Let's grab our Bibles, please. Let's go to the book of James, the book of James, and we'll go to James chapter number four. Now, when you find your place, if you're willing and able, would you stand with us for the reading of the word of God? James chapter number four. James four, we'll begin reading now in verse number 13, the Bible says, Go to now, ye that say, today or tomorrow we will give and to go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain. Think about this, whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? What a good question. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Let me read that again for emphasis, please. He says, whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings, all such rejoicing as evil. Think about this in verse 17. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, To him, it is sin. With the help of the Lord this morning, I'd love to preach a message titled this, One Heartbeat Closer to Heaven. One Heartbeat Closer to Heaven. Let's pray this morning. Father, Lord, we seek you. God, we want you to help us in all ways and all things. Father, would you show us our lives? God, you asked the question, what is your life, Father? May we reflect on such truth. Holy Spirit, would you show us the truth and lead us in the right ways and the correct ways to please you and honor you for the rest of our lives. Father, empty me of self, cleanse me of sin and fill me, Lord, with the Spirit of God. I pray, Lord, that you help us this morning to honor you, magnify you, and to reflect your word in a positive manner. Father, we love you and thank you in Christ's name. Amen. You can be seated. Thank you so much for standing. I'd like your utmost attention, please, your utmost attention as we deal with very sensitive subject this morning. I'd like to read this poem to you. I'd like you to listen very intently as we go through it. Two little lines I heard one day, traveling along life's busy way, bringing conviction to my heart and from my mind would not depart. Only one life, which will soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life, yes, only one, soon will its fleeting hours be done. Then in that day, my Lord to meet and stand before his judgment seat, only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life, the still small voice gently pleads for a better choice. Bidding me selfish aims to leave and to God's will to cleave. Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life, a few brief years, each with its burdens, hopes, and fears, each with its clays I must fulfill, living for self or living His will. only one life will soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last. When this bright world would tempt me sore, when Satan would a victory score, when self would seek to have its way, then help me, Lord, with joy to say, only one life will soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last. Give me, Father, a purpose deep, in joy or sorrow, thy word to keep. Faithful and true, whate'er the strife, pleasing thee in my daily life. Only one life will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. Oh, let my love with fervor burn, and from the world now let me turn. living for thee and thee alone, bringing thee pleasure on thy throne. Only one life, t'will soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life, yes, only one. Now let me say, thy will be done. And when at last I'll hear the call, I know I'll say, t'was worth it all. Only one life, t'will soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life, t'will soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last. And when I am dying, how happy I'll be if the lamp of my life has burned out for thee. Only one life will soon be passed. It will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. Friend, we're gonna deal with the subject one heartbeat closer to heaven. We each have a heart, yes, a beating heart, not our mental heart or our emotional heart as the Bible would say. We all have a physical beating heart. And if you didn't know, the Lord says our times are in his hands. The Lord knows when you will pass on, when you will physically die on earth. Your heart continues to beat, maybe at different beats, maybe your doctor has you on pacemakers, or maybe you're on different kinds of medicines to help your heart, but each of us is beating. And I want to flip the switch. We have only a certain number of heartbeats left in which we do not know the number. You do not know how many you have left. The Bible says, you know, not what is on the morrow. That means you don't know what comes tomorrow. You want to know a very true, but very depressing quote. Enjoy today for the worst things that could happen to you may not have come yet. That's true and that's kind of depressing, isn't it? We are one heartbeat closer to heaven. James here is discussing this. How brief and how the brevity of life needs to be in the forefront of our minds. Many of us remember when we were teenagers, we finally got our driver's license. You remember that day? I remember it clear. I remember I was with my mother, almost killed her. I don't even remember what I was wearing. I used to have long, long hair where I could flip back and forth. I don't know if you could believe that or not. When I was high school, I had hair I could flip back and forth. I remember those things. I remember when I graduated high school. Do you remember those days when you graduated high school? What about when you met your future spouse, or you graduated college, or you found the dream job you always wanted, or built or bought your first house, or when you put a down payment on your first car? Do you remember these sweet memories and how quick life seems to go, doesn't it? Life seems to go by so fast, and you know what I'm being told? Every year it goes by quicker and quicker and quicker. Doesn't it feel like we just went through the COVID pandemic, 2020 was here, and life then, to me, felt like it was going slow as could be. Nothing was open, we couldn't go out to eat, we couldn't go to the gym, I couldn't do hardly any of the things I wanted. But all of a sudden, here we are, and it's almost Christmas over two and a half years later, and it seems by it's going so fast. Do you know that life will go by quicker than we can even realize? And that's what the Bible wants to bring clear to our life. I want you to notice a few things. Number one, I want you to see the unknown future. The unknown future. Look at me in verse number 13. It says, go to now ye that say today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain. Did you know that every day is a mystery? I've learned this when it comes to pharmacy, I'm a manager at a pharmacy, and I've learned this, there's gonna be a problem every single day. I just don't know what it's gonna be. And you know, let me give you an example. Last week, or really a week and a half ago, I was just in there doing my normal duties as a pharmacy technician and running the store, and this lady runs in the pharmacy and she says, somebody has just drove into the side of your building. Well, guess you know how prepared I am for that? Not at all. So I throw my headset down, I run outside, and there's an elderly woman who has jumped the curb and her car is in my wall. And she's like, well, do you think I could back up and just get out of this? And then she looked at me and said, I really just want my medicine. And I called her by her first name. I said, ma'am. I said, ma'am, I have to call the police. You can't leave. I got to call 911. So I called the police. And they're like, OK, is she injured? Is she hurt? Is she bleeding? Is she breathing? I was like, yes, she's breathing. I don't think she's bleeding. I don't think she's bad off, so it's pouring rain. It's pouring rain. And I ask her, and I'm screaming through the rain, and I'm on the phone with 911, and I ask her, are you okay? Are you okay? Are you hurt? She said, I'm not okay. Well, I told 911 that. She said she's not okay. So you know what happened 10 seconds later? I mean, just cars everywhere. Christiansburg rescue was, I mean, on scene. I mean, one came down the hill from the high school, one came from the hill from the pharmacy, one came from the rescue squad. It was like lights everywhere. It was like World War II. It was like, boom, boom, boom, lights everywhere. Police were there. And all of a sudden, this woman, the police came, they knocked on her window, and all of a sudden, she rolled down her window. It's pouring rain again. She didn't get out of the car. And they said, all right, man, we're gonna check you out. You said you're not okay? She's like, I'm not going to the hospital. I'm not going to go. I ain't going to go." Well, we just called all the whole rescue squad to come save your life, because they think you're dying in a car. And she just said, oh, I won't go. So they end up leaving. The police come. We do a whole report. But the theme of that story was, is I was not prepared for that. Every day is a mystery. It says the unknown future. It says, many people say this, they say today or tomorrow, we plan our lives, don't we? We're always told to plan well and plan determines all the sorts of things. And honestly, we wanna plan right, especially at church, we wanna try our best to plans. But let me tell you this, sometimes God's plans supersede ours. And sometimes God's plans seems to go completely against ours. The future is so unknown. Do you remember when you had a heartbreak or a heartache or a death? Many a times, those are mysteries, those are unknown. Do you know that there are some trials you will go through that you don't know about right now? That if you knew it was coming, you'd probably faint right now. But the Lord gives us grace. Do you know that the Lord does not need your strength? Did you hear me? God does not need your strength. He has plenty of that. You know what he does require of you? Your weakness. The Lord has none of that. The Bible says here in verse number 13, it says, ye that say today or tomorrow, it says they'll go into such a city, they plan their lives, and then to continue there, they'll stay a year. They're planning for the future, their longevity, they are gonna last forever. He says they'll buy and they'll sell and they'll get gain, they'll just live their plans, but isn't it so interesting and sometimes comical that our lives don't pan out the way we planned? The unknown future. And what needs to be convicted and brought to our heart today is this. We know not what will happen tomorrow. Not a clue. We can plan it, we can guess, we can estimate, or we can give an approximate answer. But we honestly have no idea. We could get in a car crash. Our loved one may die. We may get food poisoning and have stomach upset all day. We could trip and fall and bust our kneecap. We could do all kinds of stuff. It could be good or bad, but the future's uncertain. So in other terms, if the future is so uncertain and the future is so unknown, we must live today to the fullest of its capacity. Every day, to the fullest of his capacity. We hear about young people passing away all the time. We hear about middle-aged people passing away. We hear about older people passing away all the time. Horne Funeral Home, McCoy, the funeral homes around here are all full. They're having funerals all day long, and you never know when your heartbeat will end. Let me ask you, friend, a good medical question and really good intellectual question. How do you keep your heart beating? Well, some of you say, well, I try to work out to keep it healthy. No, I mean, what keeps your heart beating? Can you control it? Go ahead, make your heart stop beating right now. Make it stop. Somebody pulls out a pacemaker, turns it off. It's like, oh, okay, you proved me wrong. But many of us, if we don't have any human instruments that control our heartbeat, we have no power over our heartbeat. But you know who does? The Lord. How dare we procrastinate? to do what God wants us to do today and try to push it off to tomorrow. Do you know what Satan's favorite word is, friends? Some of you think it's sin or transgression or wickedness. No, Satan's favorite word is tomorrow. Tomorrow. He wants you to push off today unto tomorrow. He wants you to push it off. Procrastination is the word of the devil. Today is the day of the righteous. Today is the day. I want you to see the unknown future. We aren't all knowing. We have no idea what may even come this afternoon. So while we're speaking, you and I right now, you need nothing be between you and your Savior. Here's a good motto for you. This is my life motto. Christ first, me last, nothing between but love. May nothing be between you and your Lord but love. No person, no sin, no thought, no wickedness, nothing between you and your Savior but love. Because listen to me, and this is true, this is kind of sad at the same time, this could be your last service in a church in your whole life. Could be, most likely, maybe not, but it absolutely could be. I've seen it before. I've heard of pastors preaching behind the pulpit and they die of a heart attack behind the pulpit. Life is so uncertain and so unknown in how quick it goes. This ought to charge us to get what we can get done and do all we can. Do you want to know a good definition of willpower? That's what we need is willpower. You provide the will, God provides the power. That's what we need in this church with our members. We provide the will. God, we want to serve you. We want to live right. We want to serve this community and reach Fairlawn and Radford and Radford University. And we want to be a light in the darkness. We provide the will and God will then provide the power that we need. Thank God for his sufficient grace that helps us each and every day. But this ought to make us humble, this thought of an uncertain, the unknown future. We don't know everything. You know, there's a lot of people who plan out their lives and it doesn't end the way it needs to. You know, sometimes God's distractions or God's moving of our plan is the greatest blessings we could ever have, even though we may disagree with it. But this also should make us realize our insufficiency. This shows us we need the Lord. If you truly believed that you could die at any moment. There's an old country song, I don't recommend it or promote it, but it says, living like you're dying. What would change if you lived like you were dying? Well, if you'd finally, if we would finally die to self, like Galatians 2.20 would want us to, we would live such a life. Do you know that it says, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Do you know the Lord Jesus wants to live his life through you? Many parents want to live their lives vicariously through their children, especially in athletics. Many people want their kid to be a great football player, soccer player, and they just want to live their life through him. But the Lord Jesus is a father that wants to live his life through you as well. And you should allow him to do such a thing. And this ought to make us realize our need for the Lord. We do not know what is on tomorrow. We do not know what will come next week, next year, no idea. This should make us realize every minute I need the Lord. Every minute I need the Lord. Every day, every hour, keep me near the heart of the Lord, every moment. But this should also make us appreciate life, shouldn't it? How dare we take such simple things for granted? We have nice pews. I've been in churches that have none. We have heat in this building, though your hands might be a little nippy. We have a lot of places in the world that I've been that have no heat and AC, and you sweat or you freeze, one of the two. We take such simple things for granted, especially as American Christians, and shame on us for doing such a thing. We need to enjoy our life, enjoy the simple things, enjoy the things that matter. Get your time management correct. The future's so unknown, so why would you waste it today? Why would you waste it on some guys my age that spend their whole lives playing video games? That's all they do. What a waste of time. I'm not saying games as a whole are bad, but if you spend a majority of your time on it, we're wasting our time. Some ladies may spend all their time doing their makeup in the morning for two or three hours in the morning, not calling you out, Ms. Sally, at all. But some people may be doing that, and they might be wasting time. And friends, our time is very short. The Bible says our life is a vapor. And if any of you, you've heard illustrations, but you make a pot of mac and cheese. By the way, I don't like macaroni and cheese. I know I'm weird. What blasphemy, right? What weirdness? I don't like it. I don't eat it. But if you're boiling water and the vapor comes up, How quick does it seem to disappear? One thought I've had is we need to savor the vapor. In other words, enjoy and take each moment of life that we can have because it will soon be gone. That's why we want to do things the best we can around this church. We want to get it all done now and work as hard as we can. Do you know that we need to put forth our best effort because time is short. You know that God gives us the energy. the grace that's needed, that His grace is sufficient unto the day. He gives us enough strength to take each day, the Lord does, and we need to make sure that we use it because the future is unknown. Number two, I want you to see the undeniable frailty, the undeniable frailty. The Bible says in verse number 14, it says, whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. What a good question it asks. Look at this. For what is your life? What is your life? When people ask you, what do you do, or who are you? Most men will proclaim, I work here. Or many women will say, I do this, or have this many children, or this kind of family. But really, at the end of the day, what is your life? And what will it equal? Think. You know yourself better than I do. Think about this thought. What will be achieved with your life? What will be achieved? Will anything be achieved with your life? Will any soul be led to the Lord through your life? When is the last time you saw a soul saved from you talking to another person? When? Some people, it's never been. If you've been a Christian 20, 30, 40, 50 years and have never seen a convert, that is a shameful act and a shameful thought. We're all guilty, aren't we? We are called to reach the world and lost because we have undeniable frailty. Think about this. You know the book of Jonah. We all know Jonah and the whale, yes? That's a very, a lot of kids like the story. They sing the songs. Miss Allie works at a daycare and they sing Jonah songs all the time. And she comes home playing Veggie Tales Jonah songs all the time. But you know what I think about Jonah? We know he was in the belly of a fish how many days? Three days. He was supposed to go unto Nineveh, the great city, and cry against it. Think about this thought. He was supposed to be in Nineveh three days earlier than he got there, right? Because he was three days pushed back. He was supposed to go earlier. So I wonder how many people left Nineveh, passed away and died those three days he was gone and did not get to repent to the Lord and change their ways before he reached that place. I wonder how many people have been missed because of our own sinfulness and wickedness. I wonder how many souls we could have reached and impacted if it wasn't for our own selfishness, the same way it was with Jonah. I want you to see the undeniable frailty. I want you to understand it's a swift life. The Bible says it is even a vapor. It's going to get faster. It is a fast life, and it's going to be gone soon. Let me tell you this, look me as clear in my hazel eyes as you can. It is swift. We do not have long. You do not have much longer, no matter what age group that you are. The curse of my generation in our 20s and teenagers is we think we have a lot of time, Wouldn't you go back and tell your 20-year-old self differently? Wouldn't you go back and tell him, it's really not that long? It's really not that long? When you were 20 years old and 30 years old, you're like, oh, I have 30 more years, 50 more years, 70 more years to live if I live to 90. But those, once age reaches you a little bit more, you realize that's an ignorant thought. Because it is a swift life. Only one life you get to have, it will soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last. We see the undeniable frailty. It's a swift life. It also means it's a short life. It goes by fast, but it's not for very long. It says, that appeareth for a little time. That's what the Bible says your life is, a little time. That's it. Your life is just a little time. We only have one life, that's it, no re-dos. This is not a video game, this is not on Nintendo 64 with Mario Kart. You don't get a re-do, we don't get a restart, we don't get another chance. We don't get another opportunity. Why would we waste today? Why would we waste our time? Why would we waste our lives on careless nonsense that we spend our days? It's a short time, it's a short life. We don't have long. So you better make the most of today. You better soak all you can out of today. If you have little ones, you better enjoy them while they're small. You better enjoy your loved ones while they're here because one day your loved ones may be gone and they're not coming back on this side of eternity. You better enjoy it while we have it now. We better live for Christ all that we can and do it now. It's also, A special life. It says, so it's a swift life, it's a vapor. It's a short life, it appears for a little time. It's a special life. It says, and then vanisheth away. Think about this. Our life vanishes away. We know that that vapor as it rises, it goes off, it vanishes away. But I'm thankful that as the vapor, it may go off and it's gone. It evaporates. I'm thankful our soul does not. Our life is special. We don't have long, friends. And if there's any soul in here who has not placed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you better do it as quick as possible. You better do it what we like to say at work, ASAP. Or in medical terms, STAT. I've heard of a story one time, and I've heard this from another person, so I don't know how true it is. I believe it is. Now there was a family, a mother and a father, a boy and a girl, their kids. They came to a Sunday night service and they sat on the back row. The preacher was preaching the gospel about the Lord Jesus Christ. He was giving it all he had, showing forth the word of God and the truth. And at the end, he gave an invitation. He asked, is anyone in here that does not know the Lord and needs to place faith in him and get saved? The young teenage girl raised her hand, and he begged her to make a decision. He begged her to come. He begged her to give her life to Christ, and she said no. She wouldn't do it. She wouldn't budge. She said no. That night, on the way home, that car crashed and landed on the side, and when the girl was on the bottom in the back seat, the car went into flames. The mother and father and son, as far as I know the story, got out of the car, and the daddy tried to get the door for his daughter unjarred. Apparently it was stuck, and he was burning his arm off. I mean, he was roasting it, trying to get that door open for his baby girl, and he could not get her out, and she perished that night. Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. And she passed away that night, openly unsaved, as she rejected the Lord Jesus moments before. Why would you do such a thing? Why would we push it off? In tomorrow, the word of the devil, today is the day to get things right with the Lord Jesus. If you're away, if you're straight, if you've fallen away, today is the day to get right with God. He welcomes you home. He just wants you to come back to him. Let me tell you, you really only have two options in your life, only two. You can have a selfish life to the Lord or you can have a sacrificial life. Either you try to take, many of us treat God like a Santa Claus. We try to get all we can from him. Give me this, give me that, I want this, I want that. You think because you act good and you're nice to your parents and you don't cuss all the time that God's just gonna give you some special gifts under a Christmas tree. That's not how the relationship with the Lord works, friends. He is not some heavenly Santa that we go after. He is a personal Savior and a friend. You know that we can be called the friend of God, like Abraham was, or Enoch, that he walked with God. It can be a sacrificial life or a selfish life. Now let me ask you, look at me please, which one are you living? Is your life given up to the Lord Jesus, in which you have given yourself unto Him? Or is your life selfish? You're living for yourself, for your pleasures and your life, and guess what? Fine, you can live a selfish life, but your life at the end of the day will end up like everyone else's. It'll be worthless. Nothing. You can't take your riches with you, can't take your homes with you, you can't take your pleasures with you, it can't go with you. Go ahead, live selfishly. We all tend to do from time to time, some more than others. Go ahead and do that. Your life will equal a zero. My biggest conviction in my life is to lay in a hospital bed when I'm 60, 70, 80 years old, maybe on oxygen, and I'm about to pass away. My family around me, my biggest conviction and scare of my life is I lay on that bed and have years and years of regret of my life that I wasted. Satan is just like a microwave. He likes to give you, any of you have pizza rolls before? I love pizza rolls, all right? I can eat pizza rolls. So you have two options with pizza rolls. You can put them in the microwave, or you can put them in the oven, can't you? In the microwave, they're faster, yes? They're also softer, wet, mushier, and not as good. But if you'll be patient, and wait, and put them in the oven, They come out crispy, warm, and much better. Satan offers a lot of things now, but you'll pay for the repercussions later. It's a sacrificial life or it's a selfish life. Let me give you the last thing. I want to show you the understood focus. So number one, we have an unknown future. We see the undeniable frailty. Then we see the understood focus. Look with me in verse number 17. Words that should send chills up your spine. Verse number 17. Therefore, to him, that's all of you, that knoweth to do good and doeth it not. To him, it is sin. You ever heard the old phrase, ignorance is bliss? You know what, sometimes it truly is. Many of you have been given much and owe much responsibility to the Lord. The Bible says, to him that knoweth to do good. All of you, many of us, I would proclaim that you know what's good and right for you to do. You know better. It's different when a kid doesn't know better, but once they start knowing better, that's when they get disciplined worse, isn't it? Many of us know better and we're not doing it, to him it is sin. Not the sin of commission, but the sin of omission. Our life is short, friends. So the Bible says our life's short. We don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. So if you know to do good and you're not gonna do it, it's sin for you. The sin of omission, the things you're not doing for the Lord. Tell me that you love the Lord Jesus and neglect your Bible time so frequently. Tell me that. Tell me you want a deeper relationship with the Lord Jesus and God and you pray so little. Tell me you want to see the world saved and fail to even come to church on Sunday morning or Sunday evening or Wednesday night. Tell me those things because they're opposites of each other. We all know better, don't we? We know what is right. When are we going to do what is right? The Bible says here, to him that knoweth to do good and does it not, To him is a sin. And friends, we have an understood focus. I want to show you a proper awareness. Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good. Friends, you've been entrusted with the Bible, you've grown up under good preaching, and you've had people who have proclaimed the Word, and you've studied the Word. You know a lot more about the Bible than most of the lost world. And you know better, we know better, of what we should and should not do, and yet we still don't do it. We still don't do it. When are the excuses going to come to an end? When are the reasons why going to come to an end? We know better and yet we still aren't doing better. That, friends, is called rebellion. If you know to do something and you willingly go against it, willingly go against it, that, my friends, is called rebellion. That is the proper awareness. Be aware, you know that you know what's right. That kind of sounded a little weird. You understand all these things, most of the things that God wants you to do. Come to church, read your Bible, be faithful, be nice to your neighbor, love people, all this thing. You know what God wants you to do and yet we aren't doing it. What is keeping you away from doing what God wants you to do? When are you finally going to be the person God intended you to be? When Christ died and He saved your soul and made you whole, He saved you with a purpose and a plan, and He saved you to live in victory. When are you going to live that way? When will you decide to live that way? You know who your worst enemy is, friend? You. You are your worst enemy. I want you to see some pitiful apathy, all right? Look with me in verse number 17 again. So we have proper awareness, then we have pitiful apathy. It says, the him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not. Do you know what the word of apathy is? Cold, careless, doesn't matter to me. Do you know why the church is full of today of individuals who do not care? They have no care in the world, none, don't care. has nothing to do with it. They don't care one single bit. Friends, if you're not willing to give up things for the Lord Jesus, I'm afraid you might not have a right view of Him. Are you willing to give up your time for Him, your talent, your treasures? You say, yes, I am, but when are we going to start? When are we going to start doing that? I like to call that the pitiful apathy. They don't care one single bit, and it's pitiful. Because those who have been saved by Christ, redeemed by Christ, fulfilled, filled with the Holy Spirit, who have seen God in all his glory and how he's worked in families and changed you and redeemed you, saved you from the penalty of sin. He saved you from the futuristic of sin. He saved you and made you complete. Thank God for it. And yet we are God's people and we know what God can do. And yet we live so apathetic and careless. Why is it that Jehovah's Witnesses have more care for their cause than you? Why is it the Muslims care more about their God than you do? Why is it that the lost secular humanists in this world loves their false scientific gods more than you do? Why do the Greeks and the Romans like Zeus and all these fake gods more than you love your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? If he saved you and made you whole, we need to start acting like it, don't we? We're so apathetic and careless. We come to services and we're half asleep. We know that there's Sunday evening service and Wednesday evening service, we just don't come. And I'm not speaking from here because we only had one of those yet. I'm speaking from my history in other churches as well. Just so apathetic. We just don't care. If you love the Lord and he has made you who you are today, thank God for it. Then that what Paul says, by the grace of God, I am what I am. Thank the Lord for all he's made me to be. And we ought to live our lives all we can for Him. If you truly, if someone saved your life, you would owe them yours. And the Lord Jesus saved ours. And if you truly believe, if you truly believed with all your heart that He saved you and you're going to heaven and you escape the penalty of hell, that would finally put a little oomph, a little pep in your step to do something for the Lord and to be better. The last thing I want you to see is personal accountability. It says, therefore, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. That's personal accountability. The sin, the word sin is very important because we sin unto God. That's personal accountability. We are accountable, again, like we talked about last week, unto the Lord. Friends, we are one heartbeat closer to heaven right now. Church service started about 55 minutes ago. Don't worry, we won't be here too much longer. You can worry about your food and stuff like that later. You know what one of the biggest signs for coldness in my heart was when I was growing up? Was this turn back to look at the clock during service. That's the way I was. I'm not calling you out if you did that today. I'm saying the coldness of my apathy was I'd look back at the clock to see when I could get out of here. Our priorities are out of whack. They're out of line, aren't they? If you truly believed you're one heartbeat closer to heaven, your life would be rearranged and changed. You know how this has helped me this week? I've been studying this and meditating upon this all week, and how it's helped me is because all those problems I used to think were big, if I'm one heartbeat closer to heaven, they're not that big a deal. They won't matter futuristically. They don't matter. All these things that I think are important now, I'm one heartbeat closer to heaven. They don't matter that much. It's not that big a deal. Someone getting upset with me or someone getting mad at work or a customer getting upset, it's not that big a deal. It used to be, it used to tear me up and wear me out and all this and that. But friend, life is short. I ain't got no time. I have no time to waste on nonsense. We are one heartbeat closer to heaven. Every moment, minute by minute, we are closer to death. What are you gonna do with the rest of your life? The rest of your life. I want you to make the rest of your life the best of your life. And guess what, friend? The good news is it can start today. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him is sin. Our life is but a vapor, or one heartbeat closer to heaven. Let's bow our heads, please, and close our eyes for a moment of invitation.