Can I Serve Jesus and Still Enjoy Life?

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Welcome to Recast Church.

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I'm Don Felsick. I'm the lead pastor here and just want to welcome all of you. Glad that you have taken time out of your busy weeks to gather together.

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There's something that's so powerful and glorious about the church gathered together, and it's a privilege that we can be together worshiping our great

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God. And I'm just grateful to see all of you here. This week,

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I was out Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at a conference up on Mackinac Island, and so I am not speaking this morning.

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That's why I'm holding this mic, and I don't have the headset on, because I'm going to introduce just briefly here

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Dr. Whitmer, who is going to be bringing the word to us this morning and sharing some of the things that God has laid on his heart.

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Dr. Whitmer was one of my theology professors up at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary back in the day, and then

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I'm going to share something with you about him that I want you to still trust his judgment, despite the fact that he cheers for Ohio teams.

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Hey, well, oh, this could be divisive. He loves

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Jesus. Let me be clear. I just wanted to clarify, so just so that we're all on the same page with that.

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So let's go ahead and have Dr. Whitmer come up, and he's going to introduce the subject for the morning before Dave comes to lead us in worship.

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So it's great to be back. Last time I was here, you were in the school building, so now you have your own place, and it's just great to be back with you, and the question

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I want to ask this morning is, can you serve Jesus and still enjoy your life?

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If you're a Buckeye, sure. It's easier, but you ever ask that question, can you serve

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Jesus and still enjoy your life? I think we ask that question, at least subconsciously, every time we sin.

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We know that Jesus doesn't want us to click on that website, but I really want to. So if we go ahead and click, it's because we asked the question, can

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I serve Jesus and still enjoy my life? And we said no. Or we know that Jesus doesn't want us to share that gossip, but it's so good, and it's going to make me look so knowledgeable.

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If we go ahead and do it, it's because we asked the question, can I really enjoy my life and still serve

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Jesus? And we said no. Or if we fudge on our time card or on our taxes, now following Jesus is going to cost us money.

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If we go ahead and do it anyway, it's because we thought if we follow Jesus, we really can't enjoy a full life.

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But I think we also ask this question in better moments. I think we have this thought as Christians that if you follow

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Jesus, you have to be a little bit miserable. Take up your cross and follow him. I have a friend back in Grand Rapids who's a really good portrait artist, and she enjoys it.

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And she said she couldn't put together the time she spends in her studio with following Christ, because following Christ, you have to suffer.

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And so the best she could figure was she had to follow Jesus in some other place, not in her art. And I think she picked this up in church.

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We have this sense that if we follow Christ, how nice of a car can

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I have? How big of a house am I allowed to live in? When I go on vacation, am

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I allowed to go to Traverse City, or do I have to go to Battle Creek? You feel this tension?

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So this morning, I want to talk about the tension that's in Scripture, and how can we serve

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Jesus and still enjoy my life. And we'll find that actually serving Jesus is the only way you really can.

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But I want to start by looking at one text. We have lots of Scripture in the sermon this morning, but one text which really emphasizes the tension.

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It's in 1 Timothy chapter 6, where just listen to the tension in this passage, where God, through Paul, is encouraging sacrifice, be generous, share, but also in commanding us to enjoy the life he gave us.

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1 Timothy 6, 17. Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

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Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.

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In this way, they'll lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

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Father, thank you for this morning, when your people can gather and remember what's most important in this life, that you sent your

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Son to die for us and rise again, and now he's ascended at the right hand of yours, ruling over this world.

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And he sent the Spirit and gave us this word that we're going to look at this morning and remember what's most important, your

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Son, and also how when we put your Son first, we get our lives back, and we can truly live and enjoy the life you've given us.

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We pray for your Spirit to be with us now as we worship you, as we listen to your word. I pray that we leave changed this morning, comforted where we need comforted, and challenged where we need challenged.

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We entrust ourselves to your Spirit now, and your Son's name we pray. Amen. So our question this morning is, can you serve

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Jesus and still enjoy your life? A couple years ago, I was speaking in another state to a seminary faculty, and one of the professors said he was coming to school that morning, walking, and the sun was coming up, and the birds were chirping, and he said, thank you,

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Lord, I'm so glad to live in your creation. Then he thought, uh -oh, have

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I just crossed the line? Have I just enjoyed this world a little bit too much?

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Has my pleasure now become sin? So there's a tension as we talk about this this morning, an inevitable tension in Scripture and in life.

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I want to first start by talking about the tension that we find in Scripture and in life, and then how we can make it productive and put your human life and your

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Christian life together. So the first point I want to make is that the Bible, like any other book, has a plot.

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It's creation, fall, and redemption, right? Genesis 1 and 2, creation. Chapter 3, you've got a fall, and the fallout of the fall from chapters 3 through chapter 11, and then chapter 12, the language changes, and God says to Abram, I will bless you, and through you

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I will bless the world. The empire strikes back. Genesis 12 through Revelation 22, creation, fall, redemption.

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This one story of the Bible tells us everything counts, right?

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Creation, everything God made is good, fall, everything's been broken, redemption, God wants it all back.

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It all counts. Everything matters. But there's two tensions in this story which tell us that some things matter more, right?

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God, the creator, matters more than his creation. Psalm 73, 25,

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David prays, whom have I in heaven but you, O Lord, and earth has nothing I desire besides you, right?

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The creator, God, matters infinitely more than anything down here, right?

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Another tension is redemption. The end of the story, salvation, matters more than creation.

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Jesus said in Matthew 16, 24, what's it profit a person if he gains the entire world yet loses his soul, right?

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Hell is real, and nothing, what's more important than not going there, right?

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So you feel the tension, everything matters, but some things matter more. So when we do missions work, we want to send short -term teams or missionaries to other countries, and one thing we do is maybe dig a well and bring clean water to people.

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That's a good thing. But we're Christians, and so we're not content just to bring them water. We're not content until they drink from the living water, or until they know

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Jesus. Years ago, I spent a couple years in China teaching English, and I was,

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I did that to help the students and teach them conversational English, but I would also, the ultimate reason was

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I wanted them to come to Christ, right? That matters more. I have a daughter who, when she was younger, did gymnastics, and that was good.

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That's part of being creation, part of being human, part of being social. But these meets are often on the weekends, and we just said, you know what?

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We're not skipping church for gymnastics, because it all matters, but some things matter more.

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I want you to do this, but I need you to love Jesus. So you feel the tension?

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It all counts, but some things matter more. God matters more than the world.

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Jesus matters more than, and salvation matters more than creation. But now one more twist.

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So it all counts. Some things matter more. Some things matter more, but everything still matters.

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You see, some Christians are so focused on everything matters, they forget that some things matter more, and they almost never talk about the gospel and the need to put your faith in Christ.

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Some Christians go the other way, and if you're going to make a mistake, I'd make this one. They say, some things matter more.

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Put your faith in Christ. Amen. But you almost never hear about how everything matters. So, for instance, some people say

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God matters more than creation, and that's true. But then every time they talk about creation, they're always putting it down.

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Creation becomes nothing more than just an idol trap, right? Something to watch out for. In fact, some, and these are friends, these are good people, we're on their team, but they're so afraid of idolatry, so afraid of bringing glory away from God, that when they talk about this world, they actually say this world is really nothing more than an idea in the mind of God.

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And that's a way of making it somehow less real, right? God is the only real, real being, and this world is just God's thoughts.

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But think about it, if that's all you and I are, if we're just God's thoughts, we're not even separate from him, right?

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To have a relationship with someone, you have to have distance, right? Lovers talk about, whatever the ocean,

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I will cross it. Whatever the mountain, I will climb it. Whatever the distance, I will overcome it to get to where you are. Well, that implies there has to be some distance to have a relationship.

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Like that country western song said, how could I miss you if you never go away? So, to have a relationship with God, we have to be more than just his thoughts, right?

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We have to be separate from him. There is God, and there's everything else, and we're part of the everything else, but there's distance.

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You and I are not a part of God. We are not just God's thoughts. We are a separate and good creation that's dependent on God.

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If we're always putting down creation for very pious reasons, we can eliminate even the possibility of having a relationship with God because there's no distance.

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We read this morning, 1 Timothy 6 .17, which said, in the passage which says, be sacrificed, be generous, share.

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Paul says, also God has given us every good gift. Remember the word? For our enjoyment.

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Feel the tension? Sacrifice, share, but also enjoy God's good gifts. So, I would say to that professor who was afraid, if I just enjoyed creation too much, you can't enjoy creation too much.

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You can't take too much pleasure from that milkshake. God's not afraid that you enjoy ice cream a little bit too much.

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You can enjoy pleasure in the wrong way, right? You can't enjoy too much of it, but you can make an idol out of it when you put your hopes and dreams and ask it to deliver something it cannot possibly give you, but that's the sin.

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Don't ever be afraid. Did I cheer too much for my team that scored a touchdown? No, you didn't.

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That's okay. Take pleasure in God's creation. Just don't make an idol. Here's a good check for that,

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I think. There's a word in Greek that comes up when we talk about Christian freedom. The word is adiaphora, a -d -i -a -p -h -o -r -a, adiaphora, and it means things indifferent, things neither here nor there.

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So, you can enjoy any wholesome, not sinful, but any wholesome pleasure. You can enjoy it without guilt as long as it's adiaphora to you, as long as it's neither here nor there.

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I can give it up. I don't need it. I enjoy it with an open hand. I'm not clinging it.

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I'm not clutching it. It's not an idol to me. I enjoy it, but here, you can share. So, even watching my

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Ohio State team, this is where it gets personal. It worried me when, a couple years ago, when we won,

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I was not as happy as much as I was relieved. That's not a good sign.

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That's a sign that they're probably an idol to you. Like, you have to win because you live in Michigan. How embarrassing. Just don't embarrass me, right?

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It's just a game, right? Just enjoy it, but enjoy it as adiaphora, right?

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So, if we blow it again, like we always do to Purdue or Iowa, it's okay. It's adiaphora. So, you can enjoy any wholesome pleasure as long as it's an open -handed pleasure.

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So, of course, when we read 1 Timothy 6, God has given us every good gift for our enjoyment.

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Of course, the giver matters more than the gifts. Absolutely, but the giver of all good gifts wants us to enjoy the gifts, right?

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Imagine if you had this insufferably pious child. Every time you gave them a Christmas present or a birthday present, they would open it and throw it aside and say, but all

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I really want is you, mommy. All I really want is you, daddy. Wouldn't you say, great, but you're so hard to shop for, right?

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I'd like that you like me most, but I got you this. Have fun with it. And God, our

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Father, is no different. He wants us to be open -handed, share, be generous, sacrifice, but also be free to enjoy the good gifts he's given us without this low -grade residual guilt that somehow

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I'm sinning if I take pleasure in my father's world. So, of course,

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God matters more than creation, but be careful. We need a good creation to actually love

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God from. Secondly, redemption matters more than creation too, right?

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What can compare with not going to hell? But redemption is actually aimed at creation, right?

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Acts 3 .21, Peter says, Jesus must remain in heaven until the time comes for him to restore all things.

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We sang this morning the first song, come, Lord Jesus, come. That's the Christian prayer. We don't pray to be taken out of this creation.

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We pray, Lord Jesus, you come. What's the last prayer of the Bible? Almost the last words of the

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Bible, come, Lord Jesus. So even when I was praying with a friend in hospice and she was having visions of heaven, she was ready to go.

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I didn't pray with her, Lord, take her. We said, Lord, you come. Stop her cancer.

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Stop her pain. Not by her death, but by your return. Christians, and praise

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God, if you die in the Lord, praise God, your soul goes to Jesus. Praise God. We were saying it this morning.

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He calls us home. You do go home to be with the Lord, but you're not home home until Christ returns.

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Have you thought about another tension? If you talk to a college student this semester whose parents have moved while they were off at school, and you ask them, are you going home for Thanksgiving?

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Are you going home for Christmas? They'll say, well, yeah, but not exactly. My parents have moved.

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I've never been to that house. I've never been to that town. So I am going home, but not entirely. Well, something like that.

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Jesus is our spiritual home. Jesus is whom we are to live forever with. So when we die, we're going home to be with Jesus.

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He's our true home, but the earth is our geographical home. It's where we're supposed to live.

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So when we die, we are going home to be with Jesus, but we won't be fully home in every way until he returns.

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Christians believe in the three R's, the return of Christ, the resurrection of the body, and the restoration of all things.

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That's our hope. So redemption, it's more than creation, absolutely, but it's aimed at creation.

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In fact, you can't have redemption without a good creation. John 1 .14,

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John said, the word, the Son of God, became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

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The Son of God became physical. That means the physical must be good.

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Jesus physically lived and physically died, and he's physically returning, physically rose again.

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The most heavily minded, the most spiritual church in the whole Bible would be the church in Corinth. They were so spiritual.

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They said, Paul, we speak with the tongues of angels, but you're pretty pedestrian. Your talks are not that great.

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And they were so spiritual, they didn't believe in sex because that's icky and physical. They said, if you're not married, don't get married.

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If you are married, get divorced. If you can't get divorced, just don't sleep with your spouse. And so Paul writes 1

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Corinthians 7 to say, guys, it's okay to be single. It's an advantage, but not for those reasons.

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If you're married, you belong to your spouse. This is God's gift to you. And then in chapter 15, let me just read this because I like this because you can tell

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Paul's animated. He says it twice. 1 Corinthians 15, starting in verse 13, starting in verse 12.

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1 Corinthians 15, 12. But if it is preached that Christ had been raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?

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If there's no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

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Now he's so mad, he says it again. More than that, we're then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised

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Christ from the dead, but he did not in fact raise him if the dead are not raised. If the dead are not raised, then

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Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins.

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Congratulations, Corinthians. You're so spiritual. You can't believe in some icky resurrection because it's physical and material is bad.

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Well, if there can't be a resurrection, then Jesus isn't raised and you're still sinning. Congratulations, you're so spiritual now, you're not even saved.

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You're more heavenly minded than God. The Bible, redemption is much more than the physical, but it's not less.

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In fact, without a good physical world, you can't have the incarnation, the Son of God becoming us.

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You can't have the resurrection, which freed Jesus from the guilt and frees us if we put our faith in him.

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The whole Bible is physical, right? It starts in the garden of Eden. It ends in the tree of life and the river of life on the new earth.

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It's more than just physical, but it's not less than. So you feel the tension? Everything matters, but some things matter more.

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God, the creator, matters more than the world. Salvation, redemption matters more than creation.

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They do. Some things matter more, but everything still matters because you can't have salvation without a good creation.

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You can't love God if you're not separate and dependent on him. Makes sense?

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So that's the tension of scripture, the tension of life. Before we talk about,

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I think, the way through that, I want to just show you a really important way to read your Bible, because there's some bad ways to try to navigate the tension.

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The bad way is to put down creation. See, nothing but a threat, so we can just focus on the higher things.

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That doesn't work. So if you have your Bibles, look at 1 John chapter 2. I just want to show you, this is maybe the most important thing

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I discovered in my Bible reading, and if you understand this and you see it too, then your

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Bible will make sense and your life will make much better sense. If you don't see this point, then we'll disagree to disagree.

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But here's the point. We have to distinguish God's good creation from the evilness, the badness of the fall.

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So 1 John 2 .15 says, don't love the world. Do you ever wonder how that fits with John 3 .16,

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where God says, I love the world? So God loves the world and tells us not to?

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That's not fair. Or is God using the word world in two very different ways?

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Have you noticed that the same word, the very same word, can sometimes be a noun or sometimes be used as a verb?

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Sometimes to describe things and sometimes to describe actions.

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Like take rock. Rock can be a thing or rock can be a verb. We will, we will rock you.

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Or hammer can be a thing you're going to nail with or it can be an action. Do not tweet when you're hammered.

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It will not be so impressive when you sober up. So understand the distinction? Does that explain

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John 3 .16, God loves the world? What is that? It's a noun. It's things. It's you and you and you.

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Put your name in the blank. Everything that God made, God loves. But 1 John 2 .15,

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don't love the world. Old King James, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life.

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What are lust, lust, and pride? They're not things, are they? They're actions.

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They're sins. So when John says don't love the world, he's not saying watch out for ice cream, watch out for football.

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He's saying don't love sin. You see that? So we have to be careful.

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I was, and I know what, I think I know what he meant, but years ago I heard a pastor pray, Lord protect us from the things of this world.

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Like well, the things of this world are not my problem. Sin is my problem, right?

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We have to distinguish God's good gifts of creation, the good things, from our sinful perversion of them.

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And we already know this, right? In about a month, Thanksgiving evening, aren't you going to feel really bad about yourself?

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Because the day began, okay, I'm going to have self -control. I'm going to eat just a little bit. I'm probably not going to watch the

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Lions because who cares? But they're baiting you, right? They're doing kind of mediocre a little bit. You're going to watch them.

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You're going to eat too much. And about six o 'clock, I did it again. And you feel so bad. So we know that on Thanksgiving evening, sin, the sin of gluttony, is a live possibility, right?

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But I've never heard a prayer for the meal go something like this. Father, guard our hearts from the sin of gluttony.

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Temptation lies all around us. There's mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes, and tar salad, and cranberries, and pumpkin pie.

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Oh my God, God, please guard our hearts from sin. And please forgive the hands that prepared our temptation.

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Wouldn't that prayer end with a guy wearing the mashed potatoes? How dare you? Right? So we already know this, right?

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We know that we could sin, but we thank God for the good gifts. In fact, think about this. Every sin, every evil thing, what makes it so awful?

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It's because it's the perversion of a higher good. The greater the gift, the greater the good, the more potential for evil.

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How do you get the devil? Only if you start with Lucifer. What are the worst sins that you can make?

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What makes incest so heinous and unimaginable? Because what's more pure than a loved one, a father, and a daughter?

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And when that gets twisted, you can't even, you don't even imagine it. Pornography.

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We have a pornography problem in America, in the church. And the way to fight that is not to tell yourself, don't look at porn, because you're reminding yourself to look at porn.

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Instead, ask yourself, what is pornography the perversion of? God's wonderful gift of sex.

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How can I, in my present condition, honor, celebrate, value that? Focus on the good and the cheap perversion.

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You'll see it for the parody that it is. Who wants that? So we have to be better at distinguishing

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God's good gifts that we celebrate and enjoy, knowing that the higher the good, the more potential for pure evil when that gets perverted.

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But the key is, God is not telling you, watch out for stuff. Our problem is not stuff.

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Our problem is sin. Another verse, 1 Peter 2 .11 says, Dear friends,

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I urge you, as aliens and strangers, set your minds, I'm sorry, that's

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Colossians 3. 1 Peter 2 .11 says, Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers, abstain from simple desires which war against your soul.

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Aliens and strangers, abstain from simple desires which war against your soul. Now, a lot of Christians read that verse and, aha,

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I'm an alien, I'm a stranger, I don't belong here. When I was a kid growing up, we used to sing in church, somewhere in outer space,

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God has prepared a place for those who love him and obey. Anybody? No?

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Yeah, love the song, but that's bizarre. I call this Martian theology.

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Really. We believe, I come from outer space, I'm here for a while, and praise God, I get to go back to outer space.

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It's everywhere. Give four guys a microphone, you're going to hear, this world is not my home,

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I'm just a passing through, or like a bird from prison bars is flown, I'll fly away. This world is just a prison,

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I can't get, that's not the gospel, that's not Christian. By the way, Carrie Underwood's got this too, right?

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This is my temporary home, it's not where I belong, watch out for her.

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She has this song, Jesus Take the Wheel, and this other song, Before He Cheats. Before he cheats,

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I'm going to carve my name on his leather sleeves, I get Louisville, so I go to both headlights, maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.

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How come? My life is spinning out of control, Jesus take the wheel. My boyfriend's

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I got this one. So watch her, she's not, no, clearly

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I know more songs than I probably should. But just to say this is everywhere, right?

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Our best -selling artists are just saying, this world is not my home, I'm just, that's not what that verse is saying.

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As aliens and strangers, what? Abstain from sinful desires. We're not

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Martians, we're not alien creatures, alien beings, we're moral aliens, see the difference?

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We're alien to sin, we're not alien to this planet. How did you get here?

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God put you here, he must want you to be here. Genesis 2 -7 says the

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Lord God made Adam from the adamah. The name Adam means red dirt.

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When you have a child, the most biblically accurate, theologically correct name you could ever give your child is clay, or dusty, or rocky.

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If you have a girl, sandy, or terra, or pebbles, right? We are earthlings for heaven's sake, right?

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We belong on this planet. So again, praise God when we die. If we were in Christ, our soul goes to heaven, but that's not, we don't go to heaven and get stuck.

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We believe, we sang this morning, calm Lord Jesus, and when you come, you're going to bring our loved ones back with him.

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If you've lost someone close to you, it's easier to pray that, isn't it? Lord, come, because you know the next time you'll see your loved one is when

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Jesus returns. So for time's sake, we'll skip, I think we, yeah, we'll keep going.

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But Colossians 3, same thing, set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Read the context. Things above are ethical, acts of righteousness, clothes of kindness, humility, gentleness, patience.

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Earthly things are sins, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, stop lying.

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So if you just know this, words like world, alien, stranger, things above, earthly things, these words can be used as nouns or as verbs, as things or as actions.

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Keep that in mind when you're reading the verses and read them in context, and you realize the

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Bible says not one negative word about creation. It hates sin.

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That's why Jesus came, to defeat sin. But he didn't come to destroy creation.

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He came to redeem it, to fix it. We'll skip the verses and go to this picture, because there's a story in John 21, which really,

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I think, illustrates the tension really well. This is a picture where this might have happened in John 21 on the

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Sea of Galilee. So Jesus has risen from the dead. He's appeared to the disciples once, and he told them to go to Galilee.

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So they're in Galilee, and Peter says, I'm going fishing. You may have heard that was

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Peter backsliding. He used to fish for fish. Jesus came. Now he's fishing for men.

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Now he's going back just catching fish again. Well, Peter wasn't perfect, clearly, but give him a break.

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What do you want from him? He's waiting for Jesus to give him his marching orders, and he says, well,

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I can wait in this windowless room out of fear for the Jews, or it's dark. I like to fish.

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I'm hungry. Who wants tilapia? And six of his friends say, we'll go with you.

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So they fish all night in John 21, and they catch nothing, because in Scripture, every time you fish all night, you always get skunked.

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This would have bothered Peter not that long ago, right? He's hungry. He's tired. For what?

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But I'm pretty sure he's okay with this, because Jesus is alive. Everything's changed just last week.

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He's still numb from the euphoria. He's okay with not catching fish, because Jesus' redemption matters more.

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Then there's this shadowy figure in the church who says, hey, try the other side. So they throw their nets over, and their nets are breaking.

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There's so many fish, and they realize that's Jesus. So Peter jumps in the water and splashes towards Jesus, because it's

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Jesus, and he's the Savior. He matters more than the fish, but they bring in the fish.

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Do you know how many fish they caught? The text actually tells us 153.

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Do you know what that means? In the presence of the resurrected Christ, someone's counting fish.

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Who does that? Probably Thomas. I can't believe it.

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21, 22. No, fishermen do that, right? Anybody here like to fish? You count the fish.

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You take a picture of the fish. Jesus counts more, but the fish still count, and we will count them. Then Jesus says, give me some of those fish.

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I love this part. Just moments before Jesus went back to heaven, the scarred hands of our

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Lord made breakfast on the beach. He made a roaring fire, let it settle, baked bread and some fish over that fire to prepare

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Peter for that really hard conversation. Peter, do you love me more than all of these?

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Feel the tension? You have to love Jesus most, of course, but it's not either or.

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If you love Jesus, you get everything back. What did Jesus say? The meek will inherit what?

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The earth. That wasn't a metaphor. That's literal. We are heirs of God.

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It means we inherit our Father's stuff. What does our Father own? Look around. The cattle on a thousand hills.

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If you're in Christ, someday this place will be yours. In fact, if you're a Christian, you don't need a bucket list.

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You're coming back. YOLO. That's for people who aren't Christian. It's just not true.

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You don't only live once. If you're in Christ, you have forever to do on this planet, on this redeemed planet, forever to do what you didn't get to this time around.

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So, save bungee jumping and hang gliding for the next life. No need to do it now.

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If you didn't get all the places you wanted to travel, you have forever to travel. So again,

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Jesus is the center, but there is a circumference. If you love Jesus, you get everything back.

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So, what's that mean now? How do we put this tension together now? Three quick points. First, I think the more

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I think about this earthly pleasure, heavenly purpose, I don't want to split the difference.

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I don't want to go 50 -50. I want as much earthly pleasure as I can put it in my life, as much heavenly purpose too.

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I don't think I have to choose. Jesus didn't. He is the Messiah. And what do they say about him?

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He spent a lot of time at parties. Jesus told parables. He knew about life.

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He knew about business and economics and politics and farming and agriculture, which is farming.

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But he knew stuff, right? Jesus didn't cheat on either one. In fact, there is a tension, right?

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So, the money you give to church or missionary, that's money you don't have for a tree. And if you plant a tree, that's money you can't give to church.

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We're finite. We're limited. We only have so much money, so much time. There is a tension here. But isn't the best advertisement for Jesus a flourishing

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Christian? As my Zen prof once said, if the gospel is not working for you, by all means, don't export it.

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Right? But if we, we're not perfect, of course. We're not trying to hide.

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But if we look like following Jesus makes a difference, and we can enjoy our lives, and we're optimistic, and we're hopeful, that's actually attractive.

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So, 100 % earthly pleasure and heavenly purpose.

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Secondly, we got to talk about our callings. Galatians 5 .13

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says, you, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But don't use your calling to indulge the flesh.

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Rather, serve one another humbly in love. So, if you're a Christian, it's because God has called you and brought you to himself.

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But that calling is not one and done. That calling continues all the way through your lives. Luther and Calvin talk about this in terms of our responsibilities.

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So, we're all called to follow Jesus. But how we follow Jesus differs on where we are in life.

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So, I follow Jesus by being a church member, a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a professor.

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These are all ways that I serve Jesus. By the way, your number one calling, it's one you can't, you wouldn't get paid to do.

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Your number one calling is being a church member. I know church membership is frowned upon, but let me tell you, it is in the

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Bible. 1 Corinthians 5 .13, Paul says about that immoral man, expel that man from among your number.

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You can't expel someone unless you have some idea of who's in. Church membership is biblical.

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It's also rather obvious. If Jesus is the head and the church is his body, you can't say with a straight face that you're joined to Jesus, the head, if you're not joined to the body.

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Try and do that, you will pull a muscle. As the great theologian Beyonce once said, if you love it, if you like it, you should have put a ring on it, right?

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Don't just live with Jesus, marry him. So, some of you need to hear this, join Recast, be a member, be a contributing part of this body.

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So, even if you're retired, someone still needs you. This body needs you. You'd be insulted.

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You know this is the most important because if you brought someone to church and Don said, thank you for bringing that person, I think they're going to stay, here's a gift card to Arby's.

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First of all, Arby's? No. But the second, no, you don't pay me to come. Now I feel dirty.

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I do that for free. Or my wife and I, we're coming back from a weekend in Traverse City and my wife says, thank you for this romantic weekend.

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I feel your love and I feel like it's worth $30. You have change for a $50? Like, no, now

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I feel dirty again. So, your most important callings, your family, your church, those are most important.

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But what about the thing you do for a career? That's a calling.

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Please hear me, Christians don't have jobs. We have callings.

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That, when you go to work or volunteer or if you're a stay -at -home mom, whatever, that is a way you serve

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Jesus. You serve Jesus by serving those people. And never apologize if your calling is wholesome, if it contributes in some way, never apologize for what you're doing.

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God does not have second -class Christians. Maybe you've never made it to the stage.

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You've never been on the platform. We need you. We need you now more than ever.

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Your marriage is my business. My marriage is your business.

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How I do my job, you should care about. How you do your job, I should care about.

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Have you noticed the culture has been changing recently? They used to like what Christians believed.

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They liked our family values. Now, not so much. Now they think we're just wicked, bad people.

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Well, wouldn't the best advertiser for Jesus be Christians and their callings?

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What if the culture said, we don't like what you people think and believe, but I gotta say, if you want a job done well and done right, find a

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Christian. They're the best lawyers. They're the best plumbers. They're the best nannies, the best anything.

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Wouldn't it be the best advertiser? The Bible says slaves. Slaves are lowest in that society.

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Slaves, you can make the gospel attractive by serving your masters well. And as the culture gets more confused, you don't have to be spectacular any longer.

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As the culture gets darker, your light just looks brighter. Just do what your grandparents thought was normal.

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Just love your spouse. Love your kids. Do your callings for the

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Lord Jesus and you will stand out. If you're in a major American city today and you see a young couple pushing a baby stroller, wearing wedding bands, you almost know for sure those are evangelical

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Christians. Double stroller? Probably Mormons. But the point is, you have a calling.

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Praise God for pastors. Praise God for missionaries. But if you have just an ordinary calling, we need that.

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That counts. In fact, even for witnessing, sharing your faith, you have many much more natural opportunities to share

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Christ with people than pastors do, than professors do. We're pretty much isolated. We have to work to create opportunities.

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You're rubbing shoulders all the time. So never apologize for what you're doing, as long as it's wholesome and contributes in some way and serves your neighbor.

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Remember that every calling counts. You are free to do what God has equipped you to do.

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Every calling counts. Be liberated. But it's also about lordship, right? If every calling counts, you can't have it both ways.

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If every calling counts, every calling counts. Someday we'll be held accountable.

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Our Lord Jesus will judge us in him, but we'll be held accountable for how well we did our callings for him.

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So you're free. You don't have to worry about finding your value.

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If you're in Christ, your value is fixed. My new life verse is Colossians 2, 9 and 10.

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I change it every few years, but here it is right now. Colossians 2, 9 and 10 is, you have been given fullness in Christ.

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Jesus Christ is God. Jesus Christ is the fullness of God, and you have been given fullness in him.

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What that means is, if you're in Christ, your value, your security, your identity is fixed.

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You can't add to it, and you can't take away from it. So you're free. If you start a new business, and it goes well, and you're in the cover of magazines, praise

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God, but nothing has changed. If your business tanks, and you declare bankruptcy, and lose your house, that is tragic, but still nothing has changed.

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We have to believe this. Who we are is who we are in Jesus. Full stop, period, end of story.

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So you're free to enjoy your life, in your callings, and then today.

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Now I got to be careful, because the Sabbath is the one command not repeated in the New Testament. So I'm not saying you have to take a

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Sabbath rest because it's required, but if the Sabbath rest does point to Jesus, Hebrews 4,

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Jesus Christ is our Sabbath rest. If taking a day off points to Jesus, then we can express our faith in Christ by taking a day off, and worship him, and to rest on every

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Lord's day. So it's not a law, but there's real value in it. In fact, here's what

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I would say. If you're not in the habit of taking the Lord's day, and just resting, ask yourself why.

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It's because if you have an emergency, that's fine, right? Jesus said it's okay to heal if your donkey's in a ditch, get it out.

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So we're not talking about emergencies, but if you say, I never take a day off, I never rest, because I'm in Christ, and I'm free, okay.

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But if it really is because of competition, they don't take a break. I got to keep working.

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I got to make something of myself. That's a very unhealthy, dangerous view to have, because what are you really saying?

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Jesus isn't enough. My value depends on me, and my output.

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So the Sabbath rest, again, motive is everything, but I've learned it really is, it's a test of faith for me.

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Every week, will I knock off? Every week, will I have one day where I refuse to show up for work?

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Do I have one day where I try to do nothing of economic or pragmatic value on purpose?

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This is one day where I get to do whatever I want to do, just because I want to do it. You know what that means?

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Every seventh day is a guaranteed holiday. Every seventh day is God's gift to me.

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It's my way of reminding myself who I am, is who I am in Jesus, I'm just going to rest, right?

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Sunday naps, don't they feel different? They should. It's a sign of, you're not just taking a nap, you're signaling,

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I'm resting in Christ. Two o 'clock on Tuesday, I'm still working. Two o 'clock today,

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I'm taking a nap. It should be like that, right? You want to go for a walk? Do whatever brings you joy.

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You're free in Christ to do that. So can you serve Jesus and still enjoy your life?

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Can you? It's the only way you can. Jesus Christ has saved us from hell.

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He saved us for life, and that life starts now. So as we rest in him, we realize

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I can enjoy every wholesome pleasure as his gift to me. Every wholesome pleasure you enjoy was

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God's idea first. God came up with the whole idea of chocolate and strawberries and strawberries dipped in chocolate.

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That was him. He wants us to enjoy this life. And you realize, thank you,

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Father. As we say grace and thank him for our meals, thank you for this pleasure. You created every pleasure receptacle in my body, and you flooded the zone with triggers.

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Thank you for this world. And we realize that we have callings. We have meaning.

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We have purpose. Someone needs us here at home, at work. Every seventh day, then, we also get to knock off and just enjoy the life we have in him.

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So God is not against your joy. He's not against your pleasure. He hates sin, and he hates sin because sin robs us of joy.

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Sin is bondage. So we put our faith in Christ. We can breathe.

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We can enjoy our lives in this, our Father's world. Father, thank you for the gospel.

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And I just want to say if there's anyone here that doesn't know that they know your son, I pray they would not leave here before talking to someone.

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They can know that they are in Christ and have everlasting life. And now, as we remember your son's great sacrifice for us, we don't have words to express it.

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All we can say is thank you. But please know there's a lot of meaning in our thank you.

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Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for life. And we want to celebrate that now as we remember his great sacrifice on our behalf.