A TRIP AROUND THE SUN - Nothing is Ordinary

[Music] [Applause] so my neighbor asked me the other day when we met at the mailbox we were kind of having our holiday conversation and every neighbor that you have you have different you know levels of conversation in this neighbor we talked about travel that's our common common touch point in life and so we met at the mailbox and my neighbor said do you have any any big trips coming up and I just froze when he asked me that and I thought hey I don't know let me think about it for a second I got passionate on the brain right now and I'm in the post passion fog a little bit and I don't I think I'm going to Orlando but that's just for the day so that's not like a really big trip and it's Orlando so what's that so I didn't really I couldn't come up with it doesn't mean any bad about Orlando it's just that it didn't feel like that's what he was wanting and so I took the Jesus route and while I was thinking I decided to ask him a question and I said well I don't know I can't think wrote right this second do you have any big trips coming up which is what he wanted me to ask him in the first place this is why he asked me the question you know how life works right and so I say I don't I don't know do you have any big tricks coming up and he says yes I do we're planning a big trip to Europe and then he begins to describe the trip that they're taking to Europe and I'm like wow that's better than Orlando and I've got you know a little FOMO going on internally not that I want to go on their trip but that's a pretty cool trip and I saw I say I'm thinking wow you know maybe it's going this week and I say when are you leaving it goes well it's in July like well I definitely got some trips coming up before July I didn't know we were like talking about a six-month window here but I froze in the moment a little bit sort of walk it back away from the mailbox and as I'm walking away that's when it dawns on me absolutely I've got a monster trip coming up in fact I'm already on it I am on a trip around the Sun I am orbiting around our star this year that's the trip that I'm on I'm already a few days into that trip 584 million mile journey I'm going on in 2018 I'm taking one lap around the Sun I thought of that as I walked away of course like we all do and I didn't really make him feel bad about the Germany excursion you know Germany that's great I'm going around the Sun hi tada you me Germany we're all going it's not gonna be a group outing but it helped me reframe the new year so if someone's listening to this message later which you are and it's October and you're like what's all the new year business its January 14th in Atlanta Georgia today and we're just beginning a brand new year called 2018 and instead of looking at it like we always do well I've got to come up with a new year's resolution I got to come up with a few new things I'm gonna think about this year and I'm thinking about the 12 months I have until we're right back here doing this again next year it was helpful for me to think about the year in terms of a trip because I get trips I take him a lot and I understand how they work and so it helped me to think about taking a trip in 2018 I've taken this trip before in a few of the years I've taken it I've been completely oblivious to it anybody like that anybody have the oblivious friend that's here tonight this point to him they won't even know you're pointing to them anybody have that sort of like oblivious friend they just live like above the fray in life all of us are grind in like what time are we supposed to be there and where are we gonna park and did somebody have the tickets and you know and they're just like oh tonight was wonderful do you know where we went I can't remember the name of the restaurant of course you can't because you don't even know where we went we left your apartment and returns you to your apartment and if you were to back-trace your steps you would be completely lost on what happened tonight have you ever been on a trip with someone like that I mean they went all the way from here to Illinois do not know I don't know if it was Southwest there or Delta it was sunny I don't know at least I know I sat by the window that's what I remember and there's a really nice girl sitting next to me and she had it she knew my sister from back in high school and we had a wonderful conversation made this amazing meal I don't remember the name of the restaurant but I liked it and it was so fun they had the oblivious gift of God they just don't know anything if you ever traveled with this person anybody here are they with you right now you can just point to them and say that's that's you remember when we went on that trip together and in the whole time they didn't even know where the hotel was they did not know a Ober driver pulls up in light where you want to go where are we going you know and you're like we're going to the Hilton by the airport and you have their key in your possession because you know with pointless to put it in their position possession because they don't know what room they stayed in on the entire trip are we on the fourth floor the fifth floor I can't remember is it five oh four or four of seven you're like you don't know what room we're staying in we've been in it for three days now and you're writing the number on the card to give it to them and you get four extra key cards in your parts because you know they're gonna need one in 15 seconds would it be great to be that person all the rest of us while you're having a wonderful life are carrying the weight of your oblivion on our shoulders your livelihood depends on us you'd be out in the forest alone with a pack of wild dogs if it weren't for us oblivion is a great thing unless it comes to the magnitude of a new year and it's stunning when I thought about that we're going to take his trip around the Sun together it was more stunning and somewhat sad for me to think I've already done that many many times in my life and I don't know if I even really fully tapped into the potential in the power of that trip that we're already on we're 14 days in to a trip around the Sun the psalmist gives us our baseline information for this trip and a great encouragement for the year ahead when he says this in Psalm 90 verse 12 and we'll come back to this chapter and back to this verse week after week after week in the series in fact when you get your boarding card that verse is going to be printed on the boarding card for you because it's the anchor of our journey together in Psalm 90 verse 12 says this teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom in other words don't let us go on this remarkable journey this extraordinary journey this 584 million mile journey around the Sun and be stuck in Oblivion and just missed the opportunity or worse to be downgraded into the ordinary and to miss the potential of walking with Jesus and traveling with Jesus through the course of a new year so there are three big ideas that I want us to grab on today and then three takeaways action points at the end of the message today and the first big idea is this on this journey and in life nothing is ordinary I'm just praying that God's gonna bury this deep down in our hearts for this new year nothing is ordinary you're like man that makes me tired just hearing that because I need some ordinary things in my life and yes there are some more regular things in life but there's nothing ordinary about life you are not ordinary and nothing about life is ordinary and the psalmist is saying this is a prayer we should pray Lord teach us to number our days what what is he saying he saying teach us Lord how to hold on to the miracle of life and not lose it in Oblivion or downgrade it into the ordinary but help us hold on to the value of what it is it's in our hands and to do that we have to recognize and realize that nothing is ordinary I want to say it again you are not ordinary you are not average you are not accidental you are not incidental you are not run-of-the-mill you are not ordinary you are on the opposite of that a living breathing miracle sitting in the chair that you're sitting in right now you are an act of Almighty God and there is never been anyone like you there will never be anyone like you you are uniquely a gift of God the creation of the very hands of the Almighty God and you're functioning you're breathing you're blinking you're hearing you're understanding you getting here tonight is a miracle and the fact that we're in this room together is anything but ordinary to get this point it helps us to set back from our own lives a bit and to do that and I know we talk about astronomy probably more here than at the average church but that's not my idea by the way oh we have a pastor who's like an astronomy idiot nerd excuse me Louie didn't mean to offend you there and so we hear about astronomy a lot it's not my idea it's God's idea he talks about astronomy all the time because the universe has a function and a purpose and that function and purpose is to be a backdrop for our lives so that we don't slip into oblivion or downshift or downgrade into ordinary he stuck us in an extraordinary universe so that we couldn't miss the point isn't that a great gift of God he could have just put us in a little black box and say y'all are gonna live in there but he said no I'm gonna put you in a grand universe to help you stay in step with the extraordinary nature of the life that you've been invited into when we step outside our neighborhood we live in the Milky Way galaxy I think most of you knew that that's our galactic neighborhood and it's a powerful and beautiful place to live the Milky Way galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy if you're interested in kinds of galaxies and ours is pretty big it's a hundred thousand light-years from one side of the Milky Way to the other meaning simply light traveling five point eight eight trillion miles a second takes a hundred thousand years to go from one side of our neighborhood to the other so if you want it to go from one side of our neighborhood to the other and visit some people over there if you're convinced they're over there you're gonna have to travel five point eight eight trillion miles a second for a hundred thousand years to get to the other side of our neighborhood this is a beautiful composite image I say it's a composite image because we've never been outside of the Milky Way galaxy and maybe you've already thought about that but we've done some great things as human beings but we have not left our neighborhood yet and we've never looked back on the Milky Way to take a photograph of where we live so this is a composite of thousands of photographs to give us the best guesstimate of what the Milky Way looks like you say well where are we certainly we're right there in the center of the action right no you don't want to be in the center of the action in a galaxy that is a death wish to be in the center of the action in a galaxy we're about two-thirds of the way out between a couple of the spiral arms right about there and just to blow it up give you a little bit more perspective of some of your way back in the back that's about where we are and you're like oh so if we looked really closely we would see 5:15 we would see passion city church we would see us and there know if I put a mark on the screen with the point of a sharpie that would be larger than our entire solar system in its place in the Milky Way galaxy in fact they say for people like me who need help understanding big concepts that the solar system in comparison to the Milky Way galaxy would be the size of a quarter in all of North America so we're small potatoes in our neighborhood but we had a great neighborhood and we're in between the spiral arms and you and that's a good thing to be it's called the Galactic habitable zone you're like are you kidding me - are we like going to have an exam on this no but it would be awesome if we did the Galactic habitable zone is the place in the Milky Way where what we're doing tonight is possible in one of the spiral arms this is not possible in the center of the Milky Way galaxy this is not possible but two-thirds of the way out in a relatively clear area it's possible to have a solar system like ours and in between the spiral arms this is crazy among the two hundred billion stars in the Milky Way is a star it's not the biggest and it's not the brightest but it's our star and we love it in orbiting around that one start and I are several planets and one of them is a peculiar planet in fact it's the only planet like it that we have ever found in the universe and that planet is called home it's called Earth you know what is amazing is that in this fast-paced age that we live in you can probably on your phone right now pull up a live satellite photo of the earth and we're like yeah I've seen it good good news but those of us who grew up in the Apollo era hello anyone here a few of us more than more than more than 10 rows back before y'all were born there were Rockets real Rockets big Rockets and in the Apollo era we saw images like this for the first time this photo taken from Apollo 17 and it caused people on earth to stand in awe of the wonder of our world and it causes us to remember again that nothing is ordinary yes we're looking for exoplanets if you're into that sort of thing yes we've figured out there more than two more than a dozen more than a hundred more than a thousand there are countless exoplanets meaning planets orbiting stars sort of like ours in zones that could have life there's lots of them out there we've discovered but there hasn't been anything remotely close to a discovery of a planet like our planet and I'll tell you why because nothing is ordinary you're not ordinary and Earth is not ordinary nothing that God does is ordinary and it is amazing we live not only in a galactic habitable zone in the Milky Way but we live in a circumstellar habitable zone in our own solar system Venus not a good place to live Mars not a great place to live we're going to go there but I don't want to be one of the people there's average temperatures minus 80 on Mars you can take that trip thank you very much Saturn not a good place to live but we are in what's called the circumstellar habitable zone also called the Goldilocks zone the place where something like Earth can happen and when you look up Goldilocks zone if you google it or want to do some research you'll find that there fifteen common threads that all must be woven together precisely at the exact right time for life like the life we're living to be possible on a planet like our planet and all fifteen factors are woven together at the right precise moment for you and me to be sitting in this building right now nothing is ordinary the average temp on Mars we talked about minus eighty the average temp on Venus is 864 degrees average temple on earth 59 degrees that's because we're in the Goldilocks zone we have a moon that stabilizes our rotation on its axis without our moon scientists say a day on earth would last for hours and that's a pretty tough way to live I mean you barely got your hair dried and you barely got a Starbucks through the line if it's a little extra long and then it's like okay I gotta go man I got to get to bed it's over be very tough to be a farmer in a 4-hour day but we have the right kind of moon that allows us to have the right speed of a rotation to give us what's a very reasonable sense for a day because a week's kind of a long day three days is kind of a long day an hours kind of a weird length for a day but 24 hours is a actually very reasonable time for a day and it just so happens that we have the perfect moon to allow that to happen it also creates the tides that have been major functional pieces in our ability to sustain life on planet Earth we have as we mentioned before a steady state star and it's a non binary star you're like I don't even know what that means well it's just good news is what it means 85% of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy are binary stars they're in relationship with another star not a good place to have sustainable life but we're one of the 15 non binary stars but it's also in the Goldilocks zone of stars and it's a very steady state a blue-collar bring your lunch to work kind of star it's not a high drama star it doesn't need a lot of attention it didn't it does little extra pampering it just shows up does this job packs up its stuff goes home has a relatively normal family life goes to bed early wakes up the next day and does that all over again day after day year after year yawn after Jana it's a steady-state Sun if it were to vary in the slightest bit it would terminate life as we know it on earth and for thousands of years our star has been a steady worker and that has contributed to the Goldilocks zone that allows you and me to live on planet Earth we have an ozone layer we should protect it because without it Goldilocks principles go away we have a rocky earth if it were a gaseous earth we're not here so a planet orbiting orbiting around our Sun about where we are with a gaseous Center not going to be conducive to life as we know it but we have a rocky center and it also has a molten Center which creates a magnetosphere which protects us from solar winds another one of the Goldilocks traits and you can go on and on down the list nothing is ordinary about our lives we are living in a very privileged place and we are very privileged people because we don't just live on a special planet we know that god who actually created the planet that we live on the psalmist said by the word of the Lord the heavens were made their starry hosts by the breath of his mouth so good news we're going on a trip around the Sun but better news we're going with the God who made the Sun on our trip around the Sun so there's not going to be one thing that happens to you or comes your way on this journey that you're not going to be able to handle because nothing in life is ordinary including our traveling companion who just happens to be God Almighty who's on the trip with you and me 584 million miles this year as we circle around the Sun you can take these amazing numbers and you can take this amazing information and you can go to different ways with it and that's one of the powerful principles in this talk tonight sin is a powerful force and you can look at the circumstellar habitable zone the Galactic habitable zone the Goldilocks functions that make life on Earth possible and you can still walk away from that people do it every single day smart intelligent people do it every single day and we don't know the exact formula for just how special life is but I was reading recently someone who wasn't really postulating a god solution to the universe but on the contrary was fighting up against that idea and said these creationists have it all wrong they're their numbers for you know the variables of what it would take to create life on Earth are way too big it's really a lot smaller number than that and they factored this in based on a on a peptide with 32 amino acids and what it would take for that in a very short period of time to transition and to come into a form of life and they said it's really a lot smaller number than the creationists say the number actually is just 10 to the 40th power relatively small number for one peptide to catch a break at the right time and produce life The Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy maybe you saw it took one approach and said far out on the unchartered backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded Yellow Sun orbiting this at a distance of roughly 92 million miles is an utterly insignificant little Bluegreen planet whose ape descended life-forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea that's taking the extraordinary and turning it into the ordinary but at the same time you can look at the same set of information and come to a different conclusion as astronaut Jim Irwin Ted who was a part of Apollo 15 in the eighth man to ever walk on the moon in 1971 he said after observing the earth in space the earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space as we get farther and farther away it diminished in size finally it shrank to the size of a marble the most beautiful marble you can imagine that beautiful warm living object looks so fragile so delicate that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart seeing this has to change a man has to make a man appreciate the creation of God and the love of God you see when we stand it with eyes open and trade the prayer Lord teach me to number my days in other words open my eyes and understanding to just how amazing this all is that's when we gain a heart of wisdom and we're able to see with our heart and with our mind just how extraordinary life is and to see that nothing is ordinary but just let me add one more layer and I know some of you're like man if you just told me this I would have taken a nap this afternoon I didn't know that we were gonna have to be ready for science some of you love science and you're like please just keep going bro I don't want to admit it out loud because I got friends here but just keep going I'm loving every bit of this some of you like I need an extra shot of espresso right now if we're gonna keep this up kiss my mind already hurts just let me go one other layer cuz I want you to walk away tonight I want to walk away tonight I don't want you to walk away the rest of this year and I want you to say there's nothing ordinary about me and there is nothing ordinary about my life there may be some things that are routine that I do every single day some things that are regular parts of my economy of life but nothing is ordinary we talked about that son helping us rotate on our axis we're rotating as you know one time a day on our axis and we're rotating at a speed of 1,000 plus miles per hour hello so if you felt a little off-kilter today when you woke up getting out of bed that's because you woke up going 900 miles an hour that's cuz we're not on the equator so you take a factor in a principle of the curvature of the earth and the speed of the Earth's rotation and that's how you gain your speed at your specific place of where you are on planet earth at any given time and in Atlanta Georgia our speed normally is somewhere right around 900 miles an hour that's not ordinary that we're spinning around 900 miles an hour and you're not outside in the front yard of your house holding on to a tree saving you from flying off out in to outer space a night trying to get to work but I can't get from here to my car in time it's amazing how God has ordered this world precisely that you can be on it spinning 900 miles an hour and not fly off into space in fact you could juggle if you're good at it standing in your living room because nothing is ordinary but here's what's crazy while we're orbiting 900 miles an hour in Atlanta Georgia the whole earth is spinning around the Sun on this journey we're on 584 million miles we're gonna go and you know how fast the earth is flying through the universe right now the earth is flying 67,000 miles an hour around the Sun so it's spinning around hello 900 miles an hour while it's flying around the Sun at 67,000 miles an hour there's nothing ordinary about life and on top of that the Sun is orbiting around the galactic center of the Milky Way you're lucky I didn't know that they didn't teach me that they probably did we just were somewhere in oblivion or head down shifted into ordinary by then and we're trying to figure out how many Cheetos we were going to trade at lunch to see if we could get an Oreo from the kid down the row but our son is traveling in its own orbit around the center of the Milky Way galaxy it's gonna take the Sun 230 million years to make that journey that's called a cosmic year you're not gonna make that trip you're not getting a boarding pass for that one you're not getting on that one you're on it but you're not gonna get off of that one oh you're getting off but you're getting off before we get there and here's the kicker if you're still with me the solar system and the and the earth all of us together are moving around the galactic center at five hundred and fourteen thousand miles an hour so we're on an earth going 900 miles an hour around once a day a complete circle circling a Sun where we're traveling 584 million miles going 67,000 miles an hour every single day like right now we're going 67,000 miles an hour through space and the whole thing the whole solar system is moving five hundred and fourteen thousand miles an hour around the Milky Way galaxy in the Milky Way galaxy is moving around and its own orbit around we don't know what telling you there's nothing ordinary oh yeah there is I'm getting my nails done Tuesday night well you tell the lady while she's doing your pedicure you're doing an exceptional job of painting my toenails given that you're going 900 miles an hour text a friend I'm having a latte at 67,000 miles an hour and I haven't spilled but one spill no I got ordinary Lou yeah I was trying to match socks out of the dryer the other day fool and I need a divine intervention I always do it's like I know we put them all in there rake your lawn invite your friends over cozy up with your xbox and spend a few hours but nothing is ordinary the second big idea is that we have a massive opportunity that there are certain things that God has for you on this trip and we're not talking about just a quick drive to the mountains in back or we can shot down to Destin we're talking about a long trip we're going on and a lot can be realized in your life on this trip a lot can change in a 584 mile journey a lot is possible for you in a lot is possible for me so what does that mean for us today it means we're not going to get in a hurry we're not gonna spout off a lot of New Year's resolutions because we were at a dinner party the other night you remember that one and somebody said I know what we should do we should all say what we're gonna make us our year-end goal in you're like my earring goal was not to have this conversation and that's over now and so you had three people from Alicia down to Barry to figure it out and you came up with a couple things before it got to you and somehow that's kind of what it ends up being about and we're not going to do that we're not going to get in a hurry and we're not going to come with sort of haphazard lists of what our resolutions are going to be we're not going to come hot out of the gate sprinting out of the gate only to fizzle out before we get to Macon we really need to just take our time listen to our Heavenly Father and ask him what do you want me to realize in my life this year dreams are awesome but life is about what you do when you're awake and we need a plan and so we're not going to end this gathering and say okay you got 30 seconds write down your new year's resolutions and let's get busy I would rather encourage you today to take as long as it takes to listen to God and get a plan because you've got a long way to go granted we're going 5 1.6 million miles a day 67,000 miles an hour we'll get you somewhere and we're already 14 days in so are already millions of miles into our journey but you still got plenty of time to ask the question what do I want to change who do I want to become on this journey and the third big idea is this that one thing is essential on this trip and that's what the writer of this Psalm who is Moses is trying to help us understand one thing is essential on this trip and I know some of you thinking my my year's gonna be way better if I get that guy Joe Joe figures out that we were ordained from the beginning of time to be together and wakes up and all of a sudden things click that's gonna help my journey a lot because I need a traveling companion that is not what you need most this year might be great and Joe Joe may work out but that's not what you need most I need a new job this year I don't like my job I got if I'm thinking I got to go a whole trip around the Sun and this job I don't know if I can do it I just got to get a new job different situation maybe you need that this year but not most of all you're saying we're praying for a baby this is our year maybe God's gonna bless you and it's his timing for you to have that beautiful gift and that's incredible but that's not what you need most on this year's journey he said if I just had more cash it would help me a lot on this trip but God says there's something else it's more essential to you and me than that and you got to make sure you've got it in your suitcase before we get too far down the road now what kind of Packer are you by the way you know there are three kinds of Packers we've talked about trips a little bit there's three kinds of Packers you know what they are but the first kind of Packer and by the way I'm an expert Packer so I'm just gonna say that right off the gate I'll challenge anybody here to packing I'm extraordinary at it I know it sounds bold but it's true and but you know the downside of it is is that I get big expectations sometimes we're talking about the opportunity we have for this year and maybe some of your life that you go on vacation anybody done this before that we're gonna be away five days and we're going to the beach and and so you get all these crazy ideas in your mind of what you're gonna do on that vacation so you put like six books in your suitcase I can do that cuz I pack good and pack light pack efficiently I still got room to put six books in there and still have a bag that only weighs 14 pounds and so I got my six books in there and then I put my workout clothes in there that I actually worn this year and I put those in there and my workout shoes and I'm gonna go to the fitness center every single day on the cruise anybody did that I know we're going on a cruise but I'm going to the fitness center every single day and it ended up the fitness center was we went to them the noon buffet in the midnight buffet and then me trying to squeeze back into the cabin that was kind of the exercise of the day on the trip so for me I head out with all these big ideas and at the end of the day it's like I didn't read the five books I took or the six books but you know I did read People magazine I mean I didn't but I've heard other people do you know and that ends up being the one thing that you read or that little condensed newspaper they bring to you if you stayed a nice enough hotel that saves you from reading a whole newspaper you just get all the condensed news for the day and sometimes we go off with these big dreams about what we're gonna do but when we packed three kind of Packers there's the lay it all out and check it all twice Packer thank you just that the the iteration of that the cream of the crop of that is actually putting it in the suitcase and then taking out of the suitcase and making sure it all feels good going in and out of the suitcase anybody okay right there great that's so cool and someone's pointing at someone else people don't want to take credit for this and I don't know why your planner be happy about it there's nothing wrong with being a planner all of us work for planners all of us are indebted to planners planners are running the universe while the rest of us are going I don't know where we went but it was amazing and I got this incredible selfie and all the planners are like thank you very much we're running the world so be bold if you're a planner and you pack it twice lay it out on the bed think about it fast over it call people ask advice read blogs check travel channels do research I know I'm taking one coat that's all I'm taking so I got all the coats I owned out to start with I narrowed it down to six then I narrowed it down to four then I pray and fasted for a week and I narrowed down to two thank God gave me insight wisdom and I finally picked a one coach gonna breed a coat I'm gonna take on that trip god bless you that is to lay it all out Packer there's also the cram it all in Packer number two I'll say these people are proud they're they're proud their weight rather than the planners look at them they're just like where y'all going oh we're just going for the weekend [Applause] their bags are the ones with those big straps on them in case they blow up and transit and their entire wardrobe or to go flying out a baggage claim it's like we're going to Charleston I know I'm gonna get to Eber what kind of uber do we need one with a trailer and the third kind of Packer I kind of fall more in that category although I am an expert Packer is that we'll just figure it out when we get there and I'll buy what I need anybody it's that her is that I'm sorry that's your these people are like I'm fine I'm fine I'm all right I'm like anybody else out there though like I'll check the weather when we get on the plane I don't need a 17 day forecast and if it's thank you pointing at the husband back here or a significant other and when we get there if it's colder than I planned and what do you do you buy a jacket right here well I didn't budget for buying a jacket that's part of the fun of it I'm sorry kids we're not gonna eat on this trip but I got a great coat it's somewhere in all of that is the question what's essential and this guy or a girl is hoping it's in there because I got it all in there if we get invited to a black-tie event by some strangers we meet on this trip I've got a tuxedo in this bag you know they're hoping what's essential is in there but we're asking a way more important question on this trip that we're on this trip around the Sun this extraordinary journey what is essential the psalmist answers it for us he says teach us to number our days that we may gain what a heart of wisdom that we may gain wisdom the essential component to a successful trip around the Sun and not just wisdom in oh I made a good decision today but a different kind of wisdom in conjunction with that with the psalmist is saying is we need two things for this trip number one we need the fear of God now I know that you're gonna just go crazy over that there should be they'll probably break Twitter tonight if anybody's still on Twitter which there aren't but if there were let's just imagine that would break down Twitter maybe it'll break down Instagram tonight I cannot believe it mind blown if I'm gonna have a successful trip around the Sun this year I need the fear of God because everybody's talking about the fear of God everyone wants the fear of God you can't go anywhere these days where you're not sitting around people and they're just all of us talking about the fear of God oh I'm so excited about the fear of God I love the fear of God nobody on the planet is talking about the fear of God but the proverb writer in proverbs 9 said it this way the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and the psalmist Moses said the thing we need most to be able to measure our days well is a heart of wisdom and so if wisdom begins with the fear of God then what we need most to measure our journey well is the fear of God and what is the fear of God it's not thinking that God is some sort of a terrible God that we should be afraid of him it's a recognition of who God is that causes us to stand in awe of him it's putting us in right perspective to God where he's not at our beck and call to bless our business help our family help us out of a jam and turn all of our dreams into gold but we are serving at the pleasure of the king by the gift of His grace and the miracle that is creation to have a seat on a journey through space on a privilege planet called Earth in a relationship with the God who made it and if you're gonna navigate this journey well and if I am it's gonna have to start with the fear of God the fear of God that puts us on our knees more than once a month or twice a year where we say god this is crazy what you've invited me into it's nothing ordinary about what's going on here so what eyes are on you help me Lord to live this moment with a comprehension of who you are Who I am I'll tell you the easiest way to waste an extraordinary journey is to put yourself in the captain's chair and to think for one second in your mind that you're a bigger deal than you really are and to radio back to God on a regular basis you doing okay back there cool just checking the different attitude is that humility of heart Moses gave us this Psalm and that's very rare not David not the sons of Korah not the sons of ACF but Moses and it's believed that Moses wrote it in the 40 years of the wilderness and it's interesting to me that in that framework where God said I have something great for you to do Moses tug of war was what do I believe that God is really God and am I gonna follow him completely on this trip and that was the difficult place for Moses but either out of that experience or the scholars say out of the experience of being in the backside of the wilderness taking care of his father's flock Moses wrote these words Lord teach me teach us to number days that we may gain a heart of wisdom or that gain wizna we might gain wisdom meaning the fear of God not the fear of men that I want to please God I want to honor God I want to glorify the God who gave me breath I want my life to reflect God I am not the servant of men and of their opinions I am the servant of the king of kings and I serve at his pleasure to do his will and the second kind of wisdom obviously is right there next to it it's simply the ability to make the right decisions to maximize this journey that we're on around the Sun and God wants to give each one of us the ability to do that teach us to count our days I'm not a good day counter but I'm asking God to teach me to count my days on this journey 77 days to Easter you're like huh I still got Christmas presents I haven't delivered a people sitting in the corner of my den I know but in 77 days Easter is gonna have come and gone in 217 days our Sabbath break at passion city church will have arrived and it'll be time for us to stop and rest and remember the faithfulness of God and I'm like well I have anything to stop and rest and remember him for in 217 days from right now if you're one of those people who gets real fired up about jolly ol Saint Nick 345 days till Christmas you're like I'm ready got my gift wrap on sale already if you're a sophomore in college and you stay on track to graduate on time you have 850 days left as a college student you like no that's hardly a blip for you to leave a lasting mark on your campus for Jesus and the days are dropping by every single day if you've got a five-year-old daughter her birthday's today which there was a person here this morning with a five-year-old daughter whose birthday was today so that was kind of weird unless you believe in God and don't think anything's ordinary so if you had a five-year-old daughter whose birthday with today in 4747 days you're gonna be throwing her an 18th birthday party teach us to number our days that we may have wisdom in our lives if you live to be 80 years old you get twenty nine thousand two hundred days but a lot of us are not at zero right now so let's just assume you're at 40 that means you've only got fourteen thousand six hundred days left of the days that you're gonna live on this earth teach us to number our days that we may gain wisdom that we may live in the fear of God and that we may make the kind of decisions that make our trip worthwhile and another day that's pretty stunning just counting days is this number of the number seven thousand twenty seven hundred and twenty five thousand six hundred and twenty days seven hundred and twenty five thousand six hundred and twenty days ago the creator of the earth died on a cross for the sins of the world that we might be awakened out of oblivion and rescued from the ordinary into an extraordinary journey with him that will never end so three takeaways and we'll close number one you got to get a plan it doesn't have to be tonight but you need to get a plan you need to write it down I would recommend going old school I know it's crazy and getting a little travel companion I got this one in London a few days ago wished I hadn't taken that trip yet I could have told my neighbor that I'm going to London but I'd already been I got this in London a few days ago if they kind of had all these different titles on the front of them and I just like this what I got to the talk today I realize maybe didn't make the right choice because it says making it up as I go along but there are people who know me here tonight they're like well that's pretty true amen and I the only thing I want to write in this not gonna write any recipes in it although I'm prone to write recipes down a lot Thank You grant not gonna write any to-do lists not gonna write any notes for meetings not gonna write any sermon outlines all that's gonna go in here is what I hear my father really impressing on my heart about what he wants me to realize this year and I've had it since before Christmas and only got one thing written in it I'm gonna see it okay y'all don't get to see it that's it right there I hold it upside down it's people are gonna try to freeze-frame that when this goes up on the podcast and like zero in and use technology and get into my business with God I've only written one thing down if I read it to you right now you'd go that's not inspiring well it is to me is in the middle of praying a few days ago it was just clear as a bell that that's one of the things God wants me to write in my little travel journal and it's something that he really wants me to focus on and realize on this trip it's something that needs to change in me and I believe if it does change in me it'll affect a lot of people for the good and it's one of the things that I really know God wants me to be thinking about on this trip there gonna be more things and they're already a few other things percolating but I'm not in a hurry to fill up a list of things that I'm not going to do and fizzle out on before I get to make it but I would encourage you to get a plan write some things down second thing I would encourage you and really quickly is to learn the word know because once you get your yes you'll get a need your note we're not a good generation at saying no we're a good generation of dodging and avoiding things but we're not a very good generation of just saying no no I'm sorry I can't do that why because I have a yes I know what my father wants me to be about right now and I have a limited amount of discretionary time this year that is a lot more than you think if you're a college student or a normal working person in life you have around 2,000 hours of discretionary time on this journey that factors if you sleep eight hours a day you work eight hours a day and you eat for two hours a day and that's a lot of eating but hey come on you know we're good at it and so that all adds up to 18 hours and then that leaves you with six hours a day and your discretionary time on Saturday if you don't have a full-time job on Saturday and Sunday I hope that you serve in your house but other than that you have some extra discretionary time somewhere around 40 hours a week you're like I didn't I don't think so add it up write it down figure it out this week let that be job number one I'm just gonna write down all the time I had to do whatever I wanted to do and in that discretionary time because we're not gonna bail out nobody's gonna quit school mom dad I'm on a journey around the Sun I ain't got time for this business we're not gonna quit our jobs somebody's leaving their family y'all are bringing me down and I got a journey to take we all have responsibilities and thank God for them but you have a lot more time that you don't realize but the only way to realize that time is to learn how to say no to the things that aren't your yes but you can't say no unless you have a yes therefore one and two go together and if you want to get that grad degree guess what here's some real news / maybe you don't have the money to do it this year but you have the time to do it this year you've got the time to get a graduate degree this year if you wanted to but you would have to say no to almost everything else on the table you would miss all the stranger things episodes you would miss Netflix binges you would miss around the campfire and talking about old stories that we've told 17 times about our family trips you would miss a couple extra naps you would miss some stuff you just say no no no no no I'm gonna get a grad degree this year it's one of the things I know God wants me to realize from what life this year and then the last thing is you have to move up your list and I do asking God for wisdom I love this and I'll close with this but it's so powerful and hopeful to all of us James wrote it this way he says in James chapter 1 if any of you lacks wisdom the essential thing on our trip if any of you lacks wisdom he should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to them so if that's the essential thing for the year guess what God loves giving wisdom to those who ask for it and so maybe you do want a new job and what maybe you do want a baby this year maybe you do want a traveling companion maybe you do want a change of venue in this or something different in your business maybe you do have other things that you want to put on the list but at the top of the list let's all move it up to the top of the list God the thing I want most this year is wisdom because if you bless us with a baby and we don't have wisdom we're in trouble if Jojo wakes up one day and clues into the sovereign plains of God and calls me up on the phone and says I need to talk to you and shows up in person and actually talks to me and we don't have wisdom then we got a train wreck of what I was dreaming for and hoping for all my life and it all went down in flames cuz neither one of us had the wisdom to navigate the journey that we were on together you need more money great God could give you a hundred grand right now a hundred grand say you're going on a long trip here's a hundred grand cash right now boom stocks of cash and without wisdom you would be a hundred and fifty grand in debt by the time you end this journey people do it every day we don't need more money we don't need more people on our trip we don't need more stuff to be a true of us in our terms of our goals what we need first and foremost is the wisdom to manage it all and God is saying if you want wisdom just ask I love giving it to people and I don't hold back the only person I won't give it to he says it's the person who's asking for it for their own selfish desires and he said that person is a double minded person and they're unstable in all of their ways but if you want wisdom to make a good lap around the Sun that honors God and has a great statement to the world about who he is and God will give you that wisdom every day shelling my wife's one of the wisest people I know it's the thing people say about her the most they say she's beautiful she is she's smart she is she's gifted she is she's compassionate she is but the thing people say most about my wife is she's wise people business leaders in our city come to my wife for advice people in the entertainment industry come to my wife for advice families mothers with children we don't have children come to my wife for advice people navigating seasons of life come to my wife for advice people of all kinds come to my wife saying can you help me she has the ability Bay baby you know it's true to look through all the fog through all the noise through all the stuff through all the fluff and go Shh there's the deal here's the issue Bam Bam Bam this is the wisdom people are like how did you do that and she told me she said when I was in high school a guy came and spoke at our youth retreat and he taught from James 5 and he read this verse if any of you lacks wisdom he should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to him and she said when I heard that I said that's what I want in my life and she said since that day in high school every day I have woken to that prayer God please give me wisdom and now think about it she's been praying that prayer for a good number of years now I got some wisdom sister and the fruit of it provides so much shade and has been such a gift to my life meant to our lives and to so many people I wonder if we could a get a plan and get with our father start making some notes B start learning our yes so that we can refine our know and see if we could move up our prayer list to the very top god yes I need you but what I need with you even is wisdom I need the fear of God in my life and I need the ability to make choices that will make this extraordinary journey everything that it can possibly be Wow is what I say welcome to a trip around the Sun you're already on it and there's nothing ordinary about it and what God can do and what he is gonna do in your life is gonna blow your mind

Channel: Passion City Church

Views: 169,871

Rating: 4.8938389 out of 5

Keywords: astronomy, new year, life change, louie giglio

Id: UOkAoHZ74jQ

Length: 56min 52sec (3412 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 17 2018