Never Enough x YTH Takeover | Week 6

Have anyone seen the doctor Rick progressive commercials? The ones where the the the guy comes in, well one person here we go, but where he comes in he helps people not turn into their parents. There we go, I knew you've seen it but I had the realization that I'm turning into my dad

and there was a few things that he did that would just drive me insane. One of the things is he would get home from a long day of work and you know in a family of five kids the TV remote was always missing

and he'd get home and he'd be like where's the TV remote And then he'd give us this full on lecture about how it only takes three extra steps to take the remote and put it right next to the TV. Saw some of you nodding your heads, you're feeling it on another level in here. The second thing that he did

was he had the sixth sense for the thermostat. Like, he knew exactly when someone touched the thermostat. And I remember he would keep that thing at 80 degrees even in the summer. And the problem with that is I shared a room with my little brother and we were up in the the the top room facing the afternoon sun.

So I would fall asleep sweating every night in the summer. And I would get out of bed and I would creep over to the thermostat and I would just barely drop it a degree. And he'd just pop out of his room and go, hey, why'd you touch that? He's like, you know how much it costs to air condition this house?

I'm like, good night. He like, how did he see me? And then and then the the last thing that my my parents did is, you know, with five kids, the only car I swear we owned growing up was a minivan. And I hated it. Like I hated rolling around in that loser cruiser.

Especially pulling up to high school, you don't wanna be getting out of the electric doors and all that stuff. I'm like, mom, dad, just drop me off around the block and I'll walk in the summer. I don't care. I don't wanna be in that thing. Right? But then things changed. I became a dad, three girls. I've got a mortgage.

And one thing I've noticed is my girls don't put the TV remote up back by the TV. So I come home from a long day and I'm starting to give them that same lecture. Girls, you need to put the TV remote right next to the TV. Okay? We have three of them. They shouldn't be missing. It's not that hard. And then

my wife, she loves to turn the air conditioning down during the hours of three p. M. And six p. M. Babe, you can't do that. Those are peak hours. That's expensive. We don't have money for that. And then the last thing,

we were shopping around for a new car after we had our third baby girl and we're looking for some rear air and all that stuff. And we're like, yeah, we're gonna be SUV people because SUV people are cool.

So we started shopping around for some SUVs and you know, looked at our budget and all this stuff and wasn't really finding anything. How many of you know your boy is a proud owner of a minivan up here and it is the best vehicle that I've ever owned. Okay? In the front seat alone, it has 12 cup holders.

Holla at you boy. Okay? It's amazing. What I learned is that life happens fast. Life moves so quickly. And before you know it, I ended up in this place realizing I'm turning to my dad and asking the question, how did I get here? How did I get here? How did I turn into him?

And and really I think the same thing can happen to us spiritually as well. Because if we're not intentional with our faith, we can start to drift and end up in this place where we're going, how did I end up here? How did I become this person?

And really that's what we're gonna learn in our scripture today is really this idea that we need to follow God closely

before life fades quickly. Over the course of this series, never enough, we've been exploring these different areas in life, these different things that we think are gonna satisfy us, but they don't truly satisfy us and they they they don't fulfill that God centered hole in our hearts.

And so really we've spent the whole series exploring topics like how money doesn't satisfy when it's placed in God's spot, politics, work, all these different things. Solomon's been warning us against not pursuing those things and trying to make it the God thing. Well today, he's gonna finally answer the question,

what is worth our pursuit in life? What does truly satisfy? And so if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Ecclesiastes 12, chapter 12 verse one. Give me a thumbs up if you've had your coffee yet today. Throw a double thumbs up if you've had two coffees today.

These are my people. There's a special place in heaven for you. I'm convinced.

Here's what it says, we're gonna pick up in verse one. It says this, don't let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old and say, life is not pleasant anymore.

Remember him before the light of the sun, moon, and stars is dim to your old eyes and rain clouds continually darken your sky. Remember him before your legs, the guards of your house, start to tremble. Before your your shoulders, the strong men stoop.

Remember him before your teeth, your few remaining servants stop grinding. Before your eyes, the women looking through the windows see dimly. We need to break pastor Bill out of captivity to give us an object lesson of what this looks like. Some of y'all will get that later.

It says, remember him before the door to life's opportunities is closed and the sound of work fades. Now you rise at the first chirping of the birds, but then all their sounds will grow faint. And that's so true as you get older, you start waking up earlier and earlier against your will.

One thing I've noticed is that the first chirping of the birds, those are our three toddlers, you know? Like they come in at 5AM and they're like ready to go for the day. I'm like, you know it's you're allowed to sleep in. Right? They wake us up And, it says this, remember him before you become

fearful of falling and worry about danger in the streets, before your hair turns white like an almond tree in bloom. Looking out across this place, I don't see a lot of almond tree blossoms. I do see some bald heads, so we got that rocking for us. You drag along without energy like a dying grasshopper.

Some of you feel seen right now walking in church that way. Right? Everything hurts. And the caper berry no longer inspires sexual desire, which apparently was a thing back then. Remember him before you near the grave, your everlasting home when the mourners will weep at your funeral. Yes,

remember your creator now while you are young, before the silver cord of life snaps and the golden bowl is broken. Basically saying wealthy people at that time had these lanterns that were connected to this metal string

and there was a bowl. And so they're basically saying if that string, it breaks, the bowl is gonna smash and your life's gonna be over. Meaning death comes for the rich as does the poor.

So don't wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well, which water was an ancient picture of life. And so basically saying if you can't get more water out of the well, then your life is over. For then the dust will return to the earth and the spirit will return to God

who gave it. Now what what's Solomon getting at here? Because on first glance, he kinda seems like a little bit like a party pooper. Am I right? It's like wah wah wah. Thanks Solomon. Thanks for telling me all the things that are gonna go wrong, right, with me physically.

What I what I think he's trying to get across to us today is how easy it is to put off following God to later in life. They gotta have a lot of conversations with youth that are getting ready for college and they're like, yeah, I eventually

want to you know follow God and get plugged in and start reading my Bible but I wanna experience the college party life. I only have the college experience first and I don't want my relationship with God to damper that, which oddly enough was kind of my story.

And then they get into their first jobs and they're busy and they're trying to work themselves up the corporate ladder and they're just they have they feel like they have no time and then all of a sudden, you know, relationship with Christ goes to the back burner because they're saying, oh, you know, when I just get to this position or this level, then I'll finally prioritize my faith.

But then they get married and have young kids and there's young kids running around, and you don't get the time that you normally have, and you're going, oh man, I don't I haven't found a good time to spend time with the Lord because I have kids running around. And so when they get a little bit older,

that's when I'll start following God closely. That's when I'll start serving and living God's way. And maybe for for some of you, you're in this place where you've started a business

and the business is starting to take off and you're busy, you know, running that business and doing all the things and you're going, hey, God, I'll live your way, but I just gotta get this business to the next level.

I just gotta get it self sustaining for a little bit. And what do we do? We keep pushing off following God closely until one day we wake up, our knees hurt, our back is killing us, we have a almond tree blossom, if you're lucky, which apparently to our youth, they don't think I'm gonna make it that far.

They've told me after I came back from paternity leave, they go, tell me why your hairline gets worse after every kid. That's what I gotta deal with guys. I'm like, love you guys too, you know?

But Solomon isn't just warning us about the things that are gonna happen to our bodies as we get older, he's saying, as we get older, we become someone. We turn into someone. And he kind of alluded to two types of aging people. The first group of people are the people who forgot God and are bitter.

Saying things like life's unpleasant anymore. Have you met some of these people that are just frustrated at life and the circumstances?

They're frustrated at the people in their lives and everything is everyone else's fault and that's the way that's the reason why they are the way they are. And they've gotten bitter because they've forgotten God, they pushed off following him, they haven't made them Christ the center of their lives.

And then there's a second group that remembered God

and put him at the center and those are the people that got better over time. Have you met some of these people that have Jesus at the center and they've gone through some crazy things in life but it just seems like they keep getting stronger on the other side? They're the most generous, encouraging,

loving people to be around. And I think all of us

would say, yeah, we wanna be that better person. But there's some of us that are sitting here and we're bitter. We're bitter at life about what's happened to us. We're even maybe bitter at God. And I just wanna encourage you that it's not too late to become the better person in Christ.

That no matter what you've gone through, we serve a big God who's a redeeming God, that he can redeem any situation. Any heart can be renewed. He'll give you a new spirit and take you on a new path to pursue him and experience his love so that you can become more like him every day.

I think all of us would say, yeah, I wanna be the better person, but it doesn't happen by default. It happens by design. And so what does that look like? Well, takes remembering God.

And what does that mean? Remember just to like to think about him? I wrote the definition down here. Remembering God doesn't mean just thinking about God. It means paying attention to and considering him with the intention of obeying. I would argue that that's the definition of what it looks like to follow God closely.

And so there's a few things that as we conclude the book here of Ecclesiastes

that Solomon's gonna give us. What does it practically look like to follow God? We're gonna pick up in in verse eight here. He says this, everything is meaningless, says the teacher, completely meaningless. Basically talking about, right? We've that's what this whole series has been about. Everything under the sun

is a vapor and we can't bring that with us into eternity. And so he goes back to kind of the original

statement of the book. But then he keeps going and I love this. He says, keep this in mind, the teacher was considered wise and he taught the people everything he knew. He listened carefully to many proverbs studying and classifying them. The teacher sought to find just the right words to express truths clearly.

It's like you ever heard someone talk in third person and pump themselves up? That'd be like me going up, hey, you know that preacher today? He's a pretty wise dude. He organized his sermon and the truths in his sermon and made it so applicable. It's like, okay, buddy.

And he's humble too, right? Like he just had to throw that in there for everyone. But then he goes on to give the reasoning behind why he's collected these sayings in Proverbs and everything. He says, The words of the wise are like cattle prods, painful but helpful.

Their collected sayings are like a nail studded stick with which a shepherd drives the sheep.

But my child, let me give you some further advice. Be careful for writing books is endless and much study wears you out. What is he basically trying to say there? He's basically trying to say it's a good thing to gather more information. It's a good thing to read Christian books and listen to Christian podcasts

and gain more information about your faith. But the issue becomes when we only sit in information and we never let information turn into transformation in Christ. He's saying the reason why we should be seeking after the truth

is that it it doesn't just sit as head knowledge, but actually drops into your heart, and it transforms you and makes you more like Christ. And so he's like, that's what I'm trying to do here. Like a shepherd with a nail studded stick. Right? Like, I'm gonna tell you the truth. And the truth is gonna hurt sometimes,

but boy does it help us become more like Christ. He's saying that's what that stick's purpose is, is to nudge you and guide you onto the path that God has for you so that you can become everything that he's created you to be. And then he concludes the book here.

And this is he doesn't want you to miss this, so make sure you pay attention to this last paragraph here. He says, that's the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion. Fear God and obey his commands for this is everyone's duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.

And so he gives us, right, those three things. What does it look like to follow God closely? And here's the first one, is that we need to learn to fear him.

Now you might be sitting there and you might have heard this concept before and it can be a little confusing of going,

wait, Jeff are you telling me I have to be afraid of God? Is that the point? Like I'm supposed to be afraid of him and and and what what does that look like? But fear of God isn't being afraid of him, it's being afraid of being away from him. Having the fear of God, it's not a scare tactic, it's an intimacy tactic.

It's God's way of revealing himself to us so that we have the right view of who he is. Because he knows we can't get close to an image and a version of God that we want him to be. We get closer to who he actually is. And so throughout scripture, he's revealed himself. His physical presence revealed himself

to people from Genesis to Revelation so that they would see him for who he really was. And they would draw close, not draw away. And so we see this in Exodus chapter 20. He reveals himself to the people of Israel, and he kind of warns them. He goes, hey,

I'm gonna reveal like my every the fullness of who I am to you. And so he preps them. I'm gonna come down on this mountain. You guys are gonna experience me for who I really am. And so he kind of warns Moses. He gives them some guidelines for the people and all this stuff. Well, God's presence, his manifested

physical presence comes down. The glory and the majesty of who he is. And the people freak out in terror. Like, Moses, don't let God talk to us or else we'll die. And Moses goes, hey guys, you guys are missing the point here.

God didn't do that to scare you away. He actually did that to draw you close. And look at his his response. He says, don't be afraid. Moses answered them, for God has come in this way to test you so that your fear of him will keep you from sinning. As the people stood in the distance,

Moses approached the dark cloud where God was. So at first glance, it almost sounds like Moses is talking out of both sides of his mouth. It's like, don't be afraid, but also fear him. And it's like, well, which what is he trying to do here?

Well, he's breaking down the difference between the spirit of fear, being afraid of God, and having the fear of God, which means a reverence, a worship, a respect, realizing that he is the one true God, that he is all powerful and all knowing, and he's nothing like any of the other gods in the nations around him.

And so when they see God for who who he truly is, they're not gonna be tempted to run to the idols and the false gods of this world. Because they'll be standing in awe of who he truly is and going, I'm not gonna let anything get in the way of following him.

And so the the goal of having the fear of God is that we would behold him for who he truly is. But the problem with a lot of us is that we haven't developed the fear of God and instead of beholding him, we start to belittle him. I'll give you an example. Have you seen these mini Jesus's? They're everywhere.

In and out, Sam's Club, like they're everywhere. I'm like, who's putting these out? Whoever it is, they're doing a good job. My girls got ahold of them and they brought them home and like, oh, he's he's so cute. And they're walking around, I love baby Jesus, look at him. And they're putting them in their purses and you know, walking around, just carrying them around everywhere. And I was like, that's that's pretty cute that my girls do that.

What's not cute is when us as adults have that same view of Jesus in our lives. I think some of us right we go to the happy hour with our coworkers and

you know, we have this view of Jesus. We're like, oh, I don't want him to see what I'm gonna do and the conversations that I'm gonna have. So I'm just gonna go ahead and put him away for right now.

If someone brings him up, don't worry. I'll I might bring him back out and say something. But other than that, I'll just kind of keep them there for now. For others, maybe you've been having some marital issues

at home and you go to work and there's that one coworker that, you know, makes you feel good about yourself and you like talking to them and then the talking turns to flirting, and then what do you end up doing? We end up putting Jesus in our pocket and going, Jesus, I don't want you to see this.

Let me just have a little bit of fun, and I'll break you out on Sunday, don't worry about it. For others, you got that phone the the friend that you get on the phone with that loves to gossip, and they might even hide it under, hey, we've gotta pray for this person. Uh-oh.

And you get on the phone with them and and you start doing the same thing. You start gossiping and talking poorly behind that person's back. For that conversation, like, Jesus, I need to put you away for for a little bit. Okay? After this conversation's over, I'll I'll break you back out. Maybe for others

on the road, you got the Rock Point bumper sticker, but you get frustrated, Someone cuts you off and you know, you're like, hey Jesus, I need to say a mouthful to this person right now. Let me go ahead and put you away for now because I don't want you to hear this. There's gonna be some foul language here.

We leave them there until Sunday, until we break them back out. Right? Think too many of us, Jesus is a side dish in our lives. He's not the main course. He's not the authority in our lives. For a lot of us we see Jesus still as a lovesick boyfriend or as a genie in a bottle. We can go to him when we need something,

but not Lord of our lives. Not sitting on the throne of our lives. And when Jesus isn't in his proper place, chaos ensues. We start to think that we are God. We start calling the shots in our lives and run to the things of the world and try to find substitutes

for God in our lives, and we bring ruin and consequence into our lives. And so we need to be able to develop a healthy view of who God is. But how do we do that? Well, we don't have to guess. We have the word of God. He's revealed himself in his word to us so that we can have an accurate view of who he is.

And when we read the word in context, we see who God truly is. He's an uncreated creator that spoke the universe into existence. He's parted seas, he's defeated giants, he's raised the dead back to life. He is perfectly holy, he's all powerful, he is what you and I are not. And when people have come into contact

with the fullness of who God is, think of Isaiah. Isaiah says, woe is me, a man of unclean lips. Basically saying, I'm doomed because God is so holy and perfect. John when he's come into the presence of God, one of Jesus' closest followers, he had an encounter with God and he laid on the ground like a dead man.

That's who our God is. He's not this little Jesus. He is the king of all kings and the Lord of all lords, and he deserves our respect and our worship. But here at the same time,

He's all powerful. He's known as an un or an all consuming fire in in scripture. But yet he's a loving father who pursues you at your worst moments, in your mess, in your chaos. He's patient, he's kind. He pursues us in love with his grace and his mercies are new every morning.

And we see this picture of a father who when we're straying away, he just wants to bring his kids back home. And when we have that view of who God is, man, it changes everything. Changes everything.

Changes how we walk through our our our daily lives and go through the storms of life. When I know that God, the all powerful uncreated creator is on my team, nothing can stand on my path. He's gonna strengthen me to get through the day, through the storm, through whatever you're going through.

And that should create a gratitude that the God who placed the stars in the sky and the planets and created everything that we see cares about you and me. That should create a a gratitude and a awe of who he is. And so let me ask you this question, where does your view of God need to change today? How can you develop

a healthy fear of who God is? I would just challenge you, whenever you spend time with the Lord this week, whether it's on the hiking trail, whether it's in your backyard, whether it's in your living room.

Take ten minutes, get in the word, discover who he truly is, but sit ten minutes and just think about his greatness, his majesty, his glory, his love, And just reflect on it and just thank him

that that God cares about you and what you're going through. So when we understand that, we develop a fear of God that brings us closer. We follow God closely, but also it leads to us obeying him. And that's the second thing in following God closely.

We need to learn how to obey him. Jesus says in John fourteen fifteen, if you love me, you'll obey me.

If we truly desire to be close to to to God, we're gonna live out his words in our lives. We're gonna follow after him closely and take what's what he said in the word and live it out. But the problem with so many of us, we have the wrong view of what obedience is. A lot of us have grown up in churches and backgrounds

and in families where what we've been taught about God is you need to follow the rules, and if you don't, then God hates you. And if you if you're not this perfect person, and if you don't do all the right things, then God is gonna completely reject you and push you away. And so what that's led a lot of us to

is we're just in this mode where we're just trying to earn God's love. We're just trying so hard, and we're trying to be better. And I almost said do gooder. Yikes. We're trying to be better and try as hard as we can to earn our way up to God. And the reality is is that almost every other religion

on this planet, that's how it's structured. If you do enough good things and follow the rules, then God will love you. This is the opposite of the good news of Jesus. The good news of Jesus starts with realizing that there is nothing that we could do to earn our way to God. We were hopelessly, wickedly depraved.

And no matter how many of our good works that we can gather up, they'll never earn God's love. It can't be earned. It can it only can be received.

And it's by Jesus. He didn't we didn't earn our way up to him. He came down to us, lived the life that you and I couldn't live, died the death that only he could die to pay the price for our sins, raised from the grave to give us life and life to the fullest in him. It's not by trying harder,

but it's by trusting His love more. It's by trusting that, and it's not by my effort, but it's because of His. It's not a bunch of rules. It's actually a new way of living in Him, where he puts a new heart in you, a new spirit. He gives you a new identity, puts you on a new path following him. That's

what obedience looks like, is just responding to God's love for you. Saying, God, I trust you. I trust your love. I trust that you know what's best for me, that you wanna see me thrive. You're not trying to ruin my fun, you're actually trying to protect me. And that's what that word obey means in Hebrew that we see. It means

it's this word shamar, which means to watch, to keep, to preserve, to guard. That's what you're doing When you trust God and obey him and live out the words in your life, you're safeguarding your life from the lies, the deception, and the destruction of the enemy. You're protecting yourself from the consequences

that sin can have in your life. Because the enemy has come to kill, steal, and destroy. God's come to give you life and life to the fullest. But it takes trusting him, trusting his way that it's the best way. God's not trying to ruin your fun when he tells you to keep sex in the context of marriage.

He just knows the damage that it does when you take it outside of the context of marriage. He doesn't wanna see you hurt. For others, he calls us to forgive, Not because he's siding with the other person, but because he knows that bitterness will hold you back in life. You won't be able to move forward.

He tells us to give, not because he needs something from you, but he doesn't want greed to consume you and and idols to just completely take over your life. And so we need to learn to trust him, trust his way. But some of you in here, you're like, it's hard. It's hard to obey God. It's not easy.

And you're not alone. I mean, Solomon, who writes this, had over 700 wives. He worshiped other gods for a little bit there. Like, he's given us the old do as I say, not as I do speech. Right? And Paul, Paul says, you know, who wrote the new the laws of the New Testament, he said, the things that I wanna do, I don't do.

Things that I don't wanna do, I do. And he basically says, who's gonna rescue me? Who's gonna rescue me? Like, I need help. Well, the good news for you is that if you've placed your faith in Jesus, you the Holy Spirit lives on the inside of you, and the Holy Spirit's name is the helper, the advocate.

And so it's impossible for us to live this supernatural life in our natural ability. You need help from the Holy Spirit. He can come alongside you and help you live God's way. One of the ways that I've discovered this is at the gym. I hate going to the gym, by the way. You could probably tell.

And by the way, if you're one of those people that walks out at 05:36 a. With your gym bag after a full workout heading to work, you people are nuts. Okay? You guys are freaks, but in a good way. And I wish I was you. But anyways, I roll in, 06:30 bed head, not fully awake. I just hate working out.

But a game changer for me is when I got a workout partner. My brother-in-law, He came in to save the day and you know, he would write all our workouts and he would always text me the night before, hey bro, you ready for tomorrow? I'm so excited. Like, no, not excited about tomorrow. But I'll go if you're there.

So over time we started to get more and more disciplined and consistent at the gym and the weirdest thing happened is after getting a little bit more disciplined at the gym it actually gave birth to desire. And I actually started desiring going to the gym. Like this is weird, doesn't suck as much.

But then after a while of being disciplined and gaining that desire, the craziest thing happened. It eventually led to delight. Yeah. I actually started enjoying working out. It was the weirdest thing. I'm like, this is awesome. I feel better. I'm a little bit stronger.

Like I sleep better. Like it just was the coolest thing. But a lot of it is I wouldn't have gotten there without my brother-in-law helping me, meeting me at the gym, helping me get stronger. That's the Holy Spirit with us, you guys.

He wakes up with us in the more or he's he's awake with us in the morning. And he's going, hey, you ready to get a little stronger today? I know what you're gonna face today. It's not gonna be easy, but if you trust me and trust the the word of God, we're gonna do this together. And after a little bit, you're not you know, you might not like it at first, but eventually you're gonna start desiring doing what God has told you to do. And then eventually you'll start to experience

the life to the fullest of living God's way, and you'll start to delight in doing what he says. So I just wanna encourage you today. Trust the Holy Spirit,

lean on his power in your life, and watch what he can do. I just wanna read the probably one of the most encouraging verses in the entire Bible, at least it is to me. Philippians two twelve says this, work hard to show the results of your salvation,

obeying God with deep reverence and fear. So that's our part. We're supposed to stand in awe of who God is, right? And work hard, work from God's love, not for it. But check this out, as we show up, for God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. Isn't that encouraging?

As I trust him, as I stand in awe of who he is, I can lean on God to help me do the things that I didn't think were possible in my life. So how about you? What's an area of your life that doesn't line up with the word of God? How can you search the scriptures

and apply start to apply it and practice in your life, but then don't forget that you have help and invite God in and go, God, I need your help. I need your power in this situation to forgive this person. I need your help to have a good attitude in this situation, and watch how God shows up in your life.

And as we continue to fear God and obey Him, we're gonna grow closer to Him. But here's the reality, we won't do those things if we don't truly know him. And I'm not talking about knowing about him or just coming to church. I'm talking about truly surrendering your life, every part of it, to Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Because when we truly know him, we realize what's at stake in our lives. Look what verse 14 says. It says, God will judge us for everything we do,

including every secret thing, whether good or bad. Now that's a sobering thought, isn't it? But it doesn't we don't have to stand there before Jesus is ashamed if we know what's coming. We can get excited about it if today we choose to truly know him. One of my one of the worst days of my entire life was

my parents were paying for my college tuition. And I was in the last semester, and I took an online opera class. Some of y'all look at me like, why'd you do that? Right? It was way harder than I thought. I slacked off. I ended up failing online opera. Don't know which one's more embarrassing,

signing up to take online opera or failing it. But I had to call my mom on the phone who I knew was graciously paying for my college tuition. I had to tell her, hey mom, I'm actually not gonna graduate on time because I failed opera. She handled that moment way better than anyone probably should have. But

I stood in that moment on the phone with my mom. I was ashamed because I knew that I slacked off the whole time in that class. And that's what led to this moment. Solomon, what he's trying to get through to us today is he doesn't want us to have that moment standing before Jesus one day. Because all of our lives,

that's what that's what it's gonna lead to, that moment where we face that test where Jesus, the righteous judge, is gonna sit down on his throne and he's gonna ask us two questions. The first one being, did you accept me as Lord and Savior? It's called the the great white throne and that determines

where we spend eternity. And if we've truly accepted him, surrender to him, not just prayed a prayer, but truly made him the center of our lives and surrender to him, God is gonna look at us through the lens of what Jesus did on the cross. He paid the price for all of our sins and he's gonna see

righteousness and he's gonna say, welcome to eternity with me. But the opposite is also true. If we've lived for ourselves and we lived as God and we've pushed God away for our lives and we've rejected him, God's gonna eventually,

at that moment, give us over to our desires to be God, which means eternal separation from him one day. And so that's the first test that we face. Here's the reality, knowing that,

knowing where we're all headed, knowing, we're headed to that moment we're gonna face Jesus face to face, how does that change things in your life? For some that have given their lives to Jesus as Lord and Savior, how does your view of other people change? Because it should. There's

so many people that God has placed in our lives, your workplaces, in your neighborhoods that that that don't know Jesus yet. You could be the vessel that God works through to see that person saved one day. But you've gotta use your testimony boldly. You gotta start living today like it's your last.

And that leads me to the second thing that God is gonna ask of us, is what did you do with the life that I gave you? How did you steward your time, your talent, your treasure, and your testimony? Did you use those things, the gifts, the abilities, the life that I gave you? Did you do that to build my eternal kingdom

or your kingdom that's gonna pass away one day? Some of us, this should be a wake up call because we've been living too distracted, living for ourselves, living for our own pleasure, trying to accumulate all these things that we think are gonna make us happy, but never satisfy us.

Well, there's moments that are passing us by with loved ones, people in our lives. There's moments to give toward mission trips to see the gospel advance. There's moments to pour into the younger generation that God could use you to make heaven crowded. How are you using your time, talent, treasure, and testimony today?

Because here's the reality, at the end of our lives, you know what's not gonna matter? What's not gonna matter is the vacations that we went on, the four zero one k, our four zero one k, the square footage of our house, the

position at work, those things are gonna fade away. The only thing that's gonna matter is did you have Jesus at the center and did you live for him? Amen. And so we need to wake up. We need to start living on mission.

If we have unconfessed sin in our lives that's holding us back from becoming the person that God's created us to be and living on mission from him, the time is now to bring it to the light, to talk to the trusted people in our lives, to start putting Jesus at his rightful place in our lives,

which is on the king, which is king of our lives. And one of the people that I've noticed that did this so well, I was at eighth grade dinner celebration two weeks ago in our youth ministry, and we had a volunteer that understood this. First of all, it was his birthday,

and he was celebrating it at this eighth grade dinner with a bunch of middle schoolers. It's a pretty bold choice. But it was so cool. We had this kind of we got to sing to him and he we got him a cake and candles and all these things and it was just the whole eighth grade class was just singing

happy birthday to him and just he was just that the biggest smile. He blew out his candles and I walked over to him. You okay, Huff?

I thought something happened. You're doing great, bro. Can we give it up for him? He's doing an awesome job. He's been with me all weekend doing an amazing job. Where was I? Oh yeah, candles. So we blew out his candles And I went up to him and I just kind of jokingly asked him, I said, Hey, what's your birthday wish?

And he looked at me and he gave me like probably way more of a profound answer than that question deserved. But he said, You know what? I don't have one. I'm like, what? He goes, I don't have one. He goes, I don't need anything else.

I said, Jeff, there's always gonna be a bigger house. There's always gonna be a nicer car. There's always gonna be more money that that I could have, but I realized that those things don't satisfy. He said, you know what's changed my life? It's my relationship with Jesus. So I used to be so negative and experiencing

life. I just get so negative about what was happening to me. He said, God got ahold of me. He gave me a new heart. He goes, it doesn't mean that I'm perfect. I still make mistakes. I still get negative. But he said, I made a decision years ago that I'm gonna choose Jesus and I'm gonna choose to be grateful in every situation.

I'm gonna allow God to work in my life and he said, you know, you know what life is about? And he said, I get to be here on my birthday with the middle schoolers that I've walked alongside them as their leader for over half of their lives, encouraging them, praying for them, pointing them to Jesus.

He goes, that's how I wanna spend my time before I go meet Jesus one day. I don't know how many years I have left, but I'm done wasting time. Today is the day that I'm gonna start following God closely before my life fades quickly because that's what life is about. Nothing else in this world satisfies. Only Jesus.

So how about you? What's your step that you need to take to get closer to him today? For some of you in the room, you've never surrendered your lives to Jesus as Lord and savior. I wanna give you that opportunity in this moment. And you can simply just pray this prayer with me. Jesus, I've walked away.

I've rebelled against you. I've sinned against you. But Jesus, thank you for paying the ultimate price on the cross for me and dying in my place and raising to life to give me life. I believe that you are the way, the truth, and the life. You're the only way to salvation. And so today,

I give you my life. You can just pray that simple prayer. Jesus, I give my life to you. It's the beginning of this lifelong relationship that you get to build, being by your side, experiencing life to the fullest. Jesus,

I give my life to you. If you prayed that prayer, would you just be so bold and shoot up your hands so we can see it? Anyone else? I see you. Anyone else? Hold it high so we can see it. It's the best decision that you can make. There's hands going up all over this place. Anyone else? This is your moment.

Let's place Jesus at the center as Lord and savior of your life. Anyone else? Jesus, I give my life to you. Amazing.

Well, let's just I wanna pray for us and we're gonna go ahead and celebrate what God did in this place and over the course of this weekend. Would you join me in prayer today? Lord, thank you for who you are, God. Thank you that you are the king of all kings. You are the lord of all lords. And God, help us to see you for who you truly are, God. All powerful, all knowing,

but God perfectly loving. That God, when when when you're at the center of our lives, we experience the life that you have for us. And God, I just thank you for the people all across this room that have surrendered to you, that are gonna be joining us in heaven one day celebrating. And so God, we give you all the glory,

honor, and praise. And come on, can we give God some praise? Amen. Amen. Let's worship. I'm gonna sing this out one more time. Thank God for the freedom he gives us. So come on. Crossing you broke your body. You shed your