Last Days First Responder - Scott Hagan

hey river valley this weekend we're going to hear from scott hagan he's president of north central university and he's also a friend of mine and i asked him to preach this weekend because we're remembering 9 11 with the 20th anniversary and he just had a new book come out on-call heroes that he published with tyndale they asked him to do this they said can you just honor those people all the way back to the first responders that ran into the fire and went into the buildings 20 years ago and then honor the people that over the last year and a half have been on the front lines those heroes those doctors nurses people that ran into the trouble and didn't run away and so i asked him to speak on that this weekend and and to be able to sell the book so here's the idea with the book you can buy one give it to a doctor a nurse a firefighter a police officer anyone that was that on-call hero that you just want to bless it's 15 you can get the book for them and sew it into their life it's a great opportunity to say you made a difference we noticed and we care and we appreciate you so we're going to jump into his message right now and he's going to be speaking on this and so i pray you'll open up your heart to the message that scott hagin is bringing right now i travel pretty much three weekends a month sometimes all four weekends i'm out preaching most of the time in churches with multiple services like this and i have found this to be absolutely true if if there's a saturday night into sunday morning i'm telling you straight up the most spiritual people in the church come to the last service on sunday it's absolutely proven true and i i'll show you why the saturday night folks we love saturday night but come on man they're checking it off the list you know they're just getting it through the early service nine o'clock folks i love them uh but they're on their way to lunch or they have bad home technology and don't know how to tape the vikings game i don't know what their issue is but you folks have been up since about 4 35 a.m this morning praying at least two to three hours prior to coming in the auditorium the 11 o'clock crowd most spiritual people in america give yourself a round of applause i know where you're coming from pastor rob is is accurate we have a fantastic relationship uh uh rob is a great friend uh during this last year because we're both from minneapolis when we traveled around the nation we pretty much found ourselves in the center of national conversations with leaders about what it's like in minneapolis when we went through really the tip of the spear about a year and a half ago um rob was right there with me and becca they uh supported the school came to the uh events and uh just were right next to us he serves as a national uh executive prosperity assemblies of god which makes him a board member at north central but i believe your pastor we all know he's extraordinarily gifted one of a kind in the world um but i think the trait i saw in rob ketterling this last year was a level of courage um in rob that was pastoral but prophetic and i think that's what i most admire in rob ketterling is he's a super nice fantastic leader but there is a fire and a steel court of courage inside rob ketterling that is undeniable you have a great pastor great leader very grateful to god very grateful to god it's a joy to be here with my bride of 39 years we've been married and we were married we're a few days apart in age she's got me like by six weeks we're both i'm turning 59 in about a week then we'll both be turning 60 next year uh and we'll be in our 40th year of marriage we just celebrated 39 but my beautiful bride is here karen would you stand real quick here third service right there that's her but here is my here's my favorite photo of karen my favorite picture of karen is on the screen 1966 easter sunday i love the matching purse the matching dress i love the little page boy haircut the the barrette or whatever that thing is in her hair right there i love the little feminine bent wrist but it's the gleam in her eye it's that look it's that that twinkle that sparkle that gleam in her eye very few things on this earth give a woman that gleam i think that woman only gets that gleam in the eye maybe once in her lifetime i think god blessed karen by showing her her future way ahead of time i think this is what karen saw it's a pretty energetic laugh for 11 o'clock after i complimented your spirituality that's a lot i got my twisty velvet pants on there my little patent leather prison shoes right there my brother's got his prison outfit on next to me right there my dad he worked in the timber industry the lumber industry for weyerhaeuser and his job was to go into the mountains in the northwest and cut the trees down he had a humongous uh chainsaw and it was his pride and joy it was like his harley-davidson i used to smell the oil of that chainsaw every night i couldn't touch it but my dad was very gifted with the chainsaw he also was responsible for giving me my haircuts and i think my dad somehow combined his love of the chainsaw in his responsibility to cut my hair but i tell our students i told our students at north central you put a pair of skinny jeans on that guy that is a modern worship leader haircut uh in america right now i was way out over my ski tips with that hairdo right there no it's great we end up having uh 10 beautiful grandkids and the lord has blessed our family i just want to say too that uh just a big thank you uh on behalf of the university uh i found out yesterday over the last 23 years river valley church this isn't the personal giving which has been significant this is just church giving through apple valley and all the campuses but primarily this apple valley campus has given 1 million 229 two hundred twenty nine thousand seven hundred dollars to north central university first for scholarships and building programs that is a stand-alone generosity toward the university i know many of your staff have come through north central we want to continue that powerful relationship many of the missionaries that you're sending around the world come out of that great institution but whether you want to be a biologist a biblical biologist a scripture first scientist a top educator a business leader worship leader pastor youth pastor north central i think is at the top of its game and god has watched over this great school i just want to say thank you to river valley for keeping north central strong and vibrant into the future god has been good can we just say thank you lord for his keeping power amen this morning i want you to take your bibles or watch on the screen joshua chapter 14. i want to preach this morning for a few minutes on what does a last days first responder actually look like i'm not just trying to be pop culture-ish and play off this weekend or the book but i want to show you a portrait of a powerful first responder in the old testament that really looks like what the last days ought to be i don't think the story in joshua 14 has ever meant more to my life than it means right now much of what i see going on in the conversation between caleb and joshua and the kind of leader joshua was i am longing for that in my own life let's read together joshua 14. this is a conversation between joshua and caleb now these guys are in their 80s this story though is 45 years in the making it's a conversation that started when they were 40 and now they're in their mid-80s and their closing escrow literally handing the keys out to the promised land something that caleb has been anticipating for 45 years and he says to joshua i've been waiting for this day for a long time and here it is no matter what my collective world around me has displayed i have kept my heart laser focused on this and when you keep your heart as caleb kept his i want to show you the powerful outcome not just of getting what you believed for but the kind of person you become that's what this is all about what does a last days first responder in this nation what does it look like to be fitted to our times in america right now as believers so joshua and caleb are talking he says in verse 7 caleb states i was 40 years old when moses a servant of the lord sent me from kadesh barnea to spy out the land he was one of 12 spies he's talking to joshua who was one of those two when he sent us out to spout the land i and i brought him word again that was in my heart but my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt with fear yet i holy followed the lord my god you see the power of leadership this is why i think your pastors have excelled this year because when you hear your leader talk and when you and i talk people listen and they're wondering what is the topic of our conference how are we describing the world that is around us it has one of two effects on people it causes their hearts to melt like wax with fear or it lifts their heart to new levels of faith we're not dumb in this room we know we are in perilous difficult times leading a christian university in downtown minneapolis are you kidding me in the last year and a half we all realize what's happening in our world not just in our city with the physical unrest but with the madness of vain philosophy that is ripping our country apart and yet i see a caleb-like moment not just for my own calling but also i saw it displayed in your your pastors when they talk about their world which i believe is getting bigger not smaller i don't think opportunity is getting is closing i think it's opening to us and that mindset of caleb and joshua to see the future in a way that the other 10 could not i think that's first of all why your pastors are brilliant leaders when i hear them talk about the future it lifts my heart it doesn't make my heart melt with fear so the bible says that caleb goes when i spoke i spoke differently i said all that was in my heart they caused the hearts of the people to melt he said and moses then swore on that day verse 9 surely the land on which your foot is trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever because you have holy followed the lord my god and now behold caleb says i'm as strong today the lord has kept me alive and he said these 45 years since the time that the lord spoke the word to moses while israel walked in the wilderness and now behold i'm 85 years old i am still as strong today as i was in the day of moses my strength now is as my strength was then for war for going out for coming in so now give me this hill country of which the lord spoke on that day for you heard on that day how the anakim which are the giants they were these eight-foot canaanite giants the giants were there and they had fortified cities which means they weren't visiting they were entrenched they were embedded this was now their land that they had conquered it may be that the lord will be with me caleb said and i'll drive them out as the lord said then joshua blessed him and gave him hebron he gave it to caleb as an inheritance therefore hebron became the inheritance of caleb to this day because he wholly followed the lord the god of israel now there's this little throwaway line at the end of the text people overlook this now the name of hebron formerly was kiriath arba arba was the greatest man among the anakim and then the land had rest for more so arba this character that's introduced at the end of the text he's the head giant literally he's the nine footer among the eight footers so the anakim were very large ominous powerful conquerors of the land instruments of the enemy their leader was arbab we'll come back to that in just a minute so caleb is telling joshua i've been waiting 45 years for this i literally have been looking out the window every day waiting for fedex and ups to deliver the package now he said he's 85 years of age these aren't dog years or weird kind of bible math 85 is 85. this was real 85 like r85 here's what's fascinating numbers chapter 14 tells us that at the beginning of the exodus into the wilderness on their way to the promise that there was so much negativity that the lord said all right everybody over 20 is going to die out here you have no optimism in your heart you have the spirit of the ten that was afraid if you're 20 and under you're going to live during these 40 years now let's just do the math caleb and joshua were at least 40 that's what they say when they began their journey through the wilderness they went those 40 years there was a few years of settling and now the escrow is being finalized people were getting their territory he said now it's been 45 years i'm 80 i'm 85 which means that if you were 20 if you were the oldest person that made it through 45 plus 20 puts you at 65 years of age if you believe what the bible is stating and some scholars debate about ellie's r did this include the women most scholars however do believe that these were the only two 80 year olds in the entire nation and that the oldest person would have been 65 can you imagine an entire country and nobody's in their 70s nobody's 70. two 85 year olds and then the oldest next person is 65. so caleb and joshua are conversing and caleb caleb looks at this opportunity through the eyes of faith and caleb said i want the hills and i want the giants i want the land i've been waiting 45 years here's the first characteristic of a last days first responder it's god's plan for caleb it's god's plan for you and i god's plan is for you to develop with time not deteriorate with time the reason this matters so much let's be honest we're watching our world deteriorate and there's a natural space to getting older in which you kind of accumulate i was going back through my yearbook from bethany bible college the graduating class in 1984. the valedictorian is now an atheist i said that person didn't make it that person didn't make it that person flamed out they flamed out they flamed out it's not that everybody goes through a perfect upward uh linear straight life to success we all go through valleys and trials but i'm talking about people that are now shipwrecked in their faith and you get to a point in life when you watch the world around you like caleb watched his how much can you take how many dead bodies in the wilderness his buddies his friends people that became negative and complained and lost their way or worshiped idols and they died his whole world around him was deteriorating you and i have to make one of the most important decisions of our life i think right now no matter what happens in my life around my life i should say it's not going to happen to my life i might be the last christian standing in my family the last christian standing in this office but i'm not going to let the deterioration of the world around me take away my development of my own face somebody say amen god's plan is that we develop not deteriorate with time that our faith becomes stronger not weaker that we become more not less we've gone through the kind of the socially the fiery furnace and i keep looking for the when's the shelf life on this gonna run out i'm starting to wonder is this the cycle until the return of christ but i don't want my faith to mimic this chaos that's going on around me i want to be like caleb i want to be looking now how do you develop and not deteriorate with time very simple you live in hope of the promise of god i know it sounds very simple simple theology it has a powerful effect on your life when abraham lived in light of the promise of what god had given to him it kept him strong it kept him focused it kept him humble it kept him repenting we have to live looking out the window waiting for the package to arrive every day when you read a promise in god's word about your life a promise for your family a promise for this church for this nation every single day i'm living in hope of that promise to arrive we've got many people that can't go four or five days he went 45 years waiting for that thing to arrive that's why he was stronger now we all are going to get older friends come on i threw my back out the other day chewing ice what i'm just slamming down in the morning some bareback and body beat up sore can barely move stiff what did you do i slept that's all i did i slept and i need bare back and body to get it going because i'm stiff and sore how do i know what i'm talking about okay there's some natural aging but the outer man does not dictate my life it's the inner man that's being renewed day by day i clothed my outer man with my inner man i don't let my outer man that's decaying day by day be the person that you meet be the person that responds to the challenge i let the inner man that's being renewed day by day that's the secret of caleb because he looked in hope of the promise of god when you read your bible and god is delivering you this love letter filled with promises for your life promises for your family promises for the church promises for the nation we are all living in hope of those promises arriving that's what keeps you vital strong and young because god's plan is that you develop with time not deteriorate with time even though everything around you is falling in the wilderness you're not falling in the wilderness can somebody say amen amen number two [Applause] the second trait of a last days first responder is this we need our most experienced christians we need our most seasoned christians to take on life's toughest assignments caleb said give me the hills seriously dude you're 85. i thought when you're 85 this whole thing culminates in a fully funded life of ease i thought it was about the chill territory not the hill territory i'm just going to chill now i got people that i love with all my heart that live in idaho i'm not ripping idaho but this whole escapism right now in america with everybody checking out and moving to idaho just to get away from everything we're going to yield ground in territory now there's lost people in idaho that need on fire christians i bless them but i am watching a tendency of our most experienced seasoned generous prayerful holy ghost-filled wise people that know the word of god saying i think i'm going to choose the chill space not the hill i pray river valley never chooses the chill over the hill and he said give me the hill with the with the giants the anakim they're embedded they have fortified cities give me the lost cause give me the thing that's been conquered by the enemy give me the toughest assignment at this stage of my life you say what does that look like for me i'm 80 years old it could simply mean saying i want to know i'm going to get in a car someone's going to drive me around to the toughest neighborhood in minneapolis i'm going to drive that neighborhood until i begin to get a burden to pray every single day give me the name of the the most difficult struggling elementary school with all kinds of social statistics that would break your heart put the name of that school on your refrigerator and begin to be an intercessor every day maybe even get out of that car and walk the neighborhood that is dangerous the reason the new testament was so powerful is that christians place themselves in spaces of danger for the cause of christ friends i'm not saying to recklessly endanger yourself but you know what i'm saying we're just running to idaho right now we're looking for the chill not the hill i want to challenge you a last days first responder is not intimidated by the hill and they want the spaces where the where the eight footers live where did the anakim live where do the giants live we need our most experienced christians taking on life's toughest assignments in this day and age if we're going to see a pivot from the chaos that we're caught in and here's the third trait and last trade of the last days first responder first of all god wants you to develop with time not deteriorate over time people get to their mid-40s and they either veer off into cynicism doubt or they reattach themselves to their first love i've seen this over and over again it's not necessarily on your 45th birthday but somewhere in there you really choose what kind of believer you're going to be now you can make that choice and you can redirect your life in your 60s 70s and 80s 50s 40s right now today but understand if you just leave this to the current of our day one of the most powerful statements in scripture comes from daniel chapter one daniel was a teenage boy the entire message of god has been reduced to four teenage boys you know the story well nebuchadnezzar was going to redirect his kingdom through the re-education of the handsome and the healthy of judea he took him 900 miles in one of the worst acts of social injustice that kidnapped a generation that lived their entire lives as captives daniel would spend 70 years he goes there at 15. he begins to understand really what's going down here that nebuchadnezzar is trying to gently cause him and his friends to forget about god and to reorientate their thinking by introducing them to drinking and to eating of the babylonian culture put them at ease and then it says for three years they were going to educate them offering them a three-year degree in idolatry you know the story well they're 15 years old the entire bible now has been reduced the entire bible story for 70 years is reduced to four teenage boys can you imagine that the entire god story of scriptures about four teenage boys and what they do next would you put your hope in the hands of four 15 year old boys god did and you know that they chose water and vegetables then they were examined after 10 days and they were found to be in daniel 1 21 10 times better than everything baba anything babylon could produce putting them on babylonian steroids on their way to idolatry god's way produced a 10x a 10x leader what's even more powerful is in daniel chapter 5 verse 12 it says that daniel when he's 85 now was known to have a keen mind he could explain riddles untie the knot bring civility between enemies and it says at 85 he had a keen mind but he was a 10x leader a 10 times better leader at 15. do the math when daniel became that 10x leader this wasn't some burst of teenage christian faith he went on a 70-year run a 70-year run of being a 10x leader that's the kind of person that caleb is in this story someone who over time never lost their momentum i'm not saying we don't have down days bad days dry seasons i have it you have it we all have it but the fundamental loss of my faith and momentum on my faith i can go the distance i can go 70 years and not lose that momentum i can develop not deteriorate with time i want to be that 10x leader for this gender i want to be fitted to these times that's why i love education the space that i'm in so now we get to this last trait god wants us to develop not deteriorate with time we need our most seasoned christians taking on life's toughest assignments and finally we have to go conquer our mission is to conquer the things that have already been conquered what do you mean pastor let's bring this message to a close this way here remember that little line at the end of the story so caleb said for 45 years joshua blesses him and says man you are strong after 45 years you're 85 is the new 40. i'm going to give you hebron with all of its hills and all of its giants you're not looking for the easy space you're looking for the tough assignment caleb it's yours the bible says he went to hebron and then there's this odd little description that it was known as carrioth arba what's the storyline there hebron was a small village that shows up in the book of genesis it is one of the earliest settlements in the bible and today you can go visit hebron it's there today but there was a period of time in which it lost its name how did it lose its name because the giants the anakim attacked hebron hebron is where abraham isaac and jacob are buried their wives are buried there it's of great significance but the giants came there one day led by arba the nine-footer over the eight-footers i don't know if he was nine foot i'm just saying that i'm giving him a 12 12 extra inches because it said he was their leader so great was his conquest that they changed the name of the town does that look like the united states right now so great was the conquest of the enemy that they've changed the identity to match that demonic giant that overtook that land hebron lost its name its created identity and it was conquered by the enemy and took on the name of the conquering enemy caleb said i want that space looks like a lost cause when you look at the united states of america right now you look at our education system and you see the madness that's going on especially in the area of identity and you see all of these vain philosophies evil attempts to re-educate our young to steal the created identity and put on them a conquered identity in which they now wear the name of the conquering enemy in all sorts of madness today i will tell you this leading a university in this day and age i tell leaders all the time over my dead body am i going to allow heresy to enter our christian university [Applause] our mission is not to chill space to remove ourselves as far away from this but literally to say lord give us the hills and give us the giants give us the lost cause give us the space especially the educational space where young people and children that's really what river valley is all about we love all ages but it's the kids it's the teenagers it's the generation we have to get in that space we cannot yield it and our mission is to conquer that which has been conquered and to restore the created identity over these young people instead of the conquered identity that they currently wear i pray river valley is a last days first responder for the kingdom i pray you will develop and not deteriorate with time i pray our most seasoned christians in this room would say give me the hill give me the giants and i pray the mission of this great church great local church let's you shape this world would say lord give us give us kiryat arba we're going to restore it to hebron in judges chapter one from that point forward caleb was the only one the 85 year old was the only one that drove out all of the enemy and it was restored to hebron and you can visit that today it would not be called hebron today unless an 85 year old stayed fresh flourished and stayed in the fight god bless you river valley thank you for letting me come and share god's word today

Channel: River Valley Church

Views: 320

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Scott Hagan, River Valley Church, North Central University, Last Days First Responder, On Call Heroes, Life like Caleb, Caleb and Joshua, 10x Leaders, God's plan, Develop with time

Id: Km-RqaHQ6ms

Length: 32min 38sec (1958 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021