The Reality of Eternity

Father, we thank you so much for Sean.

Lord.

We just pray Lord that everything that you have placed

into his heart to say today, Lord, that he would

be able to proclaim it with boldness. Father, we just

give him freedom in this house to do whatever you

are telling him to do and to say whatever you

have for him to say. And we bless him. And

we also pray for everyone's hearts that we would be

fertile soil ready to receive the word, for it to

take root, and for it to grow in Jesus Mighty name.

Amen.

Got that, Thanks Kim.

What's up guys.

So a couple of weeks ago, you know, I'm not

on I don't see myself as the type of guy

that can just be on a rotation of preaching. But

whenever God puts something on my heart, I'm not afraid

to do it. So I called Justin and Lisa and

Kylie a couple of weeks ago and said, I have

something that that it's all my heart that I want

to preach about. Well, Kylie said, because she was ready

to speak again, and she said, well, do you want

me to go first or second? And I said, please

go first because I need all the time.

I can get and so she did.

And if y'all were here last Sunday, I think you

would agree with me. I know for me anyway, It's

probably one of the most powerful messages I've ever heard spoken.

From this stage.

And I was sitting right there and hanging on every

word that she was saying. But deep down I had

this awful fear and dread because I knew.

How to preach after it. Man, it's true.

You can tell the joke is like halfway funny, and

everybody just laughs. I know, I know how you feel.

But she she preached on Psalm twenty three, and the

beautiful thing about when God tells you something to talk on,

this happens a lot. What's interesting is what I'm talking

on today is the sentence after. It's the sentence after

Kylie's message, which is pretty cool. So just to read

Psalm twenty three again. The Lord is my shepherd, and

I shall not want. He makes me lie down in

green pastures. He leaves me besides still waters. He restores

my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for

his namesake. Even though I walk through the valley of

the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for

you or with me. You Rod and your staff, they

comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the

presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil.

My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life. And when we were

talking about today is the next line. And I shall

dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And so

David says, Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all

the days of my life.

Period.

Then you die, and I shall dwell in the house

of the Lord forever. I want to talk about the

reality of eternity. This is real, but it's not as

real as what's coming next. It feels so real to

us because we were born here, we can touch and

feel things. It feels real to us because it doesn't

really have much take much faith.

To be here.

One thing that I want to do is in Kylie

mentioned this last Sunday. Heaven is our home and earth

is our assignment.

Man.

That really hit me last week. Heaven is home and

Earth is our assignment. And I want to be really careful.

So just so you know, guys, when I anytime you

see me up here talking, I'm not preaching to y'all.

I'm usually preaching to myself, and y'all just get to listen.

I'm serious. I don't want to be too comfortable here.

I want to feel just a little bit out of place.

I want to be like putting a round peg into

a square hole. You can make it go in, but

it's just it's not quite a right fit. We read

about God in the future eternity with him, but we

look at it through the lens of our understanding of

this reality. And the funny thing is, we don't even

understand this reality that much. So a good analogy for

this is, so, let's say your wife works for a

big company and she's having there, having a corporate Christmas party.

And it's funny, I just had a thought that my

fly was down.

It's not really good.

Uh, all right back on track. So let's say, Uh,

let's say there's a big Christmas party, corporate Christmas party.

You get all dressed up and you go with your

with your wife and you get there and she walks

in the door and she knows everybody, starts talking to everybody.

You don't know that many people there kind of walk

in the corner. There's some guys probably feel the same way.

And y'all are visiting. It's a beautiful room, it's got

great food, and everybody in there is visiting and talking,

and nobody's really even thinking about what's happening outside that door.

But you're in there and you just feel out of place.

So put yourself in a scenario. I'm sure all of

y'all have probably been in a situation like that. What

do you want to do? You want to go home.

You want to be in a place that's safe and secure.

You want to be in a place that's familiar. Nobody

was more consciously aware of this than Paul and Philippians

one twenty three. He said, for me, for me to

live as Christ and to die is gain. I'm hard

pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and

be with Christ, for that is far better. But to

remain in the flesh is more necessary. On your account,

it's an assignment. He wants to go home, and I

almost imagine, like the way that's written, the way that's written,

I can imagine Paul. It's like Friday afternoon at four pm.

He's at the office and he's like, oh, gotta do

this one last thing. Like he has this draw, like

he's ready to be out. He says in Romans eight eighteen,

for I consider the sufferings of this present time are

not worth comparing with the glory.

That is revealed to us.

And the cool thing about this book, guys, is that

there's times where it hits home. There's times where it not,

where it doesn't. There's times where we believe it, and

honestly there's times where deep down in our hearts were

like But the cool thing is, as Christians, we know

this is the divine word of God. So this belief,

in this faith that Paul has, we can come in

agreement with it. Where I consider the sufferings at this

present time are not worth comparing with the glory.

That is to be revealed to us. Death is guaranteed.

One hundred and they've estimated one hundred and seventeen billion

people have been born on this earth. And there's only

two that didn't die, Enoch and Elijah. And I can

promise you I am not Enoch and Elijah. But the

way we're built, our DNA has a self preservation in it,

like it's hard for us to even comprehend death. And

maybe maybe as you get older and older and older.

But still I'm forty five years old. I'm not a

kid anymore. And I can see people around me friend

losing I lost, you know, we lose friends or loved

ones or whatever. And but then when you tie that

word to yourself, I know, for me personally, it's hard

to fathom. But God also has written attorney to eternity

on our hearts. So from this worldly perspective, the issue

with this is is.

We're looking at this reality.

Currently we can't fathom the idea of death for ourselves.

But because eternity is written on our hearts, we're looking

at this reality like it is our eternity, and we do,

we do and act accordingly day to day James four

thirteen fourteen. Come now you will say, today or tomorrow

we will go into such and such a town and

spend a year there in trade and make a profit.

Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What

is your life? For you are a mist that appears

for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you should

say to the Lord. You should say, if the Lord wills,

we will do this or that. As it is you

boast in arrogance. Now our understanding of this reality. We're

so confident in it. We know, like Kylie said, heaven

is our home and earth is our assignment?

But do we live that way?

When you put so, Like when horses run on a track,

they put blinders on them, and the reason they do

that is because you need your horse to focus on

the task and you don't want them distracted by the

horses running next to them.

But unfortunately.

A lot of times in our little reality here that

we think is so real, we have these blinders on

and we're focused on these tasks that we have not

aware of their eternal perspective. So when we say earth

is our home, our heaven is our home, and earth

is an assignment, what does that mean? The analogy that

I came up with was how many y'all were in

high school Youth Group? Quite a few of y'all, And

if you weren't, you can imagine. So you're in high

school and you're dealing with all the you know, the

drama and the and sports and classes and stressed about

tests and girlfriend breaking up with you, and your parents

are mad and all these things. So this is the

life that you're living. You're in this in this high school,

but your youth group is gonna go on a mission trip.

It's a two week trip to Mexico.

And so you load up in a van with some

of your good friends, a bunch of girls, and you're

a youth group leader who in this scenario is Jesus.

You leave high school and you come over here into

the mission trip and you're in Mexico and you show

up and you have this difference perspective from what this

high school thing is. You come over here and you're

you're you're intentional, You're like, what can we do to help?

The pressure is kind of off, and you're like, yeah,

this this, yeah, this, uh, you know, it costs five

hundred dollars, but it was paid for.

Blood of Jesus.

Analogy, and you're here in this in in in this

mission trip, and you're here to serve. It's a totally

different experience because when you're in high school, when you're

in this mission trip, you have an understanding of what

this reality is. You have understanding what assignment is. What

happens is a lot of times we're here and we're

stressed about silly things that.

Have no eternal perspective. I guarantee I do it.

But if we can start looking through that lens of

heaven being our home earth, our assignment, and then start

looking at what that assignment looks like, it looks like

a mission trip. It takes the pressure off, like it's

paid for. It's paid for by the blood, and now

you're just doing works and you get to partner with Jesus.

Y'all get me, okay. I want to take a step

back and take a deep breath, and I want to

really evaluate what's real? Do you I'm gonna do a

little what do you call these things when you use

props illustration? Check this out, all right? I'm using a

string to represent our life on this earth and our

life after this earth. And we all know that eternity

would stretch through the walls, but on this line is

not and you can't hardly really see it. I painted

it black just so it made a little more sense

when I was talking about it. But this is our

time here, and we stress so much this little time here.

We spend three quarters of this time here to save

up for the last quarter, so we live in comfort.

We worry about our occupation, h we worry about our career,

a reputation, and I feel like this line. I feel

like I could just stop talking and we could all

just stare at this line and how it relates to us,

and let Jesus do work in your heart. You you're

checking up all my scriptures.

M H.

Matthew six fourteen says, do not store up for yourself

treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where

thieves break in and steel, but store up for yourselves

treasures in heaven. For your treasure is there, your heart

will be. Also tell me that I mean this little

dot right here that we care so much about one

hundred and seventy three thousand people die a day.

It is our reality.

And so I think what we have to try to

do is instead of having blinders thaters are constantly focused

on this little point right here, we need to open

the blinder up. But we're focusing on this point because

this is our mission, this is our mission trip right here.

But we need to open our blinders up where we're

hav an eternal perspective because right here, as we as

we live right here, there is a thin, paper thin veil,

paper thin veil. You can have the best day you've

ever had and the worst day the next you can.

I can fall off this stage in ten minutes. The

veil is paper thin. We feel like it's not just

like back in James four thirteen, like come now, you

will say today or tomorrow go into such and such

a town and spend a year there in trade and

make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow

will bring. What is your life for you are a

mist that appears for a little time and advantages and

said you should stay if the Lord wills. There's a

cool thing. So I love talking about science, and I

had written all this cool science stuff that I was

going to use and that I thought was awesome. And

every time I look at that page, the Lord told

me nope. And then I'd pull it back out and

I'd go to use it and he'd be like, no,

don't do that, like you know, like the times where

you can't deny.

It was him, not like not like well maybe that

was God.

No, it was like anyways, sitting at my office desk

right now, I'll use it for something else or it

just makes.

Me happy when I read it.

But there there is one sciencey thing that I'm going

to say because I want to. I want us to realize.

But when we talk about this little dot here and

we talk about here, this is real. This is more

real than this is on this planet where we have

these fleshly bodies, our eyes of all the light, all

the different types of light that hit this planet, a

huge spectrum. Our eyes can see point zero zero three

five percent, a tiny fraction of all the light that

comes in. And so in this cool analogy, God is

light right, there's no darkness in him point zero zero

three to five of our understanding in view thin fence, veil,

and then one hundred percent, which one's more real. And

on this earth we have these bodies, these fleshly bodies

that are decaying that what they are is a suit

that God is giving us to surround our spirit to

be able to do the work in our assignment. It'd

be like saying, let's say you're gonna go scuba diving,

and you get a scuba suit and some flippers and

oxygen tank, some goggles, and you get in the ocean

and you're swimming around and it's awesome, it's beautiful, and

you start relating with it as it's your home, like

this is why we belong, this is where I'm always

going to be and you can have as much confidence

as you want, but you know what's gonna end up happening.

That air tank's gonna run out. And it's no different here.

The body that we use to operate is not our

eternal body.

It decays and it has an end. Let's see here

Second Corinthians five.

For we know that if the tent that is our

earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God,

meaning like if our body here is destroyed, we have

a heavenly body, a house not made with hands eternal

in the heavens. For in this tent we groan longing

to put on our heavily dwelling if indeed, by putting

it on, we may not be found naked. For while

we are still in this tent, we grown being burdens.

Not that we would be unclothed, but that we would

be further clothed. So what is mortal may be swallowed

up by life. He who has prepared us for this

very thing is God, who has given us the spirit

as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage.

We know that while we're at home in the body,

we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith,

not faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good

courage and would rather be away from this body and

at home with the Lord. So whether we are at

home or away, we make it our aim to please Him.

For you must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,

so that each one of us, that each one may

receive what is due to him for what he has

done in his body, where they're good or evil.

I just want to feel a little uncomfortable here, guys.

I want to feel like I want to have that

groaning that Paul talks about. I want to believe for me,

to live is Christ and to die is Gain. And

my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for

that is far better past this dot Heaven, eternity, his presence,

and I want I don't want to talk about heaven

too much. I struggle with with the eye, with the idea.

What I think of heaven is the throne room and

the holy, holy Holy, and just the holiness that radiates

out of that building. But then on the other side

there's streets of gold and crystal lakes and all this stuff,

and that kind of bothers.

Me a little bit. If I'm gonna be honest.

Gold might have value here but has zero value in

the presence of God. So I don't really know, but

I do know the part that matters will be in

his presence. Matthew fourteen says the Kingdom of Heaven is

like a treasure hidden in a field which a man

found covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and

sells all that he has, and he buys that field.

And the next one says, a man was looking for

a pearl, and he goes and finds this excessively precious pearl,

he sells everything he.

Has and buys it.

That is the understanding of what this is, John fourteen.

In my father's house or many rooms, if are not

so what I've told you, I go to prepare every

place for you. And if I go to prepare a

place for you, I will come again and will take

you to myself that where I am, you may be also.

And there's nothing that messes me up more than that picture.

Everybody's seen it of Jesus standing there and the girl

running and jumping in his arms.

You don't know what I'm talking about.

I want that so much more than I want this,

And the only thing that separates me from that is

a is a thin paper veil.

The last thing about heaven when that New Jerusalem comes.

Down to Earth, to the new heavens and new Earth,

you know, the dimensions of that is and miles the

new you know, and the Revelation talks about the New

Jerusalem coming down. It's a cube, perfect cube, and the

dimensions are fourteen hundred square miles fourteen hundred miles by

fourteen hundred miles by fourteen hundred miles tall. That obviously

wouldn't fit on this planet. And I'm not going to

pretend to know what that means, but I know it

blows my mind, and I know that it's hard for

us to comprehend this, so sometimes we choose to focus

on that out you know, the poetic description of no

day or no night, all the light comes from the Father.

I love that because as we think about eternity as humans,

I know I grew up thinking it was minute after

minute after minute, day after day after day after day

after day after day. But the definition of eternity essentially

is outside of time, which we as humans can't comprehend.

And this is the part We're had a whole page

on science stuff and God was like, yeah, throw it away.

But the point is we can't comprehend it. But I

know this when you're outside of time, when we're with

God in his presence, when all of a sudden we're

going from point zero zero three five percent of understanding

of His light to one hundred percent.

We aren't living yesterday, today.

And tomorrow life in eternity. We are living in a

constant moment of His holiness.

And love at all times. So the veil between.

This reality that we take so seriously, are so focused on,

are so stressed out about in this which honestly I've

just commisced myself in the last twenty minutes.

It's pretty awesome. And then.

Where that black stops, That's where what I'm talking about starts.

So what is this assignment? What is this black dot?

I've been talking negatively about it to a degree. What

is this block dot? What is this mission trip I'm

talking about? So this is one of the simple parts,

and it's taken a couple of verses and summarized them down.

But we all know the verses. I think, love your God,

love people, share the good news, lay down your life

as Christ did. Love your God, love people, share the

good news, lay down your life as Christ did, and

when we look at it through the lens of a

mission trip, it's kind of exciting. How much more willing

are you are you to do that when you go

on a mission trip to Mexico for a week or

two than you are in a normal life, And so

that kind of shows us where we are and viewing

what this is. It's okay to enjoy this reality while

focusing on eternity. It's okay to have these blinders looking

this way as long as this one is open, because

we are called to focus on this, but not exclusively,

not like we're going to be there forever. But I

want to be really careful when not talking about this

mission trip. I don't want to make it sound all fun.

We will face trials. You're on this mission trip in

Mexico and building these it's the middle of summer, you

are you might be having fun serving, but you are

building concrete houses in July. Your friend did trip and

fall in a hole and break his leg? A river

did come down and watch that villagely James, one, two

to four? Count it all joy, my brothers, when you

meet trials of many kinds, for you know the testing

of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its

full effect, so you may be perfect and complete John

sixteen thirty three. In this world you will have tribulation,

but take heart, because I've overcome the world. In this

world you will have tribulation, but you have to commend

yourself in this dot right here, take heart because he

has overcome the world. This is a complicated place. We

don't understand why we don't get answers. There's pain, there's

a longing for that eternity that's written on our hearts.

There's a longing for the relationship with our father one hundred.

But on this side of eternity, on this side of

that thin, thin veil, there's things that we get to

do that we don't get to do for the rest

of this line. We get to trust him and not

need to understand. We have an opportunity to exercise faith.

We have an opportunity to exercise trust. We have an

opportunity to be used as a vessel and as a

tool for His good works. We have an opportunity to

love when things are hard. On this side of eternity,

we get to worship God through the pain, despite the pain,

and alf relief from the pain, And it's the only

time an eternity we'll.

Get to do that.

And honestly, sometimes it's not fun. But when you see

families like the Ceiphers worship through loss here, as hard

as that is, as uncompremendable, I can't even fathom there

is a beauty because there is no more tears.

They're all wiped away.

But in assignment, on the mission, trip, in the battlefield,

whatever analogy you want to use, we have to deal

with hard things and we have to trust him.

Let's try. Let's just try.

Just looking at this timeline, you should when we walk

out the door should make us feel a little bit different.

It should make the way that I do tomorrow different.

It should make that make the decisions that make a

little bit different. Because I'm a square pagan around hole.

Y'all are a square pagan around hole. And we're here

for a reason, and that reason is not as big

as we think it is.

So Lord, I just pray.

That we focus on the reality, the real reality. Pray

that this reality, Lord, that we live in currently doesn't

have the hold on it on us that it does.

I pray that we see through the eyes of Paul

that we long to go home. I pray that while

we're on this earth, Lord, we look at you just

like Paul and say, where are we going next?

What he want us to do? And let me know

when I can come home.

And Lord, for those who struggle with their faith, struggle

with how it relates to them, struggle and knowing if

You're real or not, Lord, pour out on their hearts

just how real you are, the realist thing in his existence.

So Lord, we praise you through the pain. We worship

you through not understanding. We have a trust in your word.

Help us to walk out this mission with honor, because

there's no better words to be heard than well done,

My good and faithful servant, your name will pray.

Thank you for listening.

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