You Have an Appointment

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Hebrews.
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We're going to go to chapter 9, and we're going to look at only one verse, even though I understand this verse fits into a context, and I will be referring to the context in the message.
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I want us to focus our attention just on the few words of this passage.
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As is our custom here, we stand when the Word of God is read, so I encourage you to stand with us as I read Hebrews chapter 9, verse 27.
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And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.
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May God add His blessing to the reading of His Word.
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May God write its eternal truths on our heart, and may God keep me from error as I preach.
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Amen.
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You may be seated.
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I find it very difficult to comprehend in my mind that Wednesday of this week will begin the year 2020.
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When I was a kid, there was a movie about time travel.
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You probably saw it, and if I tell you the name, you'd know what it is.
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But in that movie, the time travelers went to the distant future of 2015.
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So the distant future from my youth is now five years ago.
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It's 2020, and every year things seem to be going by faster and faster.
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And it makes sense because with every new year that we live, the year becomes smaller in relation to our length of days.
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To a 10-year-old, a year is 10% of his life.
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But to a 50-year-old, a year is only 2%.
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And if you live to the ripe old age of 100 years, if you become a centurion, a 100-year-old person, one year will account for only 1% of the time that you have spent on this earth.
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The older we get, the less proportion a single year seems to have.
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Yet with every year we live, we know that is one year closer to the end of our years.
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It is one year closer to our appointment.
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And we all have an appointment to keep.
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An appointment which we will not arrive one minute early or one minute late.
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Now, I'm not a fatalist.
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I want to be very clear.
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But I do believe that our death and our life is ordained by God.
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And I believe we all have an appointment to keep.
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Every year, around this time, people begin to try to take stock of their lives.
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Because they know their time is finite.
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They know there's an end coming.
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And so they take stock.
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And often times this time of year, people start asking themselves, What do I need to change? What do I need to resolve? And thus comes the idea of the New Year's Resolution.
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I want to tell you from the outset this morning, I am not preaching a New Year's Resolution message.
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Because quite frankly, it wouldn't do any good.
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A New Year's Resolution is usually not that much of a change.
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In fact, they say, studies have shown, and I don't know who does these kind of studies or who funds these type of studies, but they study everything it seems.
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And studies have shown that most people end their New Year's Resolution by the second week of February.
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And I think that's generous.
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Because I've not made it past the second day of January.
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But, it is what it is.
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Somebody studied it and found that normally six weeks is about all people will give, and then they go back to their normal routine.
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So I'm not here today to give you a New Year's Resolution message.
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Neither am I going to give you a list of priorities.
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That's really popular.
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People will say, you need to make a list of priorities.
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You know, God, and family, and work, and social engagements, and church, and wherever you put, you make your list of priorities.
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I read a really good article this past week that basically made the point that when we make these priority lists, and we put God on top because we feel very holy when we do that, you know, that's what Christians are supposed to do.
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We're going to make our priority list and we're going to put God on top.
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The problem is that even if that's truthful, which I'm contemplating that for many it's really not, but even if it were truthful, we don't need to categorize our life that way because what ends up happening is we say, okay, God first, family second, work third, social relationships fourth.
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We begin to sort of subconsciously say, well, each one of these is going to get a certain amount of time.
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You know, God's first, so we'll ascribe to Him the lion's share.
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We'll say God's going to get 25%, and maybe my work's going to get 20%, and maybe my family's going to get 22 and a half.
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You know, we start sort of in our minds putting things into categories.
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And what I want to tell you this morning, and the thing that really is on my heart, is that God is more than an item on your priority list.
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I didn't bring my dry erase board.
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I almost did because I wanted to sort of show you what I'm talking about.
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Because when we list God with other things, we're sort of mixing up how we are to understand God in our life.
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God is not the first priority who has this box, and then the family has this box, and then everything else has their boxes that get a percentage of our time.
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No.
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For the Christian, God is to have a place in all of our life.
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Not just His place in our life.
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He is to have a place in every area of our life.
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We tend to have boxes for God and boxes without God.
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And so I'm going to have God when I'm here, or I'm going to have God when I'm doing this, but when I'm over here or I'm doing this, well, God doesn't belong in those boxes.
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God doesn't belong with me while I work, because I've got to work like a man.
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And men talk differently, and men act differently when they work together.
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So I'm going to have my work box, and God's not invited.
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I'm going to have my home box, where I go to rest and watch TV and have my feet up, and God doesn't need to be there either, because that box is where I go for comfort, and God doesn't bring me comfort.
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See? I'm not talking about me.
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I'm saying this is often how people feel.
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I'm not comfortable with God.
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I have to be on my P's and Q's.
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I want to be at home where I can rest and relax and let go.
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George Whitefield, who you all have heard me talk about many times, Brother Mike did a Whitefield, not impression, but he did a Whitefield sermon for us back on Reformation Day.
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George Whitefield wrote a sermon and preached it here in the States, and it was entitled, What Think Ye of Christ? What Think Ye of Christ? And I want to read a small snippet from his sermon, just a small paragraph, but I want you to hear what he was saying.
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Remember, this is 150 years ago, but I want you to think of how contemporary, how relevant is what he was saying to his audience and what God is saying to us today.
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Some, and I fear a multitude which no man can easily number, there are amongst us who call themselves Christians and yet seldom or never seriously think of Jesus Christ at all.
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They can think of their shops and their farms, their plays and their balls, their assemblies, their horse races, entertainment, which directly excludes religion out of the world, but as for Christ, the author and finisher of faith, the Lord who has bought poor sinners with His precious blood and who is the only thing worthy of thinking of, alas, He is not in all or at most in very few of their thoughts.
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But believe me, O ye earthly, sensual, carnally minded professors, however little you may think of Christ now or however industriously you may strive to keep Him out of your thoughts by pursuing the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, yet there is a time coming when you will wish you had thought of Christ more and of your profits and pleasures less.
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For the happy, the polite, the rich also must die as well as all others and leave their pomps and vanities and all their wealth behind them.
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And oh, what a thought will you entertain concerning Jesus Christ in that hour.
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Note what he is saying.
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Many men who think themselves Christians think very little of Christ, but one day there will come a time when those same men will lament that they thought not more of Him.
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What think ye of Christ? My purpose today in this sermon, and by the way, it is a one-point sermon, which ought to surprise you, because I have been known to go up to 18 points in a single message.
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But as I was preparing to preach, I thought there is really only one primary point that I want to get out of this text.
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And here is the thing about this text.
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The interesting thing about Hebrews 9.27, not the point of the passage.
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Hebrews 9.27, And it is appointed unto man once to die, and after this his judgment.
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That passage is actually not the focus that the author is making.
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The point that the author is making in Hebrews is that Christ only had to die once to pay the price and penalty for the sins of the believers.
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That He only had to die once.
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And what the writer is using, is he is using a very well understood fact.
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Just as it is appointed for man to die once and after this comes judgment, so too Christ died once and went and paid the price for our sin.
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That is the point.
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In fact, let's just read it in context very quickly.
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It says, And just as it is appointed for man to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time not to deal with sin, but to save those who eagerly wait for Him.
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See the point is the idea of once.
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That is the idea.
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And so that is the context.
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But what the writer of Hebrews is doing, he is using a very well understood fact.
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Every man is going to die once.
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Now I know I have some theological nitpickers who may come to me later and say, but wait a minute pastor, what about old Elijah? Elijah didn't die.
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He was taken up in a whirlwind.
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Or old pastor, what about Enoch? Enoch didn't die.
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He was not, for the Lord took him.
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We are going to learn about this when we go back to our Genesis study, as we see this in the book of Genesis.
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And old pastor, what about Lazarus? He died twice.
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Because he died once, Jesus raised him up, and later on he died again because he is not still alive.
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So he had to die again.
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So he died twice, and the daughter of Jairus died twice, and the widow son of Nain died twice.
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And see pastor, the passage is wrong.
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No, it ain't wrong.
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Because this passage is arguing from a generally accepted experiential truth.
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And the generally accepted experiential truth is this.
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You are all going to die once.
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That's it.
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Now, are there exceptions? Well, there have been a few exceptions, but I'm going to guarantee you this.
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You ain't going to be one of them.
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Unless Jesus returns, you are going to die.
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And after that, you are going to be judged.
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That's the truth.
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And that's the point of the message.
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You have an appointment.
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As I said, it's a one point sermon today.
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You have an appointment.
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If anything, if anything ought to make us consider our lives, if anything ought to make us readjust our lives, it's the sublime truth that we have an appointment that we will keep.
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It is all too easy to get caught up in the burdens and busyness of life, allow God to get pushed out of our life, and begin to live our lives as if God is not there.
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2019 was a tough year for many people.
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I mean, it really just...
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There was a lot of loss.
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There was a lot of struggling.
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A lot of sicknesses.
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And it's easy in those things for life to become so all-consuming that God gets pushed out of the picture.
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And rather than holding more tightly to Him, we push ourselves back.
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Before we know it, we're doing everything apart from God rather than alongside God.
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We're no longer experiencing God in our work and in our families, and even in our worship.
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Because worship becomes routine.
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Okay, we're going to come in, we're going to sing three songs, the guy's going to take the offering, Pastor Keith's going to yell for 30 minutes, I'm going to get my juice and my cup, and I'm going to leave.
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And it becomes routine.
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Are you even listening to me right now? I think some of you are thinking about lunch and work tomorrow, and maybe the fact that you get a couple extra days off this week, and what are you going to do? Work gets busy, families get busy, the need for recreation is important, rest is necessary.
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We long for comfort.
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But do we long for God? And do we long for God in every area? Do we want God to participate in all that we do? Or are we satisfied to say God doesn't belong here? Where are we in life where we are not inviting God to be with us? Where do we go where in our heart we put up a sign that says you can go this far and no further? Now of course I'm being metaphoric, God is everywhere.
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I go up into heaven, thou art there.
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I go to make my home in Sheol, and thou art there.
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You cannot escape God, but in our minds we do.
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And in our hearts we do.
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A very good question, and I ask myself this all the time, you've heard me say this, this is nothing new, this isn't special or miraculous, but it's a very good question, and I try to ask myself this all the time.
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Because I'm constantly having to readjust my life.
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Are you? That's why the whole idea of a New Year's resolution is a joke to me, because I need it like February, March, April, I'm constantly having to readjust my life.
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And one of the questions that I ask myself, and I'm not putting myself on a pedestal, I'm not putting myself up as the example, I'm saying this is a question that I try to ask myself, and the question is simply this, if Christ were coming tomorrow would I be doing this today? Now some things are necessary.
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If Christ were coming tomorrow, yeah, I'd still get up and go to work today, because work is necessary.
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Some would say, hey, if Christ is coming tomorrow, I'd take a day off.
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But you know what I mean? My point still being though, there are necessary things in life that we must do.
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You must work.
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You know, if you don't work, you don't eat.
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Paul tells us that.
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So we have to work, and we do need rest.
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And I want you to understand, I'm not trying to make this message a heaping of burdens upon you.
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I don't want to create more things for you to carry.
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What I'm trying to tell you is that many of you are carrying things that are not important, and therefore you don't have enough hands for the things that are.
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A lot of people, it's not about loading more, it's about taking things away.
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It's about the things in our life that don't matter.
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And we spend all of our time on the things that don't matter.
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God doesn't even get our leftovers.
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He gets the scraps that falls on the floor.
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He doesn't always even get that.
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As I said, I never try to make myself an example.
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I don't try to put myself on a pedestal, but I want to share something.
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Last year, my family and I decided we had a small business.
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Most of you know this.
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We'd had a small business for three years that we did on the side.
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And back in March, we closed the business.
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Even though the business was profitable, and I was good at what I was doing.
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I don't say that as an arrogant thing, but I am artistic, and I am diligent when I do something, and I was doing it well.
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But one day, I was pushing ink through a screen.
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It was screen printing for those who don't know.
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I was pushing ink through a screen, and I said to myself, God has not called me to make T-shirts.
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And it was like a light from heaven.
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I said, I'm spending all my time that I'm supposed to be spending with my family, because I didn't want to rob the church of the time that I was supposed to spend here.
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So I'd spend my time in the church here, and then I'd go home at night, and I'd spend my nights printing, sometimes till 12 and 1 o'clock in the morning.
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And one day, as I'm pushing ink through a screen, I said to myself, God did not call me to make T-shirts.
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Even though I'm good at it, and even though I'm making money at it, that is not what I was put on this earth to do.
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And so I went in, and I said, Jennifer, we have got to make a change.
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I have to make a change.
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Dr.
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Jerry Powers, I've mentioned him many times, dear friend, gone on to be with the Lord now, professor at my seminary, he used to say this, he said, Satan will always give you something good to keep you from getting the best.
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He will always give you something good to keep you from getting what you should be doing, or what you should have.
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So the question is not often what bad things in our life do we need to readjust, but what good things are in the way of the best things.
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What things in our life are good but are unnecessary.
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We pursue so much that does not matter.
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What good things in your life are keeping you from God's best things in your life? And that's not a greeting card.
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It sounds kind of like a greeting card, sort of poster-like.
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But it's truth.
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We pursue so much that doesn't matter.
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When our appointment comes, we're going to be shocked.
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Because when our appointment comes, there's an evaluation coming.
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And our positional standing with God is not based on what we do, it's based on what Christ has done.
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Amen? My positional standing with God stands on the blood of Jesus Christ.
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And I will not be saved or lost by what I've done, but by what He has done.
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But the Bible still says my life will be evaluated.
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And every man's works will be made manifest.
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Not for salvation.
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But I will stand before the Lord.
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And I'll give an account for how I raised my family.
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I'll give an account for how I pastored this church.
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How I served with my fellow elders.
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How I ministered along with the deacons.
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How I worked along with the congregational members.
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How I loved you.
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I'll give an account for that.
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And I have an appointment to keep.
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And so do you.
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So I have to ask myself this question.
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Is my life being spent to the glory of God? And your life is being spent, by the way.
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Spent.
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Spent, meaning it's being bought, purchased.
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It's being spent.
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This is why you get paid by the hour.
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No matter how much you do get paid.
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When I started work, it was $3 an hour.
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A joke today, right? But it was $3 an hour.
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That was how much my time was worth when I was 14 years old.
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Three bucks.
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An hour.
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You are spending your time.
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You are spending your finances.
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And you are spending your talents on something.
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What are you spending your time on? Is it glorifying God? I'm not asking you if you're spending three hours a day in your devotional closet.
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I'm not asking you if you're spending two hours a day in Bible reading or if you're calling on every congregation member of the church and checking on them.
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I'm not asking you to make a new list.
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I'm asking you how you're living your life.
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How are you spending your money? Is it glorifying God? I want to say this.
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I'm not asking you if you give to the church.
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But I will say this.
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And this is hard to say.
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I know some don't.
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I don't understand it.
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I don't know who gives what.
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Don't think for a moment that I know who gives anything.
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But I know some people don't ever give.
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The ministry of the church is a ministry.
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These lights cost money.
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I'm not begging for money today.
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But I'm telling you these are things.
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Are we contributing to things that matter? And does this matter? If it doesn't, why not? How are you using your talents? To build up yourself? To build up your own fortunes? To build up your own ego? To build up your own legacy? Do you even know what your spiritual gift is? And are you using it among God's people? Now everybody's in a different place in life.
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Some of you are in a place where your primary need right now is to be in the home with your children.
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And that's where your gifts are being used to serve.
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And you're raising up children.
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And that's wonderful.
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I'm not expecting...
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Again, some of you men work 40, 50, 80 hours a week, Mike.
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Sorry.
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But brother, you're amazing.
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You didn't even take the steps this morning.
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You jumped right...
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Some people work...
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Like Adam works and then works off-duty to provide for his family.
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And that's a wonderful thing.
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I'm not saying that's wrong.
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I'm not saying that's bad.
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I think it's wonderful to provide what is needed.
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What I'm asking you is how are you using your talents to serve God? Are you representing Christ where you are? You have an appointment.
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It's closer today than it was yesterday.
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And tomorrow, if you survive until then, it will be closer even still.
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But most of us don't live like we have an appointment with God coming.
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We live beholden to all the other appointments, but not that one.
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We wouldn't for a minute miss a sporting event.
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We wouldn't for a minute miss a family outing.
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We wouldn't for a minute miss a work responsibility.
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We wouldn't for a minute miss a social function.
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But we busy ourselves with these things, and yet the things of God, and the great appointment that we must keep, that we will not miss, and we will not arrive one minute early, we will not arrive one minute late, doesn't even come into our mind.
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We are not living our lives in light of our greatest appointment because we're so caught up with all of the other appointments that so fill our lives.
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Again, I'm not asking you to fill your life.
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I'm asking you to empty it.
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Think about those things that you're missing because of all those things that you think are important and are not going to matter in the end.
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And again, I keep qualifying this, and I want to, because I don't want you to go away thinking that I'm asking you to add more Bible reading to your day, or Our Daily Bread, or whatever.
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I do think you should read your Bible every day.
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And if you want to read Our Daily Bread, fine.
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I think it's more like Our Daily Crumb.
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You might want a little more than that, but it's just a thought.
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But again, we're not just encouraging you to add a little God to your already busy life.
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I'm encouraging you to get Jesus involved in every area of your life.
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Because your life will change.
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As you understand more and more Christ as Lord of every area of your life, your life will change.
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And that's part of sanctification, right? That's part of our growing in holiness as we begin to understand more and more Christ as Lord in every area.
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I want to show you a passage.
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This is how we're going to begin to draw to a close.
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I want you to go to Galatians 2.
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I've been preaching through Galatians set free.
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And this is one of the most beautiful passages.
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It's Galatians 2.20.
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This is Paul.
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And he's talking about justification.
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He's talking about how he's justified by faith.
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And he's talking about how he has died to the law.
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He can't be saved by the law.
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He can only be saved by Christ.
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Because the law condemns, but Christ saves.
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And he says this in verse 20.
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He says, I have been crucified with Christ.
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It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
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And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
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This means whatever I am doing, wherever I am, I am to be living the life that Christ has bought for me.
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I am not living with Christ as my priority.
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I'm living with Christ as my everything.
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It is not I who live, but Christ lives in me.
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He's not my priority.
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He's my life.
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I'm not living, it's Him living in me.
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And therefore, everything that I do, if I'm at work, I am Christ at work.
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If I'm at home, I'm Christ at home.
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If I'm on the field of play, I am Christ on the field of play.
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Not me as Christ, but Christ in me.
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And that every area of life belongs to Him.
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And I live my life in light of the appointment that I will one day keep with Him and Him alone.
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I'm not going to face God in a crowd.
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I'm not going to have a bunch of people who are standing up and saying, Keith was a good pastor, Keith was a good friend, Keith was a good husband.
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I hope those things are true.
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But I'm going to be standing before my Lord.
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I'm going to be standing before my Lord.
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And Him alone will be my judge.
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They won't call witnesses.
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They won't call others.
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There will be a book, and that book will testify to my life.
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Am I ready for my appointment? Do I live my life in light of that appointment? Dr.
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Haddon Robinson, some of you, especially you preachers, know who Haddon Robinson is.
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He's been around forever.
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Very well-known preacher.
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We had to read his book in our preaching class.
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He gave a great illustration, very powerful illustration, regarding the idea of how we over-focus on success and pursuit in this life and don't consider the things of God.
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And he likened it to the game Monopoly.
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You guys know Monopoly? My kids won't play with me anymore.
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I'm a bit of a tycoon when I play.
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In Monopoly, each player, if you never played, each player is given money to buy property, pay taxes, develop land, and grow a fortune.
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And in the end, the goal is to amass a fortune for yourself while bankrupting everyone else on the board.
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But Dr.
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Robinson made a very important, insightful thought using Monopoly as the example.
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And this is the thought he said.
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He said no matter how the game goes, at the end of the game, everything goes back in the box.
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And the illustration is simple.
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The people who focus on this life, who live their life for this life, who spend all of their wealth and resources and talents on the things of this life, are like people who play Monopoly and think it's for real.
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Because in the end, everything is going back in the box.
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And the only things that are going to matter are the things that go on into eternity.
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We kill ourselves over things that don't matter.
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And we refuse to lift a finger to advance the kingdom of God.
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Your appointment's coming.
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May we live our lives in light of that.
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Let's pray.
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Our Father and our God, we are more than overwhelmed when we consider the reality that one day we will face You.
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And we know that our salvation is not wrapped up in anything that we have done, that our salvation is based on the work of Christ alone.
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And yet, Lord, at the same time, we know that Your Word tells us we are to evaluate ourselves.
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First, to know whether or not we are even in the faith, for there are those who have made professions without possession and they do not have Christ.
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But Lord, we also know that even for the believers, the Lord, the true faithful ones, this world is constantly trying to draw our attention away from Christ and constantly trying to get us to focus on things that don't matter.
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Lord, may it be that You help us to see the things that don't matter.
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Lord, may it be that You help us to see those things which we need to reevaluate.
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Lord, may it be that You help us to see the best things and to pursue those things in the name of Christ.
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In all this we pray in His name.
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Amen.
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Let's stand together and sing.
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And this song tells...