Chris Hodges - Liberty University Convocation

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>> CHRIS HODGES: Come on; give Jesus a hand clap, anybody? Anybody? Come on; you can do better than that. Come on! It's awesome! Well, of course, I'm very, very honored to be here. And I do want to bring something to you different than what's on the book. Just don't tell my publisher. You know, they kind of expect you to go do that, but I really do feel like God's laid something on my heart, yeah, different from that. So, thank you David. I love you. I appreciate you. You're a legend in Birmingham and around the world, and I'm just honored that you let me have this stage for a few minutes. I really love you guys. I tell our students all the time that if the Lord made me stop everything I was doing, and I could only do one thing, I would spend the rest of my life investing in young leaders. I would give up my church. I would give up all the church planting things that we do. I would leave it all, because I believe in you. And I'm not saying that just because I'm here. You can ask anyone. I say this everywhere I go. I really do love young people. And I wrote this book, because we did a message series four years ago in 2013 verse by verse through the book of Daniel. And I thought it would be just another message series, but it kept getting rewatched online, and the chatter about it, and posted on social media. I knew we had struck a nerve, because when we went through this verse by verse through the book of Daniel, basically what I was trying to teach in this five-week series was that Daniel was thrust into this very ungodly culture, and he was able to stand strong in his Hebrew faith, Jewish faith. But he also had influence into His culture at the same time. And I think most Christians think that those things are mutually exclusive, so you can do one or the other, but you can't do both. So, you'll either stand firm; you know, be one of those guys that's kind of dogmatic, maybe even argumentative. You know, "I believe what I believe, and if you don't like it, so what, but I'm right," kind of stance, which I don't believe in. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's the right way that we're supposed to live as Christians. But then you have this whole other side of Christians that are setting the Bible aside in the name of love- actually thinking they love people more than God loves people. "And so, I know God says this is wrong, but I say it's right. Because I'm going to bring you in and be really inclusive to everything you want, and we'll let you rewrite God's standard in the name of love." And that's not right either. But we do that, because we want to have some king of influence into the world around us. And what Daniel did, very effectively, is he did both. You can both stand firm and love well at the same time. And that's what Jesus did. That Bible says that Jesus was full of grace and truth. And, by the way, grace is always first. So, he had grace and truth. He was able to say like to the woman caught in adultery, you know he said, "I don't condemn you." But He didn't leave her at "it's fine." I'm not going to throw a stone at you either. But then next he said, but go leave your life of sin. He was able to bring both. And so anyway, the book is available. I'm supposed to talk about it all week, but I really want to do something different today. But we brought copies. And I don't even know if this is cool here, but at our church, what we do is we offer the books. We always say to people if you really, really want it, and you don't have the money for it, I don't mind you taking it; I'll pay for it. And so, I really, really mean that. So, anyway, I don't know if that's cool to do here or not. We'll find out if that was a faux pax or not. But anyone want this one on the floor? Okay, here you go. I saw your hand first. Come on up. What's your name? Lindsey? Give Lindsey a hand, everybody. So, a couple more things about me that might help you get the most out of this time together is that my church is Alabama, but I'm from Louisiana. Any Louisiana people in the room? A few of them, alright-they let you in, huh? Alright... Because Louisiana, we all know they're 50th on every list there is. We're the bottom. Maybe 49-thank God for Arkansas! Come on somebody; where you all at? So, thank God for Arkansas! But anyway, I'm a Cajun from South Louisiana. And let me just tell you what that means. That means we'll probably have a lot of fun, but you might not learn anything. There's like nine reality shows on television right now about Cajuns, and it's not because they're smart. It's because they're fun, you know? So anyway, I tell a lot of stories. This will probably be the simplest message you've ever heard in your whole life, but it's just what I do. I like to take complicated thoughts, bring them back to the most simple, basic truths. Always give an application, something you can leave here and go do. I call it putting the cookies on the bottom shelf so everybody can have one. So, I'm going to make this really, really simple. Also, he didn't tell you though, that I've been married 31 years. Yeah, thank God! Yeah, give that hand for my wife. She's not here, but she deserves that! I have five kids. Yeah, I do realize that's a lot. You don't have to tell me. I know that's a lot. I wanted two. My wife wanted three, and we had five! So anyways, that's kind of how that happened. And I tell people that I don't have kids because I like kids, because I really don't! I like my wife! Come on, somebody! Where you all at? Alright, so, anyway, that's a different message. But I've got a lot to say in that category, so if you want to have me back, I'm really good at that. So, the book, just a couple words. Ah, no, let's move on. Here's what we're going to do. Here's what we're going to do. I want you to just see this one verse that has, it really, it's a common verse for those that have ever read your Bible or you've been in church for a while. It's a great verse about our faith. But there's a thought behind it that I don't think a lot of people do, alright? And the verse is in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1, and it really is what some scholars would even say is the definition of faith. So that's a big word that's used in culture now, is, you know, "my faith." We don't even say "Christianity;" we just say "my faith." So, what is faith? And I want to just throw this thought out to you. According to the Bible, the Bible says "faith is the substance of things hoped for." So, faith isn't the realities and even the things that you can always put your fingers around. Faith is something in an unseen world. Faith is not just what you see. It's what you don't see as well. Faith is the substance of things-and this is the word I really love. It's the substance of things you're really hoping for. So, you have a hope for something. You want something to happen, and it's the evidence of things that are in an unseen world. Let me come back to that and just say, one of the things I love doing as a pastor-I'm not really a big fan of preaching. I don't really even consider myself a great preacher. I don't try to preach. I don't even really try to teach that much. I try to explain and communicate to help people grow. In fact, the way that I like to describe myself to my own church is I see myself kind of as a spiritual tour guide. So, my job is to shepherd pastors and take people on a spiritual journey, so they can experience God. Here's what I do know about your spiritual journey. Even if you're not a Christian, you're on a Spiritual journey, because you have a spirit man on the inside of you. So, whether you like it or not, you're not even going to get to control that. You're made in the image of God. You have the spirit of God inside of you, and that's like a homing device. It's always going to be looking for something. You're on a spiritual journey whether you like it or not. And you're always going to be in search of something that's meaningful and that has purpose behind it. In fact, the number one question that I get asked by college students-and we have a bunch of them. We have tons of college students at our church. We have campuses in Auburn, Tuscaloosa, all over the place. And they always want to know, like help me navigate my life. What's God's will for my life? Who should I marry? What job? What career path? What major? They're always looking for some kind of direction. Now here's what you need to know, and that is, try to find it on your own. You're going to come up empty every time, because... Because you're a spirit man, and that spirit man has this homing device looking for this relationship with God. And because God created you, He formed you in the first place. You know, David said He created my inmost being. So, you feel the way you feel because of God. You think the way you think because of God. All of that, all of that is because of that God thing. And God's smart. He did that on purpose, because He put inside of you not only that thing but the longing for it, knowing that He was the only place you were ever going to get the answer to it. It's genius of him. Only He could put all those desires inside of us knowing that the answer to all those questions could only be found if we went to Him. So, I always tell people I don't threaten people with Christianity saying you need to be a Christian! Try it on your own. You'll be back, because you're always going to come up empty until you go to the one who created you in the first place. He has the book on you. All the days ordained for you are written in His book before one of them every came to be. So, if you'll look for purpose or look for the answer to the what is my life all about? What am I supposed to do? You're never going to know until you come back to the one, until you come back to God. God is the only one who has the answer to that question. And when you think about a verse like this; It says faith is the substance. So, our faith is the substance of something that I'm looking for, I'm hoping for. It's this pursuit of this unseen world. I love that. I think one of my jobs is to make faith exciting for the people that are trying to follow God. And here's just what I know, and that is that faith is at its best when you're in that pursuit. And it's at its worse when you're not. Let me say it another way. Faith is at its best whenever you have a hope, and it's at its worse when you have no hopes. Let me say it another way. Faith is at its best when you're dreaming about something that you want to do that seems great and almost even far-fetched. And it's at its worse when you're not. It's boring. Like, why pray? Why read? Why do all that if you're not in the pursuit of this relationship with Him that can lead you to something exciting. Faith is the substance. It's something I can't see, but somehow, I'm still going after it, and I'm grabbing it. It's the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Back in 2008-I think it was January or February of 2008, I got invited by someone I'm sure you've probably heard of. He's a personal friend and mentor. And I'm not name dropping; he just is. But John Maxwell's like a dad to me. We spend a lot of time together. We vacation together. Of course, he's the great leadership guru and just written 80 leadership books. He's just... I think he's awesome. I love him with all my heart. And he had just turned, in 2007, turned 60-years-old. And he lives in South Florida, so in January and February, he played a lot of golf down there. He said, Chris, come on down. We're going to celebrate my birthday and play some golf, which sounded great to me, you know. So, I flew down to South Florida to hang out with him. And we played golf, had a great time. And in the evening, he wanted to go see a movie. I'm not a big movie person. I may go to one a year. I don't know why. I don't have a conviction about it; I just don't go that much. But I... So, I was kind of reluctant, because I kind of wanted to hang out and talk. And there you can't really do that. But anyway, we went to this movie, and the movie was The Bucket List. And I don't know if you guys have ever seen The Bucket List. I can't really recommend it; it's got a few things in that I just, I don't know. I don't know. I can't really recommend it. But anyway, the moral of the story is phenomenal, because it's the story of these two guys that have cancer, right? There's a wealthy guy and a guy that's not. And they actually started - he's writing down a list of the things he wanted to do before he died, things that he wanted to do before he kicked the bucket-a bucket list. And the rich guy said, man, I've got all this money. I'll finance it all. And, of course, the moral of the story was all the things that they thought would be exciting like jumping out of an airplane, or racecars, and things like that-they found out those weren't the most exciting things. That there were deeper, more beautiful things that were actually the most meaningful parts of life. Fine, that's a great movie. But after I left there I thought, that's a cool concept to not only have dreams and hopes, but to put it into writing. And I'm a real practical kind of guy. And I don't know, I like lists. I'm one of those guys that... In fact, if I had a list of everything I liked, list would be at the top of the list. I mean, I really like it. And so, I saw that and thought, you know, I don't have a bucket list, but I have a lot of dreams. I'm going to do my first draft of a bucket list. In fact, we talked about it with John and the rest of the guys. Let's just all try this. And I think in my first draft, I had about 12 items on it, things I wanted to do before I kick the bucket. And for me, they included a lot of ministry goals that I had in my heart and my mind, but that I had never written down. And now, I have over 100 items on this bucket list. And here's what I've discovered, and here's my little tool I want to pass of to you. In fact, if you don't get anything else out of this convo today, I would love if just a percentage of us actually started writing down some of our hopes and dreams. And like, put it in writing. Make a bucket list. And here's what I know is going to happen. You're never going to really get the answers to the pursuit of those things right without involving God in the process. And so, I just know it's a great way to get you closer to God and make your Christianity and your faith more exciting. But I started writing these things down. So, several years later past, I did a series at Highlands on dreams. And I'm telling my congregation about my bucket list, right? And here's one of the tensions. And I'm just going to warn you guys that are going to try to do the bucket list thing. There's a tension on do you put things on the list that you know has absolutely no hope of ever happening? So, do you put it on the list? And, of course, the answer is-it's not a trick question. I'll tell you the answer. And the answer is yes, because God! We have a God who's able to do... That's not just a cool verse. We have a God who's able to do exceedingly, abundantly, all we can ask or even imagine. God can get involved to do it. So anyway, I'm teaching this. I'm trying to stir up faith in our congregation and everything. And I get to this point, and I say I have things on my list that I know can't happen. But I'm leaving them there, because I want to be a person of faith. And the for instance that I gave was I've always dreamed of flying in some kind of super-sonic military jet. Because I spent seven years as a youth pastor in Colorado Springs, like literally a mile from the Air Force Academy. Colorado, where you all at? Alright, good. So, I lived right there in North Colorado Springs right by the Academy, and I actually taught a religion class. They don't allow this at the Academy anymore, but I taught a religion class to the cadets when I was there back in the '80s and '90s. And anyway, I've always had this huge infatuation with all things Air Force. It's just awesome. So, some of you guys get that. So, it was a dream, but here's what I know, because I've tried it. There used to be a civilian ride program, so if you were famous enough, or a politician, they'd let you ride in one of these. But they discontinued the program, and I knew that, because I'd been in pursuit of it for a long time. So, I'd been flat-out told it can't happen. I'm like, okay, okay, okay. They discontinued the program. So, I'm telling this story in our congregation, but there were two colonels, two colonels sitting in our congregation. They looked at each other and said, man, let's see if we can make this happen for PC. That's what they call mw-Pastor Chris, PC. I didn't know this was going on. This was in July. And so, they go to Washington, D.C. and try to vet me through the Pentagon. Like for four or five months, they're begging the people who can make these decisions. Hey, we want to let this guy, we want to make an exception to the civilian ride program. And I don't know this is going on. Five months later they show up at one of our Christmas services in full military dress uniform with this letter in their hand. And I know what's going on when I see them. I'm like, don't you lie to me. Are you serious? Is this getting ready to happen? Come on! I thought, boy, don't you mess with me. Are you serious? And so, anyway, they go... And they read the letter. On behalf of the, you know, Secretary of Defense, and la, dah, dah, duh, we formally invite you to come. And I'm like, oh man! It's like this great Christmas gift. They said, but with two caveats. And one is you got to pass the medical exam, which I did. You can see this specimen right here. I passed that. And so... Flying colors. And then, second thing, you have to get trained. You have to go through training. And training is ejection seat training. That's the only thing they teach you how to do-how to ditch the plane. So anyway, I went through the training for all this. And in February of the next year, I got to fly in an F-16. And so, we got a GoPro. I brought our video team out on the ground, and I had a GoPro on the dashboard. So, we did 11 maneuvers. We were up there for 70 minutes-an hour and ten minutes. I flew it for 15 minutes. I mean, he said take the stick. I'm like, really? I like went... I just kind went...wee. A little lower. A little lower that way, you know. He goes, naw man, hit it over! Bam! And we start barrel rolling that bad boy. It was awesome! In fact, when we took off, when we took off he said we're going to do a complete vertical take-off. After we get to the end of the runway, I'm going to turn it straight toward God. We're going to go 0 to 17,000 feet in three seconds. He said I'm going to light the afterburner, and we were going to catch seven G's on the take off. A G is, a G is your bodyweight. So, seven times your bodyweight of pressure on your body. And you're wearing this G suit, and it's squeezing your arms and legs, because all your blood is going out of your heart, and it's pushing it back in. And you're freaking out. I got 30 seconds of video. You want to see it? Yes or no, yes? So that's! Oh my gosh. And this is me flying it right now! Oh! This is where I threw up. Come on, y'all! What'd you think about that? So, by the way... So, by the way, the pilots-you know if you've ever seen Top Gun-they always give them a call name. So, his call name was Pinto. You know, PC, what's your call name? I said, well he's Pinto. I'll be Bean-Pinto Bean, baby. So, there we were. And anyway, I had a great time. So, I'm very serious about this. This is not a sermon. Like I really want to help you here for a second. I learned, I learned, I learned... Like I don't want to preach to you; I want to help you. That's funny. Anyway, really want to help you. I got convicted. I got convicted about saying this can never happen, so I'll never say that again. I'll never have a dream and say this can never happen. I learned a great big lesson. Those words will never come out of my mouth again. And this is the second lesson I learned: I don't have enough items on my bucket list. I'm very serious. Even God said in Habakkuk, "Write the vision." Write it; don't think it. Don't dream it. Don't hope for it. Put it on paper. Write it down. Get something in your heart. Pursue God. Watch God work, and watch it happen. Now, the reason why I decided to bring this to you today instead of my book is that your pastor, Pastor David, said... I said, what can I do to serve you? He said help them. Just help them with something. And I didn't discover this 'til in my 40s, this concept. And I wish somebody would've told me when I was your age. Because when I was a college student, I went to LSU. Thanks for that! That's awesome, so yeah. I was an accounting major, go figure. And I was only an accounting major, because that' what my dad did. So, I was-for my dad. Praise God, alright. But that's the point. I wasn't dreaming. I wasn't pursuing God. I didn't know what I was supposed to do, so I just did what my dad did. And I wasn't even that good at math. It's just what my dad did. I didn't know what else to do. And honestly, I'll be very honest with you. I've been a believer. I've been in church my entire life. My dad played organ in the Baptist church for more than 30 years. I was raised in church. I've never, in fact, I've never missed a Sunday in church in my life to date. I know; it's crazy. And not because I liked it, just because my dad wouldn't give me an option. We had to go. Even if we were throwing up, like dad said, get a bag; you can throw up at church, you know? So, you just didn't miss. I got saved. I got really born again, converted, radically on fire for God as a sophomore in high school. But when I got in college, when I got in your years, now I'm back in autopilot. I'm just in the motions. I'm just trying to survive. I have no vision, no plan. Just picked a direction. And so, all I can tell you is that was the flattest my faith had ever been. Because what do you pray for when you're not even excited about what you're doing? How do you put any energy into relationship with God without the definition of your very faith in action? Faith is the substance of things hoped for. And if I do nothing else today but instill inside of you, just, you know what? I'm going to go after something that I believe in. I'm going to go after something that actually matters with my life. I'm going to have some hopes and some dreams. Here's what I know. Your faith will come along with it, because God loves being involved in that process. And prayer takes on new meaning. Reading your Bible takes on new meaning. Going on trips like these guys over here. I'm doing something with my life that matters. Now I want to just close with two thoughts. It requires two things. It requires-since faith is this ability to see, it's seeing something that you can't see physically; it requires you seeing some things right. And the first thing it requires is for you to see God correctly. Like you've got to really see God correctly. One of my biggest beefs about church, especially church in the South, is that most people have a bad image of God. In fact, one of my evangelism tactics is if people say, man, I don't think I want your faith, I say that's fine. Tell me why. And the reasons they give me aren't good ones. Let me say it this way; the reasons they give me aren't accurate ones. "I don't like God, because God's mean." Oh, well no wonder you don't want to. He's not though. Oh. Or "I don't like church, because church is boring." Well, probably the ones you've been to are, but they're not all like that. Oh. See, they're making decisions based on bad information. I don't want to play basketball. Why? Because I hate getting tackled. Oh, no, no, no, that's football. See, I grew up in church. I went, because I didn't want to go to hell. That's all. I wanted my fire insurance. You know what I'm talking about? I had no other motive. I wasn't in love with God. In fact, I grew up with what I call, he was my Wizard of Oz God. You know, green face, smoke, and mad. And he just always wants something from me. What do you want? I want to go to Kansas. Well, go get the broom. What do you want? I want to go to heaven. Well, memorize the book of Proverbs, you know. Like, I don't know. You're making this too hard for me. I'm just telling you this. I don't know what your view of God is. Would you look in my eyes and hear this? But your view of God is determining your relationship with God. That's a fact. However you see him is determining what your relationship is like with Him. And what would it be like if you could have the right view, the biblical view-not the church view, and maybe not in the view that most Christians have represented on his behalf erroneously. But what if you had this right view? I'll just tell you what will happen. It'd be fun. It'd be a pursuit. It'd be something you enjoyed. And I'll just tell you, Pastor David. I'm not saying this to float your boat, man. You've done that here. You've made serving God, you've made serving God attractive here at Liberty University, and I want to thank you for that. He really has. He really has. But you also have to see yourself correctly. Like you have to have the right view of you. So, let me say it this way. You're not seeing things as they are. You're seeing things as you are. You're not even looking through these. You're looking through this. Every one of us in this room are looking at the exact same thing, and every one of us are seeing it differently. And that's because you're not looking through your eyes. You're looking through your heart. You're looking through your relationships up to this point. You're looking through the lens of your experiences up to this point. And that's a shame if those have been bad. It's a shame if the filter... Like you could really have a great life, but the filter's bad. And I would say to you, man, let's deal with some of the filters, some of the things that have happened to us up to this point experientially and relationally. We're not seeing things as they are. We're seeing things as we are. That would've been me. So, I'll close kind of with my story. I wasn't good at school. Like on my best day I'm a C student in Louisiana-y'all at LSU, not at Harvard, LSU. You know... Anyway, so that's just... Where are my C people at, by the way? Where you all at? Where you all at? Love you! Love you! Where you A people at? A people, where you at? Not crazy about you all. Not crazy about you at all. Like, stay home. You're messing up the curve too much, alright. Stay home once in a while. Help a brother out! My son is really, really smart. He made a 33 on his ACT. He got a full ride academic scholarship to Alabama. Did his undergrad in three years. Went on to get an MBA. I'm like stinking smart, obviously from my wife's side of the family. He came into the kitchen with his final report card from high school. He said, "Dad, Dad, Dad, look at there, look. All As again." He said, "I never made a B in my life." I said, "That ain't nothing. I never made a B in my life either. Just shut up. Just move on out. I don't need to hear your mess. Just get on out of here." Are you ready for this? You ready for this? My sophomore year for accounting I had to take a speech class. I failed it. You're seeing what I'm doing right now, right? I failed speech. Yeah, because I was too afraid of getting in front of people. I really was. In fact, I begged my professor, please, please give me a D so I don't have to take this again. And I talked him into it, and I didn't have to take it again. I'm finishing. Listen to this. But there was a script that was being written about me that wasn't who I am. So, I was on a path toward some things, and I was seeing myself in a way differently than God was seeing me. So, I didn't just get saved. I got redeemed. I got... I not only got my sins forgiven so I can go to heaven one day, but I got a God who wanted to rewrite the script of my life- Ready for this? And put me back to my original intent. And today, I talk to tens of thousands of people every week, and I marvel. I'm still not impressed with me. I marvel that God ever uses me. And I know it's just because that I'm seeing the right picture-the picture God has of me. My prayer for you today is that you'd be a dreamer, that you'd be someone who has hopes, some that you believe in. My practical application is that you would actually start a bucket list and watch how much fun that is. But my real ministry point for you today is that you would see God the right way. See yourself the right way, so that those things can become a reality. And I want to pray for you before we go. Lord, I thank You for this amazing opportunity to be here with the students of Liberty University. And I hope I was able to put something inside of someone today whose life seems a bit boring and lifeless, and maybe even meaningless. And God, I pray that you would stir inside of every person in this room. In fact, I prophesy it to you. Acts, chapter 2, that God's going to stir up the hearts of young people to dream dreams, have visions, and to see things that they're not seeing out of reality. I pray it over every student here that you would stir up their hearts and their spirits towards this unseen world. And I pray, God, as they do, and as they get into the pursuit of it, God, it draws them into this close relationship with you. And Lord, that help us, that you would help us see you the right way and see ourselves the way you see us- that You see greatness in us that we oftentimes don't even see in ourselves. I thank you, Lord God, for not only the students that are here, but for the future that every one of them represents. May they change the world in your name. Amen. God bless you, everybody. >> DAVID NASSER: Thank Pastor Chris. Brother, thank you. So good. Hey, do so me a favor. Real quick, get out your phone if you would, and I want to do one quick thing before we walk out of here, just as a point of application. And I want us to do it just by writing it down. If you have Twitter or Instagram, alright, if you would, look for Chris underscore Hodges. And I want you to do two things. I want you to think about a dream that possibly God has recently been giving you that you've not had the guts to verbalize- something that you even felt like would never be able to happen, but you realize today maybe God believes more in you than even you believe in you. And I want you to maybe put that out there so that Pastor Chris can be praying for you. And it might be a prayer. It might be a dream that's like, "I just want God to save my dad." And I think that would be beyond a miracle, because, right now, I don't see how God could ever do that. Or I want God to save my best friend. He's the most hostile person against God there is, so it would be even bigger than moving a mountain. You'd be opening up an ocean for that to happen. And so, I want you to, if you would, tweet out or post on Instagram one dream that's bigger than you, but not bigger than God. And it might even be a fun one that God puts out there, and you go, how is that, how is that spiritual? Well, all things are sacred if they're aligned into the way that God wants you to live biblically, alright? So, would you just post that out there? And on our way out can we thank Pastor Chris again? Just such a great word-so practical. We love you, brother. Hey, God bless you guys. Have a great weekend!
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Channel: Liberty University
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Length: 32min 20sec (1940 seconds)
Published: Fri Oct 20 2017
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