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Don't Trade Your Calling For Your Cravings
7 Plays5 days ago
Judges 15:1-16:31
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Transcript
God's Plan and Faithfulness
00:00:01
Speaker
The question I want us all to consider this morning is this. Are you following God's plan for your life? God has a purpose and He has a plan.
00:00:12
Speaker
Are you remaining faithful to that plan?
00:00:19
Speaker
Sometimes we'll we'll say God has a calling on your life. you'll You'll hear that quite often in today's sermon. It means God has a plan very specific for you and for me.
Ignoring Guidance: A Road Trip Metaphor
00:00:30
Speaker
Not long ago, there was a man finally decided to take a long road trip to see his grandkids.
00:00:36
Speaker
Now this man had been driving his truck for over 50 years. He knew how to drive a truck. He didn't need any directions. But his grown daughter insisted that he use the GPS.
00:00:51
Speaker
She said, Dad, just turn it on for me. Please, just turn it on and follow the GPS. So with his daughter's help, he plugged in the address and he hit the start button.
00:01:04
Speaker
And after a few miles down the road, the GPS voice came on the radio and it said, in one mile, you will turn right. He chuckled to himself under his breath.
00:01:15
Speaker
There's a shortcut that I know. A few minutes later, the GPS came back on and said, recalculate It seems you've missed a U-turn. Please make a U-turn.
00:01:29
Speaker
U-turn. U-turn. He ignored all those instructions. About two hours later, he found himself on a narrow dirt road, lost, frustrated, and y'all get the GPS.
00:01:42
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And all the wives are saying amen right now.
00:01:47
Speaker
He finally up enough nerve to call his daughter. He said, I'm stuck. I'm stranded. She said, Dad, didn't you just follow the directions? Well, not exactly.
00:02:00
Speaker
You see, friends, the problem wasn't in the guidance, it was in the refusal to follow that guidance. And if we're honest with ourselves, this morning we've all refused to follow God's direction from one time or another.
00:02:14
Speaker
We've all felt that gentle nudge of the Holy Spirit trying to get us to recalculate, trying to get us back on track. But we've often chosen to just override that feeling.
00:02:28
Speaker
and go our own direction, go our own our own path.
Samson's Story: Divine Direction vs. Personal Desires
00:02:31
Speaker
But I'm here to tell you this morning, church family, that God has a plan for you. The moment you were born to the very time that you're sitting in this seat right now, He has a plan and a purpose for your life.
00:02:44
Speaker
And He wants you to to follow it. It's just that simple. Brother Mike and in class this morning said, sometimes ah the lessons are just that simple. I'm going to tell you this morning, I could go on for another hour and 45 minutes what I want to tell you is the summary right up front and in the risk of a preacher doing this you may just simply fall asleep for the next 30 minutes but I'm trusting you with it God has a plan for your life and he wants you to follow it that's the message today plain and simple it's the same message that Samson was given the same message the same direction that God gave on his life we heard about that last week he had this divine direction from birth he was set apart he had a clear calling
00:03:28
Speaker
But every time the Holy Spirit said, turn here, Samson said, well, don't worry, I i got this. And instead of recalculating towards obedience, he just kept driving towards destruction.
00:03:41
Speaker
If that's you this morning, if you're on a path towards destruction, and you're not following God's life, you're not following GPS, which by the way stands for God's plan of salvation, it's never too late to recalculate. Repeat after me.
00:03:59
Speaker
It's never too late to recalculate.
00:04:03
Speaker
Somebody's writing that in their notes right now. got to remember that. With that in mind, let's open our Bibles to Judges 15. I'll just be completely honest. ah I told Kim this morning, there's a lot to cover this morning, and I'm going to try to do my best to summarize where I can and and still get us out of here in time to get back and watch some Olympics.
00:04:25
Speaker
When we got through chapter 14, 13 and 14, we've seen this birth narrative of Samson and kind of where he's gone off track.
00:04:38
Speaker
We're gonna wrap up in 15, Samson's story. His story is is is a sad one, right? It's a man who just refused to follow God's plan for his life.
00:04:50
Speaker
Instead, he decides to follow his personal desires
00:04:55
Speaker
His life, we'll see today, is just a pattern of escalating vengeance. And you might say to yourself, well, Pastor, I'm not that type of person. I don't have that nature in me to be vengeful.
00:05:09
Speaker
We'll see about that. Read with me here these first five verses. Chapter 15. It says, Later on during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as as a present to his wife.
00:05:21
Speaker
And he said, I'm going into my wife's room to sleep with her, but her father wouldn't let him in.
00:05:28
Speaker
I truly thought you must hate her, her father explained, so I gave her in marriage to your best man. Remember we heard about that at the end of chapter 13. He's reiterating that for us.
00:05:39
Speaker
He said, but look, here's your alternative. Her younger sister is even more beautiful than she is. Marry her instead. Samson said, this time I cannot be blamed for everything I'm about to do or I'm going to do to the Philistines.
00:05:53
Speaker
Then he went out and he caught 300 foxes and he tied their tails together in pairs. And all PETA is gasping right now.
00:06:02
Speaker
I'll pause for that, sorry. those of you who who love foxes, understand, I'll explain what he's saying here. He's tying the tails of the foxes together and he's going to let them run through the fields, torching the fields.
00:06:17
Speaker
Verse 5 says, then he lit the torches and let the foxes run through the grain fields and he burned all the grain fields to the ground, including the sheaves and the uncut grain. He also destroyed their vineyards and in in the olive groves.
00:06:31
Speaker
I wrote in my notes and in the in the side of my Bible, short fuse. You know these people go from zero to ten just like that. One little thing sets them off.
00:06:44
Speaker
We're told at the end of chapter 14, and it's reiterated here at the beginning of 15, Samson's wife was given marriage to his best man.
00:06:54
Speaker
And he goes there like all guys do, I guess, and he says, I'm going to bring you a gift and I want to sleep with you. But our father intervenes. You know, father gives him the heisman, sniff arm. Samson, you can't go The irony is, he says, here's the younger sister.
00:07:15
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Samson hears this and immediately goes into a rage. Verse 5 says, he he ties these foxes' tails together and he sends them through the fields and it burns down the crops.
00:07:31
Speaker
Imagine if you were somebody who lives out on the border of Cameron and Rockdale.
00:07:40
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And your neighbor's bull has knocked down your fence. Instead of going to your neighbor and simply saying, hey, let's hash this out, let's figure out a way to amicably resolve this, you light his barn on fire and you burn it to the ground.
00:07:59
Speaker
It's this idea of letting your emotions dictate how you live. We talked a little bit about this on Wednesday, a couple Wednesdays ago. The sign of a mature Christian is is we don't allow our emotions to dictate how we respond to life's tragedies.
Cycle of Violence and Revenge
00:08:13
Speaker
Friends, if anger is driving you and leading you and guiding you and your calling, God's calling on your life is not leading and guiding you, real disaster is right around the corner.
00:08:30
Speaker
I put in here, revenge rarely travels alone. You ever notice that? when you When you want to take revenge, it normally is not just on that, it invites retaliation. Never do you just seek revenge and it ends then.
00:08:43
Speaker
That person then goes, oh, have to retaliate. And in friends, that's exactly what we see, verse 6. six
00:08:50
Speaker
Who did this? The Philistines demanded. So their vineyards are torn up, their crops are all burned down. The Philistines say, who did this? Samson was the reply because his father-in-law from Timnah gave Samson's wife to be married to his best man.
00:09:05
Speaker
So the Philistines went and got the woman and her father and get this and burned them to death.
00:09:13
Speaker
Short fuse, again, I put in there. Retaliation. In reaction to something that Samson did that his wife and father-in-law had nothing to do with.
00:09:27
Speaker
Violence begets violence. That word begets, that old Christian term that you read when you're going through your Old Testament. What does begets mean? It means birthing.
00:09:40
Speaker
Violence births more violence. It's this picture of a vicious, violent cycle. This is why retaliatory gang violence is such a big problem in the United States and across the globe.
00:09:52
Speaker
One gang assaults another, they take it personally, they go and assault and it just keeps going on and on and on. Almost to the point where you can't ever remember what the original offense was. Do you know anybody like that in your family?
00:10:08
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They've held on to something so long in the past you don't even know what you're fighting about? Families fighting over stuff they don't even remember. And it's been decades.
00:10:19
Speaker
interesting here, friends, as as I just put as a note to myself as I reread this last week, Samson's anger just didn't affect his enemies. It poured over into the lives of his wife and his father, innocent bystanders, I put.
00:10:35
Speaker
The feud had escalated so much that it just poured over and other innocent lives were affected
00:10:45
Speaker
because he just couldn't let it go. For some of you here this morning, that's the word you need to hear today. There's something that you're holding on to that you simply need to let go. How many friendships have you had that have quietly died because you've refused to let something go?
00:11:01
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Some offense. How many churches have been strained or split because people have refused to let something go? They've refused to yield.
00:11:14
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How many families have been wounded because... brother or a sister just refuses to let something go. Theologian Alexander Volk says this, he says, revenge seemingly promises resolution, but it always produces collateral damage.
00:11:31
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Thinking, when I'm gonna take revenge on something, like that's gonna be the end of it. like I'm gonna get resolution by taking revenge on something, and Alexander says, no, what that really does is just produces more collateral damage.
00:11:44
Speaker
It's exactly what we see here Starting verse 7 and on, look with me.
00:11:52
Speaker
So this is just after they burned his wife and his father-in-law. Verse 7 says, Because you did this, Samson vowed, I won't rest until I take my revenge on you. And so he attacked the Philistines with great fury he killed many of them.
00:12:06
Speaker
Then he went to live in a cave in a rock called Etom.
00:12:11
Speaker
This... This vow, and I like that the New Living Translation, your your translation may not read this, this word, Samson vowed, is a very interesting word. it's It's the same word when his mother and father made this Nazarite vow on Samson's life, right? And so initially he was vowed to be set apart, to be holy, to be consecrated, and now he's taken it upon himself to to make a new vow, and it's a vow of revenge.
00:12:42
Speaker
He's drifted, I put in my notes. He's drifted from his divine calling. He's drifted from God's purpose for his life. And he's driven by his own personal desire for revenge. Here's the warning I put for us, church family, today.
00:12:57
Speaker
When you and live driven by our plan and not God's plan, you might seem like you have it all together on the outside, but there's internal turmoil happening The further further you drift from God, you might be able to keep up a strong outside, but the inside is weakening.
00:13:17
Speaker
And it's a downward spiral. Just look at how it ends here for Samson. By the end, he's blinded, he's bound, and he's grinding out grain in prison. This is the guy that was originally set apart by God to have this fantastic calling on his life.
00:13:34
Speaker
And he's blinded, he's bound, and he's grinding out grain in
00:13:40
Speaker
the strong has become a spectacle. Personal fury ends in public humiliation.
00:13:47
Speaker
It's like somebody who nurses bitterness. You know these people who just hold on to bitterness for so long and it just eats away at them on the inside and they become hardened? They no longer experience joy.
00:13:58
Speaker
They lose out on relationships. They lose a little bit of themselves. And they think somehow holding on to that bitterness is doing them some good, but it's just eating them from the inside.
00:14:13
Speaker
And they're grinding out grain in in the prison of their own mind. Maybe you're here this morning and you're putting on a strong front. Maybe you're here with a tough exterior, but on the inside you're holding on to some bitterness, some anger, some selfishness from something that happened maybe decades ago to you.
00:14:31
Speaker
And you're stuck holding on to this bitterness and you're just grinding away, grinding this grain in the prison of your own mind. If that's you, the message today for you is simply this. It's time to let go.
00:14:42
Speaker
Let go of that bitterness. Let go of that anger that's been fueling you for far too long. Release that selfishness. That's not helpful. It's harmful. Samson's downfall, I want you to to take note here, is not just simply about his anger or his uncontrolled emotions. It's it's a because he was living for himself.
00:15:00
Speaker
He stopped living God's plan and he started living his own plan.
00:15:06
Speaker
And just it just cycles out of control. It's a sad story, folks. Look with me here as it continues on in verse 9 and 11. 9 through 11 says, the the Philistines, of course, they have they have retaliated by setting up a camp in Judah.
00:15:22
Speaker
spreading out near the town of Lahai. The men of Judah asked the Philistines, hey, why are you attacking us? The Philistines replied, we've come to capture Samson.
00:15:33
Speaker
We've come to pay him back for what he did. So verse 11, get this. So 3,000 men of Judah went down to get Samson at the cave of the rock of Etom. And they said to Samson, don't you realize the Philistines rule over us?
00:15:47
Speaker
What are you doing to us? And Samson replied, listen to Samson's reply here, I only did to them what they did to me. You know people like that?
00:15:59
Speaker
It's a selfish response, right? He could have easily said, oh, yeah, I know I know i shouldn't have done that. Hey, maybe I need to take a step back. But instead, it's a selfish reaction, a selfish response.
00:16:14
Speaker
And he's now pulled in Judah and the tribe of Judah, these people, into this conflict that Samson started. And the Philistines have just they' just been jockeying back and forth. One's punishing the next.
00:16:27
Speaker
And somehow Judah's like, hey, why are we in the middle of this?
00:16:31
Speaker
He's selfish. I only did it to them because of what they did to me. He's operating alone. No partnership. No accountability. It's all about Samson. Samson.
00:16:43
Speaker
And I put in parentheses here, his plan, not God's plan.
Community, Accountability, and Faith
00:16:49
Speaker
You understand that? When you're out on an island and you have no accountability and you're doing things your way, that's your plan.
00:16:56
Speaker
That's not God's plan. It reminds me of the church member who says, I don't need to attend Sunday school. Or I don't need to attend Bible study class. I don't need to fellowship with the church.
00:17:08
Speaker
I'm just fine with Jesus and me.
00:17:12
Speaker
Friends, one of the reasons we emphasize here at this church, fellowship, and Bible study class, and Sunday school, is because isolation makes you vulnerable. If you're out on an island somewhere, and you just think, all I need is my Bible, it's me, my Bible, and the Holy Spirit, I've heard that before, and I go, that's bunk, pastorally speaking.
00:17:35
Speaker
I love you, but it's bunk, because that's not what Jesus tells us. He tells us to come together as a people, fellow believers, so that we don't end up in the gutter. We are, in bowling terms, we're that gutter protector for each other.
00:17:50
Speaker
We get together in Sunday school classes, and the teachers have spent all week, sometimes two weeks, preparing a lesson for you to feed you this message that the Holy Spirit wants you to have.
00:18:01
Speaker
And I've seen people just go, you know, that's not for me. Or they'll come to one class and, no, that's not for me, and they'll stop coming.
00:18:12
Speaker
If that's you, may I lovingly say, you worry me.
00:18:18
Speaker
If you're on an island thinking that you're going live life by yourself, you worry me a little bit. Because the people that I've experienced through my 18-some-odd years of teaching the Bible, typically these people have really poor theology.
00:18:33
Speaker
They've just come up with whatever they feel like the Bible has said versus having other people who have prepared and studied and have an education in it to teach them. And they get off course and they start believing crazy things. And in these crazy ideas, this poor theology leads to poor living.
00:18:52
Speaker
So if you're that person today, if you are not in a Bible study class, if you're not in a fellowship here, if you're not in a Sunday school class, I ask you just to examine your heart. Pray to God that he might show you an alternative, some place to get plugged in here in the church. There are other believers, men, women, that are dying to do Christian life with you if you would simply step out and in faith.
00:19:14
Speaker
The alternative, brothers and sisters, is that you will simply continue to drift further and further away from God's purpose.
00:19:22
Speaker
Samson keeps drifting further and further away. Look look at verse 14 and 15.
00:19:30
Speaker
Samson arrived at Lehi and the the Philistines came shouting in triumph. But the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon Samson and he snapped the ropes of his arms as if they were burnt strands of flax.
00:19:41
Speaker
And they fell from his wrist and then he found the jawbone of a recently killed donkey. And he picked it up and he killed a thousand Philistines with it. Let's pause there because I don't want to sing this next verse, 16. It's supposed to really be a song.
00:19:54
Speaker
I've got get my voice ready for that.
00:20:00
Speaker
Nazarite vow, set apart, holy, don't touch dead things, don't cut your hair, don't drink alcohol, right? He's gone drifted so far, folks, he's now picked up a dead carcass.
00:20:16
Speaker
Remember we talked last week, he had his hands in a carcass and got the honey out. He was already touching dead things. He didn't learn his lesson. Now he's picking up a jawbone and he goes to murdering. Further and further apart,
00:20:29
Speaker
put my notes, probably the GPS was saying, warning, warning, Samson, what are you doing? You know you're not supposed to touch that.
00:20:41
Speaker
Brothers and sisters, is the Holy Spirit warning you this morning? You're not supposed to touch that. You're not supposed to eat that. You're not supposed to watch that. You're not supposed to gossip about that.
00:20:53
Speaker
You're not supposed to drink that. Avoid that. Perhaps we should start to listen before it becomes too late to recalibrate.
00:21:06
Speaker
Samson takes this jawbone, says kills a thousand Philistines. And to top it off, he goes singing this song. Verse 16.
00:21:17
Speaker
I'm not going to sing it. You thought I was going to sing it, didn't you? With the jawbone of a donkey, I've piled them in heaps. With the jawbone of a donkey, I've killed a thousand men.
00:21:31
Speaker
Verse 17 tells us, and when he finished his boasting, right that's what that's what he's doing. Look at me. Look what I did.
00:21:47
Speaker
Look at verse 18. Skip down. Samson was now very thirsty and he cried out to the Lord. You have accomplished this great victory by the strength of your servant. Right? still It's still all about Samson here.
00:22:03
Speaker
Look what I did. Look what I killed. Look how great the Lord is. He used me.
00:22:09
Speaker
put in here, this is a real problem for the church. This is a real problem for you guys. Real problem for me. put this as pride wrapped in Christian lingo.
00:22:28
Speaker
What do mean by that?
00:22:34
Speaker
God has gifted us with this beautiful building. Amen?
00:22:39
Speaker
That's why I decided to come in and paint the entrance the other day. Different color. See, I started out with something great. God has gifted us. Sounds Christian. Sounds like God's going to get the glory.
00:22:51
Speaker
Then I just turned it right back on my myself. Look at me. I painted the entrance. Pride wrapped in Christian lingo. The thing about pride is, you can try to hide it for a long time, but it's always gonna creep out.
00:23:08
Speaker
It's always gonna seep out. Gotta constantly be on the guard, constantly reigning in subtle pride.
00:23:18
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The longer you are faithful in your walk and the more mature you become as a Christian, The Holy Spirit gifts you with a a a keen ear to pride.
00:23:30
Speaker
And so oftentimes you will be among your brothers and sisters at church and you'll hear somebody say something and you're like, ooh, that's got a little bit too much about me.
00:23:42
Speaker
And needs to be all about him.
Pride and Spiritual Vigilance
00:23:44
Speaker
We've got to be real careful with this. I hear this in the church. And so i just I want to point it out to you. We have to be we had to be real mindful of this. Quite often we can make it sound like it's it's God honoring, but it's it's all about us and what we're doing.
00:24:00
Speaker
We've seen Samson drifting away from his calling. We see him spiral out of control with revenge. We see him doing selfish actions and reactions. Now let's get to the good part, which everybody knows about Samson. Verse 1, chapter 16.
00:24:15
Speaker
Notice it's not an upward spiral. It's always a downward spiral. One day Samson went to the Philistines town of Gaza and he spent the night with a, can everybody say it A woman of the night.
00:24:31
Speaker
Now the church is a young kid, that's what they well the lady teacher said. She was a woman of the night. remember going home to my mom, i was like, what's a woman of the night? Where did you hear that, she said.
00:24:42
Speaker
I heard it at church. heard it at Bible study.
00:24:48
Speaker
Friends, he goes to Gaza and he visits prostitutes. He's flirting with an enemy in enemy territory.
00:24:58
Speaker
And I wish you could, or I could frame this in some other light. It's just a selfish desire. That's what he's doing right now. And it's it's that selfish desire that I want to do it my way, not God's way, that's replacing that sacred calling.
00:25:16
Speaker
Lust will always promise pleasure, but it will deliver chains.
00:25:21
Speaker
I'll say that again. Selfish desire replaces sacred calling and lust will always promise pleasure but deliver chains. And friends, that's exactly where Samson finds himself.
00:25:34
Speaker
The irony of it, right? He finds himself just a few verses in in chains, bound. And Delilah, this fourth woman in this torrid tale, is the one who delivers him over to the to the Philistines.
00:25:46
Speaker
And you know the story. I'm not going to read all of it, but let's just look at verses 4 and 5.
00:25:52
Speaker
Sometime later, Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, which there are many songs written by about Delilah. so You lived who lived in the valley of Sorek, the rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, and tie Samson to tell us what makes him so strong so that he can be overpowered, tied up securely. Then each of us will give you 1,100 pieces of silver.
00:26:20
Speaker
And she's persistent, isn't she?
00:26:24
Speaker
Back and forth is this exchange. Tell me what makes you weak. And he lies, and it doesn't work out. Then she comes back a little more angry.
00:26:34
Speaker
Tell me really, and goes back and forth. Repeated temptation, repeated compromise, and eventually it pays off. Because Sam's like, alright, I've had enough. This is what happens. This is what will make me weak. He reveals his secret. And friends, he doesn't just lose his hair. He loses his identity.
00:26:52
Speaker
He abandons his identity. Verse 20 says, when he woke up, he thought, I will just do as I did before and I'll shake myself free. Meaning he'll just break out of these chains that he's been chained to.
00:27:03
Speaker
But he didn't realize that the Lord had left
Spiritual Drift and Engagement
00:27:07
Speaker
him. Perhaps the saddest most telling, most tragic line in the entire passage. He had drifted so far that the Lord had had walked away from him.
00:27:18
Speaker
And I put imagine a lifelong church member who slowly drifts, less prayer, less scripture, less fellowship, less worship, less engaging, until one day they realize they no longer feel nothing and they no longer hear that gentle nudge of the Holy Spirit.
00:27:34
Speaker
Because this is the way it works, brothers and sisters. You can have it your way. for a really long time. And the Holy Spirit will keep nudging you and at some point God will say, so be it.
00:27:49
Speaker
Have it your way. It's a scary place to be. It's a sobering time what we see Samson go through here at the end. It's not a sudden collapse, it's just a slow departure.
00:28:07
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Will we guard our calling or will we drift from it? This is the question that we're faced with today.
00:28:18
Speaker
Pastor, this doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I'm not really fighting any Philistines.
00:28:28
Speaker
I hope not. They've been gone for a long time. But here's what you are facing.
00:28:35
Speaker
Drift. distraction, disengagement, and subtle compromise.
00:28:46
Speaker
How do I know? Because I can look at many of you at your dominant shaking hand. You don't know this about me. I'm telling you a secret. I can look at your shaking hand, the one you shake hands with, and I can see how strong your thumb is from all that scrolling that you've been doing on your phone.
00:29:08
Speaker
Slow, distracting, disengagement. I know I shouldn't be looking at that. I know I shouldn't be searching on that.
00:29:20
Speaker
Same thing I tell my mom. Stop clicking on all those things on Facebook. It's dangerous. It's dangerous, church. It's pulling you away from God's purpose in your life.
00:29:34
Speaker
So, how do we apply this today just two quick points how are we to be faithful to this call of god God God's role in your life I put first be faithful in the hidden battles of the heart because it all starts here
00:29:54
Speaker
you might think it starts with the eyes but it's really a heart issue for many of you here today the battlefield is not public scandal it's a private surrender Matter of fact, I was just talking to somebody earlier. They they said, this is this is the issue with somebody that they know. They just simply won't surrender yet.
00:30:17
Speaker
Perhaps you've been holding on to resentment for many, many years. You were wounded or hurt sometime long ago. Let me tell you what, that time has passed. It's time to let that go.
00:30:28
Speaker
let that go This shows up in your life and my life when we start envying somebody else's family, their health, their house, their car, their farm, their circumstance.
00:30:41
Speaker
And that little voice of discouragement whispers to you and you know you've made it. You can just coast. It's okay to retire.
00:30:54
Speaker
I will tell you I have yet to find biblically where retirement is mentioned in the Bible.
00:31:01
Speaker
i'll just leave that with you. You may stop your full-time job, but but you are still called to do something throughout the rest of your life.
00:31:13
Speaker
Remaining faithful to your calling means refusing to let bitterness, pride, and secret sin settle into your heart. how do we How do we have a very practical way to apply this today? Well, before you go to bed tonight,
00:31:24
Speaker
After you spent all Sunday watching the Olympics, this is what I want you to ask yourself. Lord, is there one thing that's going on in my heart that doesn't honor you? Would you reveal that to me?
00:31:35
Speaker
Is there one thing that's going on in my heart that does not honor you? Would you reveal that to me? And when he points that out, don't ignore it.
00:31:48
Speaker
When he says turn left, turn left. When he says make U-turn, make U-turn. Don't try to justify it. Just confess, lay it down, and move on.
00:32:00
Speaker
Second, be faithful by finishing well.
00:32:06
Speaker
This a really
00:32:09
Speaker
personal one for me. Man, I've known so many Christians who started out really strong, and at the end of their life, they just check out.
00:32:23
Speaker
called to walk this Christian walk for decade after decade and persevere. And the ones that do it well, boy, that's a gift.
00:32:35
Speaker
It really is. To look back on somebody who lived a life as God had purposed it is a real gift. But so many of us, what we do is we don't guard that gift and we stray.
00:32:51
Speaker
that mean for you and I today? It means staying engaged in worship. It means coming to Bible study class. It means showing up at church. It means showing up at the women's event and the men's event.
00:33:05
Speaker
It's like going to the gym. You don't want to go some days. You just show up. You just keep showing up. I put not only we're meant to finish well, but we're meant to invest forward.
00:33:18
Speaker
That means the younger kids that you see here your grandkids, your grown kids. You may think my best days are long behind me. Let me gently and lovingly tell you, your best days are yet to come because you're still breathing and you're still alive and you're called to invest in that next generation.
Finishing Strong and Investing in the Future
00:33:38
Speaker
Don't quit, finish strong. Let us put down practical way you and I can do this. Find a young person. Maybe it's your grandchild. Maybe it's a neighbor's child. Maybe it's a young kid in this church.
00:33:50
Speaker
Would you commit to pray for them? Would you write down their name? Would you send them a note? Just let say, hey, I'd like i'd like to pray for you.
00:33:59
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Pass that baton on attentionally and resist the drift.
00:34:06
Speaker
I'll end with this.
00:34:10
Speaker
Alistair Begg said this, don't trade decades of faithfulness for a moment of indulgence.
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Speaker
Meaning finish strong.
00:34:20
Speaker
Don't let your foot off the gas. Don't coast.
00:34:25
Speaker
Don't let weariness turn into withdrawal. Guard your heart. Finish well. And all God's people said,