DRIVEN BY ETERNITY
Opener: What are you driven by?
1 Peter 2: 1 So get rid of all malicious behavior and deceit. Don’t just pretend to be good! Be done with hypocrisy and jealousy and backstabbing. 2 You must crave pure spiritual milk so that you can grow into the fullness of your salvation. Cry out for this nourishment as a baby cries for milk, 3 now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness. 4 Come to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by the people, but he is precious to God who chose him. 5 And now God is building you, as living stones, into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are God’s holy priests, who offer the spiritual sacrifices that please him because of Jesus Christ. 6 As the Scriptures express it, "I am placing a stone in Jerusalem, a chosen cornerstone, and anyone who believes in him will never be disappointed. " 7 Yes, he is very precious to you who believe. But for those who reject him, "The stone that was rejected by the builders has now become the cornerstone." 8 And the Scriptures also say, "He is the stone that makes people stumble, the rock that will make them fall." They stumble because they do not listen to God’s word or obey it, and so they meet the fate that has been planned for them.
Everyone is driven by something… for you either know what you believe, why you believe it, and act on those beliefs…. OR you are either led or victimized by those who do know the answers to these questions.
What do you believe? Why do you believe it? What don’t you believe… and why…?
For no real decision of understanding is made in a vacuum… nothing is truly knowable in a vacuum.
Ideas have consequences and thoughts have or will lead to actions….
So I ask again…What are you driven by? What are we driven by?
But the next step in even knowing what is why… for there is a large difference between knowing something and acting upon what we know…
What do you act upon? For it shows what you are really driven by…
Time, energy, finance… look over this past week… what did you spend you time doing? Look in your checkbook, online registry, what did we spend our $ on?
What are you driven by?
Over the next weeks I hope to make the case of what it means to be driven by eternity. That our beliefs and convictions lead to compassionate action… by which we know what we believe and why we believe…
What are you driven by? Everyone is driven by something… for you either know what you believe, why you believe it, and act on those beliefs…. OR you are either led or victimized by those who do know the answers to these questions.
Define Driven:
It is the force by which we move forward. It is the focused thing we given attention to that drives us, moves us, forward in life…
What gives you meaning? Force… strength… reason for living? What are we driven by…
Throughout the series we will use the metaphor of a car…
I have often thought of my Christian life through this metaphor…
o the idea of God being my co-pilot as I drive through life… then the realization that I need God to drive at times…
o and then I realize that prayer is both the gas that runs the engine, and the ability to press the gas pedal…
and if I stop praying I can coast on the momentum from before but eventually my wheels will stop…
o I realized the Holy Spirit is the engine… the power and ability to move forward in life… and He is my GPS system… the direction I need to know where to go… and
o my body is like the body of a car… I can polish it all I want, but one day it will rust and fall apart…
o The key to start the car (to start life well) is God’s word…
Today I want to talk about the rear view mirror… and the windshield…
For these two places of site are our vantage points for life… how we see the road behind us… and the road ahead of us…
THE REAR VIEW MIRROR
1 Peter 2… 9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are a kingdom of priests, God’s holy nation, his very own possession. This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
Driven by eternity is about our focus, like the rear view mirror and the windshield… where do you spend much of your focus… looking ahead… but why do we often try to drive backwards… for there is a reason the rear view mirror is smaller… it is meant to give a reference point for safe travel, to know what was… but we are meant to drive forward… not in reverse…
To become driven by eternity we have to allow God to heal our past… some of us are so focused on the past decisions of life that either we made or others made… and we live in the rear view mirror and wonder why we keep crashing into things…
I thought of the moment of the rocks that were not thrown… John 8: 1 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and Pharisees brought a woman they had caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. 4 "Teacher," they said to Jesus, "this woman was caught in the very act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?" 6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, "All right, stone her. But let those who have never sinned throw the first stones!" 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. 9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to her, "Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?" 11 "No, Lord," she said. And Jesus said, "Neither do I. Go and sin no more."
Jesus was the only one there that could have thrown the rock…
He had no sin… but instead of wrath, He was full of Grace…
What ‘s in the rear view mirror of your life? Are you afraid God is waiting with a rock? Remember that He stands with grace…
Paul Hammons says…
We have a tendency to see the past as being better than what it was… The good old days really weren’t all that good. We forget about all the hardships: (The depression, no air conditioning, out houses, no running water). Back in the days before electricity, a tightfisted old farmer was taking his hired man to task for carrying a lighted lantern when he went to call on his best girl. “Why,” he exclaimed, “when I went a-courtin’ I never carried one of them things. I always went in the dark.” “Yes,” the hired man said, “and look what you got”
Warren Wiersbe said, “Do not say, Why were the former days better than these? You do not move ahead by constantly looking in a rear view mirror. The past is a rudder to guide you, not an anchor to drag you. We must learn from the past but not live in the past.”
Jesus compels this women to move forward… Just as He compels us to drive forward in life… what does He say to her… Go and sin no more…
Take the reference point from the rear view mirror… learn from the sin of the past… don’t wallow in the pity, or in the sin you once where in… become something completely new… healed, whole… and sent out – GO AND SIN NO MORE…
In our 1 Peter 2 passage… Peter reminds us that we are a chosen people… if you are a believer in Jesus Christ… you are chosen by God… and on your way to becoming a part of the “kingdom of priests”… what does that mean… a priest knows God and helps others find God… a priest focus’ all their attention and knowledge towards the things of God… he is driven by eternity…
We become God’s holy nation… sanctified and set apart… an important possession of God’s… His very own… you belong to Christ.
SANCTIFIED: a word we don’t hear anymore… but as a Christian… a word that is important to know and understand. What does it mean to sanctify something…
1: to set apart to a sacred purpose or to religious use : CONSECRATE2: to free from sin : PURIFY3 a: to impart or impute sacredness, inviolability, or respect to b: to give moral or social sanction to4: to make productive of holiness or piety
Consecrate, Purify, set aside for a holy purpose…
In John 17 Jesus is praying to His Father on our behalf…
In John 17… 17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. 20 "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
How are we sanctified – By God’s word – His truth…
For what purpose… just as Jesus was sent as a missionary from heaven, we are sent into the world to show the reality of God (Driven by Eternity)…
Jesus led the way… He is set aside for a holy purpose… so that we might be… not just the disciples… but for us, all that would believe.
So He helps us deal with the images in the rear view mirror… not that we would stay there… focused on the past… but now, go and sin no more… look ahead and drive forward… DRIVE FORWARD… but with purpose…
DRIVING FORWARD
In John 8 Jesus, after forgiving the women of her past, and compeling her to drive forward into her future… He says… 12 Jesus said to the people, "I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t be stumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life."
Why are we given this forgiveness and calling in the kingdom of God… why are we sanctified…
This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
Why we live, move, and breath…
Sanctified: Set a part for a holy purpose… consecrated… a holy nation… with purpose… so we can show others the goodness of God!
To help others crawl out of the same darkness you and are were in… into the wonderful light of God’s truth…
A Fellow was sitting at a stop light. The lady in front of him was going through papers on the seat of her car, and when the light changed to green she did not obey its command - a green light is a commandment - NOT a suggestion. When the light turned to red, and she had still not moved, He began (with his windows up) screaming and beating on his steering wheel. His expressions of distress were interrupted by a policeman, gun drawn, tapping on his window. Against his protestations of, "You can’t arrest me for hollering in my car," the officer ordered him into the back seat of his patrol car. After about two hours in a holding cell, the arresting officer advised him he was free to go. He said, "I knew you couldn’t arrest me for what I was yelling in my own car. You haven’t heard the last of this." The officer replied, "I didn’t arrest you for shouting in your car. I was directly behind you at the light. I saw you screaming and beating your steering wheel, and I said to myself, "What a jerk. But there is nothing I can do to him for throwing a fit in his own car. Then I noticed the ’Cross’ hanging from your rear view mirror, the Jesus is Coming Soon’ bumper sticker, and the Fish symbol, and I thought you must have stolen the car."
We are meant to draw people to the light… This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
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So God is overhauling our car…
Putting in new superfuel… the Holy Spirit…
Making sure the GPS is in place… a life directed by Him…
The headlights are on… for the world can be a dark place… but we are called out of the darkness and into the light…
YOU AND I ARE CALLED TO BE DRIVEN BY ETERNITY…
Use the rear view mirror as a vantage point… a point of reference… bring it to the altar of God… WHY…
Not just a feel good moment… we become redeemed… set free from the chains that bind us… then what…
Given purpose… go and sin no more…
This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
Set free… sanctified and set a part for a holy purpose…
Be driven by eternity… and drive forward with your life…
Altar call…
