OLD SCHOOL WISDOM | Week 5 | Full Service

Sea captaining in the seventeen hundreds. See, haven't you been waiting long enough to talk about sea captains from the seventeen hundreds?

God, I love history. And I wanna tell you, there's a guy named Bartholomew Roberts, which most of you have never probably heard of. And he was considered one of the greatest captains to ever be on the ocean. And he was actually so good, he ended up more like an admiral. He ended up with four ships.

And and his men were loyal. He he he was generous with them. He ran a tight ship. He was a good tactical leader. He he he was good in in in in battle type situations.

All of that stuff. Matter of fact, he he was a good enough leader that for his crew, he was generous with them, but he also even had a band. They had musicians that were were on call 24 a day, like if they're doing something, they would play music for them while they're working. I don't know if that was sea shanties or whatever. Once was a man that went, know, something like that. I don't know. But but he did that. The only day they weren't available is because none of them were to work was was to on Sundays.

Because they had to church. They had to do religious observation even if they're at sea. So he has morals. He had all these strengths. He was great. He was he's considered one of the most effective sea captains to ever sail the ocean.

But you never heard of him. Well, you might have heard of him from his other name. One of them is Black Bart, a pirate. He's considered the most successful pirate to ever sail the seas. More successful than Black Beard, all that. Matter of fact, in a three year period, he captured over 400 ships.

So some of you are still like, I have no idea who that is. I have no idea. Well, maybe okay. I should have read the crowd. I know what crowd we have in here. Have you heard of the Dread Pirate Roberts? Who knows what movie that's from? That's referencing him.

The book and stuff. The Dread Pirate Roberts is this guy. That's who it's really referencing. And so he's he's so the the the point I'm trying to make is this guy was the most effective at being a captain. But was he really successful? Because he was a pirate.

What he was doing was his success, his gains, his wealth was all based on stealing, robbing, and murdering people. And so he was doing great at the wrong thing. He was doing great at the wrong thing. And and and that's what we're gonna talk about today is this idea of what real success is.

And and what we're gonna see is is is is the the big idea for today is simply this. Success is about the goal, not the gain.

And we need to understand this. It's about the goal, not the gain. In other words, look at this quote from Thomas Merton. So many of have probably heard of this before. People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find once they reach the top that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.

And the sad thing is you have your whole life getting to look over that wall. And when you look over and see, you now find out you're wrong and you already spent your whole life doing it.

And so what we wanna look at today is this idea of what does that look like? What is the wisdom, the old school wisdom? What does God's word say about what we should be about for success? That how it should work? And then we're gonna look at, okay, so what's the problem? What is the way we look at it? What is the way we should look at it? And how do we get there?

And so the proverb I wanna look at is found in Proverbs 16 verse one through three. And it says this, we can make our own plans, but the Lord gives the right answer.

Now, I'm quick. These build on each other's three verses and and and and that means exactly what it says, but it means more than what you heard. You think that what that's saying is, we can make plans like I'm gonna go get chips and salsa at Chipotle tomorrow afternoon, But God says, don't get chips and salsa.

You know, like you think that there is that is kinda true. But what this really means, the the Hebrew there for we make our own plans isn't about just what I'm gonna do on Tuesday or what my job's gonna be. It really is literally saying this, we may order life the way we see it should be.

It's talking about how we order life. What how do we think life should work? What do we think success is? The way we see it should play out. What we think is the right way to go. We might have our plan, the order of how life should work, but the Lord has the right answer.

So what it's saying is the way we like to think how it should work out is wrong. And God knows what's right. And that's why the second verse says this, people may be pure in their own eyes, but the Lord examines their motives. He looks at the heart. He looks at the goal.

What does that mean? That means if we see life and it makes sense to us that it should work this way, we then pursue that and then we justify and we think we're doing well. The dread pirate Roberts.

Yeah. He may have been a pirate, but look what he did. I provided all these guys a job. I enriched us all. We we we we had freedom. We had a good job. I took care of him. We we were moral. We ran a tight ship. We were effective. We were all this. Yeah. We we robbed and murdered. But you know what? They were those one percenters. They deserved it.

You could actually justify what you're doing, like thinking of himself as a modern day robin. Many these pirates thought that way. That's what it's saying is we will actually go out and do things, and we'll do a lot of good things. And we justify

we justify because you know why? Because what we're we're looking at is our final success. We're looking at but look at all these things I did. Look what I did. We we we we think we're fine. And God says, but I'm looking at the motive. I'm looking at the heart. So let me think. We could be many of us are here, and you are pirate Christians.

You come here and yeah, I go to church. I show up. I came to the 11:45 service instead of the 09:45. I listened to Bill. I did the right thing there. I I do these things. But in the end, what is the goal of your heart on why you're here?

Why are you worshiping? Why do you come to church? Why do you wanna know Jesus? What is the goal? Is the goal I do this for the gain? Or is it for what God's goal how he orders life? How he puts life in order? You gotta ask yourself that question because we could be showing up and doing the religious thing, doing that

and still running after the wrong thing. And that's why verse three says this commit your actions to the Lord and your plans will succeed. Now many of you talking about Princess Bride. You keep saying that word. I don't think you know what it means.

See what you thought that just said is oh, so I make a plan and then I need to pray about it and say God here you bless this you bless this you bless this. That's it's saying the opposite. It's not like you make your plan and then you ask the Lord to bless it. You're not committing your plans to the Lord is not you make a plan and then asking God to bless it.

Because if you make your plan and then ask God to bless it, guess what we naturally do. We actually order our life and make our plans in the wrong way. So why would we do the wrong idea and then say, God bless it? We do this all the time.

You know, the most basic example of that is when you go to get some food and you go order, I want the triple nachos with extra cheese. I want the chili cheese fries. I want the burger,

and I want a large chocolate shake, and I want a Coke. Well, make it a Diet Coke. I need to cut back. And then you you get your order and then you prayed, like, let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for this bountiful feast. I pray that you will bless it to the nourishment of my body.

Some of all the way we food, we're gonna go, I don't think this should be prayed for. It should be prayed over. And that's dumb, ain't it? Why would you get the order all this food that's terrible for you, and then I'd ask God to make it healthy for you? But that's what we're doing. Many of us in this room are struggling

with the idea that that's what you're doing. You are organizing your life the way you see it should be, and you're coming to church and asking God to bless it. How do you know if you're doing that? What is your current prayer life like? What do you pray about? And what are you frustrated with?

And if you think about it and all your prayer life is about, God, would you give me this? God, give me this. God, give me this. God, give me this. God, or God, take this away. God, take this away. God and there's nothing about God. What do you want me to be doing? There's nothing about God. What do you want me to learn through this? There's nothing about, I don't know, but you must be doing something. How are you gonna use me in this? Change me in this? How are you gonna there's none of that. It's all about what you want or what you don't want.

Hey, if you're talking to someone and you say, here's exactly what I want, but I don't want this, leave that out, put this in, do that. Who are you talking to? A waiter. God's not a waiter.

And so that's you know you're doing that. So you can be the pirate. You're doing all the things. You're coming to church. You're like, I've spent time praying with God. But what you're trying to do is you're trying to get God to bless your mess.

And here's the thing. If you stay there long enough, you will leave the faith either feeling like there's something wrong with me because God just doesn't love me or there's something wrong with God because he doesn't exist because he won't listen to me. It seems like I talked to God and he's not listening. Here's the problem. There is a difference between not listening and saying no.

And and and that's the struggle.

And so we got to understand is where does this come from? Because we have this wrong view of how do we order the world. We have the wrong idea of success. So what does that look like? What does the wrong and the right idea look like? What does this mean to be about the goal and not the gain? Well, I wanna go into the New Testament. I wanna go to a story that involves Jesus and some people that had the wrong idea that he was trying to help them out, but they just couldn't get it.

And you'd be surprised to know that a bunch of them were actually church folk, followers of his. And and they they still couldn't get it, and they end up walking away. And where it is is in John six.

And you might there's another thing that happens in John six. It's very obscure. Most people have never heard of it. He it's where Jesus fed 5,000 people. Yeah. You've heard of that. No.

This is what happens right afterwards. So many people preach on the feeding of the 5,000, and so few people go, what did happen to those people that watched this thing right after? How did they respond? And how they responded is, they all got food miraculously

taken care of. The next day they come back looking for them again, because they're like free food. They're like everyone's ultimately like a middle schooler. You find out where there's free food. Even when I was in high school, the church I went to, some class always had donuts, and there was a tile in

the men's bathroom that you could lift up. And if you found out which class had donuts, you went in there and you're supposed to lift it up and right where it was. So we could all come out of his it's the adult class or number four.

And we'd all show up and eat their donuts. He says, we're just looking for free food. Well, that's what these people are They they they they come they come back the next day. He's not there. They realize he crossed over, and he went to Capernaum, which if you hike around takes a while, so they went to track him down.

And and then it picks up where they find him, and they they they meet him. They go, hey, when did rabbi, when did you get here? Which is kind of funny to me. It seems like they ran into oh, there he is. Be cool. Oh, hey, Jesus. When did you get here? When they're actually looking for him.

But why? That'd be a good thing. You know, Jesus taught. He did this. Let's go find be with Jesus. You did a good thing trying to be but what was the motive of his heart? What was the goal of chasing down Jesus?

And then here's what we see. Jesus replies to them. I tell you the truth. Little side note. This is where I learned my preaching style. I like to throw a punch, which is tell you the tough truth at the right time and the right way. I'm gonna be honest with you. Jesus throat punches like there is no tomorrow. And how you know? When I say, hey, tilt your head up, expose your neck here. I need to. He says it this way, I tell you the truth. Whenever Jesus says, I tell you the truth, you're about to get throat punched.

And so what he says is, I tell you the truth.

You want to be with me because I fed you. Not because you understood the miraculous signs. But don't be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking eternal life that the son of man can give you for God the father has given me the seal of his approval.

Hold on to that. Food. You're spending too much time focusing on it. Food's not bad, but hold on to that. They replied, we wanna perform God's works too. What should we do? So now they're like, teach us how to do this. So then we don't need you to do this, apparently.

Jesus told them, this is the only work God wants from you. Believe in the one who has sent. He's saying, you can't make this work. You just need to trust me.

They answered, show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? So now they're questioning who he is. He was after all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness. The scriptures say Moses gave them bread from heaven. He sounds like, you fed us once and now you're being all weird. Moses fed us every day.

Moses was like the free lunch program at school. Verse 32, Jesus said, I tell you the truth. First of all, he gets really throat punchy here. Moses didn't give you bread from heaven. My father did. Well, him and the father are one. He's God. So guess who actually fed him? He's saying I did.

And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. The true bread that God is of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives his life for the world. So now he's gonna talk about sacrifice. He's talking about what my real intent is. You need to trust me because I love you and I'm gonna rescue you for all of eternity. I'm gonna solve your eternal problem that you really need to focus on

And they reply, give us that bread every day. So hold on to the fact that they're still stuck in the physical realm every day. And you're like, they're so stupid. Why are they stuck on sandwiches when Jesus well, just hold on to that. Jesus replied,

I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me says, I'm the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But you haven't believed in me even though you've seen me. He gets real deep on saying here's why, whatever. Jumping down to verse 41, He says then people began to murmur man murmuring. They're murmuring now not just replying not just asking they're now murmuring. You know, it's not far away from murmuring complaining and arguing,

which I've read ahead. That's exactly what happens next. They're murmuring in disagreement because he said I'm the bread that came down from heaven. They said isn't this Jesus son of Joseph? We know his father and mother. How can he say I can't have for heaven? Hold on to that. So now they're saying wait, you're trying to tell us that you're the way you're bread from heaven. You're basically God sent when you're God. Why would we believe that? We know who your mom and dad are bro. We know that you're just Jenny from the block.

That's a super old reference.

Alright. Turn up my hearing aid here so we can keep going.

You jump down to verse 47 and after he told him to stop complaining, he goes on and on and then he gets even more throat punchy in verse 47. Says, tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life. Yes, I'm the bread of life. Your ancestors ate man in the wilderness, but they all died.

He's like, anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats his bread will live forever. It is bread which I will offer so the world may live is my flesh. They still don't get it. They began arguing now

with each other about what he meant. How can this man give us his flesh to eat? They asked. Now they're they're thinking, does he want us to literally eat him? One weird guy is like, I call his calves. Like, get Earl out of here. And he says, so Jesus again said again, I tell you the truth.

I really think what's not in the Bible is he kind of face planted at this moment. I tell you the truth.

And he goes unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life. He keeps going. He doubles down. That's what I love about Jesus. When he starts throats punching, He starts just doubling down to get him to realize it and he goes on and on and on about how you need me.

You need to trust my love. That's the only way. And here's what's sad. Verse 59 says he said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

He wasn't just talking about you outsiders that he was talking to these people that believe they were God's chosen ones. They were waiting for a savior. They went to the synagogues. Basically, he was in church. And I think it's a lot of us in this room that struggle with this more than we know. We get too caught up

in the here and now to really understand what God wants for us here and now. We're distracted by this world's idea of success.

And it can discourage us because look, let's keep reading. Many of his disciples said, so now we're not just this whole crowd with the religious leaders and all that. We're talking disciple, not the 12 that says they're he had more than just the 12 now following him.

They were there and they're still with them and now they said this is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it? Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining. So he said to him does this offend you Then what will you think of when you see the son of man ascend from heaven? And when I raise again and, you know, they didn't understand. The spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I've spoken to you are spirit and life,

but some of you don't believe me. I love in verse skip verse 65 says, then he said, this is why I said that people can't come to me unless the father gives them to me. In verse 66, kinda ironic, John six six six is one of the saddest saddest verses in the Bible.

It says at this point, many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. These are people that were falling. These are people going to church. These are people and I'm telling you, I tell you the truth. Is that better than I'm gonna throw punch you? Does it sound nicer? I tell you the truth. Some of you in this room

are heading towards deserting Jesus because you won't surrender to Jesus even though you come here to worship Jesus. You're on that path.

Now it's gonna come out different. Some of you are gonna get mad because you're like, why does this guy keep pushing me towards these things? Why does he keep saying I need to do this? Why is he keep saying I'm just sick and tired of it? And And you're gonna go find another church where they'll tell you what the know, they'll just talk about Bible stuff and more of an informational way because that's what you want, but you don't really want transformation.

I can't help you. But some of you right now, by the end of this message, you need to make a decision. You do. You need to get real. You need to decide what do you really believe about God and his love for you. And if you really engage with that that should start transforming the way you see everything else.

You got to quit playing the game where you're a pirate that's doing all these good things to look good, but you're not actually engaged in the goal of what God wants for you. Because you will get frustrated and you will quit and you'll blame yourself. You blame God. You'll blame me.

Because I because I teach God's word says, hey, God wants you to go this way you you think that's the right way to go and God says that's not the right way to go.

If you don't surrender to Jesus, you will surrender trying to follow Jesus. That's gonna happen. So I tell this to you because I love you because that's what happened here. And what we see out of us, I said, hold on. Just hold on. If you notice what they were doing,

they were stuck on the here and now. They were stuck on the food. Now there's food. We think, well, I don't worry about food. Yeah. Actually, we do worry about food from but the opposite end. Not where am I gonna get it? It's how can I stop eating so much of it?

But the truth is he's saying, but that could be in their culture. That was like what you lived for what you did. So it could be said the same thing today that what we worry about is the same thing as food. We worry about our house getting the better car getting this or it's worried about getting something or losing something.

And when you're worried about that, you don't really focus on what God wants you to focus on. And and and and and so you you're going after the wrong success. You're going after wrong thing. And the in in the world is got a very definite idea that we sometimes fall for because we live in this world.

And in the book of Proverbs, we've talked about there's four types of people that Proverbs talks about. And every one of us in this room is one of these categories. And here's the funny thing. We can move in and out. Like, I look at all four of these and go, I call that Tuesday. Because it can

go it can we can get pretty radically shifted at times. We always gotta be on guard in this. He talks about first the simple. The simple doesn't mean you're you're like stupid. Like, you're not like Forrest Gump. I may not be a smart man, Jesus, but I know what love is.

No. Simple just means you're naive. You just don't know what you don't know. You're new to this or you just haven't learned it. You haven't been taught. Well, the simple is going to move into one of these other categories once they start to learn stuff.

You'll either become the fool, which means you know it, but you just keep doing it and you keep falling for it and you just you just can't help yourself. You just you don't put anything around you to help you not keep doing it the wrong way or you are the mocker

and the mockers someone is oh, I've heard it. I know what it is. But not only am I not going to do it. I'm purposely not going to do it. I'm shaking my fist at you and and and I'm just not gonna do it on purpose. And you know what you'd think? There's no Christians that mock when they come to church. Man, they're

I probably every service have some people mocking God. You come in here and I'd say, hey, here's what God wants us to do. Well, I I can't do that. Why why are you saying I don't believe that way? And then I show them scripture. Well, I still don't believe it. So you're a Christian? Well, yeah. You're mocking God.

You're deciding what's right and wrong.

We do it all the time. And and and and and so but what is the main thing? What is when I say this world success? It's about gain. What am I talking about? It's about gain usually in what I call the big three of things we run after. Possessions, power, and prestige. Possessions,

we want things. They wanted food. We want all kinds of things. We like power. We like to be in control. We like to like to wield that and we like to be looked up to and and that's why all movies have the plots. They have all this because it's standard operation procedural

for us, but you know what I got to tell you right now is a lot of Christians react on and that's why possessions power and procedure all bad. They're not bad things a matter of fact God actually blesses us with some of those things at times and and we're supposed to steward them. That's not the problem.

It's not that those things are bad. It's that they're not adequate.

They're not adequate to save you. They're not adequate to really give you peace and joy contentment. They're not adequate to fill that void that God planted it says in the book of Ecclesiastes that God planted eternity in the hearts of men, but we don't understand what he's doing one moment to the next meaning we have this longing for more more more more more more. The reason we always want more is the reason why why why we're always longing to have more but but we don't know the more low in some people say that longing for more is the problem. No, that longing for more is the image of God put in you. The problem is how we try to fill it.

And what he's saying is we try to fill it with these things. The problem with power, prestige and and possessions

is not that they're wrong. They're not adequate. They will never fill that gap. They will never fill that hole. They'll never be able to truly satisfy. You know what they are? They're like chips and salsa. I've preached this before. Chips and salsa. Everyone loves chips and salsa. They're fun to eat. But the problem is, how many is enough?

And most people is no matter how many you eat, they taste good, but you never truly get satisfied. You never get full. There's two options. You stop and you're still hungry, or you don't stop and then you vomit. And then after you recover from that and brush your teeth, you probably go back and eat more chips and salsa.

And that's the problem, is is you can never get enough. It's never fulfilling in the right way. And and and and and so that's what he's saying is it's not adequate because you know why? It's fall short of the glory of God. And the truth is when you make it the goal instead of the byproduct

and an occasional blessing, when you make that the goal of your life, that's what you're about to gain in those things, it becomes a distraction. It becomes idolatry because now you're making about you.

And we live in a world that does that all the time. And you know what? When it becomes idolatry, it becomes about identity. So it becomes you start focusing on these because it's about your comfort, your security, your identity.

And when it comes to your identity, what happens when it's when it's happening, you feel so great about yourself. When it's not happening, you feel terrible about yourself. And then you go, God, why are you doing this to me? You get really confused. And then if God says, this isn't your identity, you need to live this way, not that way, you get really mad and you're frustrated like, well, thank God. Why did God make me this way? He didn't make you that way.

And and and we run after it. This is why that idea that those what we want is to be looked up to. We want to be liked. We want to have power win a prestige. We want to have stuff. This is why social media is destroying all of you that are of the younger generation. It's why you're depressed.

It's why you struggle. It's because you're always looking you're always looking at this stuff and I'm gonna tell you you don't even realize how it's affecting you. It's not this you gotta find an identity. It's not that you're lost in some different thing. It's not that what you're lost is you're lost in a world where you were looking at the way the world thinks about stuff. You're thinking the same way. And then what you're doing

is you are comparing your worst parts of you to everyone else's projected best parts. And that is making you feel inadequate,

and it's making you feel less than, and it's making you wanna declare things, well, I'm this, and go along with the crowd and be like, I'm gonna be the cool fad thing. This is the thing that makes me look cool and get accepted. I'm gonna claim this identity or I'm gonna claim that identity or I'm gonna run after this. And the problem is what happens

when people don't like what you put out there? What happens when you don't get as many likes that you used to get? What happens when you watch someone in your life? You're like, I can't compete with that because you're living in a fantasy world that's based on ordering life wrongly and it's being projectedly

in projected incorrectly. Because what you see and what think about what you put out there. You put out your best. Some of you do the opposite. That's your way to fit in. Just being real. And you dump all your issues into a post.

You know what's the problem with that is? You're still going after the same thing. You want people to go, yeah. Amen to that. Yeah. Yeah. But there's no real community in that. There's no real help in that. There's no real hope. You're still trying to do a good thing being real for the wrong goal, to be accepted.

That's not how it works. You need real people in your life. You

need real people and you need God who loves you, and he's the one that gave you your identity. You do not find it in your status. You do not find it in your job. You don't find it in who your friends are. You don't find it how much money you have. And guys, young people, you do not find it in your sexuality or your gender identity. You do not find it there.

You never will. That is a lie to keep you distracted and running after the wrong thing. And if you run after the wrong thing, then you think it's the right thing. Then you think me saying this is is being mean and hurting you when I'm trying to help you have freedom.

Because here's the problem with this system. It's not adequate. But guess what else? There are no poor, weak, or unknown successful people by the world's way of doing it.

So if you're poor, you're weak, no one knows you, you are a loser. You're a nothing,

and you don't fit in. And yet you think God's the one that's me. That's unrealistic. When Jesus is trying to say, the only thing God wants from you is to trust me. That's it. That's it. You don't have to prove yourself. You don't have to throw your life out there and hope that God gives you the thumbs up like.

You don't need God, don't need God, please like and subscribe, please. You don't have to do that. You surrender to his love and then that changes everything else. But if we hold on to the lie, we hold on to the unwise way,

you're gonna come to church, try to be a Christian, and then argue and get mad at old guys like me that literally believe the Bible is literally the word of God,

And you're gonna argue yourself right out of a relationship with God

instead of surrendering. That's the problem. The cool thing is the gospel. You can be poor weak unknown. You could be unsuccessful in all the ways the world describes and be the most successful person on the planet. How? Look what John's the rest of this John passage for 60. No. Beyond that. Verse 68. No. 67.

Golly, man. Only done this five times. So after the the disciples these the other disciples left, it says, Jesus turned to the 12 and asked, are you also going to leave? No. He already said he knows everybody what they're gonna do. So he's not saying it like an Eeyore. He wasn't, no one likes me anymore.

Are you guys gonna leave too? He basically is saying what I'm asking us to make. He looks at him, and when you hear what the real goal is, you got to make a decision too.

Today, I'm gonna challenge every one of you to make this decision.

He's like, are you gonna follow that as well? Are you gonna leave too? And Peter gets often maligned. This is one of his finer moments. I love that because I relate to Peter a lot. So I like to know that there's finer moments. He says this, Lord, to whom would we go? Where else would we go?

He goes, you have the words that give eternal life. We believe and know that you are the holy one of God. You see, the reason those followers of them left is because they wanted the gains. They were following Jesus. They believed he was God.

But what they were surprised by was they had their view the way they ordered life. This is what the Messiah is supposed to do. And their biggest problem in this culture was they wanted the Messiah to come bring back the glory of Israel and get rid of their problem, Rome. They wanted a political Messiah.

I'm so glad that all these thousands of years later, we don't do that anymore as followers of Jesus. That was said with the most sarcasm I've ever said in my entire life, by the way.

Some of you, your biggest holdup is not that politics is a bad thing. Not that we don't God created government. It keeps us from spinning off into chaos until he comes back. And I think we should be good citizens. We should get involved in the voting process that we should stand in. Our theology should direct our political ideology, but too many of us is the other way around.

And and and here's the problem with that. You're doing the same thing. You got to tone it down. People do not change from laws. They change from love. I'm just telling you right now. Laws are just to keep us from killing each other till Jesus comes back.

And you want a political Messiah, you think that you're so afraid of where our government's going right now. You know why you're so afraid? I don't like where things are going. I don't like where culture is trending. I don't like it at all, but I'm not terrified of it.

Because I know who's really in control. You are so afraid that darkness we're gonna get enough darkness that the light will lose. You know how stupid that is? Do you know that darkness isn't a thing? You can't measure darkness. It's not an actual thing.

Light is a thing. Light is measurable. You know what the definition of darkness is? The absence of light. Darkness, you can't go there so much darkness the light loses.

You some people are like, if we don't vote this way, if we don't get this going, if we don't do this, the cause is lost. Like like the gospel somehow is like, there's too much darkness. The light can't handle it. You know how you get rid of darkness? You just turn on a light switch.

Quit being so afraid. That's what their problem was. And when they realized, wait a minute, you're not gonna get rid of our problem. You're talking about dying and sacrifice, and you want me to follow you? That's not what I signed up for. That's what I signed up for. We're supposed to just be faithful.

You see, we we need to please God. We need to be faithful because true success is when we know and show the love of Jesus. So the first step is what he was trying to bring. You have to know Jesus' love. Know how much he loves you and accept it. Embrace it. Draw towards it.

Because only then are does it unlock our power to now show it. You reverse this. Some of you think that's what a sermon is always saying. You're saying you better show the love of Jesus so then you will know his love. No. That's legalism. That's frustrating. That's fearful.

It's more of embrace his love. My thing is this. If you truly know how much Jesus loves you, you know how far away from you are, you know how he does love you so much he died on the cross, and he knows how you're built better than you know how you're built, and you can love him and know his love that much,

this should actually start happening automatically. So the question is not if you're saying, okay, I know Jesus, but I'm not showing his love. I don't love what he loves. I don't care about what he cares about. I don't order my life around the gospel and what he's asked me to do.

I'm not telling you to force and just start doing it. I'm telling you the first thing you need to assess, what is wrong with how I see God's love that I don't even wanna do this? Now some of you I want to, I just I can't see out because you're you're afraid because you're stuck. You're trapped by a lie. You just need encouragement to stop listening to lies.

Stop listening to lies. But somebody's like, I just don't wanna do that. I don't see it at all. Well, then you got a problem with how you see God's love. And not to scare you, but to scare you. If you stay there forever, the truth is you're probably not a Christian. That's why you need to make a decision.

And so you need to have true success, those when we know and show. And here's the problem with this. Some of the success what God calls us to to show the love of God in the world standards doesn't look like it's success. Matter of fact, my wife, my oldest daughter, my youngest daughter, my son-in-law,

and my two grandkids are all in Albania right now. Actually, think my youngest daughter, yeah, she should be there about now. They went on a trip. We we've hosted this. Our our care pastor is also Dennis McMaines. He's over his his day job is he's actually over all global workers. That's a new word for missionaries.

And and and for our movement of churches converge worldwide, He's overseas all of the missionaries that are in Europe, North Africa

and The Middle East. And every couple years he tries to gather he goes and personally raise support and and and tries to gather his money to get a place to bring every global worker together to have a rest a break and they bring their whole families. And what he did is they got an entire hotel on the Mediterranean Sea in Albania.

And and how it was paid for is this year people from this church shelled out the $50 to pay for it. So if you give here and you gave, good job. And then we took a team,

which my wife's part she was the advanced team and then my daughter was my youngest daughter, my my oldest daughter. So I went there the advanced team to help set some stuff up for the leader meeting that happens first. Then this starting tomorrow, the rest of the team was supposed to already be there a couple days ago to get rest and get set up.

They were there. They start running an entire children's program for all those kids of those globe workers, which is a great thing to serve because these kids grew up. Most of them have never even lived in The United States, but they're not they're they're they have no country.

It's a hard place to be. They're just as much missionaries. They're living in a world that's not theirs, but they not really have a connection to their own world.

So to love them, we host this brings them all together. They get rest. They get poured into they even get a break. Get and we take care of their kids and run this. That's what we sent them to do. That's an awesome cause, right? Well, they went to go and it turns into a total disaster so far.

My wife was supposed to leave on Sunday. Her flight was delayed so long, and they said, you're not gonna meet your connecting flight, so come back tomorrow. She goes back on Monday. I take her back in. They fly her out to Chicago,

but it got there so late. It missed the connecting flight by thirty minutes. Now everyone's trying to get to the night. They go we can't get you a flight for three days.

So she spent three days in Chicago, which you think, oh, okay. Well, least enjoy that. Well, Canada is deciding to burn itself to the ground right now. And and and and so the the air quality in Chicago is the worst polluted air in the world right now.

So they go to walk around. It's like everyone's wheezing and has headaches and feels terrible. And and so then they finally got there And they were so late that Mason Sutherland, our executive pastor's son, who's at like college,

he came from somewhere else, so he was already there. He was the only one of the advanced team there. He actually watched every of one of the leaders kids for like three days alone. There's supposed to be seven of them. I don't think he's ever gonna have children now. So there's a blessing in that. So

but they got there, and now it starts tomorrow. My daughter had the same thing. She left on Wednesday. It looked like she was gonna leapfrog her mom and everybody, her whole team. But they had the same thing, so they got stuck for three days. So they should be there right around now. That it's gonna be after midnight

there. And they're supposed to start at 8AM with all of these kids, all these kids. They haven't even seen the environment. And then on top of that,

my wife's group, to get the supplies they came up with, all the themes, all the stuff to make it great for these kids, they all everybody took a box of this stuff and packed their secondary luggage with it. So it all went with individual people. My wife's been there now for two days. They haven't even been able to set everything up because guess what? Their supplies never showed up. Their other luggage got here. They have no idea where in the world their other stuff is.

Fortunately, my daughter, their stuff is there, so they're it's gonna show up. So they they only have half of the stuff they're supposed to have

in this unknown world. So this is looking like a desire. They're missing all the days. It's running short. Looks terrible. My wife is even getting discouraged. She's like, why did we even come? This is a mistake. They brought they brought my my grandkids went with my son-in-law who's our worship pastor. And and and guess what? He's

he's never been further than Chicago. That's the that was a big trip for him.

My my my grandson, Ollie, is 10 old. He's the youngest missionary I've ever heard of. Because guess what? They raised all their own support. They had to raise $2,500 for Ollie. Ollie has already successfully raised $2,500 to go serve the Lord. What's your guys' problem? He

can't even talk yet and he's already traveling halfway around the Lord to serve Jesus. But it's going bad.

But in God's eyes, they're already successful. Because he looks at faithfulness.

And they understood that you just trust God and even when it goes wrong, often there's something else God's doing. My wife got up this morning and her attitude, she slept really good and she was getting frustrated at first, but then she realized, you know what? I'd said something to her.

Pat me on the back. No. Actually, what I probably had is she actually listened to it and didn't yell at me. So that was nice. No. And and and what she did is she realized, I said, hey. You ever think that maybe you went because

Mike and them and the grandkids needed you that was good. But if you ever thought that maybe you were supposed to be on the trip for more for what God was gonna do in you than through you because she realized this is really stretched her. See, she's gone to all kinds of crazy places with me

and she realized this time. She's the adult that's been all the places and the other team. Nobody's been anywhere. They've never had to deal with this stuff. And then she realized, oh, wait. I always had Bill. Bill took all the stress. Bill took care of it all. Bill weighed and she goes, I don't even know how you did that. She complimented and go, well, I was just like you on the inside. I'm just better at not showing it on the outside.

I just deal with it. Now on the inside, I'm like, yeah. But you know, on the outside, I'm like, alright. Well, as my mom said, what the h e double hockey sticks else are you gonna do? But I also know that God always does something.

So they're already successful, but this is so cool because last night didn't get this. I texted her early this morning. I go, how's it going? She goes, great. She told me that. And then she said, guess what? We went out to get some dinner down the street. We passed this little store

and this lady just had her own little shop and we saw these cool little things and we got an idea. And we actually have really cool stuff to make up for our lack of supplies to do for this kids ministry.

And he goes in the coolest thing was this woman started crying and hugging and got so excited. She took a picture of the receipt and we got to tell her about why we're doing this and what we're doing. So that was cool. And she was super excited. I go, why? She goes, because again, we spent $400,

which is an inconvenience where we had to spend more money. But $400 in our grand scheme of things, yeah, that's ouch. I guess we wish we didn't have. On top of the $200 I had pay for my wife's supply thing because it was overweight and it never showed up. So there's

$200 out the door. It'll probably show up like in six months or something in the Bermuda Triangle somewhere. And she goes, but it really moved this woman. Well, I looked it up and wrote her back. You know why that woman was so joyful? The average salary in Durres Albanian is $359 a month.

They just plopped down over a month's worth of salary in her store. That was a huge blessing to her and she got to see that it was from Christians.

I bet they never thought that that's what God was gonna do when it turned into a total disaster. But here's the problem. If you don't lean in and trust God when it makes no sense, you'll never have those shopkeeper moments. You'll just sit around striving for what you want and worrying about losing it if you get it

rather than this incredible journey that starts with the love of Christ and then letting the love of Christ flow through you. Not just to you, but let it flow through you because that's what true success is.

And the problem with holding on to the world success is this old statement. I got it from somewhere. I don't know where I got it. So let's pretend I made it up. I'm taking credit for this. These are wise words for me. Nothing succeeds like success. That's a cliche. But equally true is nothing fails like success also.

The problem with running after the world is like I said, power proceeds all this. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong with food that Jesus told. There's nothing wrong. You do need to eat. It's a necessity. It's when you make that the goal instead of the byproduct.

Because what happens when you do that, you make the goal is it's dangerous because it can work.

You end up getting what you want. And when you get what you want, you know what you end up doing? You cease to ask is this good or wise? You cease to ask what does God really want for my life? You cease to talk to God. You you are pleased and that's all that matters. And now your success has led you to failure. You've become the dread pirate Roberts.

You may not have known I shouldn't be a pirate. I shouldn't be a pirate. But then you find out you're good. You start to get what you want. You start to enjoy it. You start to do it. And now you're like, I'll just live a merry and short life. You start to go back to that.

I struggle with this. Before we close, this message throat punched me like there's no tomorrow.

You see, I've noticed lately that that that I've had a hard time with it's been harder to spend time with God. Not that I'm angry, I'm I just don't feel it. And so then I'm sad. So then I start talking to God in my quiet time. God, why don't I feel it? Why don't I feel passionate about? Why does why is this so hard?

And and and as I'm sitting there praying about that, praying about that, having a pity party, like, God, I'm serving you. I'm doing this. Why is this hard? Why is I'm acting like there's something wrong with what God's doing as to why it's hard for me to spend time with him.

I am okay with being honest with God. I have no problem with the fact that I said that because then he spoke to me. It's weird. He always speaks through his word, which which he did, but this is the closest I've ever felt like God actually talking to me. It's almost like I was having this conversation in my head. It might be I need to see a psychiatrist,

but felt like it was the Lord because the other voice was smarter than me. So if I am dual personality, I think I should live in that guy's personality then instead. Because what I was saying is I was whining about it and just worried about it and complaining, and then all of sudden God whispered, hey,

Do you not work out when you don't feel like it? If you wanna know what the answer is, if I only worked out when I felt like it, I will have never worked out.

I'm not that one of you psychos that is a sadistic person that likes the pain. I don't like to feel the burn. I don't like to get uncomfortably sweaty. I don't like my heart rate going up. And now I'm at the age that not only is that hard, everything hurts all the time.

But then I realized fifteen, twenty minutes into it, stuff stops hurting. But I hate that first twenty minutes. And I said, in my head, I thought, well, what does that have to do with this? I'm literally having an argument within my own head. I'm like, what's up? He's like, well,

why do you work out even when you don't feel like it? Well, because I know what I feel like down the road. I know what it feels like after the fact. Yes. And there's what I know is Lord because another thing popped in my head that I never even thought about. He says also,

you work out not for what you're gonna feel, but you work out for the things that you won't feel as well because you worked out. What will you avoid by doing this? Less doctor visits, less pain, less sluggishness, less headaches.

I can still throw punch people because if you get really mad, I can beat you up still.

And I can ouch. And God said and whispered then, why are you making about how you feel about it going in? Why? There's so many things you know that are better that you do. Matter of fact, it's even better when you do it when you don't feel like it because it's more genuine. You chose it.

That's why the Bible says in Hebrews, run this race with endurance. Endurance means it's gonna be tiring sometimes. And he says, how? By throwing off the things that slow you down and the sin that entangles.

What does that mean? That means there's stuff that slows us down that God says isn't sin, but it'll slow you down. You know what it's really saying is? If you slow down enough, you will trip. So wouldn't it be better if I could catch things in my life at the slow down spot rather than I fell on my face spot?

And he goes, how you do it? Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith. And he says, and look to what he did that he suffered on a cross for us. And he says, have you yet given your life in your battle against sin? No. Jesus did that.

So we need to go back to his love. And remember, that's that's what I needed to learn. I needed to learn that in the stories like that. I gotta embrace your love. And I just gotta do this and it doesn't matter. But you know what I realized? The reason I think I was really struggling with the feeling

was because I was leaning into this. I was sitting there and going, hey, Rock Point's been successful. Things are going well. I mean, people call me. Hey, give us advice on how to be a leader. And and I think whenever that happens, you get success. You start getting complacent.

You start slowing down. You start thinking, you know, like and I stopped forgetting that every moment I need to rely on God, not on just the my skill set. And and and and so it just gets easier to slow down. Well, if I slow down long enough, I'm gonna trip it up.

I think I slowed down because I thought, yeah. There's always problems in leading. But you know what? The fact that our two biggest problems right now are one, we don't have enough room. That's not a bad problem to have. And secondly,

we have a problem with where the economy has gone and how expensive things go. You're gonna hear about this more. But guess what? We have enough money to build the children's building. But if we want to knock the walls out and actually expand our special needs ministry, which I'm wearing their camp or camp shirt for, which was awesome, and our director sitting in here.

This might be scary news to you. We can't afford to do that unless I get 2 and a half more million dollars from you guys. We can build the building, but we can't get the other stuff. So, yeah, I need to challenge you. If you don't give, give. But because you wanna be a part of pleasing God,

you wanna be able to celebrate. Because everyone who clapped when I said our giving accomplished this overseas, I guarantee the ones that clapped the hardest are those of you that give. Because if you didn't give, you have nothing to do with it.

We have a chance in this community. We have a problem with too many people. You know why? I'm not fluff talking, you guys. I don't sit there and and and candy coat it, but yet we can't. We don't have enough room around. You know why? Because when the light switch goes on, the darkness goes away.

And it's the same in your own life, in your own heart. So, yeah, I slowed down because those were our biggest problems, and they're really not that big of a deal.

Matter fact, this church this size, if everyone in this room I think there's enough people in this room that have enough resource that if you surrendered and decided to sacrificially give, there's probably a million dollars in this room right now. But that means everyone has to get serious.

It's really not that big of a deal. But whenever I get that way, I slow down, and maybe you do too. And I think that's the problem with America. I think too many American Christians are you're fat and you're happy. So when you hear a real challenge, you're threatened. Don't listen to those lies.

Don't get stuck like these people in John. Don't get stuck with, well, what about this? What about if your answer to every time there's a challenge to trust God and surrender to him fully and go after the gospel mission that we have, if your answer is always, yeah, but guess who you are in this story?

You're on the wrong side of the love of God at that point. Embrace him. Embrace that. Otherwise, you know what? The the dread pirate Roberts, he he became a mocker. He did all these good things. He reluctantly became a pirate.

But yet he leaned into it because success fails. You get sucked into it. And he once, when I was asked about this, just said, listen, I don't care. I'm gonna live a merry but short life.

And you're like, that's dumb. But how many of us are living right now? You come to church, you say a Christian, but you are what you're doing with your time, your talent, your treasure, and everything you're doing is you are making about you and making you comfortable, and you are living a merry but short life. Because everything you do that's spent on you and doing is not eternal. It won't last.

And if you don't accept the love of God, your life ends. And it's gonna end. It's gonna stop. It might be merry, but it'll be short. And I think eternal satisfaction with the God who created you is a lot better than a short but merry life. And he got what he wished for.

Because he had the hubris that when he was attacked, being tracked down by a British

warship that was tasked with finding him and stopping him, he decided to not run but to fight. And when he pulled up alongside it and fought it instead of surrendering or running, the first cannon blast from that British ship gave him the epic throat punch of all throat punches you don't come back from. It actually took his throat out and decapitated him.

And he died in a he only lived as a pirate for three years. He was the most successful pirate that's ever existed, and he died. He got all the gains of the world. He got wealthy. He got people. He had power. He had prestige. People feared him. People people followed him. He had money, and then he died headless,

and his crew just kicked his body overboard and kept fighting. Is that how you wanna end?

You wanna end that way? Married but short and then forgotten and it doesn't matter anymore and there's nothing after?

You can end with a cannon or you can live forever by going to the cross. It's your choice.

But God's view of success is very different than ours. And if you don't address that in your life, you're gonna be very confused about what it means to be a Christian. I believe that is why the night before Jesus was crucified, he instituted this thing we call communion.

You see, he took the bread and broke it. It says, my body broken for you. He then took the cup. He was actually explaining exactly what he was talking about in John six. You're not really gonna eat me. And even taking this isn't what saves you. He says, do this in remembrance of what I'm about to do.

And you know what's funny about that? This is the thing he wants us to gather together and remember. You realize, especially in the Roman times, him dying on a cross in the world's view of things, especially in the Roman view of that could not be failure of more epic proportions.

Romans had a hard time believing Jesus was God when they knew he got crucified. They're like, only losers get crucified. Only slaves and rebels and and and criminals and thieves. Roman citizens don't even get crucified. They can do the most heinous thing, and they just get stabbed to death. But

if you get crucified so it's like he did what in the world is the most epic loss of all time. He failed. He had no success until three days later because he has a different answer. And our answer is found at the cross. So as we take this, I'm gonna give us about thirty seconds to a minute to reflect.

Because why he has us do this is to remember success is different in my eyes. And why I want you to remember this moment is because this moment is where I showed you a love like no other love that has ever existed. And that's what you need. You need to know my love. You don't live for my love. You live from it.

So what do you need to talk about guys like God? That's what a pleasing life is. To please God is not to perform for God. To please God is to trust his love, and then let his love transform you into someone that goes and loves also, that lives your life ordered around the gospel. That's what it means.

So just take a minute before we take this together and reflect on that and just let the holy spirit have a conversation in your head like he did with me, and then we'll close.

So he took the bread and he broke it and said, this is my body. Take and eat.

He then took the cup and said this is my blood spilled for you for the forgiveness of sins. Take and drink.

Lord, I just thank you that this all starts and ends with your love.

Lord, my I don't have the adequate words to express what your word is trying to say on this. But Lord, I know that it's your spirit that brings life. So I simply pray that your spirit has spoken to us here. And Lord, I pray that you would empower each and every one of us in this room or online

to live a life that is pleasing to you. What that means is to choose to be your child, to choose to to find satisfaction in your love, to accept that sacrifice, to embrace your love, and then let the power of that spirit and your love now flow through us.

Let us please you. I pray this in the mighty, mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Hey, guys. Love you.

Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.