Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / May 3rd, 2015 | Guest Speaker - Timm Collins

Transcript

May 3rd, 2015 | Guest Speaker - Timm Collins · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Topeka Bible Church.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's nice.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I like to hear the good solid good morning.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you're here.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you're awake.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll see if you still are at the end of this thing, right?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: My wife and I, uh my name's Tim Collins, and I'm on staff with Trash Mountain Project.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was a pastor in Florida.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Go TMP.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we, my wife and I uh pastored a church, or I pastored a church in uh in Florida for about a decade, a little over a decade, and then a couple years ago, uh God presented this opportunity to come on staff with Trash Mountain Project as a missionary and to travel and to train pastors in other countries.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so my wife and I spent a lot of time praying about that and really felt that something God was calling us to do.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so, you know, we had both grown up there in Florida where we were from, and uh, other than going off to college, we had spent our entire lives there, and so it was a little bit of an adjustment, and I think it was a little bit of a shock to a lot of people that at this point in life, uh, you know, we had a church and the church was growing and it was doing well and it was healthy and there were exciting things happening, and God just called us to go in a different direction, and and the church is still doing great.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And but when we kind of started to communicate that to people before we had really announced it, there were some people that we wanted to tell personally, and and as we told them personally, listen, God's calling us to do this thing, and so we're gonna be moving to Kansas.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Inevitably, across the board, the response we got to that was right?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you moving to Kansas?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you why would you want to move from Florida to Kansas?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um but the truth is we've learned over the last couple years, almost two years that we've been out here, uh, that there is in fact a lot of contentment to be found in God's will.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, no matter where that leads you, as long as you're obeying God and you're listening to God and you're in the center of what you know God has for you and for your family and for your life, uh that that there's contentment there.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's great contentment in being in God's will.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Amen?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, a little bit stronger than that.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Amen?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, because God's will is a great place to be, whether that's here or in Florida or in Alaska or in a foreign country or whatever.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: We just have to follow God and we have to be faithful to God.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and we love Kansas.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: We've found contentment here, and uh but here's the thing: it's only been a couple years, so we're kind of still adjusting.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we live here, we're here, uh, but here isn't home just yet.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I'll tell you what I mean by that.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh many of you may be aware of the fact that Florida is indeed in the South.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh because my wife and I are what you would call crackers, which means we were born there, our families were were from there, we weren't transplanted in from somewhere else, that was just where we were from, and so it's we were kind of raised in a southern way of life, and so there's there have been some adjustments moving out here.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh for instance, if we go out to eat to a restaurant and I order tea, you guys are drinking brown water out here.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's no Yeah, if there's no sugar, it's not tea.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way I was raised.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we had tea and diet tea.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so you guys are really drinking diet tea.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so you know, and if so, if you do, I don't even really ask for it very much anymore because it's not very common out here.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you do ask for it, you kind of get a strange look.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sweet tea, why would you want that?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, that's just a thing, it's not a big deal, but it's a little different.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh another thing, we were raised, uh, the way we were raised, and some of you, this may be true for you here, um, but you know, I'm a little bit older.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: I turned 40 this year, and so I uh the way I was raised, uh my parents were pretty strict in the way that we talk to people and that you're very respectful to people.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were taught uh that you always say yes ma'am, yes sir, no ma'am, no sir.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's just something that you do.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, if somebody's older than you, but then number two, if you just don't know people very well, if you're not super familiar with them, it's just a sign of respect to each other, even if it's somebody your age that you would be respectful to them.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes out here, if I slip up and let a yes, ma'am or a yes, sir uh out, I get a little strange look.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you calling me ma'am?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you calling me sir?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I was raised in the South, don't like because my mama will know if I don't do it.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right where she is, she's gonna know, and she'll get my ear and you know, do a thing.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So uh here's the other thing, this has been a little bit of an adjustment, but this has been actually a pleasant surprise for us.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is the weather here is just gorgeous.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it it's they they tell me these are called seasons.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, who knew?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because in Florida you had Christmas and hot.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um so, and sometimes it was actually hot at Christmas, so you know you lose all the way around.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, but here's the thing.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: On some level, even before we moved, we were starting to feel a little bit out of place because of what we believe, and because of the direction that it feels like our culture is heading in, um, that we have some firm convictions and beliefs that that we believe the Bible teaches very clearly, some pretty serious things that are truth.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, this book's been around for a long time, and it was written by someone a lot smarter than you and I.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean, you know, Paul and Mark and the I mean actually God inspired this.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And because of his wisdom, we don't get to change it or rearrange it or do it.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just right's right and wrong is wrong, but now all of a sudden that's hate speech.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you're like me, but I just think to myself, I'm not being hateful.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't hate anybody.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, there are times when I don't like what the Bible says.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: There are times when I read things and I go, ow, that kind of hurt a little bit, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is when you come to absolute truth, then you have to let it be absolute.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: You have to let it speak into your life and my life, and so we don't just read it, it reads us and it reveals things about us.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not really a super common viewpoint, and it seems like it's becoming less and less common.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: This idea that there's such a thing as right and wrong, uh, you know, uh that we could be called intolerant or unaccepting because of what we believe.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but you know, I'm starting to feel a little tension, a little out of place in our culture, and it feels like things are kind of, and I don't know, maybe that's what I'm being told.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know if you figured this out or not yet, but you're gonna know what the media wants you to know, and that's about it.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, sometimes that's not reality, but that's certainly I feel this tension kind of moving in.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I remember years ago, um, I had friends who got rid of their TV, they didn't have a TV at all, and I just thought that was the strangest thing in the world, and now I think maybe they were ahead of the curve.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've got a four-year-old and an eight-year-old at home, and when I see the stuff that's that's coming into our house, it's it just amazes me.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are a lot of times when we just leave it turned off.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just, you know, that it has a power button for a reason, so we use it, and maybe maybe we're we're starting to pull away from our culture in that way as well.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, materialism, and I don't know if you realize how materialistic our culture is, but we are taught from a very early age that it's all about achievement and competition, and you just go, go, go, go, go, and you get, get, get, get, get, and it doesn't matter if the one that you have works fine, you still got to try to get a newer one and a bigger one and a better one and a faster one, and there's an upgrade now.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And do you have the latest version?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this crazy merry-go-round.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And my wife and I a few years ago just kind of stepped off and went, man, this is insane.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: We are running a race that you could never win.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So for us, really, more and more, whether we lived when we lived in Florida or now living here, we may be here.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: But here isn't home.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here isn't home for us.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: A few years ago, God really started to deal with me in these verses that we're gonna read, we're gonna be in Philippians 3, if you want to turn there.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And God really started to deal with me on this idea.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh really, it comes this way, and we're gonna talk more about this, but the idea is this that if you're called to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, which you are, if you're a Christ follower, if you've surrendered your life and your heart to follow Jesus Christ, and you've put your faith and trust in his sacrifice on the cross and you've embraced his mercy and grace, then we're called to be disciples, and as disciples, we are almost by definition foreigners.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever thought about that or not.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And here I can prove it to you.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: You and I know when we read the story of Jesus that it's pretty obvious Jesus was just kind of passing through.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: He was here for a little while, but almost from the very beginning, it was very obvious that he was planning for his exit.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus was just passing through.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: So if you and I are going to be Christ's followers, in the truest sense of the term, we're just going to be passing through too.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me say this before we start reading this scripture.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's inevitable that there's somebody sitting here, maybe you're in the cab across the street, uh, there's somebody sitting here listening, watching by video, who's not sure about the God thing and the Jesus thing and the Bible thing.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're here because somebody, your neighbor invited you to church, or you're here because somebody promised you a free lunch if you'd go to church with them.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I I did it a couple times.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're not sure about all of this.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: You would not define yourself as a Christian in the sense of the word that we're using it.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're just kind of listening in.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to you for just a second, okay?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want to say.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: If that defines you, if that describes you, you're probably not going to agree with very much of what I say today.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to go ahead right now and give you permission to disagree with me.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not a Christ follower, then what we're going to talk about today isn't necessarily intended for you.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: However, I would say this.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you're investigating Christianity, you have to hear this.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: This subject that we're going to talk about today is vital to the core of what we believe as Christ followers, as Bible people and church people and God people.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is just essential to what we believe.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to hear this, even though it may kind of rub you the wrong way and you may kind of go, I'm not sure about that.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I get that.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: But you got to listen in because this is a big, big deal.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're in the book of Philippians, chapter three.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to read four verses and we're going to kind of climb a mountain.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: So by the time we get to the last verse that we're going to read today, it's kind of the mountaintop of what we're talking about.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Paul, the Apostle Paul, wrote the book of Philippians.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you knew that.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: You probably did.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Paul wrote quite a bit about a third of our New Testament.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's very, very influential.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was an influential church planner and just theologian, and everything about his writings are just amazing off the charts, just stuff that just really warms your heart.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes he says some things that are difficult to hear.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be honest with you, what we're going to talk about this morning can be a little bit difficult to hear.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And as we've already delivered this a couple times this morning, I've had people come up afterwards and say, Yeah, but what about?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I I know what you're saying.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: I get that.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: But this is, I'm just reading you guys know that I didn't write the Bible.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a news flash for you.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: You carried it in with you today.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was already there.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just reading it to you.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is what Paul says.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Paul, who is writing from prison of all things, which I think is interesting, uh, writes a book about joy.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: The theme of Philippians is that we should have joy, and how do we find joy?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just an amazing fact in and of itself.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul writes these words in verse 13 of Philippians 3.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, verse 17 of Philippians 3.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, Brethren, so listen, it's important.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's just established his audience.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: He already established his audience at the beginning of the book, but he's reminding us who his audience is.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's people who have similar faith, those of us who have committed our lives to follow Jesus Christ.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern that you have in us.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, just really quickly, this really is a whole entirely different sermon, and we don't have time for that.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: But basically what he's saying is this not everybody believes the same thing.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about that.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Tonight, if you go home and you turn on your TV and you're watching something on TV, you need to understand that whoever put together the content that you're watching has a theology.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Theology is just what you believe about God.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you say, I don't believe anything about God, I don't believe there is a God, okay, that's a theology as well.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody that you lock eyes with has a theology.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And their theology might not line up with yours.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And what he's saying is this when you come into contact with people who don't believe the things that you believe, it's fine to spend time with them, but you don't take your cues from them.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: You don't allow them to define what's normal for you.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: You don't allow them to define what's right and wrong for you.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: When their theology is vastly different from your theology, you have to be very careful who you take your cues from.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: We know this.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: You and I know this.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you how we know it.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we have kids, we sometimes try to be careful about who our kids spend time with, don't we?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: We really try to pay a lot of attention to who our kids' friends are and who they're in, and you know, if if you've been through this before, I remember as soon as my son started elementary school.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: You could tell.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: You could tell who we were spending time with.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's okay to be around people, and we've been called to be salt and light and to be in our culture and to make a difference, but you have to be careful with this.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be careful that you're giving out influence and not taking a whole lot of it in, and sometimes that's hard.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what Paul said.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Those are his words.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So verse 18.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, you know, observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: For many walk, verse 18, of whom I often told you, and now tell you, even, what's the word?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Weeping.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: That they're enemies of the cross of Christ.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, listen.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, we're in war.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there are people who don't believe the things that we believe about the cross.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when I bump into those people, I don't want to punch them and get angry with them and do the war thing.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: It breaks my heart.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: It breaks my heart.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it's easy for me to forget this, and it's easy for you to forget this.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: I yeah, we kind of have this attitude where we go, I know this.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: We, you know, I we all know this.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but Paul says, look, for many walk of whom I often told you.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, I said it repeatedly, over and over and over, because you're gonna lose sight of this, and you're gonna get distracted from this.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I told you it over and over and over, repeatedly and also compassionately.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I now tell you, even weeping.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that I'm angry at these people, it's not that I'm trying to attack people who don't think the way that I think, but I understand this is life or death.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's more important than that.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Eternity hangs in the balance.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is a big deal.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: What you believe about God is a big, big deal.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 19, he goes even further.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be honest with you, these verses kind of make me cringe just a little bit the way that he says this, but again, I didn't write it.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is what he says.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: These people who are enemies of the cross of Christ, he says, whose end is, what's the word?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Just a timeout.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I think he's saying.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: That we may feel like we're in the minority.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we are in the minority.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: But in the end, Jesus wins.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody who is with Jesus wins.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so those of us who are moving with Jesus and following Jesus are gonna win, which means everybody who's not, their end is what?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what it looks like now, no matter how it looks that things are going now, inevitably, rebellion against Jesus always leads to destruction.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's just the way it works.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we've gotten on board.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I've gotten on board with following Jesus, even though some of it I don't like.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the things he's told me to do, like have discipline.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's no fun.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about fun, it's about following our Savior.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, that means they make it their God to do whatever they want to do.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just talking about food, it's talking about their appetite to do what they want to do.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is this starting to sound familiar at all?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Their God is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, if that didn't sound familiar, I think this will.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Whose glory is in their shame literally means they can't be embarrassed anymore.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: They glory in things that they ought to be ashamed of.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is this sounding familiar at all?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: We celebrate things that used to bother us?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of scary.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel what Paul's saying?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: That the current is going to be pulling you in one direction.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if we're not careful, we'll go there with it.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll allow things to be redefined, or, you know, however you want to word that or phrase that.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: But truth doesn't change.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're going to read this bottom line together.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Who set their minds on earthly things.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say it again.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Who set their minds on earthly things.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Years ago I was reading this and it hit me how important that little phrase is.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you what I think.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think there are a whole bunch of us who would call ourselves Christ followers, we would call ourselves Bible people.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we believe in eternity, we believe in heaven, we believe that we're going to be in heaven with Jesus and that we're going to be reunited with, you know, folks who have gone on ahead of us who have faith in God as well.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so we we believe that, and it's not that we don't believe it.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: But our mind's not set there.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it hit me years ago when I read this little phrase, and I think this is big.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Listen up.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: That what you believe about eternity matters.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: But whether or not your mind is set on eternity matters just as much.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you and I aren't careful, as Christ's followers, we will believe in eternity, but we'll live only for here, today, right now.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we not only become that we're living here, but that here is our home.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if sometimes the tension that we feel is because some of us, not that we don't believe in eternity, but we've taken our eyes off of eternity.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: We've taken our eyes off the fact that we serve the king.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the king's coming back.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he's going to set himself up as the king.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And because he wins, we win.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't matter what the majority is or isn't, because Jesus is always the majority.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Amen?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: So what do we do if we're feeling out of place?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you're like me, and I feel more and more, and I feel it increasing, I feel more and more out of place.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Is the solution to just retreat?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think the solution is that we're supposed to engage our culture.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're supposed to vote our conscience.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're supposed to be a part of the process.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're supposed to speak up.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you what I think, and I get this from the book of Ephesians.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're supposed to speak the truth in love.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to speak the truth in love.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Amen?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we're supposed to be loving, but we're also supposed to speak the truth.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I know this may not be fun for you.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not fun for me either, but this is God's thing.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is not my thing or your thing.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is truth.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we speak it in love, but we speak it.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: So what do you do when you're doing all that and you still feel like culture?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Pulling away from you.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is the verse.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: For our citizenship is where.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Say it like you mean it.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that exciting?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Our citizenship is in heaven.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: You and I have the opportunity to be reminded that even though we feel like things are pulling away from us, okay, this is not my home.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here, but it's not my home.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because my citizenship is in heaven.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: From which also you and I, we eagerly wait for a savior.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord Jesus Christ.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: You and I are eagerly waiting for a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: The word that's translated eagerly wait in the Greek is apekdecomai.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Apekdecomai.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it literally carries with it the idea that you and I are leaning into this waiting, that we're waiting with great apprehension and we are patient.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: It carries that as well, that we're patient, but we're also really engaged in the process of waiting.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: That we have one eye on the sky and that we know at any second this whole thing could just blow up and Jesus could come back and away we go.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: That we lean in, that we eagerly wait.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: The preposition, this is a compound word, and the preposition at the beginning is Apo, and because that is a part of the word, it carries with it the idea of a withdrawal of attention from inferior objects.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that just the coolest thing in the world?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what it means.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: We not only eagerly wait, we eagerly wait without distraction.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: We eagerly wait without being distracted by inferior things.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: That you and I consciously decide that we're gonna put things aside because, yeah, I know we've got to live day-to-day and we've got to get up and we've got to, you know, feed the kids and walk the dog and go to work and do all that stuff, and you've got to have a car, and you gotta.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: I get that.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: But none of that stuff is as important as eternity.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we always keep one eye on eternity.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: In Florida, I have a friend who loves to hunt.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: He loves to hunt.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he's just fascinated by the idea that I'm here.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because in Kansas you have real deer.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: No joke, right?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: He was one of the ones who said, Oh, you're going to Kansas.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is not him, but this is an illustration.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I found this picture.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's he's on a hunting lease, and there are several guys who are on this lease, and they all have their campers.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's up in South Carolina, and so they will go up there and they'll hunt, and uh they love it up there, and so they go up and they kind of stake out their territory.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: They don't all hunt together, they all hunt in separate places and they all have their tree stands.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so the funny thing about this camp, because I know him, but I also know several guys who are on this lease, and so there's kind of this running joke that for him, every morning they all get up and they go to their tree stands and they try to find deer and shoot deer, you know, killing Bambi, and it's just horrible.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but they so he gets up and goes to his tree stand every morning and then goes to sleep.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Every single morning.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody want to guess how many deer he shoots?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: He buys his deer, right?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: He buys it from the guy that processes the meat.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't shoot very many deer, and so there's this running joke in their camp that you, you know, they just they'll call his name and say, you should just stay in your camper because there's a bed there.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna sleep, you should be comfortable.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Don't sleep in the tree stand, just stay in your bed.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we've kidded around with him about if we could find him a hammock that he could hang and just shoot from the hammock.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not ape decalmai.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's distraction.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if we aren't careful, we'll go to sleep at the most important time.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: We'll become so distracted by what's going on just right in front of us that we take our eyes off the sky.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is coming back.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you're here.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're a Christ follower, here isn't home.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's not intended to be.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: You and I are passing through.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe it's not so strange if we don't always fit in.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it's not so strange if the things that we believe aren't in the majority.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's okay.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Three things I want to show you about this, three observations that I want to make that you and I can practically kind of put handles on this truth and carry it out of here with us and do something this week.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing is this maybe you and I, because of this truth, should focus a little more on fitting in there and a little less on fitting in here.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know if you've realized it or not, but those two things sometimes are mutually exclusive.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: You have to decide am I gonna fit in here or am I gonna fit in with what God says?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: In light of eternity, what God says becomes the most important thing that we could ever address.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Becomes the most important truth that we could ever order our lives around.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what Paul said in a different place in the New Testament, 1 Thessalonians 4.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve, as do the rest, who have no hope.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, remember, we grieve, but we grieve with hope because when we know somebody has passed into eternity who had faith in Jesus Christ, we know that they're just on the other side waiting for us.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: I said often as a pastor that I think everybody should go to a funeral.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Every three months, I think you ought to go to a funeral.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Most people looked at me the way you're looking at me right now, which is you're crazy.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Why would I do that?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: I never had anybody take me up on it.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: But as pastors, we're in funerals all the time.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's easy for us to be reminded that that's reality.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that if Jesus doesn't return soon, that's where you and I are headed.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna step into eternity at some point.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And even if you're gonna live another 50 years or 60 years or 70 years, that's still not very long in the light of eternity.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And eternity is reality.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And how often do you and I get just upset, been out of shape about things that aren't gonna matter one second into eternity?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that, I'm not giving you permission to ignore things or to not, you know, steward things well, or I'm just saying, man, every every decision that we make should be made in light of eternity and what we know is coming.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing, we need to shift our attention and affection to the return of our Savior.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: One of the interesting things that I think about church history is that if you look at the early church, and when I say early, I mean those first maybe few decades after Jesus had ascended bodily back into heaven, what you find is that they lived this way.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: They lived with one eye on the sky.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Their attitude seemed to be, I know he just went up there, but he could come back at any minute.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember years ago when I first started studying church history, when I heard that, I thought, oh, that's so naive.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: They were living like they thought Jesus could come back at any minute, and here we are 2,000 years later, and he still hasn't come back.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's so naive.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now I think maybe they were really smart, and I'm naive.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Same passage in 1 Thessalonians 4.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Say this with me.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so we shall always be with the Lord.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Does your heart leap when you hear that?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so we will always be with the Lord.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Game over.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: We've stepped into eternity at that point.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, comfort one another with these words.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Comfort one another with the idea that we're here, but here's not home.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Third thing very quickly.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Don't invest too much in a place that you're just visiting.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: I had a friend a few years ago who died and he was relatively wealthy, I would say.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: He had made some good investments and had uh done well and actually had done a lot to fund the kingdom of God, but also just he had a lot of resources when he passed away.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you know how much he left?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: I did his funeral.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know how much he left?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: All of it.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Every dime, every dollar.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now he knew that, and he lived his life that way.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: He knew that he was just a steward of what God had put in front of him.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: But he also knew that hearses don't pull U-Halls.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's all staying here.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in light of eternity, if God's given us enough that we can live indoors and, you know, have clothes to wear and food to eat and all the stuff that we have to have, and we have to kind of have to have a car if you're gonna work, and I get that, but man, shouldn't we carve off a chunk of it and do something eternal with it?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, I need you to lean into this because I think this is the most amazing thing in the world, is that we can take something as temporary as money and do leverage it to do something eternal with it.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that amazing?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: That we can take something that's gonna pass away that's not gonna last, and we can actually do something lasting with it.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's why your heart, if you're a Christ follower, your heart, there's something in you that kind of leaps up inside of you when you get the chance to give to your church or to give to an organization like Trash Mountain Project or Haiti Lifeline or whatever that looks like for you.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: When you get the chance to do something eternal with your money, there's something inside of you that goes, man, this is amazing.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: I have a quote here.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is from Randy Alcorn.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Incredible book.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't read The Treasure Principle, you need to read it.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a short, little, easy-to-read book.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is what he says you can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: If we know that it's all gonna pass away anyway, why wouldn't we want to leverage some for eternity?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: I want to finish with a quote.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of lengthy, but I'm gonna make it through it quickly.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is from Eugene Peterson.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know who Eugene Peterson is.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: He translated the message, um, just a linguistic scholar, but he was also just a pastor.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: He was a pastor up in Maryland and pastored the same church for 30 years or over 30 years, I forget how long it was, but it was a long time.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and he had been there that that long.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: He had really invested himself as a pastor.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And back in, I think it was probably in the 80s, he wrote this book.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's called The Contemplative Pastor, and um I got that when I first became a pastor and started reading it, and it has just meant so much to me over the years.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: The things that he writes, listen, he wrote this as a pastor, and he wrote it to pastors.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna kind of pull the curtain back and let you hear some things that you know maybe you wouldn't normally hear, but I want you to understand the context that he wrote this in.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is what he says.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking to pastors.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: He says, everybody treats us so nicely.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: No one seems to think that we mean what we say.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: When we say kingdom of God, I love this, no one gets apprehensive, as if we had just announced, which we thought we had, that a powerful army is poised on the border, ready to invade.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, whoa, hang on.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what do you think it means when we say kingdom of God?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: You think that's just another word for church?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: When we say radical things like Christ and love and believe and peace and sin, words that in other times and cultures excited martyrdoms.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: The sounds enter the stream of conversation with no more splash than baseball scores and grocery prices.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's another few sentences that I want to read to you.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: He tells the story of being a pastor, and at the end of the service, every week he would stand at the front door and he would shake people's hands as they were leaving.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he said there was this one gentleman who was a pretty high-powered executive who attended his church, and he said, inevitably, this man, as he's walking out the church door, would shake his hand and say, Pastor, that was a great service, but now it's time to get back to the real world.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: This was Eugene Peterson's response.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: If he realized that I actually believe the American way of life is doomed to destruction, and that another kingdom is right now being formed in secret to take its place, he wouldn't be at all pleased.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: If he knew what I was really doing and the difference it was making, he would fire me.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I believe that.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that the kingdoms of this world, American and Venezuelan and Chinese, will become the kingdom of our God and Christ.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Look me in the eye.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is not just something that we talk about.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is coming.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: It will become the kingdom of our God and Christ.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe this new kingdom is already among us.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you and I have been sent into this culture as forerunners of the kingdom.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: We are subversive.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: That is why I'm a pastor.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: To introduce people to the real world and to train them to live in it.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, in light of that definition, I would just ask you very simply, are you living in the real world?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Are you living in the world where Jesus is king all the time?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that Jesus wins and that Jesus is coming back?
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that you and I are just one breath, one step away from eternity?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: When we step into eternity, there are gonna be things that we did here that will matter, and there are gonna be things that we did here that probably won't matter so much.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Are we leveraging the opportunities that God puts in front of us in light of eternity?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: You may be here, but here is home.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: God, thank you so much.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, first of all, that we get grace and we get mercy.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so, even in light of this, maybe some of us haven't been doing very well in this area, but there's always a fresh start, and every morning your mercies are new.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so today is a day that we can make a difference and decide to change.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe for some of us, you are calling us to make some changes in the way that we live, in the way that we spend our time and our money and our our give our talent away.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: God, I know that you've called us to be salt and light in this culture.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray that we would do that well.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I pray that along with that, we would balance the tension of always remembering that we're headed for eternity.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're here and we love this country.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great country, and we're not gonna give it up.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: But here isn't home for us.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're headed to a better place.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that somehow you would imprint on our souls the reality of eternity in Jesus' name.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna distribute uh the elements of communion now, and I'm gonna ask you to hang on to those, and we're gonna partake of those at the end together.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as this is being passed around, I want you to listen to this song and just take some time to reflect.