The Talents - The Parables - Brad Powell - 3/6/22

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] well good morning welcome to northridge church if you're watching the live we're so glad you decide to join us for worship today if you're able to stand please stand we're listening up the name of jesus come on put your hands together lord we bless you and we honor you god [Music] [Music] be your name we sing hallelujah [Music] jesus the name of the jesus of jesus you are all we want for everything you've done bless it be your name jesus christ hallelujah [Music] is oh [Music] the name of jesus bless the lord is [Music] is we bless you lord we glorify you we magnify your name your name is worthy to be praised well northridge we're so glad that you're here worshiping with us this morning and it is always our intention to put a priority and a focus on the word of god so we're going to read some scripture together in the book of ephesians and 1st john so please put your attention on the screens ephesians 1 7 it reads in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sin in accordance with the riches of god's grace ephesians 2 13 but now in christ jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of christ first john 1 7. let's read it a little bit more augusta but if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of jesus his son purifies us from all sin anybody thankful for the blood of jesus this morning [Applause] i heard somebody say hallelujah hallelujah to the risen king amen [Music] the more life i live the more i'm thankful for the precious blood of jesus and i'm so thankful and so grateful that jesus bled he died and he rose again so that we may have eternal life with him and our god is holy he's righteous and he's blameless he's not like us but yet he calls us friend and he chooses to have a relationship with us and a relationship with jesus is such a precious gift and so this morning we want to teach you a new song and it's called thank you jesus for the blood and it's a powerful reminder of how jesus has rescued us and the words in this song put a layer of truth upon our pain making us whole again now we all have a rescue story and maybe for you god has rescued you from addiction or maybe he's rescued you from despair or or even shame but perhaps you're still trapped behind a curtain of anxiety a curtain of doubt but we've come to encourage you and tell you this morning that there's nothing more powerful than the blood of jesus there's nothing more powerful than the blood of jesus maybe you come from a long history of broken relationships or you feel like you failed in life [Music] and we all need rescuing i want to tell you that the blood rescues us so focus on his love for you this morning focus on the blood of jesus now let's worship and sing together [Music] i was a wretch i remember who i was i was lost i was blind i was running out of time sin separated the breach was far too wide but from the far side of the case chasm you held me in your sight so you made a way across that great divide left behind heavens wrong and built it here inside and there at the cross you paid the debt i owed broke my chains freed my soul for the first time [Music] jesus you have saved my life [Music] you took my place laid inside a tomb of sin you were buried for three days everything you walk right out again and now death has no sink and life has no wind [Music] [Music] jesus thank you jesus is [Music] world through [Music] is [Music] thank you jesus thank you brought me from the darkness into glorious [Music] we worship you jesus [Music] we thank you for your blood thank you for your love yes [Music] glory to his name glory to his name [Music] [Music] glory to his name it was my cross you bored so i could live in the freedom you died for and now my life is yours and i will sing of your goodness forevermore come on let's get together northridge worthy is your name jesus you deserve the is praise name jesus you deserve the praise [Music] you are [Music] and worthy my shame [Music] [Applause] [Music] is grace goes on and on jesus [Music] now in the heavens as your glory fills this place you alone deserve our praise you're the name of our name to be exhausted [Music] this place jesus your love jesus righteous are you jesus [Music] hallelujah we serve a worthy garden you may be asking well why are we sinking worthy why is god worthy and god is worthy because he is the only one who could take away the sins of the world somebody should celebrate that this morning he came he lived sinless he died for you and for me and he rose again and the good part is he's coming back for us one day hallelujah and we want to continue in this atmosphere of worship and thanksgiving and celebration and we're going to do that by receiving an offering and we give because god is worthy we give because he's been so faithful he's been so good and he's been so kind to us and this is our reasonable service so let's pray together father in heaven we love you we thank you jesus for the blood we thank you lord god for your love for us you took our place jesus and in this life there are so many trials and struggles and tribulations god but you give us peace in the midst of them you're a promise keeper you are faithful and because of that lord we counted a privilege and an honor to give so lord use this offering let it accomplish that what you wish it to do and we'll give you all the glory honor and praise in jesus name we pray amen well thank you so much for worshiping with us you may be seated [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] well hey everybody steven curtis chapman here and i am so excited to be hitting the road this spring for my tour and evening with well me on march 31st at northridge church but i'm hoping that it won't just be an evening with me i really want you to be there too so maybe we can call it an evening with us i like that anyway it is going to be a really special night packed full of music and memories and i would love it if you would come join me tickets and details can be found at stephencurtischapman.com i'll see you soon [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well good morning it is so good to see you thank you so much for being here guests welcome each and every one of you all of you who are watching online i just am so grateful that you're gathered together and don't ever forget where two or three are gathered in jesus name he's right there so we get to experience him we're worshiping him and i'm so proud that you're here to engage his teachings because we're in a series called the parables and it's all out of the stories that he would tell in the moment that something occurred as he was teaching people walking on this planet as we are right now and it's amazing that 2000 years later his stories are so relevant to the front page of our lives here in the 21st century it's an amazing thing years ago a guy named john whittier wrote these now famous words for all sad words of tongue or pen the saddest are these can you say it with me it might have been okay most of you don't know much of literature but that's all it's okay you need to know that that those words have become famous because they're so relevant to the human experience every single one of us has experienced the it might have been regret in our lives in fact for many of us i know true for me i can trip over my regrets before i get my clothes on in the morning and it can ruin every day of my life if i'm not careful it might have been as it turns out john whittier though he penned those poetic words in that way didn't create the thought in fact he borrowed that thought from jesus it's actually at the heart of the parable we're looking at this weekend the parable on the talents let's read it matthew chapter 25 and verse 14 and this is how jesus told the story again it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them to one he gave five bags of gold to another two bags to another one bag each according to his ability now to really understand the story you need to know just a little bit of the setting they didn't have an economic reality like we do in this nation or in many of the nations around the world all of the wealth was owned by just a few wealthy landowners and so you were at the mercy of those few landowners and this is a remarkable story that jesus tells because this landowner who's really in control of all the lives of everyone around him gives this unbelievable opportunity to three of his servants you also need to know that these servants were given what our translation calls bags of gold five two and one but in the original and we've seen this already in one of his stories it's referred to as a talent of gold that would refer to if you want to make sense of it in our economy it would be about in that day 20 years of an average laborer's income 20 years of income one bag of gold one talent so the one given five i mean a hundred years of wages the one given one sounds like less 20 years this is a boatload of opportunity and potential that's being distributed to them and then it says the the man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more so also the one with two bags of gold gained two more but the man who had received one bag went off dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money after a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them and the man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five and said master you entrusted me with five bags of gold see i have gained five more there's now ten on his table and his master replied well done good and faithful servant you've been faithful with a few things i'll put you in charge of many things come and share in your master's happiness the man with two bags of gold also came master he said you entrusted me with two bags of gold see i've gained two more four his master replied well done good and faithful servant you've been faithful with a few things i'll put you in charge of many things come and share your master's happiness the same exact celebration and reward for the one with ten and the one with four no difference no the other guy brought me ten celebration then the man who had received one bag of gold came and said master i knew that you were a hard man harvesting where you've not sown and gathering where you've not scattered seed so i was afraid and i went out and hid your gold in the ground now here is what belongs to you gave him back the one bag his master replied you wicked and lazy servant so you knew that i harvest where i have not sown and i gather where i have not scattered seed well then you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers at the very least so that when i returned i would have received it back with some interest so this wealthy landowner says take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags boom doesn't seem fair looking at this thing doesn't seem right the dude already has ten and then the master says for whoever has will be given more and they will have an abundance whoever does not have even what they have will be taken from them they'll be left empty and throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth now i know about you but the average person thinks of the teaching of jesus as a cute little flowery little thing where everybody's like feeling good after themselves and really doesn't take anywhere anyone anywhere but when you really listen to his stories oh my they are blunt and poignant create tension in our soul if we see them accordingly but the reason he gives us these stories is so that we can see reality see how we're missing what god's designed for us and move to where we experience the fullness that god so passionately desires for us and jesus died on the cross so that we could experience this story has so much let me kind of give an overview truth before we tear it apart and see its relevance to our lives the overview truth is that god deeply cares about how we live the lives that he's given us that's like the encircling truth of this story in the wealthy landowner and the one called master in the story jesus is of course referring to god he's referring to himself the one who has all to whom all need to receive or they have no opportunity at all and he's the one distributing these opportunities this potential and then goes away and we live in a world and most of us live our lives in a way doesn't it just feel like man god's far away god's missing everything god's kind of turned his back on our needs and what we want and kind of disappeared and it's how everyone could feel but but in the story jesus makes it clear god doesn't forget about us god doesn't forget about what he's given to us god doesn't forget about the the life he wants us living he deeply cares about how we live the lives that he's given us just as this story shows with the landowner and his servants now as you really dig into this truth you can see how jesus starts disturbing and bringing up issues that we all kind of wrestle with on a daily basis as we live our lives and if we miss it we'll miss everything he wants for us one of the first things i see in here it just becomes one of the apparent truths is in this story jesus is teaching us that everything we have comes from and belongs to god god being represented again by the one distributing the bags of gold and everything those servants had came from their master and belonged to him because when he came back all of them knew they had to give back even the one with one bag buried in the dirt and jesus is saying very clearly i know you forget this or i know you don't understand this but everything you have comes from and belongs to god now you need to know that when we fail to understand this or what happens mostly in my life is that i've come to understand it but i often simply forget it in the living of my life i feel like hey i'm working i'm making you know these financial resources and i'm working at this relationships and bending for these relationships i give blood sweat and tears for my career and so i'm the one working my career it just feels like i'm the one doing it and getting the return for it but in truth everything i have comes from and belongs to god but when we forget or fail to understand it we tend to become more like the fool in this story we make selfish choices to protect ourselves to defend ourselves to keep ourselves from getting hurt to please ourselves rather than choices that please god this guy wasn't concerned about the one who gave him the bag of gold he was concerned about himself it's all he was concerned about i don't know about you it sounds a little bit like the world we live in right sounds a little bit like the life that i live by nature and remember we make selfish choices to please ourselves rather than choices that please god with our careers and our careers belong to god you say wait i went to school and i've worked hard for it and i'm the one that's made this pathway really who gave you the breath in your lungs the abilities the opportunities the open doors i mean it belongs to god it's come from him and yet we make these choices to please ourselves with our careers with our abilities with our resources with our relationships with our opportunities and it leads in all of those areas when we forget that it ultimately belongs to him it leads to the regret of it might have been which is where most people live their lives we need to be careful here in this story jesus unfolds the deep concern of god for how we live the lives he's given us and one of the things jesus teaches here is that god has given each of us unique gifts and unique opportunities to invest romans 12 6 says it this way it's the same teaching and they got it from jesus parable of the talents we have different gifts according to the grace given us in the story i didn't point it out when i was reading it but you saw it he gave five bags of gold two bags of gold and one bag of gold according to their abilities that wasn't saying the one with five was better more powerful could be more successful what it meant was that god has designed each person with a different purpose with a different reason to accomplish different things to god's pleasure and to god's honor to further his kingdom and so it's going to take different gifts and so he distributes unique gifts to every single one of us gifts that can't be compared to one another because god's purpose for each of us though it's always to please him god's purpose for each one of us is different in the outworking of our gifts and this is where we run into the problem we live in a world of comparison we've defined in a very narrow way what grade is we've defined in a very narrow way what success is and then we're competing with each other for that and come on we're human beings we walk in a room even a room like this but a lot of times more in a in a group party setting or a family we walk in and we already know where we are in the group who's the top who's the bottom and where we fit in isn't this true in fact one of the number one questions what do you do why do we ask that because we're just really empathetic about the needs in their life no because we want to kind of figure out am i ahead of them or are they ahead of me why because we define success in all the wrong ways not by doing what god created us each to do uniquely but instead we compare ourselves to one another and then we live with the regret of it might have been the truth is god has given us unique gifts and opportunities to invest think about what this means in the story the master invested in each servant uniquely to further his interest well the comparison is to god god has intentionally think about this god has intentionally and uniquely invested in you gifts and opportunities and experiences and resources he's entrusted you to help further his kingdom and will in this world and he doesn't want you being like me and he doesn't want me being like you he wants us being who he created us to be the wise person invest their god-given gifts in a way that pleases and honors god the fool doesn't and i have to in light of the story assess am i more like the wise or am i more like the fool and to be honest i'm just being honest this isn't unreal my heart longs to relate to these two more but my story tends to match this guy's better about you jesus tells the story so that we don't live below and beneath the life and fullness that he's created for us he wants us to get it and so this story if you focus on it the wrong way can make you feel even more guilty and even more shame and even more lost and fill you with tension and start driving you away but it's meant to have you face your reality so you can experience god's desired reality for you we have to be wise not the fool in this story god unfolds this reality for us and i'm going to use a word that doesn't seem to go with god but it's his story about himself god despises wasted potential god despises wasted potential i mean he said you wicked and lazy servant that he despises wasted potential god has built us and designed us and gifted us and resourced us for a purpose that god's looking for a return on investment he's not looking for you to bury it in the sand and say but i didn't do this and i didn't do this and i didn't do that and i didn't lose this and you know i went to church once in a while god despises wasted potential and i believe we live on a planet of wasted potential because we're so busy comparing ourselves to each other that we're not living the life god's designed us to live and then we rage about it on social media and the story unfolds the idea the common idea it's become a cliche but it is so so true he unfolds the idea that we lose what we do not use seems really harsh when jesus says all right you lazy and wicked servant we're going to take the one thing you have and leave you with nothing and we're going to give it to the one who has more and he says that's how life's going to be if you don't use it if you don't invest it you are going to lose it and it's true in every area of life right isn't this true in every area of life physically if you don't use it you lose it i know this from experience because i was born with rock solid abs and they're not there anymore if you if you use it you'll keep it if you don't use it you'll lose it i'm living proof i look a little bit thin because i always buy shirts just big enough to hang over the crap that you can't see you know that's kind of we lose what we do not use physically the same thing mentally right same thing emotionally you don't realize it but many of us are juvenile in our emotions not because we weren't given them but because we never use them we're better at rage and hate and bitterness than we are at love and kindness and goodness right because we lose what we don't use and it's true spiritually jesus makes it clear here many of us wonder why some experience god's presence and promise and power and others don't why some seem to have an abundance of the touch of god in their lives and others don't it's not because god's playing unfair it's because we lose what we don't use how much are you using the spiritual life that god has made you for too many of us put it on the back shelf because we've got more important things to do we bury it and put it in the sand jesus in the story makes it really clear that in spite of how it seems that god's far away in spite of how it seems that people get away with everything and it's the people who are doing the bad things that get the power and the celebrity and the prosperity in spite of how it seems to us god is holding each of us accountable for what we do with our lives the guy with one bag felt pretty safe with the bag buried but then the landowner came back look at romans 14 12 says the same thing so then each of us will give an account of himself to god jesus is telling us the story of our lives past present and future he's gonna hold us accountable when you stand in front of them which story is going to look more like yours jesus doesn't want it to be this one now as i think about the accountability of god i often think wow i can't even live up to the expectations of other people who are flawed and fail like i do let alone living up to the expectations of god right how can i do it i mean i can't please him i can't compete with that how do i do it i've just got one bag i'm a one bag person not a five bag person and what you have to realize in this story jesus tackles that if you see it in the story he unfolds the reality yes god's holding you accountable but he's not doing it to keep you down he's doing it because he made you to be able to do it but here's what you need to realize as jesus teaches us here we can't please god by playing it safe the lazy servant was the one playing it safe the only one playing it safe he put it in the ground i'm going to give him back exactly what he gives us he played it safe and he was the only loser in the whole bunch you cannot please god by playing it safe and yet we're living in a world where the vast majority of us are playing everything safe we're playing not to lose instead of to please god that's why i gave you hebrews 11 6 and the outline if you're looking at it in the northridge app and without faith it's impossible to please god you can't play it safe you gotta trust him enough to leap to serve him another thing that jesus teaches us to realize about god's accountability and how we can live up to it is the fact that we cannot possibly displease him we cannot possibly disappoint him if we give him our best it's all he's looking for he wants us to give him our best there are so many things i can't do but god hasn't given me the gifts to do them there are so many people i can't compete with god hasn't called me to compete with them there are so many people i don't compare with well god doesn't want me comparing with all god wants me to do is to be my best and all he wants you to do is to give your best and if you give your best for jesus christ i am telling you right now you cannot disappoint him the problem is we're not [Applause] think about this story and i pointed it out as i read it in my natural mind i think all right the guy with five had an advantage on the guy with two because the goal is to be successful right and success we see it is 10 bags and so if i don't turn 2 into ten then i'm not going to win in the end that's how humans think that's how culture works that's why we're driven to step on each other and leave each other into dust to try and get ahead but that's not how god is he doesn't want you to get ten he wants you to give your best look at colossians chapter three it says the same thing verse 23 whatever you do work at it with all your heart as working for the lord not for men stop competing stop comparing just do your best since you know that you'll receive an inheritance from the lord as a reward he didn't say if you get more than the other guy he just wants you to give your whole heart do your best are you are you or are you afraid there's no way you can compete so you just keep it in the dirt and one last thing you need to realize about god's accountability and how you can you can live up to it god doesn't accept fear or blame as legitimate excuses and this story teaches that big time this guy was given a bag of gold 20 years of an average laborers income a lot who gave it to him the wealthy landowner and what did he say when the wealthy landowner came back he said i knew you were a hard man harvesting where you've not sown seed not scattering seed and you want stuff no matter what and it's blame but if he was a guy that wanted to get harvest without scattering the seed why did he give these guys the gold he would have come and said i'm giving you nothing and you better bring me a return or i'm going to wipe you out it's not what he was it's not what he was expecting he didn't say to the guy with two you only brought four and i'm expecting more but this guy all he could do was live in the fear of failure the fear of being diminished by these other people the fear of comparison and when he didn't live up to what his master made him for what did he do he blamed the master and as a pastor i can tell you the majority of people are blaming god for something if you'd given me a different heritage if you give me a different family if you'd given me different gifts if you'd given me those opportunities if i could have done that or if you would have kept this from happening to me then my life would be better and it's a world we here's the truth we live in a culture of fear and blame this world is driven by fear and blame blaming our parents or blaming our siblings or blaming our education or blaming our church or blaming our blaming god but that doesn't work all you're doing is covering look what second timothy 1 7 says it just repeats on what jesus said for god did not give us a spirit of timidity of fear god's given us a spirit of power love and of self-discipline so if this is how we're living where are we getting that spirit from my god i don't know about you but so far my life's being turned upside down i'm going i'm following the wrong thing i'm following culture instead of christ and then finally he says in this story he makes it really crystal clear the rewards of living for god are immeasurably more than the sacrifices of living for god and you say where do you see that well you already heard in the story how the master celebrate these guys awesome job that's great you gave your best good for you whether you got two or five awesome come and enter my happiness right celebrating them going forward with them the reward but isn't it interesting how in the story it doesn't say anything about how they did it do you think it just happened oh they fell over five bags of gold no it took blood sweat and tears and you're human beings and you know this there's no such thing as creating a return without walking through betrayal and without walking through pain and without walking through disappointment without loss after loss after loss after loss but why didn't jesus focus on the sacrifices that these guys had to make and he only focused on the reward the answer is simple because when you experience the reward from god well done come and enter my happiness every sacrifice you ever made will be irrelevant inconsequential and you won't remember it ever because his reward is greater than the sacrifice but that's not how we feel yeah he's given me his finances but he's asking me to give 10 oh my gosh i can't live a 90. and what are you thinking about the sacrifice the sacrifice the sacrifice the sacrifice the sacrifice is so big you can't do it but the reward is way greater than the sacrifice it's just most of us are living like the fool and not the wise ones it's interesting that jesus doesn't talk about the things that we look at he talks about the things that we forget about the reward all right so that's kind of the unfolding of the story if you'll spend time in the story yourself this week you'll probably find way more but can i give you an application that kind of helps bring this thing home maybe helps us deal with a little bit because i know where you are you're i remember i've been living with this for months now and uh this story brings up all kinds of tension in my soul because who i relate most to and who i don't relate most to but jesus is bringing up the tension so that we'll do something about it we'll make the exchange from what we have been doing for what he has called us to and so let me help you maybe move in that direction in order to live our lives fully and and for god's pleasure we have to make the most of every opportunity we really do that's what this whole story is about the opportunities god's given us the potential the resources we have to make the most of every opportunity in the parable two made the most of every opportunity and as a result they experienced all the personal fulfillment and joy that came with it the one wasted his opportunity and experienced all of that it might have been regret that always results from it but here's where you've got to get and this is where i've had to get the same choice they faced we face every day of our lives this is our story these are our choices here's the question which choice will we make ephesians chapter 5 says it look at verse 15 be very careful then how you live not as unwise but as wise making the most of every opportunity that god's given you because the days are evil they're temporary they're short they're dark they're filled with junk sacrifices so therefore do not be foolish but understand what the lord's will is do you recognize those verses from anything that's the story of the talent it comes right out of it talking about being wise not being the fool talking about using the opportunities god's given us and how do you do it by understanding what the lord's will is the lord's will is not for you to be like this guy or this guy the lord's will is for you to be what he's created you to be to be like jesus to please him to honor him to seek him in what you're doing are you we have two choices the story ultimately gets down to two choices if we're going to make the most of every opportunity you know what the first choice is to waste our lives on the temporary and that's what this guy did he wasted his life protecting his life and can i just tell you we're a world that's living for the temporary billion dollar businesses only care about this quarter's financial report are you kidding me we're wasting our life on the temporary look what jesus said in mark 8 36 what is what good is it for a person to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul i look at this story and i say this guy blew it and jesus told us the story so that we would see how this guy blew it and how we're more like this guy than anything else and how we need to stop living for the temporary we have to stop that's one choice it'll ruin us the second choice it's a choice available to all of us to invest our lives in the eternal and the idea that god has given us everything and everything we have belongs to him anyway that god is holding us accountable that if we don't use it we're going to lose it and all the things jesus taught in this story we have to invest our lives in the eternal this last week don't don't even go back a month or two months or don't even go back a quarter this last week how much of your life was motivated by eternity wise or fool john 6 27 jesus said do not work for food that spoils but for food that endures to eternal life which the son of man will give you don't live for the temporary live for the eternally saying are you you can do this in every sphere of your life in every moment of your life or you can choose to waste it on the temporary one will lead to wisdom one will lead to foolishness one will lead to gain the other will lead to loss as a church we can't do this for you but we can put out some water for you to drink to help you get some muscle memory in that area and that's what we do i mean a lot of people look at it the wrong way but everything we do is to try and help you to go from living for the temporary to living for the eternal because we all need it i'll just give you two examples one we started this last week a journey all the way through easter it's a journey where we're trying to learn how to set aside the temporary things of our life to focus on the eternal and we're getting into god's word together and we're praying through it together and every single week we're giving out a devotional booklet that helps you to do it and all you have to do if you're in person is here in plymouth you go right out into 16th century they'll be distributing those things when you're leaving they'll be distributing those things if you're online you can find them there as well but i mean every weekend you can just pick that up and say i'm going to set aside some material things to focus on the eternal things and grow because you're not supposed to become more like the culture you're supposed to become more like jesus that's why we're doing this why not join us in the northridge news we showed you about how foster kids and there are just so many of them in michigan alone and how they're given a couple of their belongings in a garbage bag and hauled out of their homes and they're left feeling like they're garbage they're nothing but we can make an investment in a a bag filled with belongings that can be handed to one of these kids and it's happened already since we've started this to make them know not only are their value valuable but they're valuable because god loves them and made them and designed them and all we have to do is make an investment to do it well what's that do helps us to go from the temporary to the eternal that's all why won't you do with that you can go right into 16th century and you can see these bags and these kids faces and you can do it online but this isn't so we could we're not getting anything from this we're working harder to put out these devotionals we're not i'm not walking around with red bags with belongings in it it's not about us that's what this guy did this is about god honoring him and pleasing him doing something with our lives it's about working for food that endures instead of food that spoils and finally i just want to talk to all of us just for a moment because all of this can sound good or all of this can sound like something but there's only one thing that makes any of it come together and make sense of out of it and that's whether or not we have a relationship with jesus christ himself without jesus you can do almost everything right and it's not going to equal anything because jesus is the source the resource the center it's why he came and died we sang earlier about the blood of christ because without him dying on that cross we're going to die in our sin and failure but in him we can be redeemed and not waste our life first john 5 12 and 13 says he who has the son has life he who does not have the son of god does not have life i write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of god so that you may know that you have eternal life do you realize why most people waste their life on the temporary it's because they're not sure they have the eternal to hope so but it's not a know so but jesus says when you believe on him you can know you have eternal life and if you know you have eternal life you can start investing your life in the eternal do you know him just before i finish our conversation this weekend would you bow with me in a word of prayer just for a moment and as we bow i just want to encourage you to be talking to jesus about whatever he's talking to you about in this conversation but if you don't know him won't you pray with me i mean take the words of my prayer right now and make them your words to god not out loud and dramatically just to him and just say jesus i i know what it's like to live for the temporary to be empty i know what it's like to live in guilt and shame because of sin and to live without you but i believe you died on that cross so that i could be forgiven and rose again to give me new life and so i'm putting my faith in you and asking you to forgive me and make me new in jesus name amen we'd love to help you take steps forward in relationship with god we'd love to give you a new testament portion of the bible but we just have to know you prayed with me so all you have to do is text us send us a quick text one word northridge to 3 16 16 and we'll send you a link you have to fill that out so we can know where to send the stuff and then send that link back to us and we'll get you that stuff so that you can go forward and we'll be celebrating what god's going to do in your life now just before i give you my last thought i want to tell you i believe god's wrestling or your wrestling with god some of you stuff's going on you don't know how to resolve and we have prayer teams that meet in all of our campus settings here as well after the service and when everyone else is leaving they're up here and if you want to talk to someone or pray with someone all you have to do is come up and spend time with them if you're online you can see the link where you can say you need prayer for something we'll have a team member get with you but whatever's going on in your soul right now don't just forget it do something with it which leads me to this as we wrap up i want to encourage you to choose to be wise this week so next week you won't have to say the saddest words of tongue or pen it might have been i'm praying that i get to see you next week without regrets because that's what this story was told for we don't have to live with regrets we can live with jesus favor and he's given us everything we need let's choose it thanks everybody have a great week [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: NorthRidge Church

Views: 1,718

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Id: UFq_A_bTk1c

Length: 93min 20sec (5600 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 06 2022