Preparing to Live Forever

1. Read 1 John 3:1-3. Maybe you've heard it said or even said yourself that God loves you and that's all that matters, so you think you don't need to change. But this passage shows that God loves us so much that he won't leave us in that place. Where have you been complacent in your relationship with God and the life he's called you to live?
2. What does it mean to have eternal life, and how is it different from just going to heaven when we die?
3. What are the two main parts of the Hillside's mission described in the sermon, and why are both important?
4. How can you actively participate in each part of this mission in your own life? How can you connect others to the mission?
5. What is the difference between believing propositions about who Jesus is and actually living those prepositions (with, like, and for) that submit to him as Lord? In what areas of your life do you find it harder to submit to Jesus as Lord? How can you address that?

Prayer + Practice:

Jesus' vision of Eternal Living Now found in John 17:3 is one where we are in loving relationship with God that starts now. This is possible because of his sacrifice on the cross, so our mission is to help people discover who Jesus really is and live with, like, and for him, now and forever. The three rhythms of Worship Together, Life Together, and Serve Together connect you to that heartbeat to start experiencing that kind of life. This is the best way to get connected and start growing at Hillside.

Good morning.

If you're a guest with us today, welcome. Thank you for being here. Always risky to check out any church. Even when I'm on vacation or anywhere, and I check out a church, it's always risky. So appreciate you being adventurous.

You're joining us, and if you're coming today and it is your first time, then we're at the end of a three week series of messages about our vision and our mission as a church. And that's really just about what we do and why we do it as a community, as a local body here. So our vision statement is very, very simple. And we've spent the last couple weeks trying to explain what that means. Eternal living now is how we describe it and sort of to bring you up to speed.

Eternal life is not something you get when you die, is what we have been saying. You don't have to go to heaven to get it. That's not how this works. It's a relationship with Jesus Christ brings you into eternal life, immediately connects you to God's life now. And it begins the moment that you come into relationship with Jesus Christ.

As I live, like he wants me to, as I become the person that he wants me to, then my life takes on the quality of eternity, something lasting and something divine. That means right now, everything you do in relationship to Jesus Christ matters forever. It means right now matters forever.

Let me give you a little bit more help on this text that we just read there. In one John. This is John starts out this little five chapter book saying that, which was from the beginning what we heard. So he's a disciple, and he's saying, I remember when we first got the message. What was the message?

Well, it was something we actually saw. We heard it and we saw it with our eyes. We looked at it, we touched it with our hands concerning this message of life. So John's describing it in a little different way than you might think.

The life was made visible. It was revealed.

And again he repeats, we saw it. We testified to it. We proclaim to you, what are you proclaiming, John? Eternal life. It's a message.

It's not just a message. John's not just talking about. Let me just tell you what the meaning of life is. We heard the meaning of life and we want to share it with you. That's not what he's saying.

It actually came among us. We touched it, we saw it. Eternal life. It was with the father, and now it has come to us. That's the idea.

Whatever that life was that's out there, eternal life, something out there. It came here because we've seen it and heard it. We proclaim it to you so that you, too, now look at the word he's going to use so that you, too might have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. So whatever eternal life is, it ends up being some relational dynamic that's not only with God's people, but with, obviously, God himself.

Whatever that life is, it's not something you die to get. It's something he brought here so that you can begin to live it.

It was a person, the life. It wasn't just a message. It was a person. You could join it. That's what he means.

By following. You could enter it. You could experience God's life through Jesus Christ. And the moment you trust in him, eternal life begins for you. So whatever spiritual journey you're on, whatever that may be, it begins and ends with Jesus Christ.

Whatever it is you're looking for now, one of the worst things you can say about something or someone is it has no future. That's one of the worst things you could say. Maybe somebody said it to you one time. No future in it. If you ever watch shark tank, you know, and here are these really brilliant business, successful people who really understand things about business I'll never understand.

And some novice will step forward and put forth an idea, and you'll hear these every once in a while. Sometimes it's nice, and sometimes it's nothing. There's no future in that. It's not worth investing in. If there's no future in it, it's not worth investing in.

God gives you a future. It's because you're worth investing in. And in Christ. You have that with Jesus Christ. God is saying to you, you're never going to cease to exist, and you can now live because of my son, you can now live in light of that future.

You can live in light of that future. So that's when a church tells you that's their vision. It means they hope for everyone in the world. They hope for everyone they come in contact with, that they will come to know Jesus Christ and have that life and have some future to look forward to. That's our hope.

That hope turns into a mission. You got to do something with it. So that's our mission, and that's this. So why do we exist then? If that's our vision?

Will we exist to do really two things? We want people to discover who Jesus really is, because that's the beginning. You don't have life if you don't have him. He is the life. John just told us that.

So you gotta have him first. Then once you have him, then you begin to live with him, like him and for him, now and forever. That's the eternal living part. You start living it now, and you just live it right on into eternity. That's our mission.

So our mission is to do those two things, and I thought I would divide them for you because we spent last week talking about this one, and this week we're gonna talk about this one, and there's this conjunction in between them, but they're really one thing. They have two parts. So any person who's walking around the planet doesn't know Jesus. First thing they got to do is meet Jesus. And when they do, they realize, I need to live for him.

That's how it works. You got to meet him, and then you just realize that you have to live for him.

And so we say, discover who Jesus really is, especially in where we live in the south and in the Bible belt for, you know, it's changing. It's not as belty as it used to be. It's not. But there's still a. There's churches everywhere, people, generations of people grown up in faith.

I had dinner with somebody this past week who's saying they're from Maryland, and, I mean, you don't talk about religious things there. Here, people know how to talk the Jesus language, even if they don't go to church anymore. Their family did. They know how to talk the Jesus language. And so we say, you gotta really.

You gotta know who Jesus really is, because a lot of us have ideas about Jesus, but we don't really know him. You know, maybe he was a great guy. Maybe he was a great moral teacher. Maybe we understand that he died, and I, that was hopefully to get people to go to heaven. But that's about all we really know.

We don't really have any personal encounter with him that really opens up God to us. So a lot of people in our culture, in this area would have that. You know, we know he made a big difference in the world. He doesn't really make a big difference in my life, though. You know, I'm hip to that.

And I was reading a book this summer, rereading a book, actually, by Oz Guinness called the call, and he says in it, we have to stop seeing Jesus as a religious leader rather than the Lord of all life. All of life. And I would say there's a lot of people who have a lot of religious thoughts about Jesus, but they don't see him as the lord of all of life. In fact, I'll give you an illustration of what it looks like when you do come to that realization. When Jesus.

One of the first times Jesus meets Peter, now he's teaching. This is one of their first experiences, and he's teaching in the crowd so big that he has to go get inside the boat with the disciples and sit just a little in, you know, just a little out in the water in order to teach the crowd. It's too crowded. So once that all stops, Peter and the disciples have been fishing all night long, and so they're really tired, and here they are, finished, and it's morning, and fishing's over by then. And Jesus says, put the net in the water.

And they're like, man, we've been fishing all night. There's nothing here. And this is the worst time to do it. Just do it. So Peter throws it out there, not expecting anything.

And you remember, the catch is so big, they're bringing it on the boat. The boat starts to sink. They literally have to call other boats overdose to help them. And Peter immediately drops down onto his knees in that boat, because I don't know who I was dealing with. I didn't really know who was in the boat with me until he did that.

And once he did that, I realized, ah, he's more than just the lord of the sea. He's more than just the lord of the fish. He is the lord of my life. And Peter dropped to his knees and said, depart from me, for I am a sinner, o lord. O Lord.

Whether I'm on land or whether I'm on the shore, if you're lord of everything, then you're lord of me, too. That's the difference. If you know Jesus as anything other than lord of your life, you don't really know him.

Peter realizes it.

I'm not going to just transform your fishing business, Peter. I'm going to change your life. In fact, I'm going to turn you into a. What? A fisher of Mendez.

I'm going to transform your life. If you learn who I really am, Peter, then you will start to live completely differently because of that. And I'm going to turn you into something. Not going to wait till you die, and I'm not going to wait till you get to heaven to turn you into something. I'm going to turn you into something now so I don't just believe so I can go to heaven, and then I'll get there and I'll settle down, and then I'll make Jesus the lord of my life.

And I've told you this, and I'm only going to mention it now, but you've seen it for the last two days. If you don't want him now, you will not want him then. He will be more lordy then than he is now. And if you don't want him as lord of your life now, you will be very uncomfortable there. Okay, now this makes, this really makes sense when you think about it.

And that's what I want to happen to everyone today, to the best of my ability, is that that makes sense to us, that we don't wait for heaven to start living for him.

Why would I trust him for my eternal destination and not trust him for tomorrow?

Why would I say he's lord of the universe and he can save me ultimately, but I will not even consider him for how I'm going to do the, you know, life today in the mess that I'm in, as if somehow he only hopes to get you there. But he does not care what's happening in your family. He does not care what's happening in your personal life. He does not care what's happening in your relationships. Does that sound like him?

That doesn't even sound right when you say it out loud.

Here's a great verse for you at the very end of two. Peter. Peter. You know, in both the books, really focused on growing. You come to know Jesus Christ and you grow personally, you're transformed into something.

And so at the very end of the book, he says that, grow in the grace. This is the last verse. Grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. It's got to be growing in you. And then look what he says unto him.

Be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity.

So we're growing and we are glorifying. When does it all happen? When we get to heaven and we can all settle down, stop doing life and get through this mess. And no, now until the very day eternity begins. And for Peter, that day is the day he returns now and right into eternity.

So whatever the picture is of life, it's just an extension. The future is just an extension of the life that you have with him. Now, that means what you're doing, think about it this way. What you're doing and what you're becoming just continues right into eternity. You don't wait to heaven to start doing anything.

You start doing it now, and then you become a certain kind of a person. And then there you still continue to become that person.

That's right. Now matters forever. Let me give you two really quick snapshots to help bring that home to you. In Luke, chapter 16, there's this very, very, there's this very, very shrewd businessman. Jesus tells a story about him to sort of explain this.

He says this guy has been stealing from his boss. His boss finds out about it. Turns out this guy realizes his boss knows, and he knows he's going to be fired. So before his boss gets to him to fire him, he runs around to some of his clients and he starts slashing some of their bills.

Because what he realizes is, as soon as I get fired here, I'm not going to have anybody, I'm not going to have a job, and so I'm going to need some friends. And so he very shrewdly goes to these clients and says, hey, I'm going to slash your bill. X amount. X amount. X amount.

By the time it's all over, he's got a lot of people out there who really like him. His boss comes in and fires him, finds out what he did and goes, eh, that was pretty smart for, you know, con artist or whatever. Jesus actually looks at that guy and he literally says this. I wish my, here's a guy who all he's thinking about is a few weeks or a few months or a few years ahead of his life. He said, you know, I've given eternity to my own people.

I wish they would think about eternity when they think about the decisions they make in their life, and not just tomorrow or next month or next year. In fact, this is what Jesus says. So the master commends this dishonest manager for being shrewd. I. And then he says, you know, the sons of this world, the people who only live for this world, you know, next week, next month, next year, or 20 years from now, they seem to be more shrewd in dealing with their own reality than the sons of light.

Who are the sons of light? People who have been told, enlightened, that there is a greater future than just next month and next week and next year. So I tell you, Jesus says, I'm telling you, my people who know there is an eternity make friends, not just for next week, but for eternity.

I wish my people would start living like they're going to be around forever instead of just next month or just until they're 80. Don't be offended if you're 80. 90, let's say 100. There's some 90 year olds in here, let's say 105 to be safe.

And then you want to see something else Jesus says even more remarkable.

Jesus said to him, well done, good and faithful servant, you did good. If you're thinking about eternity, you have been faithful in a little. What's going to happen later? I will set you over much. Enter the joy of your master.

Come in here and let's keep. Hey, take that faithfulness you've had down here and bring it up here too. We could use it up here in heaven, the faithfulness just continues. Don't start being faithful when you get to heaven. You're faithful now.

I'm going to make you faithful over more stuff later.

You start living it now and it just extends right into the future. So Jesus is actually building a kingdom of people who he can trust to rule with him there. Matthew 25 says, boy, if you can rule, if you can do that, I'll put you over cities.

So eternity has already begun. And then the question arises, well then how do we begin to prepare to live forever? Some of you have already prepared to live to 90.

Maybe you've extended that to 100 and you get certain things in order so that you can live to 100. But what if you're never going to cease to exist?

How do you live in light of that? Because that's what Jesus is offering.

So that's why we have to talk about this part of the mission statement. Once you discover who Jesus really is and then you start to live like him or you live with him and you live like him and you live for him now as we saw and all the way into the future and forever. That's what it means. That's what you're doing every day with him now. I want to say something to you about these prepositions right here.

This is where I want to spend my time now for what we have left is these three prepositions. Years ago I read a book by Leonard Sweet. He's a little bit out there, really creative writer. I've heard him speak a couple times and I've read most of the things he's written. And I remember him writing a line one time and I can't find it right now, but I remembered it and it was years ago.

He said this, christianity is not just propositions but prepositions.

This is the way he thinks. He's always doing that kind of sort of thing with words. He's very creative. Anyway, I was like, oh, prepositions. Some of you have flashbacks.

A preposition is anything you can do two a do you guys remember what you were taught in grammar? Do you remember? Nobody remembers this. Oh my goodness.

What is it?

Anything you could do to a cloud is what I learned. You learned tree. You were wrong. I'm sorry. You were taught wrong, Sarah.

I'm sorry. A preposition was anything you could do to a cloud. And I remember back then I didn't even care about grammar, which I actually really love grammar now. But I did not love grammar then. In fact, I hated it.

I didn't know what I was doing. And I remember, you know, well, since I'm never going to really touch a cloud, I don't really care what we do to a cloud.

So it's not just propositions, it's prepositions. What's he saying? Following Christ. This is what he was essentially trying to say. Following Christ is about much more than what you believe in the proposition stated.

I believe this, I believe this, I believe this. That's your proposition. It's actually your relationship to those truths that matters most. And that's what the prepositions do. What's my relationship to this person that matters most?

Now this is really interesting because lots of people believe things about Christ, but he does not influence their life at all.

That means he may be the lord of the fish to you, but he's not the lord of your life.

In fact, here's a little brain teaser for you. Don't have time for it in my talk, but I'm going to give it to you.

Read it two weeks ago and I've just been mulling it over, and you'll do the same thing. What do you think matters most to Jesus? That you're a believer or that you're a follower?

Now some of you smarty pants in here, well, you gotta do both. Forget that. I know. If you contemplate it long enough where I've gotten to, if I'll just let that settle with me. Well, you know, if you are gonna do, if you're gonna do life with him and you're gonna do life like him and you're gonna do life for him, you probably believe in him or you would not be doing these things.

So if you're following him to this degree, it's because you believe in him. But a lot of people believe but do not live for him.

Well, don't you have to believe to be a Christian? Yes. You know the word christians used three times in your New Testament? And do you know the word disciple follower is used 270 times a follower.

That is the aim. It's worth considering as one writer said, the New Testament is a book about disciples by disciples, four disciples. A disciple is someone who has attached his life to Jesus and now lives with him, like him and for him. Another illustration that I read that might help this a little bit, somebody said, wrote this, for instance, I believe in gravity, and my actions always reflect my belief in gravity.

How many of you go through the day and suspend your belief in gravity, ever?

You don't? Not without you. Got Band aids on right now. So he says, I don't always think about gravity, but my belief in gravity dictates the way I think about the world and the way I operate in the world. From the moment I wake up in the morning, all the way to the end of the day, if I'm stepping off a curve or walking upstairs, or if I'm about to, if I'm looking over a cliff or a railing, I'm always.

Gravity is never out of my mind. You believe in gravity. You live like gravity is real. And that was a great illustration, I thought. And he says, I don't act against gravity.

And by the way, my belief in gravity saves me.

I thought that was a really great way to illustrate this. Let's talk about with like and for very, very briefly.

So with. It would mean that once you sort of become an apprentice of Jesus or you attach your life to him, it would mean that, you know, God is alive and present in your life and that you can interact with him and that you're never alone. You're never alone anymore. And more than that, though, he calls you to something bigger, like Matthew 28, where he says, hey, go into all the world and preach the gospel. Wherever you go, I'll be with you.

I'll be with you. Which means you can rely on me and act with me in the world. You can actually see yourself co acting with Jesus in your life and in your world and in the way that you live your life. And your life takes on the quality of eternity. If you live like he is with you in those things, you live like him because you want to model your life after him.

You want to be like him. If he were living your life, he'd say, here's how I would do it if I were living your life. Your unique circumstances, your struggles, your personality, all of it. Here's how I would do it if I were you. And that matters to you.

And you try your best to be like him in character and the way you treat people, that's what it would mean. And for him would just mean, everything I do has a higher purpose. I don't care what your job is. I don't care what your hobby is. I don't care what your plans are for the future.

I don't care where you're retiring or what you're doing. You're never just going to sit on a lake because you always have a higher purpose. You live for something bigger than him. If you're on a lake, it's because there's people there and you have a chance to influence people. For Christ, you never, ever live without a purpose.

You don't get up every day and drive anywhere, not even to Dallas, without a purpose that's bigger than that building or that office or that client or that business. It's always bigger when you pull into your home. It's not just for the people in this house. We have a bigger purpose than just our little life. It's bigger.

That's what it means to live for him. And you know, and you know, and that's the wonder of this right here. Every once in a while, it helps you remember that the thing you think is everything is not everything. And you need that. That's why you need him there.

That's why you need a bigger purpose. So you never get stuck on something in this life that becomes the biggest purpose, and it wrecks you, because nothing else can qualify as the biggest purpose without taking you down. You've probably already experienced it in life, so thank God for that. Thank God there's a bigger purpose than fame or money or stuff or comfort or security. Thank God, or you'll waste your life living for it.

So you get to partner with God to make everything that you do, everything a higher purpose. That becomes the grid for how you live with him, like him and for him. What are we doing together today, God? What are we doing together today, God?

And how am I going to help people see who you are? I don't care if it's the tiniest interaction or the greatest interaction. How is my character becoming more like you today? That's what you're asking. And what is my ultimate reason for this meeting?

What is my ultimate reason for this success? What is my ultimate reason for this failure? What's bigger than all of it?

I was trying to think of a way to illustrate it, you know, maybe in a whole, you know, as a whole, the whiff, like. And for in August, I happened to be watching Colin Cowherd, sports guy, and he had on Di Mario Davis, linebacker for the Saints. You might have met him not too long ago. I'm saying when the Cowboys got killed by him. I didn't mean to.

I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. In case you didn't know him, you might have gotten to know him a couple weeks ago. Anyway, he's been in the league twelve years. Colin had him on in August and I didn't really know about him. I mean, obviously I've seen him play and I knew he was a good linebacker, but I did not know even that he was as good as he actually is.

And I certainly didn't know how much he loved God. I did not know that. But I mean, I went back and looked at him after that and it turns out, I mean, this guy has walked up to the podium after a game with his Bible open and read verses and talks about the difference God's made in his life. He does nothing without including God in what he's doing. And so Colin, who has the spiritual sensitivity of a boat cushion because I've been listening to him for a long time.

Okay, smart guy. I keep waiting for him to see the light pitch black in there.

So I looked at him. Colin asked him, so how long do you think you're going to play?

I want to tell you exactly what he said. He said, well, I'll tell you while I'm still playing or why I'm still playing. It's because God's not done with what he's doing with me. That's how he interprets his job.

I'll play as long as he tells me to keep going because it's him that's extending the platform that I have. Because he knows what I'm going to do when I'm given a mic or I'm given a platform. He says he knows every time I get in a seat like this one, I'm going to give glory to my lord and savior Jesus Christ and I'm going to say it's because of him that I'm here now. Poor Colin. He didn't know what to do with that and you could see it all over his face.

And obviously you're not going to be able to be that blunt in your life, but that's the thoughts you ought to have. How long am I going to do this job? How long are we going to live here? How long am I going to put up with that? How long am I going to do this?

How long am I going to do anything? I'll tell you what. Whatever God wants me to do, I'm doing. That's my highest purpose, my decision making, my purpose for whatever it is I'm doing. I don't care where you work or what you do.

That's what it looks like.

He's my top reason for everything you say. What if I.

What if I believe and I'm just hoping to go to heaven and that's enough? And you're really the kind of person that says I have the right answers about spiritual things, but I'm not becoming the right kind of person. That's what this mission's about. I have the right answers about who Jesus is, and I'm becoming the person he wants me to become.

You can have the right answers and be becoming the wrong person.

It's devastating to think about that.

I got the propositions right. Prepositions are all wrong.

Now, I want to tell you something.

I really want you to hear what I say. Now, I want you to know God loves you way too much just to take you to heaven and not have you live with him every day of your life here. He loves you way too much because I know some of you say, well, God loves me, and that's all that matters.

Lots of people do that. No. And I want to show you something. So I told you a couple weeks ago, I'm sort of rereading the problem of pain by CS Lewis. And CS Lewis calls God's love an intolerable compliment.

I might not be able to hold back tears because I've loved so much what he said, intolerable compliment. Yes. You should feel really good and boast that God loves you. That's a compliment. But it's an intolerable compliment because there's no way he loves you enough to let you stay like you are.

And sometimes what God has to do to transform you will feel intolerable to you. It's the way a parent loves a kid. Loves him. Can't let that keep happening. Can't let that keep happening.

God's the same way.

When you love something, you love it in spite of its failure, its messes.

But you don't want those messes to continue.

Your love's that way. You expect God's love to be that way. Yeah, go on. Just continue being the mess that you are. No.

No. Cs Lewis says this.

He might still love you with all your flaws, but love cannot cease to will their removal.

And then he writes this. Take it in. To ask that God's love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God because he is what he is. His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled by certain stains in our present character.

And because he already loves us, he's laboring to make us more lovable.

We cannot even wish in our better moments that he would reconcile himself to our present impurities.

Could you ever say to your parent, don't love me so much that you want me to be different? Can you imagine God saying, I won't? Can you imagine saying to God, don't love me so much that you want me to be different?

Cs Lewis says this, you ask for a loving God, you got one.

And then I love this in the same way, it's natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny. Yeah, it's really natural to say, God, maybe you want too much from us. Maybe what you have in store for us is just too much.

But then we are wishing not for more love, but for less.

And then I'm thinking that. And here's the text that came to my mind, and I want you to see it and I'll give you two quick stories and be done.

Here's one. John, three. See what kind of love the father has given us. What kind of love is it that we should be called as children? Yes, God loves me.

I'm one of his children. Done with. End of story.

Beloved, we are God's children now. And what we will be, evidently what we will be matters to God, too, has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we'll see him as he is. And everyone who has that hope, the hope that one day you'll be everything he intended you to be. What is that person doing now?

Well, I can't wait to get there and be like him. No, that person purifies himself right now, even as he is pure at the sheer idea that I'm going to be transformed is already transforming me. Now, his love is not just for when you die. So what should you do today? Well, here's the first thing I would tell you.

My two quick, little quick anecdotes. They both have to do with my grandchildren, because now I'm a grandfather. All the kids were playing at the house the other day. Parents are in different spots in the house. Kids are running around and I hear the oldest one say, hey, follow me.

I hear it. I'm watching something. We're all talking, and then I hear a year younger one say, why should we follow you? And I'm sitting on the couch going, brilliant. That's a three year old.

Why should we follow you very, like, inquisitive. And that made me think of, like, Peter when all the disciples, a bunch of disciples were leaving Jesus. Cause he was teaching some crazy stuff. And Jesus looked at his twelve, you know, and said, hey, you guys going too? And Peter goes, where are we gonna go?

Nobody else has the words to eternal life. Nobody else has presented this. No one else is gonna take me from here to there. No one else loves me so much to leave me like I am. Hope that one day I'll become.

Nobody loves us like that. Nobody's offering that. We're not going anywhere. That's what I would say to any of you sitting in this room, and you don't really know who he is and you're not following him. You have the right answers, but you're not becoming the right kind of person.

Now, there's some of you, it's a little bit more of a. Just a challenge to you. So girls have also, grandkids have been learning how to swim, and they're little, and they're learning slowly but surely, and a couple of them are really getting it, and one of them can really do it. But for the longest time, you know, she'd see, like, we'd have friends come over and they'd jump off the diving board in the deep end, and she could swim, but she wasn't ready to be in the deep end mentally. Now, all of us, as her parents, grandparents, friends, we're all seeing that this child, even though she likes being in the comfort of where she can stand, she still can swim.

We know for a fact she could jump in the deep end and swim, but she's not ready to do it. Well, that's. She'd get to the edge of the diving board and then everybody be going, yeah, here we go. Here we go. Yeah.

She'd turn around and walk away. We'd all clap, clap.

Well, she finally did it, and she swam across then. And I mean, the whole. All of us were just falling over ourselves. And while I was watching her do that, I thought to myself, maybe you've called yourself a Christian for a long time, but you've always stayed in the waters where it's kind of shallow and you can still run things. And when you want to stand up, you can, but you're not really taking on anything major for God at all.

You never really have jumped in the deep end. You've never said, hey, God, I'd like to partner with you on something in this world so that when I died, you could look at me and say, well done, good and faithful servant. I sure would like to know what it is we're doing together. And if that means jumping off the deep end, I'll jump. But I'm sick of.

Soon as I get a little bit scared, standing up and doing what I want to do and trusting myself and not you.

That may be you too. You have the right answers. You're not becoming the right person. Some of it, you just don't trust him fully. He's not just the Lord of the sea.

It's not just the Lord of the deep. It's not just the Lord of the fish. He's the Lord of your life. Let him be.

Let him be.

Bow your heads, would you? Father, thank you for this incredible, incredible gift you've given us. As one author I read said, somehow, inside of eternity, somehow because of Jesus Christ, we get to participate in eternity. Wow. Some of us are not doing it.

I pray for any person in here, Lord, who thinks they know you, but really doesn't, that they'll just look closer, pick up the Bible, read the gospels, do something, reach out to a friend, a family member, somebody say, I need to know a little bit more about Jesus before I jump off that diving board. If that's you, do it. That's my challenge to you today. I don't know Jesus well enough, but there's some people in here, Lord, know them really well, still standing in the shallow end, and they're ready to swim in the deep. And I guarantee you are waiting for them to do something with you.

Live for you. Live like you.

I pray today they'll just say God, amen.

Praise in Jesus name. Amen.