Passion 2018 - Levi Lusko

there's an old Chinese proverb I was thinking of goes like this the second best time to plant a tree is right now the second best time to plant a tree is right now because the first best time the best time to plant a tree would be 10 or 20 years ago and I was thinking about how grateful I am to God that 21 years ago Louie and Shelly planted a tree called passion that God used them and their team to put a seed in the ground we're walking into this moment because twenty-one years ago they planted a tree by starting these events and this ministry that God has used around the world and is still to this day ringing out and touching live so could we just thank God for Louie and Shelley Giglio and the passion team who for 21 years have been fighting to give us a song to sing on the best day of our lives a song to rejoice a song to celebrate God loves to hear us sing to him when life's going great if you're as you're worshiping if you are fist bumping because everything is going great that's amazing God is for you and not against you God has good plans for you so just have a song to sing to celebrate victory to celebrate a God who always leads us in triumph that's amazing but but I'm also thankful that that God has used passion over the years to give us songs to sing on the worst days of our lives because if your life's going terribly at this moment if if it just seems like everything goes wrong and then another thing goes wrong let me tell you something there's a song to sing and his name is Jesus as well and for these two plus two plus decades we've been through the passion movement been pointed to Jesus we've been we've been given new songs we've been directed to live a life for something bigger than our own fame and our own name to be a part of a bigger story and my Christian journey in life and my family we would not be where we are today in our walk with Jesus and what he's doing in our lives if it weren't passion so before I do anything else I just want the Bible says give honor where honor is due so I want to honor God for what he's done in and through the passion movement that allows us to be here in 2018 stepping into this so good well if you have a Bible please join me in second Corinthians four I have a very clear assignment from God from from Scripture if you make your way there second Corinthians four I don't know if you'd like to take notes in church I like to write stuff down when I listen to messages because it's so much easier to remember when you write it down plus it puts you in the posture of learning you know like when Moses met with God on Mount Sinai he's God was like bring a pen actually I'll write in rock for you fine but he wrote stuff down and there's a record of it I think when we bring into even it's of an Evernote doc or a note app when we bring into a moment like this the posture says God want I want you to speak to me I think what we're doing is we're making a runway and I think especially a lot as I've been coming into this first night as the first speaker it's the chance that we have together to create some runway for what God wants to do throughout the course of the weekend over the course of the few days that we have together in this conference and I think about even just the fact that it's the first day of a new year and this is a chance for all of us to create runway going into a new year you know at any given moment I was blown away watching a Netflix documentary recently to find out that any given moment there are 1 million people aboard airplanes flying around the world 1 million people like a city roughly the size of San Diego are right now on these metal tubes sitting in the sky reclined a little bit some of them right but not during takeoff and landing because that is not safe you know no this is fine this is this is everything's going to be terrible right so but eating peanuts and watching you know movies a million people a whole city in the sky right now around the planet and and those planes have to land and sometimes it's an emergency and the air traffic controllers all around the world have to keep track of where the runways are these planes can be ditched too or diverted to in a storm and turned around and and when there's a medical emergencies they have to know which airports have access to which hospital so if you had a stroke on your flight they don't divert you in a city that they'd have to airlift you to a hospital that could deal with the thing that happened to you and so they're always having to know where they can put planes down and they have to keep track of runway length to know which ports can handle which aircraft you see there could be a runway that's that's only able to handle a Cessna they can't land a wide-body jet in and so the runway lengths up to two three four miles long Edwards Air Force Base the largest longest runway in the world it's like 15,000 feet long or something absurd like that it's as wide as a football field as long and and it's so big because it has to handle huge airplanes and I think as we begin this moment and we begin this conference we have the chance now to create a long runway for all that God wants to land in our lives I believe God wants to pour out revelation upon you to show you who he is to give you callings to help you understand more about who he is but we have to create that runway and create that space anybody with me on just wanting God to give you all that he has for you to show you all that that he has an intended for you so let's let's make some runway second cleanings for so now we're all taking notes the title of my message is this ready you can jot this down kicking the bucket list kicking the butt kicking the bucket that's another way of saying dying kicking the bucket is is they say that that came from the execution of prisoners who were made to stand on pails or buckets and the noose was put her on the neck and the execution would kick the bucket out and when they would kick the bucket so with the person I'm talking though about kicking the bucket list kicking come on let's stick together tonight let's learn say it out loud let's kick the bucket list alright second Corinthians four hopefully this will all makes sense in just a little bit as we're jumping in we're gonna jump in in verse 16 but let me just bring you up to speed Paul the Apostle was this guy who hated Jesus more than anybody until he met him one day and then he turned he turned out I don't hate Jesus at all it was like a green eggs and ham moment like he was like I hate Jesus I hate Jesus want to kill people who call themselves Jesus followers then he meets him he's like I love green eggs and ham I actually turns out I love Jesus I'll do anything you want me to do tell me where to go tell me what to do I can do that and so he begins preaching Jesus who he had formerly been persecuting Jesus that just tells you you can never write anybody off in your life anybody that guy could never become a Christian my roommate could never become what my sister couldn't never get saved my death will be the last person to get saved and they will remain that way until they meet Jesus until they have an encounter with God that opens their eyes there's nobody too far gone there's nobody so messed up there's nobody hopeless that God couldn't touch with his love in touch with his grace and the darker the case the more space for God's grace and that's that's what Paul's life shows and so Paul gets saved and he starts preaching man it was tough it was it was crazy I mean problems difficulties up until this point he's been talking to the Corinthians about how he was perplexed and he was struck down and he was persecuted and he was hard pressed on every side I mean Paul's life he would get stoned with rocks not weed had to clarify somebody like oh really no he got beat with rods he got shipwrecked he was attacked it was just really one thing after another and he's been talking about all that he said he most recently said I carry about in my body the death of the Lord Jesus almost like every day is like a death sentence and the difficulty that comes but then he turned a corner and he introduced the truth he said in the midst of all of that here's the good news he who raised up Jesus will raise us up also he who raised up Jesus will raise us up also he says I believe this and I speak this the God who raised up Jesus will raise us up also there were implications for you when Jesus rose out of the grave the God who rose up Jesus will raise you up also so in the midst of everything going wrong in Paul's life in the midst of trial and persecution he all of a sudden lifts up this story the greatest story the story of God who raised his son to life and can give life to us also and that changed everything that changed the whole tone of what he had been talking about because now all of a sudden if you jump in triumphantly Paul says therefore look at verse 16 therefore we do not lose heart even though our outward man is perishing yet this in man is being renewed day by day for our light affliction which is but for a moment is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while we do not look at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporary but the things which are not seen are eternal would you pray with me father thank you so much for this word thank you for what Paul wrote here what he gave us here his own notes on how he did not lose heart what he held up over his life to remind himself to keep himself going on I pray that you would speak to us every single one of us coming in here to this moment with different things going on in our lives and our story in our journey some dealing with incredible pain we have no idea the person that's sitting next to us maybe even contemplating suicide feeling like there's no love there's no point there's no meaning others God things going well but needing a touch from you and I pray you would stir us up I pray you and wake us up I pray God that that 10 years from now that 20 to 30 that a thousand years from now we will be looking back to this moment to this opportunity to hear from you and it would change everything we pray for a shift we pray for for there to be a pivot in our lives here that we could say before and after what you did here through your word what you did here at passion 20-18 through your spirit we asked above all things that if a single person has come into one of these environments with a bright the broadcast and they don't know you if they're without God without hope in the world in this world we pray that through your spirit working in their hearts they would be drawn to you they would see the light they would see Jesus for who you are and they would pass from darkness into marvelous light and we ask this in Jesus name Amen I like to take any talk I give and kind of reduce it down to just one sentence and that way if there's any among us who Radd I'm that way a squirrel right just bright thing Chinese things no way you can get the whole message even if you tune out at any point in the talk so here's the entire message I just want to give you in one sentence okay here you go the more you look forward to the next world the less you'll need from this one drop that down the more you look forward to the next world the less you'll need from this one I was impacted by a movie I saw when I was young it was called the Dead Poets Society Robin Williams the late great talented tortured genius and this if you haven't seen it came out in 89 I'm doing the math we were thinking about earlier the youngest person a passion this year was born in 2000 which is which is crazy to think about and so now everybody in subsequent you know entrances on to passion in coming years will be born in a different millennium from those who have gone before so it's a cataclysmic shift that's happening here is we turn 2018 into this year and that's just crazy to think about like my son Lennox I have a six-month-old son we were talking to the day how he'll never know life without Alexa and Siri you ever feel like you're cheating on Alexa when you're talking to Siri and then you shift back over and now I'd like someone got me a Google assistant for Christmas and I was like I don't have room my life for another digital assistant but I was thinking about how my son's gonna be like looking for where is this person I've been hearing about her for so long and she live in a closet where's this person she's a different than when I was growing up it was a different age I mean Friday nights we didn't have we have Alexa to you know download movies to our Amazon Prime player we'd have Siri to fire up this over here it was no no mom dad can we go to Blockbuster on a Friday night mom dad can we make it a blockbuster night and they're like dinosaurs you can't find a blockbuster but but I you know they had a chance to purchase Netflix they declined and they don't know we don't we know better now y'all where's Locke buster now but no you do have to walk around and rent a movie and actually bring it home to your VCR and you'd have to put it in and you have to push play if you found when you wanted to watch but you walk around the stores like I don't know I don't know and then you'd be see when you like I choose you that's the one I want right there and you grab it but there wouldn't be a video behind it the struggle was real guys I mean you but you had to rewind it before you returned it it wasn't just like it self-destructed you sit there rewinding and these things were winding so slowly I had a friend true story his parents had a dedicated machine that rewinded VHS tapes slightly faster these are called rich people guys and it was different day you know you listening to music now you're so easy just boom by the single oh there it is oh there oh look what she made me do right we're the old Taylor Swift go I don't know she died it's very traumatic I don't really know what's going on here and no no I had to call up a radio station and request a song and call him up could you play the song for me and then you sit there waiting with your two fingers ready waiting waiting waiting if you hear your song play in record same time on your boombox to make your own mixtape this was my life all my mixtapes were missing the first five or six seconds of any song but like that's not it that's it ah anyhow it's a different day it's a different time but but the movie Dead Poets Society it was about a teacher in a boys prep school who was trying to instill in his pupils a love that that's best expressed through a Henry David Thoreau quote about sucking the marrow out of life and really the mantra the mantra of the movie was carpe diem seize the day no thought for the future just think of the present suck the marrow out of life and do it quickly because soon boys you're all gonna be worm food all of you will be cold dead pulseless buried somewhere and worms will be moving their way through your body so while you can grab all the gusto that you possibly can as life goes by cuz you only get one shot and I remember just my pulse quickening hearing this and and through the movie I just riders remember just this just being gripped with this idea like yeah that's that's great it's what you want we want to seize the day I think if we're able to narrow it down that's kind of what really causes there to be such a visceral reaction to the concept of a bucket list the bucket list the idea of sitting down to write down your manifesto of what you want to accomplish before you die of what you want your time on earth to have accomplished to sit down and write these things down these this is you know I'm not going to being chained to the the cubicle I'm gonna go outside with a baseball bat slam in the fax machine office space reference google it or talk to your parents later and and I want to be emancipated I want to I want to go and snorkel with sharks and I want to walk through the Louvre and I before I die I want to I want to you know I want to go to Ibiza or Coachella Burning Man I want to just these are the things I want to do I want to I want to go to the Great Barrier Reef and and I think that the reason we write these things down is our way of saying this is I'm gonna skydive and and I'm gonna do this I'm gonna live in Europe for a year with no plan I'm just gonna spin around and I'm just gonna just find myself and be free I just can't go get a job and settle down and you know the thing I just kept ball and chain of life I feel myself suffocating Tyler Durden reference right and and and so we start to feel like if I could just shed the khakis in the IKEA and be a man today I just got these are the things I got a bucket list this is what I have Wi-Fi if I'd if I died with this not having been accomplished I will die with my song unsung and of course there's there's nothing wrong with with goals and and writing down what you want to be accomplished and being organized and thinking through you know what what you want your life to amount to but but I think at the end of the day this carpe diem seize the gusto it speaks to a franticness in our hearts not to miss out not to miss out on greatness not to miss out on excitement not to miss out on adventure and to not let our lives be common and not let our lives be average we want we want to grab all that gusto and maybe it's it's more and more becoming a compounded issue because Millennials and younger and of course the and younger is still TBD what that's gonna be called but Millennials and younger to those 18 to 35 and I'm 35 so I'm at the oldest end of that and those you at 18 you were born in 2000 which is when I graduated high school but those of us who are making up this thing called Millennials and younger wits recognize this employees are terrified of Millennials employers Millennials now make up the largest percentage of the workforce but employers don't know what to do with them because Millennials have have perpetual career ATD Gallup says I have it written down here Gallup says that the average millennial is a serial job hopper 21% left their most recent job after less than a year and that multitasking with work and wanting to freelance and you know we even watch movies and consume media that way most media consumption happens medium multitasking we're not just watching a movie or watching a movie with your laptop out watching to move with a laptop out we're also on Amazon on our phone buying something prime it's gonna be here tomorrow actually no Amazon now though drones here oh there it is right Thank You Siri nope sorry I wasn't with her do you smell around me it was Alexa and you've been with her since and so you know we just are perpetually living out this this I'm I'm always wanted to keep my options open this this fear of missing out I think it can at the end of the day be responsible for us wanting such an epic bucket list wanting to to seize all these all these days and perhaps it's not helped maybe social media just throwing fire on it because now I get to see your bucket list maybe the acid test for anything being on anyone's bucket list should be would you still do it if you couldn't post about it slash would you still do it if you couldn't brag about it I'll look at me by the pool infinity pool oh all right because what we're doing is we're making ourselves feel sick about our crummy lives because we're seeing everything everyone else is doing we're all trying to live our own great amazing race and look how great this was and look how great this was isn't this amazing but the moment you put it out there for other people to see and you're craving those likes and the dopamine hit that comes in your brain the moment you start to actually get the exact opposite of what you did it for and so yeah I'm trying to outdo you and trying out to mean we're all looking to the is this is this what greatness is is this does this excursion is this purchase I did this I stopped this I got this I went there am I finally now gonna be happy and so we're leaving our career or freelancing I was thing about how how for many of us our grandparents and us how different things are because what we would you know want to be on our bucket list our grandparents would never probably ever imagine or or think about even as an option in our lives what what they would have put on their bucket list we want to happen on our vacation and what they would do on like the save up for a decade vacation we want our everyday life to be like and so how different things have become and how how big it's all gotten and so that's why my suggestion to you is that we ought to kick the bucket list hear me out I think at the end of the day it is epicurean to the core epicurean this love of pleasure that's that's that's basically simplified to this statement is the Creed of epicurean eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die if we're gonna be worm food soon we have to get all the gusto now we have to frantically drink with this we have to sleep with this we have to go there that has to be amazing it it has to be cultured it has to be beautiful the lighting has to be just right we're in this frenzy to to take all of this in all of this pleasure in all this comes consumption in because mortality is coming but that's tragically even creeping at times into things we do for God I haven't been part of a church plant oh I haven't it was forgot oh it's like this this stepping out can all of a sudden now become this great thing we're doing for God that's on our Christian bucket list we got to charge these things we have to seize all these great things for God forgetting that the emphasis of the Christian life is never what we do for God it's always what God has done for us we need something better than our bucket list of what we want to accomplish before God before we're 30 or before or 50 or before were food and that is a calling from heaven that we're faithful to because maybe what's lost in our coming up with this epic list of what we think our life and our ministry should be like would never include some of the most important aspects of any time God uses someone in profound ways because no one's riding down in their bucket list be forgotten be hidden be buried and none of us are remaining planted anywhere long enough because we jumped ship the moment our mood shifts from a static to simply content and so we want a change of scenery and what Abraham have dwelt in tents and and kept his eyes on the city in the sky if he had wanted an epic bucket list God told Abraham move out of your country he said where are we going he said I'll tell you when you get there how exactly do you pack for a trip like that he did tell us what if we're moving where we going God says he'll tell us when we get there and they went why because it wasn't some epic bucket list it was following a calling they were called by God they heard what God said it didn't make sense know already that what David had lived for a decade in caves as the anointed king with no power as the anointed king with no crown it's a great mockery of life and yet he did why because it wasn't epic on a bucket less his friends were telling him take the bucket let's go cut the piece off of Saul's cape that's the epic challenge and he refused to because he was willing to be hidden he was willing to be prepared he was willing to be what feels like Barry being buried being planted and being bury feel the exact same thing by the way some of us feel for God and we want to take action we want to do something great to stir it all up and the solution I think is Paul Paul tells us exactly what we're to do in the midst of all of this it's it's to think more and to look forward more to the next world because then we will need less from this one that's by the way the other problem with this whole bucket list thing none of these things can handle the hype that we put on them I don't know if you've ever you know this is gonna be so great and you say before you do it but then when you get to this all the pressure on it I find Disneyland can be like that with my family right I'm standing there like enjoy Dumbo quit crying the happiest place on earth right and I'm in my head doing the math I'm like this every rotation is $14 on this dumb plastic elephant right and you know anytime you put all that pressure it Tim Keller the pastor who's preaching has changed so many of our lives he he said that anything on this earth we put pressure on that's gonna make us happy or make us complete and by definition that's a bucket list if I if I died without these things out of my life this is a failure is what I'm gonna get done he said that's like driving a 10-ton truck on a bridge that's only rated to handle one ton what you're putting on it that marriage that person that girlfriend that status that that if I look this way a dress size whatever you would put on a GPA getting onto that team getting that Super Bowl ring you cannot handle the weight of your soul driving out across it and so Paul when he said my life's hard this is terrible what did he not do he didn't say but it's okay guys I know I'm it's hard now it's difficult today Corinthians it's been a rough but soon I've got a trip coming up to Rome I hear they have great pasta I'm really excited to see the Colosseum and you know what if I could just check some of those things off my list and I'm gonna be happy I'm playing on a hot-air ballooning later that's gonna be nice and be lovely I read the reviews it's a very fine organization know his solution to the difficult things he was facing now was to focus on what's coming next because where God's concerned what's next is always greater than what's now it was by looking forward to the next world that he needed less from this one he said my eyes are open to things that are eternal I'm not focusing on currently what is temporal and that is exactly what we need to do to I think that we need to have the relaxed confidence of those who know God is in charge and that forever is ours we must have that's my assignment the relaxed confidence of a people who know that God is in charge and that forever is ours for to live thinking eat drink and be merry because tomorrow we die is to basically say that Jesus Christ died in vain because if we have hope only of this life we are the most to be pitied what am i what am I trying to tell you I'm trying to tell you that the guy who raised up Jesus will raise us up also if we believe in him in faith that means the death is not the end of the road it is just a bend in the road and there is eternal life that follows the moment we leave this world in a perfect place called heaven that will culminate in living once again on this earth after Jesus hangs up the under new management sign when he returns in power and great glory to judge the world and to make a new heaven and new earth on that we will live forever and and and just as Jesus when he rose he ate and he drank to demonstrate there is eating and drinking after you die and rise there is eating and drinking after you dying right so for us to to buy into a a worldview that is essentially epicurean which is to say eat drinking me marry now do it all now because tomorrow we die it's to ignore the fact that Jesus got up from the grave and was to his temples y'all got any food what you got honeycomb get that over here some fish cool get it over here then if the beach he says Wolfgang Puck he makes them breakfast on the beach I mean he was insisting they watch him me he was like touching me touch me touch me that's kind of creepy touch me touch me right he's like no I want you to see that I have a body why because our resurrection body is just like Jesus's resurrection body in that we're gonna come out of the grave and live forever not as disembodied spirits but in flesh and blood we're gonna live forever but there's not going to be asthma there's not going to be pain there's not going to be any of these things that defile like cancer we're gonna live in these bodies forever eating and drinking and laughing and working and playing and dancing but it's gonna be better it's gonna be better that's why Isaiah tells us about the trees look at this this is the trees in Isaiah it tells us so I think it's chapter 55 verse 12 the mountains and the hills when God's glory comes down shall break forth into singing before you and all the trees of the field will clap their hands okay okay right now where I live in Montana everything's under snow and I planted all these trees a couple years ago and I'm so excited that my friends and I talked to them don't judge my journey and and right now I was just looking at them they're my whole backyard it's covered in snow and and I can't see them and they're they all look dead but I know they're not dead the life's just driven deep down and when the Sun comes back the life comes back when the warmth comes back to life will come back right now this whole world even though there's beauty in it even though there's things that are great about it it's it's right now like like the trees and in Montana covered in snow they're in a state of hibernation and-and-and the original glory and the original power of creation you can barely see it it's dimly seen it's like a raisin as compared to a grape but when God comes back when when Jesus rains on this earth once again the trees he's failing us will clap their hands that's awesome and and then the mountains and the hills will be able to sing right so there's things about creation features about creation that's why Romans 8 says creation is longing to be redeemed because it just it wishes it could be awesome again CS Lewis talks about how in all the old stories the animals could talk and the trees had sort of personality in fact he put it this way he said if we believe that God will one day give us the morning star and cause us to put on the splendor of the Sun then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry so false his history may be very near the truth as prophecy that one day it could be that we get an interactive animal so anything you would put on your bucket list now and think oh my that's gonna be complete if I do it now imagine diving with sharks in the creation again only now you don't need a cage and maybe you don't need a scuba tank you said I'm saying if we have Christ if he rose from the dead bodily which is what this is all about then we will - and we will get to experience life on this earth forever as it was meant to be it will be rich you'll be able to dance maybe you'll be able to fly maybe will be a looks floor outer space without having to fear blowing up or having our tears boil that'll be awesome right and you just think about what that's going to be like and the more you think about that world and how great it is more your eggs are in that basket the less you'll need this one to be beautiful and the more you'll be positioned to do three things got them down number one the less you need from this world the more you can do for it the more you can do for the less you're walking around hoping this world is going to fill some hole in your heart this experience getting this GPA getting this career though the less you're walking around looking for this world to fill something in you the more you can take your place to be used to make a difference in this world as you are the hands and you are the feet you are the body of Jesus Christ on this earth you are God's plan a to change the world and there is no plan B I've heard pastor Louise say for years and years and years and when you're not needing this world to fill you you're able to help jesus fulfill his purposes in the world there's a second thing the less you need from this world the more you can withstand pain in it the more you can withstand pain in it you see there's there's two things and there's they're always the tension in in the New Testament there's the present problems and there's the promise prize the present problems and the problem promised prize our difficulty that we're facing today is the problem but the prize is what Paul's saying that's why he said I I don't look at what I'm going through my body's getting older I see crow's feet I see that I'm aging I see gravity sinking in if your life in this world is your career as a ballerina if your life in this world is your career as a quarterback or as an actor that you're aging even as we speak there are younger people are fresher people they're there people are gonna have better skills so if your eggs are in this basket you have a problem you're gonna be clinging to something that you cannot hang on to but if like Paul you said I don't focus on my body that's aging I focus on my spirit that's being renewed on the inside I reverse age like Benjamin Button somebody I'm getting better I'm becoming more like Christ more wisdom more grace more glory more strength as I walk with Him so so you have to focus on the promise prize and the more you do that the more strength you have to navigate through the present problems I'll put it this way in Romans 8:19 one of those powerful verses in the Bible he says for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us it's like getting a mosquito bite on your way to the beach it's like that's a bummer but there's the beach you see I'm saying if you think about the vastness of heaven if you think about the glory of heaven it will cause all the things you face here to be put in perspective to quote CS Lewis one more time he put it this way they say if some temporal suffering no future bliss can make up for it not knowing that heaven wants a we'll work backwards and turn even the agony into glory whatever you're dealing with today if you your whole life on this earth are bound to a wheelchair you've had some loss you didn't have parents there's some dream in your heart that that you feel like well the doctors say I can never be a mom and that's a dream my heart I'm telling you in some way in heaven maybe ten thousand years or fifty thousand years into your time in heaven God will bring about some circumstance or some awareness and you'll all of a sudden be compensated for from something on this earth I'm telling you heaven it's gonna work backwards and even things on earth that you don't get to see dreams you don't get to live out you'll at some point in your life while you're alive which is forever if you are in Christ you will see heaven work backwards turning the agony into glory that's how good the the promised prize is it can more than make up for whatever present problem you're facing today I think a Moses tiny example but Moses had a longing in his heart his whole life to visit the promised land he never got to because of his own mistake some of us have many mistakes that have cost us much but I love so much that when Jesus was on the earth he had a conference one day with Peter James and John wide he picked them they were more special no they needed more attention right if your teacher put your desk close to hers when you're in grade school it's not a compliment right Peter James and John were popping their collar wearing sunglasses at night they thought they were a big deal Jesus like I can't let you knuckleheads go anywhere you'd be biting each other come on come with me and on the top of the mountain of course you know Elijah shows up you know God the Father speaks audibly but don't forget this Moses showed up to now if Moses had a funny look in his eye because he's like I'm in the promise take that Mount Nebo right Bible joke he got to look at the promise I never got to touch it until Christ brought him back I'm telling you God can cause heaven to work that way for you as well and to beautiful things that's a second there's a third as well third is this the less you need from this world the more you can actually enjoy it the less you're hoping this world a relationship a possession and accomplishment can fill some part of you up the more you let the pressure get turned off the pressure for it to be that great and that wonderful and you realize it's fallen and you realize it's limited and you realize it can never be what you would build it up to be in your head now you can actually see it for what it is and actually enjoy it and experience God's blessing in the midst of it I think about what Solomon put in please yes Esther this great epicurean journey he kind of starts settling in and goes you know what go eat your bread with joy drink your wine with a merry heart for God has already accepted your works once you're in Christ God accepts you on the basis of Jesus and now you can just enjoy this life that he died for you to have on this earth you can actually look at your job and you can look at opportunities and you can look at sports and you can look at taking a vacation you can look at a car and now that you know it's not going to meet some deficiency in you you can actually find joy and take pleasure even in the simplest of things and there's not this need for the things that we do for God to be epic or be some wonderful thing we can just simply be faithful and there's such a wonderful freedom in that permission it's like Paul told the Thessalonians well my favorite verses in the Bible he told the Thessalonians who were confused about Jesus coming back who isn't right some of them quit their work they quit they can't go to work because they'd just been told Jesus is coming back so like well I got a call in raptured so they did and they went on this hill and they're waiting for Christ to come back when is it like the stripper from the first men in black or no what was at Independence Day and on top of the roof for the sign welcome Jesus we excited about you you know I'm saying it's always a great sermon when you can work a casual reference to a stripper from from a Will Smith movie into your sermon but but but they were there on the hilltop waiting for Jesus to come back so Paul's like no guys see guys no no here's what God wants you to do until he returns check this out aspire to lead a quiet life to mind your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you he was gonna please God go back to school it's gonna please God go work be the best banker you can be be the best graphic designer you can be design the best clothing line you can design to go to go to NASA and figure out rockets and din if you're some breakthrough in medicine do the best be quiet live a quiet life just just just do the best you can work in with your hands I like how the the JB Phillips Version puts that it says this this way make it your ambition to quit being so ambitious and instead just excel at what God called you to do be faithful to your calling if you're called the preach then preach if you're called this thing than saying if you're called the lead than lead if you're called the banking then banking if you're called to act and act and do so with a quiet life love Jesus in an infectious way that people around you would want what you have and that you'll have opportunities to share the gospel with people who will want to hear from them because they see how great you are at cabinetry they see how great you are at fixing cars they see how great you are and they want to have a relationship with you they want to see what's different about your marriage they want to know what's different about you why are you so generous and you'll be able to say to them it's because my I don't seem to care as much for this world because my heart's on the next one and that's why I'm so generous he's the power of this in how the church I went from being 8% of the Roman Empire to 50% of the Roman Empire within just a couple hundred years of Jesus dying how was it they say mostly it's because of the plagues that swept through Rome killing up to 30% of the people in the Empire and the Epicureans who wanted pleasure knew it was about contact so they all left the city and when their family members got sick they would leave them and not touch them because they if they die they can't be merry and drinking eat and so they would abandon them even the doctors would abandon sick people but not the Christians almost by and large the Christians stayed in Rome and we're willing to touch and treat not just their own loved ones but anybody who they bumped into anybody and many of them died but by the time that was all over at a rate of five thousand people a day dying to the plagues in the Roman Empire people were coming to know Jesus like crazy now because they loved what they were saying but because they loved the way they were living and it gave them an audience to speak in to their neighbors lives and loved ones lives so the less we need from this world the more we'll be able to actually enjoy it as we do what God's called us to do we don't try and live out each other's calling like Peter who was told by Jesus I need you to die for me on the cross Peter you're gonna die for me on the cross upside down you're died just like I did you know Peter said what about John she said what is that to thee you follow me God has brought some of you to passion so we could say to you quit looking at this person next to you what David called for looking at that person when they've been called to do you need to just follow me don't follow your dreams follow Jesus and if you follow Jesus what does David say delight yourself in him and he's able to give you the desires of your heart but many times it's us being led away from what we think we've been called to do but if we just follow Jesus listen to me we're not to follow the goodness and mercy but if you follow the Good Shepherd he causes goodness and mercy to follow you and you will see your dreams that you're willing to even lay at the altar come back to life and be more powerful and more vibrant and more wonderful than if you would have ever tried to do it in your own strength so be willing to be hidden be willing to be obscured be a willing to be hated be willing to be forgotten just make sure that you are found faithful be faithful to the call of God on your life you'll never come in second putting him first and don't forget to apply the weight of glory when you need to the weight of glory the text says the poll factored in the weight of glory I've got a scale here and I've got some things that represent you know this great dream I want to go to Paris is my bucket list item I want to swim with penguins and I I want to I want to go to the Day of the Dead parade and get a crazy freaky mask that selects a sugar skull really what you're just saying is you're saying leave Leave I I have dreams in my heart and I just I want to have fun I want to do great things I I I have I have so many I have so many things I want to do I just I and we're weighing these things in nature to us are so weighty and if we weigh them on a scale we'll see the weight but that's not all because as we go to live out our dreams and the bright lights draw us in we're gonna encounter difficulties and here I have screws and a sharp and they hurt and they're rusty some of them are gonna give you tetanus if you touch them the wrong way and these these things happen along the way so as we're trying to live out our dreams we're going through hardships and we're focusing on all these things and we weigh them the cost of not getting to walk out our dreams is horrible because we've got an injury now we're off the team and my sister died and there's a drunk driving accident this is horrible and my dad is in prison and we weigh all the difficult things we go through and they seem heavy this scale will actually tell me what these things weigh because it's a small scale that works in grams I can find out exactly what these things weigh and that's how some of us live our lives out this is heavy this is hard this I thought was going to bring me happiness and it didn't that's because our scales too small if I stepped on that scale it was shattering because it's not meant for me but this scale is big enough for me this game can handle me this scale it's none of your business what it says but I got a resolution [Music] this scale is big enough for me and Paul said I have a big scale because that scale that can just measure little things by the grams it can't handle the big pounds of a full-grown man just like nothing in this world and the trials that you go through are too big for you but if I take these things down this scale they read out such high readings guess what on this scale they're not even enough to turn it on because it won't even activate until it gets to 5 pounds so I came to passion 2018 to tell somebody you need a bigger scale if you have a scale that can handle God's glory it will have enough room for the pain in your story if you just measure the little things that you face by themselves it'll weigh you down but if you factor in Jesus's promised reward you will see that the cross always leads to the crown and that Jesus who was raised up will raise us up also do you receive it in Jesus name and father we thank you for the way as we handle difficulty and heartbreak frustration and fulfillment and as we look to you you make sense of it all and I pray now in this moment for anybody who's far from you who needs to know what it means to be saved pray for everyone on the live link and infinite Phillips and here at the Anthem need to put their faith in you so they can experience eternal life in heaven they've been looking to this trip for this accomplishment to bring satisfaction but it can't now they're gonna look to you with heads bowed and eyes closed if you're here and you're ready to trust Christ for salvation the finished work of what he done the cross is done you can't add to it at all but you have to receive it his grace by faith salvation is not based on you it gets placed on you when you believe in Jesus not gonna happen right now so right where you are if that's what you're wanting just in your heart telling me you believe tell him you need him say God I need your salvation I believe Jesus died for me tell me you believe Jesus rose from the dead and you give your life to Him prayer faith is enough to save because if you believe in Jesus confess with your mouth that he was raised from the dead you will be saved thank you Jesus and help us to factor in your glory no matter what we're facing I do not live out of a bucket list we kicked that to the curb instead we choose to follow after the one who of whom it can be said to me the nations are as a drop in the bucket we're not going to trace chase our dreams around the world we're gonna follow you and believe you're gonna take us further we can ever take ourselves we ask this in Jesus name and we said together amen let's stand up together and worship you

Channel: passionconferences

Views: 49,681

Rating: 4.8639455 out of 5

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Id: f9G15v4v4xU

Length: 45min 52sec (2752 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 04 2018