Greg Laurie and Harvest Ministries recommend a great new children's book by Sally Lloyd-Jones called Jesus Our True Friend. You have kids and they need to hear the story of Jesus. And I bet you struggle at times trying to read Bible stories to your children. This is a great tool, so order your copy of Jesus Our True Friend Stories to Fill Your Heart with Joy, written by Sally Lloyd-Jones. Yours for a gift of any amount at harvest.org.
Why do I exist? Why am I here in this earth? Answer: I'm here on earth to bring glory to God. I'm not here to pursue pleasure. I'm here to pursue God.
The purpose of the universe is God's glory, not my personal happiness. This comes as a surprise to some who think the world should revolve around them. That they want to rule their own little private universe. They want to be the main character in their novel. But then suffering and pain interrupts their plans and they don't know why.
Randy Alcorn writes, and I quote, if we come to see the purpose of the universe as God's long-term glory rather than our short-term happiness, then we will undergo a critical paradigm shift in tackling the problem of suffering, end quote. That's a good point. The purpose of the universe is God's long-term glory, not my short-term happiness. Here's the bottom line: when you seek to fulfill the purpose you were created for, which is to know, glorify, and worship God, you will find the happiness you've been seeking in life. Not from seeking happiness, but from seeking God.
The Bible says, Happy are the people whose God is the Lord. Psalm 16 says, In his presence there is fullness of joy, and on his right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Yes, God created you for His glory. Isaiah 43, 7 says, God speaking, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory. whom I formed and made.
Ephesians 1.11 says, God chose us from the beginning, for all things happen, just as he decided long ago, God's purpose was that we, who were the first to trust in Christ, should praise our glorious God.
So you say, well, I don't understand what that means. Does that mean that I have to be in a 24-hour worship service? You know, singing songs to God is not the only way we worship. Let me put it another way: it's entirely possible to sing songs to God and not worship at all. And worship is not just about singing, it's about the movement of the heart to the Lord.
I mean, I could sing songs from the sound of music and be about as close to God as some Christians are when they sing praise songs because there's no thought of God whatsoever. But if I'm really Worshiping the Lord, because what is worship really when we sing? It's prayer set to song. When I'm worshiping the Lord, that's one way to glorify him. But there's many other ways to glorify God.
In fact, I'm told over in 1 Corinthians 6.19, don't you know your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Who is in you? You were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. 1 Corinthians 10.31 says, Whatever you do, do it for the glory of God.
Listen, whatever you do in life. Glorify God with it. We had academics, sports, business, music. You name it, fill-in blank care. Let me put it another way.
If you can't write, Hallowed be thy name over what you're doing. Then don't do it anymore.
So, as we go into the new year, I should say: Am I glorifying God? And the work that I do? Am I glorifying God? And the free time that I have? Am I glorifying God and the friends that I choose to hang out with?
Am I glorifying God with my time? Am I glorifying God with my money? Am I glorifying God with my existence? Because that's why I've been put here on this earth. One of my favorite films of all time is uh Pee Wee's big adventure.
No, it isn't. Just want to see if you're listening. Yeah. No, one of my favorite films is Chariots of Fire. It's a great story, and I don't want to get into what it's all about, but it features the character of Eric Little.
Who was a Christian who lived in Scotland? And he competed in the Olympics. He was a great runner. As I said, a committed believer, and ultimately went into missionary work. But this movie is a story of his life contrasted with another runner.
And there's a scene in the film where Eric's sister Jenny is sort of chiding him because she feels he's wasting his time racing, you see. She feels he should be out on the mission field doing this work instead of running in these races and so forth. And so she tells him that he. Isn't doing what God made him for. And there's a scene in the film where Eric, who's Scottish, response and I'll try to do it in my best Scottish accent.
He says, I Jenny, I know. But he is Oh wait, let's go. We start over. It's going to be really Not that good.
Okay. She reminds Eric that God made him for himself. She says, Eric, you were made for God. Ah. He says, I Jenny, I know.
But he also made me fast. And when I run. I feel his pleasure. That was really bad, I know, but listen, don't miss what he was saying. Don't clap for that.
No, don't.
Okay, that's it. You like that?
Next week, my home message, Scottish accent. All right. Tendy their babies now. It's even getting worse. And the stop while I'm ahead.
He says, when I run, I feel his pleasure. You know, when you're doing that thing that God made you to do. You can feel his pleasure, can't you? It's called Finding the sweet spot. If you play tennis, you know there's a sweet spot in a racket.
And if you hit this sweet spot, it gives you maximum impact on the ball. And we have a sweet spot in life, don't we? Where when you do this one thing for God's glory, you just say, Amen. I feel this pleasure doing this because you were wired to do that thing. That's why you're here.
We're all here to do that.
So, I think that we should all consider how well we are fulfilling our purpose here on earth, because our belief in the afterlife should inform our choices in the before life. What does it mean to be heavenly-minded?
Okay, let's go back now to Colossians 3 that we already alluded to, but I'm going to read the next verses. Because now we go from I don't want to say the sublime to the practical, but in a way that sums it up. This is all practical, really, when you get down to it. But really, what it does is it shows us how our belief in the afterlife affects us in the before life. Colossians 3.
Verse 5, therefore put to death your members which are on the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion. Evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry, because of these things, the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.
Now you yourselves put these off. Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Don't lie one to another, since you put off the old man with his deeds. and to put on the new man. which is renewed in knowledge.
I want you to notice, Paul starts with the word, therefore. Whenever you see the word therefore, find out what it's there for. Paul's drawing on what he has already said. What did he say? Hey, set your mind on things above, think heaven, pursue heaven.
Now, in light of this, Don't pursue these other things. And he identifies three sins that keep us earthbound, if you will. Three sins that keep us from being heavenly minded. Number one, sexual sin. keeps us earthbound.
Paul mentions the word fornication in verse 5. It's from the root word pornea. This speaks of sexual immorality in general. And this isn't just the person who is Sexually immoral, but it's a person who fills their mind with this stuff. You know, you might pride yourself on the fact that you don't go out and do those things.
Well, I've never been unfaithful to my spouse, or I didn't have sex before marriage.
Well, great, fantastic. But do you fill your minds with pornography? Do you fill your minds and your lives with all this sexual stuff? and fantasize about it all the time. And Jesus told us: if we look at a woman to lust after her, it's like committing adultery with her.
So Paul is saying, don't let sex control your life in this way. Number two, idolatry keeps us earthbound. Idolatry He says, covetousness, which is idolatry. You know A lot of us don't even know it. Coveting is.
It made the top ten. It's one of the ten commandments, thou shalt not covet. I believe that with all of my heart. You shall not covet. What does it mean to covet?
I have no idea, but. We should not do it.
Well the Bible defines it for us. The word covet comes from two root words. To have And more. Basically, to have more. It's a person who always wants more.
The covetous person is never satisfied with what they have. They want what someone else has. Does that make sense? And then when they get it, They don't want it anymore. It's a thrill of the hunt.
Hebrews 13, 5 says, Let your life be without covetousness. Be content with such things as you have, for he has said, I will never leave you or forsake you. Contentment does not come from what you have, it comes from who you know. And if you like, David can say, The Lord is my shepherd. You will also be able to say, I shall not want.
Because your contentment is in your relationship with God. Let me turn this around. It's not always bad to want more. And this coming year, I encourage you, want more. More of Jesus.
More opportunities to glorify God. More spiritual fruit. More. It's not enough. You want more, that's a good thing.
Finally, number three, anger, meanness, and slandering others keeps us earthbound. Anger, meanness, and slandering others. Keeps us earthbound. Verse 8: Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language. Keep it out of your mouth.
The word anger speaks of a settled and habitual anger with a thought of revenge. We all get angry at times. We're not human if we don't. That's not what this is talking about. Just, oh, that made me angry.
This is a settled anger. This is a person that says, I don't get mad. And get even.
So punk, are you feeling lucky? Clean these with imitation. This is speaking of a person that has a deep-seated anger. And it also speaks of a person that flies off the handle. But here's an interesting twist that you might not know from reading this translation.
The word blasphemy is used, and you think, yeah, don't blaspheme God. Actually, in context, the original word that's used is not speaking of blaspheming God, it's speaking of blaspheming or speaking ill of others. It's called Gaza. And by the way, our culture trades in gossip. There are websites dedicated to the latest gossip.
We hear it, we tweet it, we text it, we email it, we post it on our Facebook page. Is it true? I don't know, but it's juicy. It's fun. Unless you're the person that's being gossiped about.
Unless you're the person being lied about. Here, I have an acronym for you in this coming year. An acronym that you could use as a grid to run things through. When you hear something about someone else, before you repeat it, think of this acronym. Think.
T H I N K. T Stands for is it truthful? H stands for Is it helpful? I stand for is it inspiring? N stands for, is it necessary?
K stands for, is it kind? Before you repeat that information, are you sure this is true? Is it going to be helpful? Is it going to inspire someone? Is it really necessary?
And is it kind? You might respond and say, Well, Greg, if I applied that acronym to my life, I wouldn't say anything. Amen. Do us all a favor and shut up. If you're spreading that kind of information.
The best way to turn away from one thing is to find something better. As one old minister put it, It's the expulsive power of a new affection. I love that phrase. The expulsive power of a new affection. Coming back to kids, you want to get a kid to let go of something, you get something better.
What about this? I want, and then you know, you get that other thing out of their hand, like the hammer or whatever. If you really start thinking more about and seeking heaven. Which is to say, putting the Lord first in every area, from the thoughts you think to the friends you choose to the way you use your time, it will transform you. Listen, you are a child of God if you're a Christian.
And that means you're a citizen of heaven. It's time to start acting like one. Why? Because life comes and goes so quickly. And before you know it, You'll be standing before God.
But here's the good news. If we have that expulsive power of a new affection, If we put God first in our life, We'll live very fulfilling lives here on earth. C.S. Lewis said, and I quote, aim at heaven? And you will get earth thrown in.
Aim at earth, and you will get neither. End quote. Another great statement. I'm thinking of the Lord, I'm focusing on the Lord, and I end up living a fulfilling life. And then life comes to an end.
And I'm going to tell you something, all the health food solutions are not going to extend your life one day. You can eat your free-range chicken. And your organic vegetables. and all the tofu your heart desires. And you're going to live as long as God wants you to live.
Because he appoints a day of your birth, he appoints a day of your death, and then comes eternity. And then what happens? Listen, heaven is not the default destination of every person. Heaven is the destination of the person who has their ticket. Alluded to earlier.
Say, what do you mean, this ticket? I'm talking about you have your reservation. You know, you're going there. You put your faith in Christ, thus, you're assured you will go to heaven when you die.
Well, how do you get this ticket, you might ask? How much will it cost me? Oh, you couldn't afford it. All the good works, all the religiosity, all the rituals won't get you this ticket. This is a blood-bought ticket.
bought with the blood of Christ as he hung on the cross. And died in our place and rose again from the dead. But you know what? He loves to give this ticket out, he loves to extend his forgiveness. It's not like he's holding it back.
He said, hey, man, I want you to take this ticket. It's yours. Read about somebody that just found a lottery ticket worth A lot of money. It was just laying under a pile of leaves. I don't know what the person thought.
I don't want this. And I'm not advocating buying lottery tickets. It's just an illustration. I think that's one of the biggest wastes of your money to buy lottery tickets. But that's another story for another day.
And I'll do it in a Scottish accent, I promise. But here is something of great value discarded under a pile of leaves. And that's how the gospel is for many people. There it is, the greatest offer of all eternity. And we go, oh, yeah, what's it?
Oh, who cares? I'll move on. But I'll tell you what. When life comes to an end, you'll realize that's the most important thing of all. Jesus died on the cross.
He rose again from the dead. He stands now at the door of your life, and if you'll hear his voice and open the door, he will come in. Hey, everybody, thanks for listening to my podcast. Before you go, I wanted to let you know about the important work we're doing here at Harvest. You know, we've had the same goal these last 50 years, which is simply this.
We want to know God and we want to make Him known. And we do that in a lot of ways. Documentary films, animation, radio, television, large-scale evangelistic events, and more. If you want to be a part of what we're doing to fulfill the Great Commission, you can support us with whatever you can give. At harvest.org slash donate.
Again, that's harvest.org slash donate, and thanks so much.
