Living for Eternal Reward

That. Matthew chapter six, we're going to read verses 19 through 21,

familiar passage of scripture, but hopefully it will cause you to think of things

maybe in ways you haven't thought of them before. So let's, let's talk about this.

The Bible says, Jesus is saying here, do not lay up for yourselves treasure

on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,

but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys

where thieves do not break in and steal.

Now look at this. Here's what we're going to latch onto today.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

In other words, what he's saying is we will be able to look at the focus of your life.

If that focus is where you put your time, where you put your passion,

where you put your resources, we will be able to look at the focus of your life

and we'll be able to tell what your treasure is.

And so for us, I think that we have to keep that in mind because our treasure

should be heaven, shouldn't it?

It should be eternity. So we're going to talk about this today.

My subject and my thought I want to preach on is living for eternal reward.

Living for eternal reward. Let's pray before we get started and just ask the

Holy Spirit to speak to us.

Holy Spirit, we come before you. We just come before you in Jesus' name.

We thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you for every person under the sound of my voice right now.

Thank you for those watching online with us right now.

And Holy Spirit, our prayer is that you would speak a word that we need to hear.

God, we're not here just to be entertained in a social gathering.

We are here to hear an individual word from heaven that speaks to every individual.

Holy Spirit, only you can speak one word that says so much to every individual in this room.

So Holy Spirit, speak to us in this place today. And we thank you.

In Jesus' name, we pray. And everybody said, amen. Amen.

Speaking on this subject this morning, living for eternal reward.

Now, if I had to break this down to really what the goal that I'm trying to

show you this morning, what the emphasis of my sermon is going to be, it's this.

What you invest in eternity, you will never lose.

What you invest in eternity, I'm not talking about financial investment there only.

I'm talking about with your life, with your time, with your energy,

what you invest in eternity, you will never lose.

Now, as I kind of started thinking about that, I started thinking about why

is it, what is it that kind of distracts us from being invested in eternal resources,

eternal mindsets, and I started thinking we live in a really.

An earthly-minded society. We really do.

Everything in our world is driven by materialism, driven by instant gratification.

People are looking for what they can acquire in the here and now.

They're looking for wealth, looking for comfort, looking for recognition,

looking for a bigger bottom line than what the person next door has.

And really, when you start to look at that, we're investing in things that does

not increase our eternal reward.

As a matter of fact, I started thinking a little more about that,

and we live with a, and this is my words, okay, so it's probably not really

scholarly or whatever, but we live in a just-get-by mentality. We do.

We live with a just-get-by mentality.

In our culture, we've adopted the bare minimum mentality, which has bled over

into the bare minimum faith.

Man, I've hired people to do jobs. I won't name their names.

They're probably not here or watching right now.

I've hired people to do jobs, and they do just enough to get by,

and when they're done, I'm thinking, if I was doing that and getting paid to

do it, I think I would have done a little better job, and then the next time I need something done,

there's nobody to do it, so I hired that person again because they at least

got it done. They at least did the bare.

We live in a bare minimum society and be honest, we've gotten complacent to

where the bare minimum for a lot of us is enough.

That's what we go to expect. We walk into a restaurant, we expect the bare minimum service.

We come home and we go and look at our kids' rooms and we expect the bare minimum cleaning to be done.

And that usually means that we can see them over the piles of laundry that's

laying in their rooms. We're living in a bare minimum culture,

and it's bled over into our faith.

And because of that, we are robbed of joy, we have robbed of purpose,

and we are robbed of eternal reward that we would see if we invest our life

in things that the Bible says has eternal purpose.

Now, here's what we have to realize, that when we focus on heaven,

it gives our life purpose.

As a matter of fact, we start making decisions, every day we make decisions

that either leads us closer to God or leads us further away from God.

All right, I'm going to get real transparent on the pastor's life here, right?

Because I know a lot of you guys, you think the pastor at the pastor's house,

the wind didn't blow hard last night. And at the pastor's house,

they never get stomach virus, never shows up at the pastor's house.

And, you know, the pastor never has transmission issues in his car.

And, you know, I'm so much different. That pastor don't know what I'm going

through because his life is perfect.

No, I'm tempted just like everybody else, okay?

So don't judge me, but hopefully you can relate to me a little bit,

okay? Okay, so recently our insurance adjuster came out and it's time for the

renewal of our church insurance.

If you don't know this, our insurance is the biggest expense we have as a church. It's ridiculous.

So imagine like your health insurance times infinity. And that's kind of like

what it is with church insurance, because they tell me we need these big million

dollar blanket policies on when I speak out loud.

I don't know why they would say that. Because if I tell somebody that it's cool

to go out and afford Mustang and run down the road at 85 miles an hour.

Well, listen to those horses and run, you know, I, if I say that,

and then somebody does that and is involved in the accident,

they could sue me like it's my idea.

And so what they do, don't do that. Okay. Don't do that.

But because of crazy things like that, we have to have a lot of insurance.

And so our adjuster came and did an inspection a few weeks ago and she was looking

for everything. I mean, this woman, I'm glad I'm not married.

No, I'm just, okay. So anyway, this woman, and so she was looking for,

I told you, I'm tempted in all points, just like you guys. All right.

And so, but this, she found, so, so we had a few things we need.

There was something at the Thacker's Branch location that could be a hazard.

We had to move it. So we did that.

There was some breaker spots in our breaker boxes that didn't have breakers in them.

And she said, you need to put the spacers or the little covers in there so that

people don't stick their fingers back in the... I'm thinking,

who in the world sticks their fingers back in a breaker box?

But, but, because it's insurance, we had to do that.

We're at the Thacker's Branch location. She said, where's the water heater at?

I said, it's in the attic.

And so we have to go up in the attic. I got my phone shining around as a flashlight.

And we have to dig over in the attic where the water heater has been for 30 years.

And so I'm moving stuff so she can see the water heater. She said, oh, that's good.

And she starts to walk out and she says, wait a minute, shine that flashlight

down there. So I shined it down there. And she said, you need to have a drain

pan under that water heater.

And I'm thinking it's been there for 30 years. She's probably thinking it's been there for 30 years.

It's going to leak. And so, so I said, okay, we're going to take care of that.

And so I started going through the checklist the last two weeks and it came

to the drain pan under the water heater.

Now this is, this is a big water heater. This is one of those sins,

but it's, it may be an 80 gallon water heater. I don't know.

It's a huge water heater.

And so I go up there the other day, I buy a drain pan. I had great intentions.

I go up there and has anybody ever tried to lift a water heater before that's full of water.

Because let me go ahead and tell you this right now. It's impossible.

It's impossible. And so I'm up there.

There's no lifting it. I'm hip checking it, just trying to get it to see if I can move that thing.

I've got it. It's going to rock a little bit. By this time, I've already accidentally

disconnected the drain for the pop-off valve.

If you don't know what that is and you're a man, shame on you. Okay.

And so, so I, by this time I've already disconnected that.

And, and so, so I, by this time I am mad. Like I'm angry. Like I got red hair.

Okay. I'm just go ahead and put it out.

I was a little, I was a little tempered by this time.

I was a little angry. And so here's what I did. I know, don't judge me.

Don't judge me yet. Okay.

So what I did was I took out a utility knife. I took that drain pan.

I cut it right down the middle. I cut a big circular hole in the bottom of it,

and then I fit it perfectly around that water tank.

And then, see, everybody clapping right now needs to hear this sermon.

And then I took a picture of it, and I'm like, there we go.

There's her drain pan. You know, I am fed up with it.

And so as I'm driving off the mountain, as my rage subsides a little bit,

you know, then the voice of the Holy Spirit is like, is it really worth your

integrity to lie about replacing a drain pan?

I didn't send the picture in. I know some of you guys are like,

did he send the picture? I didn't send the picture in.

We're hiring somebody to replace the drain pan and probably the entire water

here because the more we think about it, it's 30 years old, okay?

But I started thinking about this. Every decision that we make is leading us

either closer to God or further away from God.

I told the nine o'clock service. Now, back in the old days, we would have said,

oh, if you made that decision, you went straight to hell.

We made the grace of God so narrow, right? So I think the grace of God is greater than that.

I think the grace of God is enough. He's sufficient to cover our mistakes and bring us back to him.

But what I will say about this, I don't think that if I'd sent that picture in,

I don't think I would have went to hell, but I do think I would have been taking

steps that the next time there was a decision to be made, it would have been

easier for me to make a decision that was immoral. It would have been easier for me.

It's one thing when it's talking about your water heater, but it's different

the easier it gets and the next decision is concerning finances or the next

decision is concerning my marriage or the next decision is concerning business or the next decision.

And we don't look at it that way when in reality, every decision that we make

is either leading us closer to God or further away from God.

See, what we got to get back to, and I got to throw a little bit of doctrine

in here to you, okay, I got to.

But what we got to get back to is there is a certain thing called the judgment

seat of Christ. And we've gotten away from that.

One of the greatest misconceptions that Christians have is that everybody's

just going to go to heaven no matter what happens everybody's going to heaven

and that's not the reality that the Bible shows us.

The Bible says that there is a reward for faithfulness.

As a matter of fact the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 5 says for we all must

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what

is due for what he has done in the body whether good or evil.

Man I used to preach this back in the old days when I first started preaching,

I used to say, when you get to heaven, the Bible says you're going to give account

of everything you've ever done.

I said, God's going to have that VCR up and he's going to go back years ago.

I started preaching. I said, he's going to have that VCR and you're going to

be watching a tape of everything you've ever done.

Now we know that God obviously has DVR. And so, so he's going to be pulling

that DVR up and he's going to be telling And the more I think about this, the more that I think,

God that when I read the scripture and the Bible tells us that when we are forgiven,

that our sins are cast as far as the east is from the west, that they are cast

in the sea of forgetfulness.

Thank God. I hope the interpretation to that is that he goes to that supernatural

DVR and all that time when I almost sent in that picture of that water heater

to that insurance adjuster and I said, God, forgive me.

Hopefully God went delete. Not going to have to watch that at the judgment.

And when that time that you made that decision that you shouldn't have made,

you sent that text you shouldn't have made, you posted that,

oh, you posted that angry message on Facebook that you shouldn't have posted on there.

And it was, you know, how it was. It was kind of one of those passive aggressive things.

And it was just a statement, but the person who did it for me knew that I was

talking about, you know, you know what I'm okay.

I know that was probably for the 9am. You guys are saints.

They probably needed to hear that. I wish I'd said that to them.

But what that means is that when you make a decision to ask for forgiveness,

to turn away from that, God's deleting that never to be remembered.

But the Bible does say everything that's not under the blood,

we will give account of on the judgment day.

Now, I don't know about you. You can read on in 1 Corinthians 3.

It talks some more about that. I don't know about you, but that absolutely terrifies me.

It terrifies me to think that even though I may make it to heaven,

even though my reward may be heaven, I'm still going to have to give account for.

That's not under the blood of Jesus Christ. Every time I should have prayed and I didn't pray.

Every time there was somebody that had a need that crossed my path and I didn't

speak an encouraging word when I knew I should have spoken an encouraging word.

We must give an account. The Bible says you'll give an account for every idle

word that you ever speak.

I'm thinking no wonder eternity is so long.

It's going to, half the time is going to be spent on me and some of the dumb

stuff that I've said in the course of my life.

As a matter of fact, I know that Brad's got people in visiting with him,

and I told Brad, I said, I'm going to try not to say anything dumb today and

embarrass you. He said, that's impossible.

Anyway, all of us, though, all of us will say things that we're going to have to give account for.

See, the early church fathers, Augustine Christensen, taught that our works

will follow us into eternity, that there's nothing that's here that's not covered

under the blood will go on and not follow us into eternity.

John Wesley said that believers should live with eternity in mind.

He said there should be a consciousness in our lives that every decision we

make, we're making in light of eternity.

We go on, we think about some of history's greatest missionaries,

Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael.

They understood that what they were going through here on earth was not the

end, but their reward was going to be an eternal reward.

So even though they may have had little here, they knew that their reward was coming in heaven.

See, but what fights against us, and this is what I call it.

I call it the subtle creep of sin.

The subtle creep of sin. I've said it for years. Those that grew up in our youth

ministry will remember me saying it.

I used to tell them, you don't backslide on the bar stool. You backslide in

church thinking with the wrong heart about things that you don't even need to be dwelling on.

I want to say this right now. You don't backslide. You don't fall into temptation,

whether it's in business or marriage or wherever else.

You don't fall into temptation when you make that ultimate wrong decision.

You fall into temptation when you consider things that you should not be meditating

on in your heart. It's the subtle creep of sin.

Sin is more than just wrongdoing.

Sin is rebellion against God, and the Scripture calls it lawlessness, according to 1 John 3.

That's what it is. It's rebellion against God. It's lawlessness.

It's not just an action, but it's a condition of the heart.

That's why it is that I was so concerned with even being tempted with sending

in that photo of that water heater.

It's not because of the action, but it would have been a condition of my heart.

If I could make that decision, then what would my heart be capable of if I continue

to take steps away from what the will of God is for my life?

Romans chapter 3 and verse 23, say that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

That means that all of us struggle with sin. Doesn't matter how righteous that

you may appear, doesn't matter how many years you've been in church,

all of us struggle with sin on some level, which means that every day we are

presented with choices.

The Bible tells us that we are presented with life and death,

blessings and cursings.

That's what the questions are. But he gives us the answer. He said,

choose life that you should live.

So for all of us, we must make decisions with eternity in mind.

See, here's what it comes down to. Sin rarely enters through the front doors.

Rarely. It always slips through the cracks.

Sin is always that thing that kind of just pops in the back of your mind that

you think that you're never capable of. Woo. It is.

Sin rarely enters through the front door. It's not. I remember one time I had

a guy that said, Pastor Scott, I fell into sin.

I said, you didn't fall into sin. You climbed up in the high dive and did a

cannonball right in the middle of it.

That's how we are a lot of times. We act like it just happened.

But the reality is it's been an attitude of the heart that's crept into our

lives that may not have manifest at first, but we continue to take those steps.

The Bible says it's the small foxes that spoil the vine.

We continue to make those little decisions that lead us step by step away from

the will of God and the path of God.

And the next thing you know, we're in a place in our lives that we thought we would never been.

I've had people talk to me about people, and they said, I never thought that

they could get to that place.

Well, it wasn't one decision that got them to that place. It's not one decision

that gets you in the middle of a mess.

It's a series of conscious small decisions that we make that leads us away from God.

Consider the warning that God gave to Cain in the book of Genesis chapter 4.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

He said, if you do well, you will be accepted. But notice this,

and if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is contrary to you.

The Bible shows us that sin is crouching, waiting for us to make decisions that

are contrary to the will of God. So for us, we've got to realize that it's not

just one little thing that's such a big deal.

Because I know people say it's one little thing. Why is it a big deal?

Because it's not one little thing that's a big deal. It's a series of small

things that turns into something that changes the trajectory of our lives.

As a matter of fact, I've got to let you know about the reward of sin,

and then we're going to talk about the reward of heaven.

I'm going to put this out there right now. But the reward of sin,

the Bible says that there's pleasures in sin for a season.

The book of James 1 says, But each person is tempted when he's lured and enticed

by his own desire. The desire, when it's conceived, gives birth to sin.

And when sin is fully grown, it brings forth death. That's what sin produces.

That's the reward of sin. The Bible says there's pleasure in sin for a season,

but I believe this. I told the 9 a.m. this.

Sin is the shortest season in eternity. I want to say this right now because

you see people, and they seem like they're prospering in their sin,

and they're having a great time in their sin. And you're like,

why does the wicked prosper?

And we get jealous about it. And this life, the Bible says this life is a vapor,

which means that if this life is a vapor compared to eternity,

then sin is the shortest season in eternity.

So there may be pleasure in it, but just know that pleasure doesn't last long

because the Bible says then there is a judgment and the reward of sin is death.

It may feel good right now. I could go on. I could talk about Lot.

He's setting these tents towards Sodom. and it's all because the way he sees

and the way he thinks at the time,

But the reality is it's the shortest season of eternity, sin.

But as believers, we're called to be vigilant. We're called to make sure that

we're doing the right things the correct way.

And when we do that, you know, it's amazing how at first it's difficult.

At first it's not popular. At first people around you may criticize you.

But every right decision you make, it becomes easier the next time you need

to make a right decision.

Every time you show courage, it becomes easier to show that courage the next

time. As a matter of fact, the reward of that, the Bible says that the reward

of the righteous is the hope of heaven.

Matthew chapter 25 and verse 34 says, then the king will say to those on his

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

right, come you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for

you from the foundation of the world.

Man, what an amazing thought that there's already been a kingdom that's prepared

for us that are living righteously.

Heaven is not just a distant dream, but it is a secured inheritance for those

who live righteously in Jesus Christ, for those that the grace of God has covered their sin.

The apostle Paul reminds us in 2 Timothy chapter 4 in verse 7,

2 Timothy 4 · chapter mention

he says this, I have fought the good fight.

Man, I hope this is my testimony one day. My brother called me last week.

He had just finished doing a funeral. I said, well, whose funeral was it?

Sometimes I know who they are.

I didn't know this individual, but he started telling me about how long he'd

lived for Christ. He started telling me about how much he'd influenced his community.

He started telling me about how many people were in the church because of this

individual. And I said this.

I've said it many times. I said, well, they preached their own funeral.

You don't got to think hard about that sermon.

They preached their own funeral. It's the same way that the Apostle Paul preached at his own funeral.

He said, I fought the good fight. I've finished the race. I've kept the faith.

Henceforth, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which is the Lord.

The righteous judge will award to me on that day, and not only to me,

but also to all who have loved his appearing.

In other words, church, when we live righteously in Christ, when our time on

this earth has come to an end, that's not a sad day.

It's not a sad day. Somebody told me the other day, we were talking about heaven.

And they said, yeah, but I'd like to spend a few more days down here.

I said, if you experienced one second up there, you wouldn't want another minute

down here because of the glory that's awaiting us in heaven.

As a matter of fact, I'm living a life that proves that I believe in heaven.

Listen, my time might come this afternoon. I see you say, well, Scott, that's morbid.

No, it's not morbid. It's a reality that we're not promised tomorrow.

And because we're not promised tomorrow, we've got to get ready for eternity.

And I've tried to do my best to prepare my family for when I'm gone.

But when I'm gone, I'm not going to want to come back because heaven is my reward.

It's the reward of the righteous. It's our reward, not because of works,

but because of Christ's righteousness in us.

Not because of anything we've done, but because of the hope in Jesus Christ,

who came to die a ransom for many.

So we've got to stand on, standing firm in the faith, and making those decisions

that lead us closer to Jesus every single day.

Three things, very briefly, three things you need to take home with you about

laying up treasures in heaven, getting on this path of righteousness.

Number one, your investments determine your eternal inheritance.

Your investment determines your eternal inheritance.

I'm going to slow down a little bit. All right. The Bible says in the book of

Colossians that whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men,

knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.

The Bible doesn't say that what you do in church, the Bible says whatever you do.

See, the reality is whether we're doing it in church, because some of us,

we compartmentalize our life, all right?

I know I'm preaching to the 9 a.m. crowd right now.

You guys don't do this because you're good Christians at the 11 a.m., but I'm sure those 9 a.m.

People, they probably compartmentalize their life, and they've got their work

life, and they've got their personal life, and then they've got their church

life, and in our church life, we always do good stuff because when they need

to volunteer, we volunteer.

And when we got time, we got the energy. But in our work life,

you know, in our work life, we may lie on the time clock.

And in our work, okay, sorry, I'm meddling. I'm stepping on toes right now.

In our work life, we may say that we're going to do things to our boss,

but we may not do those things. In our work life, we may cause problems at work.

In our home life, we may not regard God. We may not pray with our family.

We may not read the scripture. We may not do things that we should do outside of church.

And we think that we're going to be judged by our church life.

And I want to say this right now, there is no such thing as a church life judgment.

The Bible says that we are going to be judged with everything we ever do.

And the Bible instructs us that whatever we do, work heartily as for the Lord

and not for men, knowing that from the Lord, you're going to receive your inheritance and your reward.

In other words, the way that we approach our work life not only determines our

paycheck on the first of the month, but it also determines the reward that we will receive in heaven.

Oh, I know. Everybody's like, gosh, I wish you'd go back preaching on the sinners, right?

Yeah. Because we look at this and this turns it back on us.

And we realize that we've got a responsibility to be righteous in everything that we do.

See, when it comes to what we've stored up, it's what have we invested in eternity

for those, because I know it.

It's like somebody, think about this, a person that never saves for retirement.

I'm getting to the age now, I start thinking about saving for retirement,

you know, and what if I never put a dime in for retirement? What if I never did anything?

And by the time I get there, you know, social security is bankrupt.

It's hard to complain about the government because I never put anything in personally

and did anything personally to save up myself.

Right. But we want to complain about the government, but we didn't do anything.

When you get to heaven, you're not going to complain about the preacher.

The preacher is going to be judged for himself.

When you get to heaven, And if you're not laid up treasure for an eternal reward,

then you can't complain about anybody but yourself.

And I will say this right now. At the judgment seat of the throne,

I know some of us, we might be good negotiators.

You might be able to blow up an onion sack.

You know, you might be able to talk yourself out of those situations.

Everybody under the age of 40 didn't get that reference. It's okay,

though. But you might be able to talk yourself out of situations.

But up there, it's not a conversation.

Up there, we're going to be standing before the throne of God.

And we're not going to be up there trying to explain ourself.

We're going to be asking for the mercy of a loving God that's standing before us.

I want to make sure that I've invested enough to where my eternal inheritance is sure.

So number one, we got to invest it. Number two, what you treasure determines

your heart's direction.

Now you can tell what people treasure. I guarantee you right now,

you can get in my car and you can tell I don't treasure automobiles. All right.

I'm sure I've probably vacuumed it at some point in the last three years.

All right. I know I have, I probably vacuumed it last three years.

Ashley's like, maybe he hasn't, you know, there's, there's, I don't know,

Jimmy Hoffa may be buried in there somewhere.

I don't know in my car. I just don't value those things. I don't,

I don't value, and it's not nasty.

It's just, it gets me from point A to point B.

Now there's some people I've, I know there's some people right now.

I know you guys are judging me right now. I know I go to get into Glenda's car

And I think maybe I should take my shoes off before I get in her car, right?

You can tell what people value. Those are natural examples of what people value.

But for us, your treasure and your heart are infinitely connected.

They're eternally connected.

Your treasure and your heart are eternally connected, which means that you cannot

separate what you value here on earth from what you value in eternity.

You can't separate those things. The Bible tells us in the book of Luke,

there's a passage there.

It tells us, sell your possessions, give to the needy, provide yourselves with

money bags, do not grow old, with a treasure in heaven that does not fail.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The Bible says whatever

we're laying up in heaven, that is something that's going to be with us eternally.

It shows us that what we value here on earth and what we value in eternity cannot be separated.

I cannot say that I love God but not try to win the lost.

Because if I value eternity, then I know that there are people that may be separated

from God for eternity, and I can't separate the two.

So it comes down to it that where our hearts is, we're going to,

let me bring this home with a statistic or with a, with a, with a,

it's not a stat, but it's, it's, it's a reality.

Americans spend, I guess it's, America spend an average of six hours per day

on entertainment, right?

If you're a business owner, you're like, yeah, I know. Right.

So yeah, Americans spend six hours a day on entertainment. If you don't believe

that, go check your screen time on your iPhone. because I know you're like,

no, we don't. Okay, go home and check it, right?

Conviction of the Holy Spirit's going to rest on you, all right?

But only 30 minutes per week in church-related activities.

We spend 12 more times in a day than we spend on entertainment than we do activity

for church-related activities in a week.

On a weekly basis, we spend 84 times more time on entertainment than we spend

on church-related activities.

And that entertainment is not eternal.

And yet what we do in the kingdom of God is eternal, which shows me,

and I know, I know, I got convicted on this one. I put this down when I read it.

I put it in there and I got convicted because it made me realize that I'm wasting

time on things that are not eternally significant.

I can't separate what I do, my treasure, from eternity.

And because of that, I need to spend much more time investing in things that are eternal.

We got to link that up. And then finally, I got to bring it back to this.

Investing in people is investing in eternity. We've said this for years. People are our purpose.

People are our purpose. We did this construction out here and we were able to pay it off.

We thank God for that, but it's just a building In reality, if we outgrow this

building in three years, i'll sell this sucker. We'll move on somewhere else

because it's just a building,

People are our purpose. People are our purpose.

We're not here. We're not called to lands and building. We're not called to

accumulate. We're not called to fame.

We're not called to celebrity status and Instagram followers.

We are called to people. Now we can use those things and leverage those things

to influence community. I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying we can't get so caught up in us that we forget it's all about people.

That's why we know this, the Great commission, the Bible says,

go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name and

the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded them.

I look at all of this and I think, why have we left out the people part of this?

Hope you'll come help me. I'm going to land this. I'm going to draw this point

down because I think I wanted to end on people because that's our most important

asset, goal in the kingdom is people.

I look at people in this building right now We could not do and we don't want

to do without one single one of you guys Because everybody in here has eternal significance,

Every soul in here has eternal significance But not only do you have eternal significance,

You have the ability to influence somebody else's eternity You say well,

I just don't feel like i'm worthy of that Okay, I want to show you that sometimes

you don't even know what you're capable of.

If I were to give you the name Edward Kimball, some of you probably know who

that is. Most of you probably don't know who that is.

Edward Kimball was a shoe clerk back in the 1800s. I'm sorry,

he was a Sunday school teacher back in the 1800s.

And on average, he taught about 12 teenagers per Sunday in Sunday school.

We probably have quadrupled that many in children's ministry right now,

okay so he's not going to get famous for the crowds that he brought in.

But what edward kimball had is he had a passion for evangelism and everywhere

he went he was telling people about jesus christ one day it led him the lord led him into a shoe store,

and he was speaking to a young shoe clerk about jesus christ and that young

shoe clerk ended up coming to his sunday school class he would eventually give

his heart to the lord right there in that sunday school class and edward kimball

was responsible for the conversion of D.L. Moody.

Some of you don't know, D.L. Moody was one of the greatest evangelists in history.

D.L. Moody, because of that experience, went on to preach. He was a noted scholar.

And because of that, he got to go and preach at a church of one F.B. Meyer.

F.B. Meyer was a pastor with a larger church. And he said that when Moody came

and preached at his church, that Moody's preaching revolutionized his view of evangelism.

And because of that, F.B. Meyer became just inflamed with a desire to evangelize.

So because of that, he began to speak to his church about the importance of evangelism. William J.

Wilbur Chapman came and heard Meyer preach.

And when he heard Meyer preach, he heard Meyer's zeal for evangelism.

And because of Meyer's zeal for evangelism, Chapman, who was associated with

the YMCA, said, I've got to start telling everybody about Jesus Christ.

And he had, he had a passion for evangelism to where he shared it with everybody that he knew.

One day he came in contact with a, with a young national league baseball outfielder

named Billy Sunday that you were talking about earlier.

And because of J. Wilbur Chapman and him witnessing to Billy Sunday,

Billy Sunday would later give his heart to Jesus Christ and influence Chapman

as one of the great forces that led him to his conversion for Christianity.

Later on after conversion, Billy Sunday was having a crusade and he asked a

man by the name of Mordecai Ham to come and preach at that crusade.

And Mordecai Ham came and preached at that crusade. And he said that being in

the middle of what Billy Sunday did inspired him to do more evangelism.

Because if Billy Sunday could do that, then what could he do himself to do more?

And so he started having crusades. And he started doing evangelism.

And one day there was a young man that gave his heart to Jesus Christ in one

of Mordecai Ham's outreach services.

The boy was only 16 years old at the time. But who would have known that if

you trace it back person to person to person to person,

that ultimately that little Sunday school teacher with 12 people in his classroom

would be the one that through the generations that would lead the man,

that led the man, that led the man, that eventually led Billy Graham to salvation

at a rally when he was only 16 years old.

I can take it even further because Billy Graham raised his son,

Franklin Graham, and taught him the evangelism and outreach and supporting humanity.

And this church continues to partner with Franklin Graham in disaster relief

and humanitarian efforts around this world. And it all started...

This guy's had eternal global reach and he never preached outside of a 12-member

sunday school classroom and you're saying well what can i do,

you don't know what you could do when god is able to take your voice and multiply it with his ability.

But you can only see it when you look through the lens of eternity when you

don't look through lens of eternity this seems impossible but when you look

through the lens of eternity,

you can see how god puts everything together everything together so i gotta ask you,

what if we stopped living for just this life what if we average lifespan right

now 79 years What if we stopped living for 79 years, but we started living for eternity?

What if we stopped living like we just had 79 years and we started living like we had eternity?

Like eternity is what mattered.

Well, I think what would happen is we'd realize that when we invest in eternity, we never lose that.

What we put our life to in eternity. I never regret a prayer that I've prayed.

I don't regret this. I've spent lots of hours over here at this building,

that building, a lot of, hey, there was, how many of you guys,

I know there's several of you guys in here, how many of you guys were ever in

the youth ministry when I youth pastored? Raise your hand if you're ever in the youth ministry.

Some of you guys, we used to joke about this.

We would get calls to go over in these little churches over in eastern Kentucky,

and we would take, we'd have a big red school bus and a burgundy van and a couple

other vans behind it and a trailer,

and we'd show up with 60, 70, 80 teenagers, And there would be eight people

there, their own people. We used to joke around.

We're like the cheapest traveling revival there is. Like everybody just,

book us, we'll bring the crowd.

And we didn't make any money off of it cost us a lot of money it was a lot of

time i never regret a single moment i never regret a single moment because if

there's one and there was,

the dozens the hundreds between just

in our youth minister we had we had in about

an eight-year period of time we had 1200 students that passed through our youth

ministry up on thacker's branch that took a lot of effort i don't regret one

minute we spent you know why it's eternal it's eternal you look back you say

well scott you could have been doing something else and making money,

that money would already been spent i'd have wasted it i got a history of wasting

money right i'd have wasted it by now but we never waste one minute we put in

to the things of eternity,

and here's what I realize I realize I could do better I realize that I could do better,

and I know if I could do better there's probably other people in here you could

do better too and I say let's do better together let's do better living,

knowing that what we invest in eternity we're never going to lose let's all

stand all over this building.

So in that I challenge you invest your time,

invest your time come and volunteer at the church invest your your voice speak to people about jesus,

tell someone your testimony tell them about your savior invest your life into

the things of god because i really do believe that's the only thing that we

have that we will never ever,

lose never lose every head bowed every eye closed nobody looking around,

if you're here today and you're like me you know you could do better with this.

Actually, let me back up and let me ask this question because for some of you, you're here today.

You don't know Jesus Christ You've never accepted him as your personal savior

and I said We're not going to drag you out and embarrass you.

You can accept him right where you are We're not here to embarrass you.

We're not here to talk about how many people did this We're we're here so that everybody knows Jesus.

That's our goal So if you're here today and you'd like to accept Jesus right

where you're standing If that's you and you don't know the Lord for your as

your savior, maybe you're backsliding You don't know the Lord. You're away from him.

But you want to know him right now. If that's you, I just want you to raise

your hand and say, Pastor Scott, that's me.

That's me. I want to accept him into my life. I want to accept the Lord into

my life. Who are you? That's me.

That's me. There's hands. Who else? Who else? I know there's others.

I know there's others. If you're here right now, there's other hands going up. There's another one.

Who else? You say, that's me, Pastor Scott. I want to know the Lord for myself

right now. Nobody's looking around. This is private.

If you're here right now, you say, I want to know Jesus for myself. if that's

you i just want you to raise your hand up there's already been some i know there's more in

here i want to give you an opportunity here's

what i want us to do i want us to pray before we make our main call i want us to pray we're

going to pray the sinner's prayer right now and all of us are going to pray

it together because it's

not about picking embarrassing anybody now i

will say this after you give your heart to the lord you've got to be bold about it

you need to tell somebody about it you can tell me about it as you walk

out if you want to because the bible says if you're ashamed of me on earth i'll

be ashamed of you before my father in heaven so you got to be you got to be

bold about it but we're going to pray right now i want everybody in this place

to pray this prayer and if you don't know the lord and you pray this prayer

you confess it with your mouth you believe it with the heart the bible says

you will be saved so i want us to pray this right now,

everybody repeat it to be saved dear jesus i come before you and i know i'm a sinner.

I need a savior,

so today I confess my sin,

I confess I'm not enough,

but I know you are more than enough,

so I ask you to forgive me make me clean.

And I promise today that I will do all I can to live for you for the rest of my life.

You are my Savior.

I am born again in the name of Jesus.

Amen. If you prayed that prayer, then you are born again right now,

and you need to tell somebody about it.

I'd love for you to tell me about it as we go out today. I want you to find me and tell me about it.

But here's a call for everybody. If you're like me and you'd say,

Pastor Scott, I could do better.

I could do better at making sure that I'm doing eternal things that make an eternal difference.

If that's you, I just want you to raise your hand because I admit it right now.

Here's what we're going to do.

Can we do it this way? Because that's everybody. Can we just join hands if you're

comfortable? Can we join hands?

We could call everybody to the altar, but we're not going to fit.

This is an everybody call right now.

So can we just join hands all over this building? And I want us to pray.

Now, here's what I want you to pray specifically.

I want you to pray, God, let me make the decisions that lead me closer to you

and not further away from you.

And God, let me make the choices that are eternally significant.

Can we pray that? Let's pray that right now. Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus.

We thank you for your Holy Spirit. We thank you that you are here with us today.

And Father, right now, Lord, we want to make those choices. We want to make

those choices that every small thing that we decide, it leads us another step

to you, not a step away from you.

Every time that our children watch us make a decision, they see a decision that's a righteous decision.

They know it's a decision that's made with an eternal reward in mind.

And Father, right now, I just ask you, with our time, with our energy, with our passion,

with our efforts, with our resources, with our finances, everything that we

are, God, let us make decisions with eternity in mind.

Father, give us the wisdom to know what to say. Give us the courage to know who to say it to, God.

When there's somebody that needs encouragement, God, give us the boldness to

say it. I know it may seem hard now, but God, let us think about eternity.

And Father, our prayer is right now that when we get to heaven.