, being I don't control time, the dust may be where we go. But that's not bad. That's not bad because of what's beyond that. I have a saying that I have the same since I had this cancer two years ago. It said, when God's done, so am I. When God's done, so am I. So by putting it in his hands, I'm going to be happy with that. So whatever time I have left, maybe it's 10 years, maybe it's five years, maybe it's a year, maybe it's four. Let me live it. And brethren, we should all go and live it.

So go, live, and be the best advertisement for God, his way, and his kingdom.

And I'll see you back here in seven days.