And we're so excited to
have you here as we kick off a brand new series of messages. We want to greet every
different location. Of course, everyone in Montana;
those in Salt Lake City, Utah; Portland, Oregon; and
for the first time ever, this week in Jackson, Wyoming. Come on, welcome to the family. We're so glad to have
you at the table. Come on, help me greet
everybody in Wyoming. Two different worship
experiences, first week ever, fourth state, twelfth city. We welcome you. We're glad to have you. And we've been praying
for you for a long time. We feel-- it's almost a
little bit like having a kid. You know, you've been
talking to this kid through the stomach
all these months. And now, finally,
they're all grown up and doing church in Jackson. Come on, it's so good. Hey, we're starting a series. And it's called
You In Five Years. You In Five Years. That's the collection
of talks that we're going to be spending some time
in this beginning of this New Year Testament '18. You In Five Years. Take that little trip
with me, if you will. And imagine, right now, if you
could picture your age in front of you as a giant number. Like, imagine someone brought
balloons in on your birthday, and they were spelling
the number of your age. So picture that. And now go five years forward,
and picture that number. And try and picture
yourself at that age. Try and see in your mind, if
you can, you in five years. My wife and I are both 35. So five years ago, of
course, we were 30. And now, we're halfway
through this decade. And if I think of us in
five years, we're both 40. I'm excited about that. I can't wait to be 40. I've heard so many
great things about that. I've loved my 30s. It's been amazing. I can't wait to
see what 40 holds. And I hope you're excited
about you in five years. I hope you're excited about
that next season of your life, and you believe that
God's already gone before you into that new year. I think, sometimes, when it
comes to the new year and all of our planning for change
and all of our hopes for transformation, the
problem is oftentimes we think too small. A mentor of mine told me a
while back that most of us underestimate what we
can do in the long-term, but we overestimate what we
can do in the short-term. That's our problem. We look at a short
period of time, and we think we can do so
much in the short-term. And we look at a
long period of time, and we underestimate what
we can actually accomplish if we just stick with it. Trouble is, so many of us have
tragically short attention spans. And the stick-with-it-ness
is evaporating from younger generations,
millennial and younger. We jump ship the moment
we're not happy anymore. We jump ship the moment
we're not ecstatic anymore. And we just don't
stay with stuff long enough to really
see significant impact. That's certainly
true in ministry. I mean, the average
pastor in America-- I think it's less than three
years they make it in a church. Youth pastors, it's two years. How can you really make
an impact in a community or in anyone's lives if
you don't give yourself long enough to hit your stride? I wonder if the same isn't true
in so many different situations and certainly relationships
and many areas of life. We overestimate what we
can do in the short-term. And we underestimate what
we could do in the long-term if we just stuck with it. That is the acorn this
series, hopefully, will grow into an oak out of. That is the heart behind
You In Five Years. We're not just going to
start a new year going, OK, here's what's on the
line between me and 2019. Here's what I'm going to
do in the next 12 months. No, we're going to
think bigger than that. We're going to go out, and
we're going to say this. Who could I be by
the time it's 2023, if I get after it, if
I give it all I got, if I trust the God who made
the Heaven and the earth, and who is for me and not
against me, who gave me His Son, who gave
me His spirit, who could I be 60 months from now? That's the question
that's on our heart. If you have a Bible, join
me in Romans chapter 13. If you don't, no problem. We're going to put the
Scriptures on the screen. Title of my message is The
Life You Get Stuck With. Jot that down. The Life You Get Stuck With. Romans chapter 13 is
where we are going to be. Paul says-- and I'm reading out
of the Message translation-- "But make sure that
you don't get so absorbed and exhausted--" is
that already describing you? "Absorbed--" dang it,
I'm five words in, and I'm already convicted--
"absorbed and exhausted--" in what? "--taking care of all your
day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and
doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over,
dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to
what God is doing!" What is he doing? "God is putting the
finishing touches on the salvation work he
began when we first believed." I wish I could take
some time and talk to you about how salvation
occurs in three phases. About how when you
get saved initially, it's justification,
where you are saved from the penalty of sin. Where, one day, when
you get to Heaven, you will be saved from
the very presence of sin in a process of your salvation
called glorification. But in between salvation
and glorification is a phase called sanctification
where you are being saved from the power of
sin, day by day, as you yield yourself to God,
set yourself apart to Holiness and watch God do
wonders among you. But I don't got time
to talk about that. Verse 13 says, "We can't
afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious
daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping
around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing
everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don't loiter and linger." Does that describe
life for many? Loitering and laying around. I don't know. Just kind of hanging about. [mumbling] "Don't
loiter and linger, waiting until the
very last minute." I'll serve God when I'm older. I want to have some
fun while I'm young. This is when I'm free. I want to go. And I go out. I want to see the world, right? I just watch-- eventually
I'll get right-- don't wait until the very last minute. "Dress yourselves in Christ,
and be up and about!" Come on, that's good. "Dress yourselves in Christ,
and be up and about!" The New King James, the way I
memorized it, put it this way, "Put on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to
fulfill its lust." Would you pray with me? God, we're so thankful for
the way it already refreshes us, or charges us, energizes
us, just to even read your Word. And we pray even
now that you would bless the reading of your Word,
which you have promised to. You said Heaven and
earth will pass away, but your Word never will. And so these things are eternal. There's something
different about this. There's a lot of words. CNN is full of words. And s and tweets and texts. There's a lot of words. But there's something
different about these words. There's something eternal
about these words. And I pray that even as they are
now cutting through, dissolving things, melting
hardness in our hearts, quickening us to hear
what you're doing, our lives feel so urgent. In Our lives feel so important. It's easy to be frantically
running to and fro, absorbed and exhausted in
all the day to day stuff that we forget to look up and
realize you're doing something. And you're inviting us to
be a part of something. And, God, I just-- we don't want to
miss out on anything. We want all you have for us. We want that in this year. We want that in the
next five years. And we want that forever. We don't ever want you
to look at our lives and say it could have been
if only you would have. We want to tap into all that. Be in the moment,
be alert and about, present, dressed
in Christ, making no provision for the flesh. And we ask that if
a single person has come into our midst
who doesn't know you, Jesus, who is without
God, without hope in this world, that
whatever they're looking to fill the hole in their
heart, whether it's possessions or accomplishments or
relationships or substances, whatever they do
to dull that ache, that throbbing sense that
they were made for more, we pray that through that
the power of your Holy Spirit you would draw them
to yourself, and they would be saved this day. And we ask this in Jesus' name. And everyone who agreed said-- Amen. You in five years. You know, five years is enough
time to accomplish quite a bit. I sat down this
week and just got to thinking with
my imagination what someone could do if they gave
serious effort for five years. And, man, I made
two lists, actually. Positive and negative. Five years is a long
time to do a lot of good, but you could also
do a lot of evil. On my positive list,
I wrote this down. You could basically be
fluent in a new language. Think about it. I mean, if you want, you're,
like, I want to learn French. I want to learn what it
means in "Home Alone" when she says "les
incompetents." I've always wanted-- you
know what the French-- I don't know. I don't know what Kevin is. You could learn
French in five years. And it's easier
than it's ever been. Rosetta Stone. Duolingo. I mean, there is so much
that is out there that we could take advantage of. So much more than
cat videos on YouTube that the internet has
brought into our lives. There was a day when it
would be uncommon to meet someone who didn't speak
a number of languages. I speak 75% of one language. But in five years, if
I wanted to, I could-- I could, by five
years from now-- I could speak another language. You could get a degree. You could say, you know what? I'm back to school. Five years? Yeah, I think so. I mean, you go through
high school in four. You could, through night
classes and internet courses or community college-- I mean, you could
five years from now, have a whole different world
of opportunity opened up to you if you took advantage of it. And not just, like, a formal
degree, like, that's the thing. Listen, I'm not against
formal education. I think that many
of you are going to be called to go to
college, and to get a degree, and to enter business, and
occupy that space for Jesus, and have the pedigree from in
the eyes of whatever community you're entering into to be able
to do something, and produce wealth, to pour into the
Kingdom, to be generous, and to do a lot of good. But we all know that
in this day and age, that a degree is not a
be-all-end-all guarantee of work. There's a lot of people who have
degrees but cannot find work that that degree opens up for
them that they thought it would anyhow. So I would say-- you could say,
well, maybe not just a degree. Perhaps in five years, I
could have a new skill. A whole new skill. Is five years long enough
to get skilled at something to where you have the aptitude-- I think certainly. Certainly five years of pouring
yourself into something. That's what-- my dad always
told me--he says, look, I hope you go to college. He went to college and
got a broadcasting degree. He told me though-- he said the key isn't just
college, college, college. The key is get a
marketable skill. A skill there's a market for. And when I pressed
what does that mean, he said figure out what
you love to do, and then find out how to get people
to pay you to do it. That's the key. What I'd tell young
people, figure out what you've got a passion for. God gave you something
you're great at. And figure out how
you can get to a place where people will
pay you to do that, and you'll do it so well
they'll want to listen to you. And as you do it so well, and
they want to listen to you, you will have
natural opportunities to point people to Jesus. And five years is
enough time, certainly, if you're at a place
where you're, like, I just feel like I'm not in the
industry I want to be in. Well, you could, in
five years from now be in a different place
if you got after it. Or you could binge watch on
Netflix for the next five years. I mean, it's
completely your choice. That goes on my negative list. Dang it, I got ahead of myself. You could master a sport. I mean, if you are not a runner,
you could take up running. I mean, you could easily run a
marathon five years from now. Probably an Iron Man. Or you could take up fencing. You know, I've always
wanted to sword fight. Always wanted to. Been a passion of mine
since I was a little kid. En garde. All right? Go nuts. Five years, you give yourself
to it, give yourself over to it, there's probably
a sword fighting communities in your city. You could join a small
enclave of sword fighters. It could be amazing. You know what? I hope you do. I really do. I hope that five years
from now, I get a letter, like, you know what, Levi? I heard that talk
on the podcast. I took up sword fighting. And, now, I want you to come
watch me fight in the Olympics. Just invite me to come,
and I'll come watch you fight in the Olympics. Don't they call that fencing? Chess? How good could you-- how
sick could you be at-- you could be a frickin' Bobby
Fischer in five years. I wrote this down. You could be jumping out of
airplanes in squirrel suits, five years from now. I don't know. Maybe you like
that sort of thing. Maybe, like, you're, like, I
am the foremost squirrel man. I am doing it. Red Bull pays me to
jump out of things wearing my squirrel suit. That's what I do. Five years, I gave
myself over to it. I'm the best squirrel
jumper there's ever been. Five years, you
could own a house long enough to where it's a
good financial move to sell it. In most cases. Five years owning, OK, now it's
a good interest and principal and all of that. Now I'm at a place where
I could sell this house and flip it or
upgrade or whatever. Five years is long
enough to do that. If you're a kid,
you're, like, you know, I have a goal of saving
up to buy this thing. But, man, thousands of dollars. I'm a little kid. How do I do that? Well, if you saved a
dollar a day, in five years you'd have $1,825. I'm a little 10-year-old
kid with almost two grand? Tithe on it. But listen, you see
what I'm saying? Like, that's an amount
of money that you could do something great with
in just a small period of time. Five years? Well, you could have saved
up, if you're diligent at it. Or I wrote this down. You could read 60 books. And all you'd have
to do is read a book a month, which boils down if
the average length of the book is about 200 pages,
to 6 pages a day. How long does it
take to read 6 pages? 5 minutes. 5 minutes. 6 pages. What kind of list could
you crush in five years? Some biographies. I encourage you to read
biographies of-- read Winston Churchill's biography. Read the Wright
brothers' biography. Read about Amelia Earhart. Read about Abraham Lincoln. Pick people. Read about their lives. Read about what
they went through. Read history. Read broadly. Last year, one of my goals
was to read more poetry. And so I made it my goal. I always hear references and
in great people I respect, they quote poetry. And so I bought this
big old book of poems when my family went
on our holiday. And every day I
diligently sat down and made myself read
these dumb little poems. Didn't get any of them. Didn't understand the beauty. Didn't feel the lyrical
quality sweeping me away, but I just kept at it. What, I want to read broadly. You could read 60 books. You read some
biographies, some history, throw in a little bit of poetry. It could be "Green
Eggs and Ham." I'm just saying, just read. Because readers are leaders,
and leaders are readers. You could do it. You could read 60
books between now and half of this
decade passing by. How about this one? I wrote this down. You could radically
transform your soul, growing closer to
God than ever before. You could radically
transform your soul, growing closer to
God than ever before. Think about it. Jesus was only on this
earth for three years. What if you gave the next five
years over to seeking His face? He promised those who
seek me will find me. The problem isn't
unanswered prayers. Oh, I pray to God,
didn't answer-- the problem is that
prayers we never prayed. How much peace do we
forfeit because we never go to God in prayer? But if for the next five years,
you sought God in prayer, you sought God in Scripture-- what about memorization
of the Bible? What about reading the Bible? Have you ever read
the entire Bible? Aw, man, it's so thick. Look at that. How many pages
are in that thing? If you read just two
chapters a day, and might I encourage you an Old and
a New, an Old and a New, all right? It's going to be a bogged
down month in Leviticus otherwise, right? So an Old and a New. Mix these things two together. There's actually tons
of beauty in Leviticus. It all points forward to Jesus. But listen to me. What could happen? In the end of five years, you
will have read the Bible three times. I could have read the Bible. You could read it three times. You in five years could have
such a knowledge of God's Word. And you could be like Jesus. because whenever he got into
a hard spot, his instinct, his reaction was to pull out
a Scripture from God's Word. What if every time
someone bugged you, what if every time you got
tempted to watch porn again or to get drunk on a Friday
night again, all of a sudden a verse popped up because
you had read it that morning, or you had read it last week. And it was hidden in your heart. So now you are not going
to sin against God's Word because you have
a sword in your-- oh, well, look, we're
back to sword fighting. The sword in your
hand, like Jesus, who when the Devil came
against him, he would go, it is written. It is written, perry. It is written, jab. It is written, thrust. Man, I've got sword fighting
terminology coming out of my-- it was in a poem I read. OK, so listen. Listen, listen, listen. That's just the positive list. There's also a negative list. Five years from now,
you could be still going through the final details of
a horrifying, messy divorce because of five years of
neglecting your spouse. You could be partially
through a prison sentence. That's drastic. But the prisons are full. And five years from now,
you could be just five years into a 20-year sentence or
a 30-year sentence or a life sentence. We get letters from prison on my
desk almost every single week. Five years is long enough to get
majorly addicted to drugs, even into a life-threatening way. Five years is long enough
to have worked five, six, or seven different jobs that you
partially applied yourself to before quitting
or getting fired. Five years is long
enough to rack up a mountain of credit card
debt, pack on 30 extra pounds, or smoke 36,500 cigarettes. And all you'd have to do
is smoke a pack a day. Oh, you're getting
down on cigarettes. One of those pastors, huh? Nah, I get asked sometimes, hey,
pastor, can I smoke cigarettes and still be a Christian. And when I say, what
do you mean by that? Well, like, will it keep
me from going to Heaven. And I'm, like, oh, no,
it will get you to Heaven much faster, actually. So all right, so
here's the, deal. Five years is long enough to
do a lot for good or for evil. Can we agree? By the time you get to
five years from now, you will have had
enough road that's been traveled for you to do
a lot one way or another. This series is all about,
let's make good decisions. Let's make wise decisions. Let's get to five years from
now and be pumped on the choices that we have made. Now, this introductory
message is honestly just the tip of the spear. On to something disappointing,
the average American Jesus follower attends their
church once to twice a month. On average, once
or twice a month. That's discouraging
for me, as someone who spends hours preparing
single messages that I give over multiple weeks. Just so you know,
that's how I roll. I'll give a message over the
course of four or five weeks. And sometimes I think
about how most of you are only going to hear 20% of a
given message because you come, skip, skip, come, come, skip,
come, come, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip,
skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, Christmas, come, come. And so I think about how I've
got a single message that I break up into multiple weeks,
because how much can you really accomplish in 35 minutes? So you'll hear the
introduction today. That's just all that's
going to happen. You're going to hear-- let's just prime the pump. Let's just ask the question. Let's just begin
the conversation. This is not even
the appetizer yet. This is just the wet
towel before the meal, OK? So we're not even into-- we're nowhere near
the main course. I'm not even going to talk
to you about the specials today, OK? It's just appetizer. What I would ask is that
you would break that trend and come for this entire series. And I just wonder how
different your life could be spiritually
if you gather together with God's people for an
uninterrupted period of time. I mean, they say it only takes
about 30 days to make a habit, because your brain has
such a plasticity to it. So you've seen the
other way, sporadic. What could happen if you came? My challenge to
you would be to not miss a single week
of this series, and hear this entire message
that I'm going to give, broken up over the course
of a number of weeks. Let me give you
my entire message today in a single sentence. This whole message that I
got to start the conversation in just one sentence, OK? Here we go. The ways you let in become
the ways you are set in. That's my talk. The ways you let in become
the ways you are set in. We all have ways. Everyone has ways. I mean, if you go to a big
city, and you're still using Google Maps, I just pity you. It's a joke, because there's
an awesome app called Waze. It's spelled
differently, though. Listen, they say
God has His ways. God has His ways,
but you do, too. The Lord's ways may
not be our ways, because as the heavens
are high above the earth, so the Lord's ways are high
above ours past finding out. But He is not the
only one with ways. You have your ways. I have my ways. Our ways are how
we choose to react. Our ways are the way
we choose to speak. Our ways are when we
choose to insert ourselves and when we choose not to, when
we accept and when we decline, when we stay and when we go. Our passions, your checking
account speaks of your ways. Your text message history
speaks of your ways. You have your ways, I have mine. Many of our ways were
modeled to us by our parents. Our ways, we saw. And we adopted our
ways because that's how mom handled conflict. That's how dad spent money. That's how we saw it modeled
for us on television. That's how we see it modeled
for us on Instagram, our world view, our ways, our
actions, our words. I'm trying to
caution you, the ways you let in become, eventually,
the ways you are set in. Now sometimes people
speak derogatorily about going through the motions. I was just going through
the motions, right, kind of phoning it in, not
putting your heart into it. Let me just tell you something. Going through the
motions is only a problem if you're going through
the wrong motions. Getting stuck in
your ways can either be the worst thing
or the best thing. Regardless, it's
not black and white. It's neutral. Getting stuck in your
ways is a good thing if you get stuck
in the right ways. Does that make sense? Four things, jot it down. I see in this text, number
one, time is not on your side. If you like to take notes
in church, that's helpful. That's why we give you a
little card when you walk in. If you're watching
a church online, we provide a really easy way
to take notes in the player and then email them to yourself. It's so wicked awesome. And then you click the next
tab, the Bible's right there. You can copy and
paste the Scripture, in the translation
I'm reading it out of, put it into your notes, send
it to yourself, live it out. Phew. The first thing I
want you to jot down is, time is not on your side. Twice in this text, Paul
brought this concept of time up. He said that he doesn't want
us to lose track of the time. He wants us to be
aware of the time. Then he said, the nights
over dawn is about to break. He wants us to understand
the timing of things. There's two Greek
words for time. One is chronos, and
the other is kairos. Chronos is, like, we would
have a chronograph function on a watch. That's just generic time. Kairos means strategic
time, specific time. So chronos is, like,
hey, what time is it? Hey, do you have the time
to listen to me whine? Green Day. If you speak of kairos,
it's not time general, it's time very specific, OK? Like, when you are at the
airport, and they say, hey, we're boarding this group,
and then we're boarding babies, and then we're
boarding first class, and then we're boarding--
and then, finally, it's, like, it's not just generic
boarding time anymore. And it's, like, we're
about to close the door. It is time for this
plane to leave. It's kairos, strategic time. I mean, this is about to
open, this is about to close, and when it's over-- Paul, he said it. The night is about to be over. The dawn is about to break. He's referring to the end
of life, which, by the way, is hurtling towards you
at breakneck speeds. Listen to how David
put it in Psalm 39. He said, "Indeed, You have
made my days as handbreadths, And my age is as
nothing before You; Certainly every man
at his best state is but vapor," like, the fog
that appears in the morning and then vanishes into thin air. Your life, it seems so
real right now, doesn't it? You're buying things. You're going. You're driving
your F-150 around. You're double-clicking
stuff on Instagram. But just before
you know it, it's all going to vanish
into thin air. You will not be on
this earth anymore. Glad you came to church. Psalm 90 puts it this way,
"Seventy years are given to us! Some even live to eighty." Wow, look at that guy. 80-years old, man, that's
a long, dang old time. "But even the best years are
filled with pain and trouble; soon they disappear,
and we fly away." Look at this part. "Teach us to realize
the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom." I can see it now. Some of you, you're
17, you're 24. Not me, I'm in the
prime of my life. You're going to blink. You're going to blink, and
decades are going to pass. And the longer you live,
the faster it goes. Time is not on your side. I like how Aristotle put it. He said, "We should measure
time in heart throbs," meaning every time your
heart beats, it's a gift. And you're not guaranteed
it's going to happen again. Five years, you
might not live three. Five years, you might be in
the ground in six months. Our life, Peter said,
quoting the prophet Isaiah-- look at it-- is like
the flower of the grass. All our beauty, all
the buildings we build and bridges-- oh, look it, we
cross that chasm. And we put our name in lights. And look at this film. And look at this company. And look, every accomplishment-- we're talking Caesar, we're
talking Napoleon Bonaparte, we're talking the founders
of the United States when they signed the Declaration
of Independence, all great, but look, look at it again-- it's all just the
flower of the grass. The grass withers,
the flower falls away, but the Word of the
Lord endures forever. So time is not on your side. Your life is just grass. Your life is just a flower. But through listening
to God's Word, we can tap into
something that's forever, something that's eternal. There's a second thing. Jot this down. Speaking of this idea
of you in five years, I want you to know this. Future you is simply
an exaggerated version of current you. You know, we think about
the future, sometimes, rather romantically. It's this mysterious
thing, like, who am I going to be when I grow up? You're going to be exactly
like you, just exaggerated. You're going to be exactly-- if you want to know what you're
going to look like in 5 years and in 10 years after that
and 20 years after that, just look at yourself with
more miles on the odometer. What do I mean? I mean, if you're kind
today, you'll be kinder then, because these things deepen. These things mature. If you're generous today,
you'll be more generous. Picture a more generous
person that looks somewhat like you, who just got a little
bit more leathery complexion. A kinder, more generous person. If you are, today, cruel,
you will be crueler still. You will be harsher still. Those things will
just deepen down as it gets down into the
cracks of who you are, and it hardens and forms
into your character. If you are
disciplined today, you will be more disciplined still. What I'm trying to get you to
see is that-- and, by the way, this makes the selection
of a spouse so important-- most people are looking
for the wrong things. They're looking at the flower,
being fooled by the grass, and not understanding
that the things that-- like a fine wine--
get better with time are the invisible
attributes etched on the inside of the soul. But this isn't a sermon
on swiping right. This is a sermon
on who we're going to be five years from now. You see, time-- listen to me-- doesn't change who you are. It reveals who you are and
makes you more of who you are. Time isn't going to change you. Oh, I'm going to be
different in the future. No, you're going be exactly like
you are making choices today, just more set in those ways. I'm going to need a
Scripture verse for that. I got three. Book of Proverbs
puts it this way, speaking about seeking good. If you earnestly seek good,
and that's what you're doing, looking for good
in people, looking for the good in situations,
looking for the good in life, living with a faith-filled
optimism, well, guess what? As you get older, you're
going to find favor. But if you're seeking
trouble and seeking evil, if you're the first to find
the problem in any situation, the first to see the
faults in everybody, and how would we know
that's true of you? Oh, we would just read
anything you write. The comments, the statements,
the e-mails, the text messages, the quips, the retorts,
the little things-- you're shooting them out--
the things you snicker at, if you're looking for evil,
you're going to find trouble. Earlier in the Book of Proverbs,
it talks about rolling a stone. Look at this. I love this verse. Whoever digs a pit
will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone will
find it rolling back upon him. If there's a critical
nature to you, if you have a wounded spirit,
if you're rushing around to cast judgment on
the people around you, well, Jesus put it best. That kind of critical spirit,
it will boomerang back on you. You are what you eat. You become like what you watch. And you reap what you sow. So future you? It's not so mysterious. It's current you, exaggerated. That means, though,
good news, if you don't like what
you're getting, you can change what you're doing. If you don't like what you're
getting-- write that down-- if you don't like what you're
getting-- meaning, what about five years ago? Five years ago, as you look
forward, who do you want to be? And I'm not talking
about hard things that have happened to you. Look, trust me. I'm 35. When I think back to
January, five years ago, 2013, hardest days
of my entire life. Jennie and I, our family
are walking through tragedy unexpectedly in the aftermath
of one of our children going to Heaven,
without notice-- the last five years-- I'm not talking
about the hard things that have happened to you, OK? But when you go back five
years, and you look forward to who you wanted to be by
now, what kind of a person you hoped to be, what kind of
character you hoped to have, what kind of choices
you were going to make, if you're disappointed now, you
will be more disappointed then. If you look back on your younger
self, and you're thinking, where's the guy,
where's the girl, that that person hoped they
were going to turn into? Well, the future's
not going to change. You'll just be more exaggerated. So if you don't like
what you've been getting, you need to change
what you're doing. You need to make some
different decisions. You need to make some
different choices. You need to value
some different things. You need to watch out what
ways you're letting in before they continue to set in. That's incredibly important. My friend Pastor Greg Laurie
likes to put it this way. "The evening of
life is determined by the morning of it." That lines up so well with
what Paul's saying in Romans 13 about the night
being about to end, the dawn being about to come. We're still living in
the morning of life, and we can make decisions
before the evening comes. And if we're living in
the evening of life, we can make decisions
before that dawn breaks out. It's never too late
to do the right thing. It's never too late to
not harden your heart but to yield and to
repent and to stop living for the
flower and the grass but to start living
for the Word of God. All right, so I
got one last thing, and then we're going to just
park this introduction here and leave it TBD until-- or to be continued, to be
determined, could be fine, too. Haven't written that
message yet fully. So but it's gonna be some good
stuff, so I hope you come back. But let me leave you
with this thought. Ongoing consistency
is much more important than short-term intensity. How do I want you to
respond to this message? I want you to respond with
a measured determination. Why am I not asking
you and pushing you to start coming
up with a list of ways you're going to change? Because that is so premature. Right now, I just
wanted to begin to talk so that we
could understand this is going to be a lot to bite off. And whatever we
bite off we're going to need to chew and swallow. An ongoing consistency,
every time, trumps short-term,
flared up intensity. You can think
Bruce Lee for that. Why is that the case? Here's why. Because ongoing, steady,
slow, measured consistency allows you to tap into
what has been called the most powerful
force in the universe, and that is compound interest. Think about what Albert
Einstein said on the subject. He said that
compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it earns it. He who doesn't pays it. See also credit card debt. Whether you're earning 20%
or you'll be paying 20% comes down to whether
you understand the most powerful
force in the universe and the power of
steady consistency to build up and become
strong over time. One of the best
ways I've ever heard to get your head around what
compound interest looks like is if you can imagine
a series of dominoes that increased in size. And I wish I could show
you what that looks like. Oh, wait. There they are. OK, yeah, so if
you took a domino-- but that one's too big. If you started out with
a tiny little domino, one that is only 5 millimeters tall
and only one millimeter thick, and then you took 12 more
dominoes so that your 13 dominoes were to
grow 1 and 1/2 times consistently every single
revolution, every domino 1 and 1/2 times taller,
by the 13th domino, you would increase
in size all the way to the point where your
last one is a meter tall and weighs 100 pounds. That is compound interest. That is exponential growth. The problem for
so many of us is, ain't nobody got time for that. We've made it to
march so many times. And we're just discouraged. Why? Because we want to be over here. We want to go-- here we go-- from here to there. I just want to change. I don't get it. I just tried that. I read the Bible one time. I wasn't a man of God overnight. You should see yourself. It's so frustrating. Isn't there a pill I can take? Isn't there some hot
water I can pour on it? Isn't there something
I can buy on Amazon? Why can't I just
be a great husband? Is there a marriage
conference I could go to? Nah, you just gotta do the
dishes and quit being a jerk. I know, but I tried that
once, and it didn't work out. And I just don't understand. And I tried saving. It wasn't for me. You don't understand my boss. He's just-- Oh,
he didn't tell you how special you were
like your mom did, and give you a reward
for doing nothing? Oh, I'm sorry. OK, so here's the thing. You can't jump from here to
here without going through here. And this is the next
five years of your life if you want to get to this. Now, this thing
is so small, I got to use tweezers to
even get it into place. But if we start
small and realize the power of
ongoing consistency, here is what can happen for you. I rest my case. Now, check it out. C. S. Lewis said that good
and evil both increase at compound interest. Both lists mushroom
out of control. And that is why the smallest
decisions we make in every way are of infinite importance. Oh, by the way,
this is number 13. It's 3 feet tall and 100 pounds. If we were to continue--
we don't have room-- but if we were to continue
with to 29 dominoes, the 29th domino would be as tall
as the Empire State Building. Just so you have a
picture in your mind of what keeps happening. There was a study
done in Australia about the effects of
sunscreen on aging. They took 900 people. The average age was 39. And they split them
up into groups. One group was told, wear
a high-powered sunscreen-- wait for it--
whenever it's sunny. If you're going to
the beach, if you're going to be out in the sun,
man, throw some sunscreen on it. I imagine that's probably
our strategy for a lot of us. Like, SPF 50. It's sunny. I need that on. The other group of
people were told, I want you to wear SPF 15-- what's that even going to do? 15, are you kidding me? But I want you to
wear it every day. In Alaska? Wear it. Not going outside all day? Wear it. You're going to be in a dark
environment for a whole week? Wear sunscreen SPF
15 every morning as a part of your routine. 4 and 1/2 years went by. That's convenient, almost 5. And they studied the before and
after pictures of both groups. And the group that was
told to put the higher SPF on only when it was sunny,
when comparing the pictures, they themselves, everyone
who looked at it, the scientists
who did the study, could not deny there was
aging that had happened in a short period of 5 years. There was aging. Man, that blemish wasn't there. That wasn't there. This person looks older. It's only been 5
years, but, dang, look how much older they are. Would you believe that the
group that put only SPF 15 on every single day had
no visible signs of aging? And in 5 years, their pictures
looked virtually identical. Turns out, slow ongoing
consistency-- steady-- beats flared up--
oh, it's sunny, got to quickly get
the sunscreen out-- intensity. Listen to me. What's true of your skin
is also true of your soul. So circle back to
where we started with. What is the face
you get stuck with? What is the life
you get stuck with? Well, it's, like, your mom
told you when you were young, and you were making
faces at each other. Don't keep making that face,
or it'll stick that way. Don't keep making that face,
or it'll look stuck that way. There's actually
science behind that. You can grow smile
lines or wrinkle lines depending on what your
constant normal is. The life you get stuck
with is the life you make. So make it a good one. Amen? Amen. Let's pray together. Father, we're grateful,
grateful for this time, considering these
powerful truths. And we're thankful for the
way this is open for us to make some changes, to
make some new choices, to let the right ways in. Even now, as this is just
kind of the beginning, I just wonder, is there anyone
among us who would say to God, I'm stirred by these things? I'm stirred right now. I feel God touching me. I feel God provoking
a response in me. I'm not asking you to
sign away anything, or this is what you're going to
do or what you're going to eat or the-- I'm just saying,
has God nudged you? If that's the case,
could I just ask that you let Him know by
raising up your hand, all across our church? If this message is
causing you to say, you know what, I
realize I need to make some new choices in
some different ways, and that will all set
in in the coming days. But I'm just wanting to
let God know I hear you. Just raise your hand up. Church online,
raise your hand up, right in your living
room, every location. Yeah, me, too. I got both hands up. Thank you, Jesus. Bless these as we go on
this journey together. You could put your hands down. I want to give
another invitation. And this invitation,
as we continue to pray, is going out to those
who have never made a yes decision to follow Jesus. We're talking about choices. And of all the choices,
the most important comes down to what Deuteronomy
30 says about God setting before us a choice between life
and death, between blessing and cursing, and Him are
urging us to choose life, that we may live, that we may
love the Lord our God, obey Him, and cling to Him, for
He is our life and the length of our days. And I pray, right now, in this
moment, over every person who needs to choose life
and not death, Heaven and not Hell, blessing
and not cursing, to trust Jesus, who
died on the cross, who rose from the dead,
who is coming again, who in just a moment
we will be standing before when dawn breaks. And our lives, like the
flower of the field, have been cut down. Maybe when we're 80,
maybe when we're 70, maybe before five years is
over, whatever the case, I believe many of you have
been drawn to this moment by God's spirit, because He
loves you and wants to save you and wants to invade your
rebel soul with His grace. I encourage you to let
him in and not block that, to not decline the
call, to not put it off until when you're older
and you've had some fun. Today is the day to
receive salvation. Now is the acceptable time. All of us praying, if you
would say, this is me. I need to make this decision. I hear God speaking
to me right now, and I want to say yes to Jesus. I'm going to lead
a simple prayer. And if you want to
join in, feel free. You could say it
out loud after me. God will hear you. Make it yours. I'm going to ask the
Church family to pray it with us, to show that
we're embracing you as the Body of Christ. Say this to God. He'll hear you. Dear God, I know I'm a sinner. I've done wrong things. I want to be forgiven. I want to be set free. I want to be made alive. I believe Jesus died for
me and rose from the dead. I receive the gift of salvation. Thank you for new life. I give you mine. What an incredible message. Thank you so much for joining
us in this teaching from Fresh Life Church. If, while you were
watching, you felt led to make a decision to
follow Christ, congratulations. We'd love to send you a 21-day
devotional through the Book of John that Pastor Levi wrote. To receive that, send the
word "freshlife" to 99000, or you can register
your decision online by clicking
the button "Know God," and we'd love to
connect with you. If you've been
impacted by what God is doing through
Fresh Life Church, we'd love to hear from you. Click the "Share Your
Story" tab on our site or email us at
story@freshlife.church. Share how God is using this
work to impact your life. These stories are
incredibly encouraging to both our staff and
our church family. Finally, if you'd like
to partner with us financially and
support the things that God is doing in
and through this house, you can text the word
"fresh" to 45777, click the "Give" button
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