--Joshua 14. The series is called
Once a Man, Twice a Child if you're just jumping in now. We're talking about
the seasons of life and what to do about them. I heard that there are three
stages to life, three phases, you could say, that really
summarize all of life with the sweeping brush stroke. Here's all of life
in three phases. Are you ready? Are you sick of these yet? No. All right, three phases
of life-- number one, when you're young. When you're young, the
good news is you have time and you have energy. The bad news is you
have no money, right? Then the second phase
of life is middle age. The good news is you have some
money now and you have energy still. The bad news is you
don't have any time. Third and final phase of
life is when you're old. When you're old, you
finally have money. You have time, only
now you have no energy. So that is really the
conundrum of life. And we're going to look in
Joshua chapter 14 as someone who, no matter what season
he found himself in, he knew just what to do, and
the same principles that guided his life are there for you too. Title of my message
is the kick-- the kick. Just to get into the
spirit of the talk, could you kick
somebody besides you? Just lovingly, in Jesus' name,
just give them a little kick. In case they didn't
know what the title was, they'll now know
with a bruised shin-- the kick. And here's what we
find in Joshua 14, jumping in in verse 6. So I'm going to say "Now
the men of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb,
the son of Jephunneh"-- you're probably wondering
what people group was he from. He's a Kenizzite-- said to him,
"'You know what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, at
Kadesh Barnea about you and me. I was 40 years old when
Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea
to explore the land, and I brought him back a report
according to my convictions. But my brothers
who went up with me made the hearts of the
people melt with fear. I, however, followed the
Lord, my God, wholeheartedly. So on that day,
Moses swore to me the land on which
your feet have walked will be your inheritance
and that of your children forever because you have
followed the Lord, my God"-- say the next word
out loud with me-- "whole-heartedly. Now then, just as
the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for
45 years since the time he said this to Moses
while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today,
85 years old. I am still as strong today
as the day Moses sent me out. I'm just as vigorous to go
to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country
that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then
that the Anakites were there and their cities were
large and fortified. But, the Lord helping me, I
will drive them out just like he said.' Then Joshua blessed Caleb,
the son of Jephunneh, and he gave him Hebron
as his inheritance. So Hebron has belonged to
Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite ever
since, because he followed the Lord, the God
of Israel, whole-heartedly. Hebron"-- this is a
parenthetical now, just details on
details on details-- "used to be called
Kiriath Arba after Arba, who was the greatest
man among the Annakites. Then the land had
rest from war." And Father, we're grateful
for what is contained here for us to be able to read and
to read about and to imagine and to picture. And we know Your
word says clearly two things, that everything
contained in scripture points us to Jesus and secondly
that everything in scripture is for our learning. So we're meant to
find Christ in it, but we're also meant
to see our lives out of that light so that we
could avoid the pitfalls and walk according to
the promises for those who exercised obedience
and faith and integrity. And we thank You for
this amazing man, Caleb, and his example
to us, and we pray that the power of Your spirit
that guided him and gave him energy in that day would
help us here in this moment. These same principles
he lived out of would be a blessing to us as we
follow after You like he did. And we ask that if anyone
coming in today without God, without hope in
this world, hurting, searching, empty,
frustrated, not finding meaning in this
life under the sun, we pray that because of what
You have done for them when Your Son came to this world they
would find what they're looking for, what they've been
searching for all their lives, and they would leave
different than they came. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. The year was 1972, and
the Olympics that summer were held in Munich, Germany. And the legend, the icon
Steve Prefontaine, the Eugene, Oregon track star
was finally competing in his first Olympics. He had set so many records
here all across the country from coast to coast, many that
stood for a very long time, and the world was
watching with bated breath to see how he would do
against the rest of the world. The 5,000 men's final
was the big race, the big storied match for him,
and he was definitely thought for sure by our entire country
to be the one who was going to be wearing the gold and
hearing the "Star-Spangled Banner" and all of that. And yeah, that's not
how it went down. As you can see on YouTube,
Steve Pre, as he was called, he kicked too soon. You see, a race is made
up of three stages. I guess you could boil it
down to any number of stages if you include stop eating
Doritos like six months out, like that's a stage. But you have essentially
these ingredients in a race. You have to start, you have the
route, and you have to kick-- the start, the route, the kick. It's important that the start
is clean, that you get off to a good start. And a good start, they say,
is one that's not too fast. Apparently it's
incredibly difficult to not take off
at a pace that you can't sustain
because of the fact that there's the
adrenaline, of course. And if it's a marathon
you're running, you're surrounded by so many
people, maybe people who are in better shape than you
who plan to do different mile times than you are. And so it's important to
find groups and have a plan, and they say an
iPod playlist that has a beat per
minute at the rate you actually want to start out. So you want a good
start, and it probably needs to be slower
than you would like. Then the second is the route. The route is where you're
doing the bulk of the run. This is where you're
going to run your race. The route is where you need that
consistency, whatever it is you know that you need
to do to leave enough stamina from the
start and now the route to carry into the most
important, arguably, stage of the race. Because at the end of the
day, what is a race if not getting across the finish
line before anybody else? So the final stage
would be the kick. The kick now is where
you've got out, hopefully, and didn't go too fast, make
that beginner's mistake, and you've run your
race in your lane. You've battled the squirrels
in your head, #IDeclareWarBook. And you've not gotten
into the paralysis that comes from overanalysis
or any of the other things that can cause high-performance
athletes in critical situations to choke. But now you finally,
hopefully, within kind of the final piece,
the final bit, you could say,
homestretch of the race, you're now going to kick it
in to high gear, the kick. This is not Inception. It's not the chair falling down. This is a different kick. It's the kick that now says,
OK, now let's use what we saved. Let's use what we saved
to kick it into high gear and step it up. Whether that means even shaving
10 seconds off your mile time for the final few miles in
the marathon or whatever it is, now we're going to go
a little bit faster. We saved something in the tank. We have some more to draw
on from the muscle fibers. We're going to hopefully
feel the rush of adrenaline and the release of
the happy dopamine, and the runner's
high is going to help us mask the difficulty we're
having continuing doing this. And so now it's the
kick, and it leads to-- the ultimate
expression of the kick would, of course, be
that sprint to the finish where you say shut
up nervous system. Don't tell me anything. Just don't even talk. We know. We know everything. Everything's screaming, but
in the last bit of the kick you just get that
body across that tape. Life's a little bit like that. We in the series
have talked about why it's so important that we
get off to a good start. Seek now your creator in
the days of your youth. Everything that comes to
life that you're building, it only can rest on the
foundation that you lay. The seeds that we
sew when we're young, they will reproduce after
their kind in our lives. Don't make the mistake of
building your life on sand. Build it on solid rock. And as you're doing
so, it's probably going to feel slower
than you think because these wonderful
things that God wants to ripen and mature, the enemy
will always try and get us to see shortcuts to them. I should be going
faster than this. I should be going
faster than this. You'll hear it in your
head in the excitement of being young and
thinking you get a pass on these young years, and
I've got to sow my wild oats, and look what they're
doing, and this is the party I was invited to. But no, just slow and
steady, that consistent-- this is the plan that
I got to carry out. This is the call that
God's put on my life. I'm going to honor him. I'm going to seek
first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. You've got to get off
to a good, clean start. Get out of those blocks. Trust your spikes. And then the route,
run that race. Run that race. Run that race. Day after day, day after day,
we're going to trust God. We're going to seek God. We're going to gather
together with God's people. We're going to be in community. We're going to take God's word. We're not going to walk
in the path of the wicked or sit in the seat
of the scornful or stand in the way
of-- we want to do life with those who are thinking
and looking and valuing the same way that we are. This is the plan. We got to stick to the plan. But all of it is moving forward
to the time when it's now-- man, if there's any go-go
beans left, let's eat them. If there's any coal to be
shoveled into that fire, let's do it. We were going to kick. Now let's kick. Back to Steve. Back to Pre, Steve Prefontaine. He notoriously was an
athlete who could gut it out, and he loved pain and he loved
inflicting pain upon people. He had this habit of just
setting a blistering pace, and he was just extraterrestrial
in his ability to take it and to smoke people. And this worked for him
time and time again, and in the men's
5,000 meter final he thought it would
work for him once again. And so you saw him almost
kicking it up, kicking it up, kicking it up. And then there came a point
when it just broke him. And he, in escalating
again, was competing against athletes that saw his
move and raised him another. You have to understand Pre. They called him the
athletic Beatle of the day. The way there was the
Beatlemania and craze, there was this cult
of following Pre. The stadium was full
of people wearing shirts that said go Pre. And tragically three
years later, he died in a car accident
right close to the campus where he ran under
the coaching of Bill Bowerman, the co-founder
of Nike there in Eugene. And you can go, and it's all
very much still sad and still fresh and still appreciation
for the wild spirit of this amazing man. But on this day, his
kick came too soon. And at the end of
the race when it was critical-- he had been
out in front so much of it, and yet at 200 meters to go, the
time when he should have been kicking now and accelerating
towards the finish line, he had no answer for what the
men around him were doing. And so he crossed the finish
line fourth by this much and missed out on a medal
because he kicked too soon. I think it's an apt
analogy for us in what we want to avoid spiritually. For don't we see
the exact opposite exhibited by this man Caleb
who is at a time in his life when so many people
would just be saying ride off into the sunset. 85 years old-- it's time for
you to go solve a good puzzle. And yet here he comes
dragging his oxygen tank. You can almost hear it. And what does he
have to say as he leans Yoda like upon his cane? Point me in the
direction of the fight because I've got some
giants to take down. Give me my mountain. [APPLAUSE] Here he is at the homestretch
of all homestretches, and what did he have-- precisely what God wants for
each of us as we near the end of the finish line, a kick to
kick it into another high gear and to sprint towards the finish
for the upward call of God in Christ Jesus on our lives--
not to phone it in the end but to give it all we got
all the way until the end-- [APPLAUSE] --into the final chapter. And Caleb is certainly
an inspiring example of what it looks like to have
that kick still when it counts. I think it's interesting
that we as a nation are living longer and longer. They say the life expectancy
now is 78.7 years old for us as Americans. We're living longer
and longer, and yet we are retiring
younger and younger. Did you know that 118 years ago,
the year 1900, the average age that a person retired
from work in this country from the workforce was 74? 74 years of age
is when you would say, looking at your career,
I'm ready to hang up my spurs. At 74, that was the average. According to the United
States Census Bureau, the average age for retirement
today in America is not 65. That's what we think of. It's 63. 63, on average, is when we
say, you know what, this is it. We're hanging it up now. We're retiring
from the workforce, from this career at 63. So we're living
longer and longer, but we're retiring
younger and younger. But according to TD
Ameritrade in a survey done amongst millennials-- oh us millennials, right? Always like there's a
gasp when you [INAUDIBLE].. Amongst millennials, 65,
that's not young enough. 63-- what's the average today--
that's not young enough. According to
millennials, on average when asked when do you
want to be retired by, the consensus seems
to be 56 years of age. The average millennial
looking forward to their life. They think I am ready to
be done with my job by 56, which of course begs
the question, and then what, and then
what, and then what? Because you're already kind of
like wanting to work freelance and you're already
kind of wanting to be able to stand up
at your stand-up desk and you're already wanting to
be able to sit on a yoga ball and you're already
really put out if you're asked to,
I don't know, work and if there's not gummy
bears and if your mom can't come to the job interview. I know there's already like so
much that's hard about the job that it's just an
interesting thing to think, OK, so once you've
got that job on your BOSU ball, now you want it to be
done with it at 56. I'm having fun, of
course, but that is what is happening
in our culture today. At 56 I want to be retired. OK, but since you're going
to be living so much longer than previous generations-- I mean, there was a
time not too long ago when the average life
expectancy for a new baby-- you hold a baby in your hands. On average, how long is
this baby going to live, and the average
was 50 years old. There was a time in this
country not too long ago when 50 was the life expectancy. We got 78.7. But out of that
78.7, I don't want to be working for more than 56. Now would you like it to
be 73 degrees or 74 degrees in your perfect world? But this is our culture. This is where we are at. Why? Listen to me very carefully. Because the culture we're living
in wants you to kick too soon and settle for far too
little of a reward. Because when the
kick comes too soon-- I'm using all I've
got now towards this. Let me tell you something. It's a false finish
line, and the reward is not the true reward
that you actually are hoping that it would be. And that's what we need to
have our eyes opened up to. If we're going to live
as Jesus followers in the midst of
this world, we have to see the gods that people
in this world are worshipping. They wouldn't use that
language, but what their valuing what
their master passion is, what their priority
and ranking is. And we have to say if we're
Jesus followers, what are we wanting of our lives? What are we looking forward
to, and what do we want? Because the two, let me tell you
something, are very different. What am I trying to say? I'm trying to say that the
attitude God wants you to adopt is the opposite of what
the world says you deserve. The attitude that God
wants you to adopt is pretty much
the exact opposite of what the world is
telling you you deserve, and you're living
steeped in this culture now where the pervasive
mentality says I should only have to work for as
little as possible before I retire and
hang that up so I can-- ready-- do whatever I want. That's the ultimate, of course,
expression of retirement. I don't have to go to work. I don't have to
be somewhere where someone says I have to be. I don't have to do things
I don't want to do. That's what we want. We want emancipation. We want autonomy. We want no one to
be the boss of us. We want to be completely
the master of our fate and the captain of
our soul and to go where we want to go and sing
where we want to sing and wear Chacos all year round, and chia
seeds will rain from the sky as we go around all the
national parks in our vans. It's this idea of
I'll do anything. I'll do everything. I'm going to Europe. I'm going abroad. I'm going to retire from
this ball-and-chain horrible mentality that we
have about what work is so I can be retired. Man, when I'm retired-- when I can just
retire, that's the god of our generation I
think, early retirement-- early retirement. If I could just retire early-- but let me tell you something. This idol that we are
as a culture worshipping and we're being fed-- and there's a massive
marketing machine built up, billions and billions and
billions of dollar implications to sell this to us that work
is somehow some terrible thing, and if you could
just retire, life would be good because you'd
be able to live your dream and do whatever you want. Let me tell you something. This is a counterfeit
finish line. And you'll kick too soon
to get to this finish line, and it leads to a false Eden-- a false Eden, this
perfection, this image, this Garden of Eden that we
associate rightly with what we actually wish life was like . And we have in our heads what
evil's like because we somehow know as we look out at the
world and the pain in it and the horrors in it
and the darkness in it and the corruption in it-- and we do see heartless
corporation and we do see evil and we do see injustice,
and so we're rejecting that because of what
we're longing for, but our solution does
not fix the problem. Because to reject-- well, if
I just didn't have to work, then I'd be good
because then I could be nice to all the
kittens that I see and I could do
whatever it is you would say that would somehow
bring you back to Eden and help you create
the world that deep down your heart yearns for. But it's a counterfeit Eden. It's a false finish line, and it
cannot deliver the reward that you're hoping that
it will give to you. A sermon in a sentence-- when you stop taking new
ground, you go in it. Death is the only
reward for not taking that new ground that God wants
you to take that we see here exhibited in Caleb where
there's this pioneering spirit. There's no thought of
if I could just retire, if I could just
stop doing whatever someone else tells me to do. Here he is reporting
back to God, reporting back to his
commanding officer, who actually was his friend. And how hard is that at times
to work for a friend of yours? At one time you were equal
but now he's over him, but he comes with humility. He comes with deference. He comes with respect. He comes with honor. He comes with aye, aye,
sir, and yet there's this fierce determination
to walk in all the promises that God had for him. And what did that
look like for Caleb? A little bit of
context would help. Jot it down. Number 13 would be a
great read this week. As you see Joshua and Caleb,
it's almost like a movie. Flashback. They were back,
just young men now, and they were both serving under
Moses, the great man of God. And they were a part of a
12-man contingency sent in to scout out the Promised Land,
to scope it all out before all the rest of the Israelites came
in to take what God had brought them out of Egypt
to enter, fulfilling hundred-year-old
promises given to Abraham that this was going to be
the place where Israel was established, where ultimately
Jesus would die and rise and ascend to heaven so that
there could be a blessing given to every people, every tribe,
every tongue, every nation forever. So there are heaven
and hell implications to all of this that was
going down that day. So they were told, go
in and check it out. See what the
fortifications were. Bring back some
produce if you can because we'd love some
fresh fruits and vegetables, and also tell us
what it's like there. So they all come back, and
Joshua and Caleb, two of them, they give a good report. They say it's amazing. It's better than Moses-- Moses, you don't even know. It's better than that. God said it was flowing
with milk and honey. This place is like
Willy Wonka on steroids. There's Oompa Loompas. There's a river of chocolate. Literally they're like, what
are we even talking about? Let's just go take it. And they said, but is
any bad guys in there? Is anybody fighting? They're like, oh
yeah, there's some. Now to be clear, there
were enormous giants living everywhere and tons of
people, and Jericho is a walled city and all of this. But Joshua and Caleb, they
weren't fazed by that. The other 10 were. The other 10 spies were
like, no, we shouldn't do it. There's all kinds of-- it's
going to be too much work. Let's just go back to Egypt. And Joshua and Caleb,
are you kidding me? Does anybody remember
the power of our God-- split the Red Sea, brought
us out with plagues-- [APPLAUSE] --drowned horse and rider in the
sea, fed us with bread, water from a rock. Are we talking about
the same God here? What's a giant
when there's a god? Man, let me ask
you the question. Do you look at the
obstacles or do you see them as an opportunity to trust God? And so here's 10 going our
hearts melt before them, and here's Joshua
and Caleb saying God's going to make their
hearts melt before us. And so they say, let's do it. The people sided with the 10
and rejected the testimony of the two and said let's kill
Moses and go back to Egypt. And when Joshua
and Caleb objected they said we're going
to kill you too. And God intervened and
spoke up and said, OK, you don't want to go in? None of you will. You're going to march around
in exile until you all die one by one in the desert. I won't make you go
in my promised land. You don't have to. Just go march around
until you die. So they did, all of them. But they had said, God,
what about our kids? You don't care about
our kids bringing us into a place we
don't [INAUDIBLE].. So God said, you'll all
die but your kids won't. I'll bring your kids in. You won't get to see it. And the only adults that would
get to go in with your kids will be Joshua and Caleb. So 40-year holding pattern-- they march in the desert until
an entire generation perished. Now Joshua and Caleb
are old men themselves, and they and they alone get to
lead the nation successfully into the country. And there's campaign
after campaign after campaign to
take out and fight and to take what was
given to them by God. And at the end of it all--
they've taking so much of it-- Caleb remembers a prophecy God
had spoken to him through Moses that when they got in
at the end of the day, this was going to be
the specific area he would get to live in. And here he is. He's fought all these battles. Every right in the
world tells him to just build a nice little
house somewhere and just go drink some warm
milk or something, dig his teeth out at
night, and not Caleb. Caleb says I feel as
strong as I ever have, and I'm ready to trust
God for another fight. He kept taking new ground. That's how he was
forever young, I'm telling you, because he
kept taking new ground. He kept taking new ground, [APPLAUSE] They weren't putting
this boy in the ground because he had
something to live for. He had fight in his spirit. He that is always being
born has no time to die. And every day was a new
day of birth for him. Every day was a new
day to trust God again and to trust God
and fight again. The guy had more fight in him
than 20 guys half his age, 85 years young. I've been trusting
God all these years he says to his best
friend from way back when. He says so Joshua,
sir, give me my mount and point me to the direction
of where the giants are. Maybe he's even a little
bit [INAUDIBLE] seeing. He said, just point
and tell me where. I'll go find them. I'll go gum them to death. I'm not scared. I'm coming through. And you just look at this
and you just see the guy. He had the kick when it
counted because he knew where the real finish line was. And the problem with being
fooled by a false finish line and craving a
counterfeit Eden is you might just get
what you hoped for instead of deep down
what you were born for. And a life-- listen to me. A life without purpose-- when you don't have a
purpose to live for, there's not a purpose to living. A life without meaning,
a life without purpose is a life without life. The book's called
12 Rules for Life. The author's named
Jordan Peterson. And on this subject I read a
quotation about retirement, and you talked about kind
of what we're talking about, this idolization in
our day of retirement. If I could just retire
early, be young and retire. He said this, quote. "One 40-something client
told me his vision, formulated by his
younger self"-- of course perpetuated by
this marketing machine. "'I see myself retired, sitting
on a tropical beach drinking margaritas in the sunshine.' That's not a plan. That's a travel poster. After eight margaritas you're
fit only to await the hangover. After three weeks of
margarita-filled days, if you have any sense you're
bored stiff and self-disgusted. In a year or less,
you're pathetic. It's just not a sustainable
approach to later life." What is he saying? He's saying that's not a plan. That's not purpose. You see, not doing something
is not doing something. What are you going to
do when you don't work? Oh, , whatever I want. It's going to be great. Our culture is basically telling
us to treat the backstretch like it's the
homestretch, but then when we get to the actual
homestretch we have nothing to give because our
culture is telling us that what we should be doing on
what is the actual homestretch, the twilight years, the golden
years of life before it all ends is to-- when you
feel the homestretch, you should be sprinting. You should be doubling down. You should be asking
for your next mount. What are you doing? Oh, it's just travel and wine
and fishing, and it's grand. So we're sauntering
down the homestretch with our wine collection
and our fishing boat and our days filled with
beaches that we lie on and trips that we're planning,
and this is what we're hoping can handle the
weight of our soul, but it's a counterfeit Eden. It's a false finish
line, and it leaves us without a kick when we actually
need to be accelerating. Fyodor Dostoevsky-- and
didn't nail that one. He said, "The mystery of
human existence lies not just in staying alive but in
finding something to live for." Here's what God knows
that you need to know. Your fastest pace should
be at the end of your race. Your fastest pace should be
at the end of your race-- [APPLAUSE] --because by then you have
all the accumulated wisdom, all the strength, all the
pain you've gone through, all the trials you've
walked through, all the friendships,
all the scars. You know where some
of the landmines are, so now you should
really be hustling. By now you should be
really hitting your stride. By now you should
really be elongating your pace a little bit,
hustling, tunnel vision on that finish line. That's our goal all
the way through, all the way into God's presence. Come on, let's be a Caleb. Let's be a Caleb generation. Let's go live in
the hill country. Let's go fight some giants. Let's go take some new land. [APPLAUSE] And that's what he
shows us that there's hope for us to actually do. God also knows that when
we're not moving forward, we start getting in trouble. When we're not moving forward,
we start getting in trouble. I mean, ask Noah. We need a cause. We need passion. And listen, this message isn't
the antiretirement message. This message is to live
in the will of God. That's this. And if God calls us to
retire, we don't stop working. What we need is a
theology of work. What we need is to understand
that God never built us to work for the weekend. That's a lie from the devil
to get you to buy a lie, that somehow it said
somewhere that Monday's got to be drudgery. And if only we can get to--
oh, Wednesday's the hump day. But Friday, Friday,
gotta get down on Friday, that somehow if we could just
get to-- oh TGIF, it's Friday. Wow, man, now it's-- and somehow that
that's more life filled than what God
intends there to be every single day of your life. [APPLAUSE] Come on, believe God
for a vibrant Monday. Come on, let's trust
God for His Holy Spirit to be honest on the Wednesday. Let's trust him for
a sanctified Thursday and for miracles on Tuesday. And you know what, when it does
get to Friday and then it moves us into the weekend, hello,
it's only a Sabbath when the day before it wasn't. It's only a day off when
you're resting from something. It's just slovenly if
that's just every day. And that's how we get
this theology of work. But first, Noah, because
I brought him up, so I should finish. He had this amazing
cause, this epic quest, this God-given call,
and as long as there was a mission, something
bigger than himself, the guy was unstoppable. Doesn't care about haters. Getting animals from every nook
and cranny of the earth, right? What about the dinosaurs? Way to go, Noah. You forgot them. Like the Christian jokes, right? But the guy is on fire until
he doesn't have a cause. Now maybe God would give him a
new one if he'd asked for it, but apparently Noah just
took it upon himself during some of the lonely
days on the ark to plan out his retirement a little bit. I'm going to put a
vineyard over here and a vineyard over there,
another vineyard over here. Uh oh, right? Read Genesis. You'll see. It didn't go well for Noah. He ended up drunk and naked at
the same time, not a good look on anybody. His son found him. It was so embarrassing. Why? Because a hobby in
your week, fantastic. But when your entire day every
day is nothing but hobby, train wreck, because
we were meant to work. We were built to work. And whether God calls you
to retire from a career or not retire from a
career is irrelevant. You were created to work. Listen, you've got to have
a proper theology of work, so let's do that. F-I-R-E, that's what
we're going to spell. First is it's fulfilling. Work is fulfilling,
and that's why it was a part of the original order. Before sin entered,
work was there. In fact, the Bible
begins with work. "In the beginning, God created." What's that? Work, and everything we do,
we've said in this series, is meant to be a
creative assignment. So work is fulfilling. It was there before
there was sin. Adam and Eve were
tending the garden. God would show up at
the end of the day-- really the beginning
of the next day because the day
began at sunset-- and they would
talk about the day behind, talk about the
day in front of him. What did you do today? Well, I named him rhinoceros. Well done, Adam. And he was working. They were working. God modeled it by
taking that day off. After six days of work,
he rested from his labors, and it stood apart. If your whole life's
just a holiday, you don't have a holiday. If your whole life's a
vacation, there's no vacation. So we work and then we rest
from our work to trust God and to honor God and to
recharge our batteries. And it's a beautiful
thing, but it's fulfilling. It's not just a part of
life before the fall. It will be life after
the curse is removed. I'm going to need to
see a verse for that. All right, objector--
hypothetical, but objector. Look what Revelations
says on the subject. "No longer will
there be any curse-- and his servants
shall serve him." Work. There's a service
responsibility you're going to have in the kingdom. Work in the Garden of
Eden, the actual one, work when heaven is restored
on this earth again. Why? Because we were built to create. We were built to work. We were built to put
what God into us, to see it coming out of us. F, fulfilling. We're spelling FIRE. I-- what does I stand for? I don't remember. I stands for identity. Identity is who you are. And listen to me. Your work should not
be your identity. It should be because
of your identity. This is why we have
midlife crisis. This is why
post-retirement depression. This is why so many
people when they lose a job, they tank in
their morale and many times take their lives as well because
their identity got wrapped up in what they were doing when
that was never meant to be. Who you are was never meant
to be about what you do. Your identity should
be just what we just said, servants of the Lord,
and what flows out of that? What do we do? What does a servant
do-- whatever the master tells him to do that day. So if we're doing
this here, if we're doing that, I'm in
this career, if it's time to hang that
up-- the only time you should step
away from a career, though, is because
God's telling you to step forward in your calling
that He has on your life. And we'll talk more
about that next week. What does that
actually look like? How do you actually accelerate
when you don't have that energy physically? What does that really mean? We'll talk more
about that next week as we come to the finale of
the series and it all crests and it's going to
be very powerful, but the mentality is we're going
to continue to work and serve God how we can and how He's
called us to all the way to the end because our
identity is servants, and servants serve. We all work. We all are going to do
what he's called us to do-- [APPLAUSE] --because just to sit around
all day is to die on the inside. When you're not taking
new ground, you go in it. So we're going to
continue to advance. We're going to
continue to fight. We're going to kick towards that
true and proper finish line. R-- R stands for reward. The reward awaits us,
and this motivates us. So a runner runs knowing
there's going to be a medal. We should run knowing
there's going to be an awards ceremony because there will be. You get to heaven
based on Jesus. How you're rewarded in
heaven is connected to how you serve him on this earth. And you've been given gifts
and you've given abilities, and Jesus said to not use them
is to bury them in the ground. And that is to have
Jesus come and say, well, what did you do with
all that I gave to you and you be able to say
golf, a lot of that-- unless you're working as a
golfer, different sermon. That's awesome. But you see what I'm saying,
that we're not presenting to him our hobbies as an answer
for what we did with this life that he gave to us. Reward and not expecting
him to reward that. E stands for eternity. Eternity, that every one
of us are all the time conscious of eternity, reminding
and recalibrating our hearts that this world, this
life is not our true home. This is a temporary thing. So I'm not going to
lay up treasure here. We're going to lay up
treasure in heaven, and we're going to
use that treasure to see it leverage to depopulate
hell and advance God's kingdom. That's the theology of work. Then it takes on new meaning. Money takes on meaning. Work takes on new meaning
because we have the opportunity as we work and create, as we do
these things to be bumping into and be around and be in
situations with people who desperately need the
life that's in our lives. So we're on assignment. Now there's new
purpose and dignity, isn't there, in
every assignment? Picking up a broom,
riding on a rocket ship, no difference in God's sight if
it's done to the glory of God. Next, I just encourage
you when you show up to work in whatever capacity--
you're a nutritionist or you're a
physical-fitness trainer or you're working at
a software company and you're crunching
code all day, say to God reporting for duty,
reporting for duty today. Say it to your boss too. They'll fall out of their chair. Your boss, she will
just die on the spot. Reporting for duty,
that sweet spirit. I'm just telling you, there's
just something about-- I don't do it so she'll die. But God, you've sent me here. What is it for, and not just the
dignity of actual work itself and how good it is and how
sweet it is and how pure it is and how it's a part
of answering prayers? What do you mean? Give us this day
our daily bread-- you're praying someone
has a passion for baking. You are. You're praying someone
opens a grocery store. You're praying someone feels
a purpose in driving a truck to do deliveries all day. You're praying for shipping
and receiving and farming and agriculture and
water, all these things that are involved in answering
such a simple prayer as give us our daily bread. Vocation is honorable. It's powerful. It's a calling of
God in your life, but also the mentality that says
if I don't feel specifically called to retire from this
career, if I can stay in it and create wealth for
the kingdom, that's an assignment too. And many of you will
feel the call of God on your life to go into
business, go into Wall Street, to go into whatever
it is you're doing, real estate or
investing, and you'll be able to create
wealth for the kingdom. That's a way you
can serve God that's valid and valued by
your Heavenly Father as you work in such a way
shrewd and good at business and you can do perhaps for
others can't and see what others don't in
speculation, and you're able to create wealth
not just for this life. Your family will be blessed. You'll walk in God's
blessing, but to say and see God do more with
it, to touch people, to expand the borders
of his kingdom and reach more
lives, people, as we as this church are
always going to have more vision than resources. So the opportunity for people to
say I could lay aside a career and take that early
retirement, or by staying in it I can compound and exponentially
grow a resource that can be then used to feed the
hungry and see the gospel preached to the poor. Then that's the calling
of God on my life. It's a purpose. It's something to
get up for that's going to keep me
fighting new giants. And I think it's an
incredible thing when we can partner together, all
of us, in what God has uniquely called us to do to see his
kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven. Now why did I choose
FIRE as my acronym spelling this out here for this? You maybe know,
maybe don't know. It's actually one
of the big schools of thought in early
retirement kind of dream. They call it early retirement
or FIRE early retirement, and it's kind of this
movement to get people to see that you can retire
by 30 because 74 was too old and 65 was too old
and 63 was too old. So there's actually
among many millennials, the 56 is what they're
saying, but even many are younger are saying,
no, no, let's retire by 30. All you have to do is
get a million dollars by the time you're 30. And there's websites. Mr. Mustache will
tell you exactly how. And I'll tell you,
actually a lot of the things and
techniques and tips on there we can use for kingdom good as
awesome things in our lives. However, the goal is retire by
30, say goodbye to your career. Then what? Do whatever you want. The New York Times
did an article on one man who did exactly that. He was a pharmacist,
made $150,000 a year. That was his salary. And he managed, using
some of these techniques that so many hundreds of
thousands are adhering to-- and they're all over the
dark corners of Reddit giving each other
tips and tricks on how to get there faster. Get your million so you
can cash out and just go be your own boss and
blow like a tumbleweed around the world doing
whatever you want to do. And The New York
Times did this story on how to be 30
and a millionaire, and they asked this
particular gentleman who, at the age of 38, is
retired and doing whatever he wants to do because
of how terrible the pharmaceutical industry
was, and he didn't like being a pharmacist because drugs
are evil and people are evil and everything was terrible and
he hated every single minute of what he did. And so they said, OK, well,
what are you doing right now? And for a couple
paragraphs he talked a lot about Rubik's Cubes and
getting his marathon time down to a sub 3 hour and some
great stuff in there, some good hobbies in there
that's he's taking up and cooking and ironing and
some trips that he's done. He was on some
beaches in Florida. And they said, OK,
but break it down. What did you do today? And he said-- I read this to you
with a heart broken. He said, "Today I
woke up on my own. I didn't have any
alarm clock telling me I had a responsibility. Then I read the news
online for 30 minutes, went on a seven-mile run. I took a nap, but then I lied
there watching the ceiling fan spin around for a while." He said he's watching
movies from a website that ranks the best thousand
movies ever made, and he's taking a lot of his
time to watch all of them. He's watched 600 of them so far,
so he has a lot of work to do. He said, and I finish with this. "My life is so much
better than it was before. I just hope everybody can
find this kind of peace." And I hope and pray that
this man finds true peace. But imagine standing before God. You were given this life. You don't deserve it. He gave it to you. And when you went astray, you
didn't deserve reconciliation. Jesus bought it for you
with His blood on the cross. You are not your own if
you're a Jesus follower. This resurrection
power was given to you and a great
commission to share and to steward and
deliver the glory of God so others might know Jesus. And you have this
one little life, and imagine standing
before God to give an account for the
deeds done on the body and offering him the
thousand films you watched and the Rubik's Cube
you finally figured out. Thank you for bleeding
out on the cross for me. I can do this Rubik's
Cube with my eyes closed. That is a tragedy. Average is OK unless you're
destined for greatness, and then average becomes
a colossal tragedy. We have one life,
and it is racing by. And the finish line will
be here before you know it, and only what's done
for Jesus will last. May we have the heart to
follow the Lord steadfastly like Caleb. In Jesus's name. Thank you so much for watching
this teaching from the Once a Man, Twice a Child series. For more content from
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