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Hey, would you do me a favor? Share this message with someone who needs to hear it. Coming up today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points out how the Lord wants us to be world changers. He wants us to impact those around us. So what is the secret to being a world changer? What is the motive that will keep us going even when we are at times discouraged in the race of life?
Here is the answer. It is Jesus. We do it for Jesus.
We keep running for Him because one day we will stand before Him and we will see Him face to face. When the battery in our phone is running low, what do we do? We turn off any app or option that isn't necessary. Anything that will deplete that precious power. Well, that's a good strategy to follow as we serve the Lord. Is there anything siphoning off energy that could be used for God? Maybe we should shut it down. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie helps us dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to the task of serving the Lord with all we've got.
We'll learn how to be world changers. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be an athlete, but I never was very athletic. That's probably because of my high school campus, you know, the jocks as we call them.
You know, the girls loved them. Especially the guys who were on the football team. You know, so I wanted to be on the football team. Well, obviously I wasn't a quarterback and I wasn't a linebacker, so I thought maybe I could do something where I would run and catch the ball a bit.
You know, an end, a split end, whatever. So I went out. I went through all the training. And it was hard. And amazingly, much to my shock, I was accepted to be on the football team. I was so excited. And then I got my head shaved, but it was worth it. That was a big deal to me then. See, now it would mean nothing. But then I had this great blonde hair, little surfer wave here.
I do this all the time. And I sacrificed my hair to be on the team. The day after I got my head shaved, I'm called into the office. In the principal's office, they said, Greg, you cannot be on the football team. I said, why? They said, your grades are too low. Could you have told me this before I went through training and shaved my head?
No. But, you know, I wasn't great in football, but I was pretty good at running. Primarily go to the short bursts of energy. But I would not do good on the marathon type races. And I would often fall back. So as I have gotten older, I have tried to run, but oh man, it is just hard.
You know. Even after you get a new pair of running shoes. I read an interesting stat that said that 87% of those who purchase running shoes never use them for running.
And think how much running shoes cost now, right? And so you spend all this money and you wear your shoes to the market or whatever, but hey, you're looking pretty good, right? So, I mean, I don't like exercise. I am naturally not inclined to work out when I talk to people who say, man, I had a great workout. It felt so good. The only thing that feels good to me about a workout is when it is over with, right?
It is so bad I don't even like to jog my memory. Okay. The other day I was at the gym. I was stretching. I was bending. I was lifting.
And I was just getting out of the car. But seriously though, I go to the gym five days a week. Well, I should say I go by the gym because it is on my way to Krispy Kreme donuts, you see. But seriously, I am not a real athlete, but I know people who are, and I know one thing. They are very committed. I read a statistic that said if you want to be a successful Olympic athlete, you have to work out four hours a day, 310 days a year for six years to compete for the gold.
Now that is commitment. Well, I bring this all up because now as we come to the close of our World Changers series in Hebrews 11, we pick up with Hebrews chapter 12 where the author, and we don't know who the author of Hebrews is. Some think it is Paul.
I would agree with that. But we know it was the Holy Spirit for sure working through this person. But chapter 12 begins with the word therefore because the writer of Hebrews is picking up on what has previously been said. So in light of Hebrews 11, we come to Hebrews 12 that is telling us what we should do in light of what we have just learned. And here before us is the secret of the World Changer. So let's read together Hebrews 12 starting in verse 1. Therefore, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight in the sin that so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.
We will stop there. So what is the secret to being a World Changer? What is the motive that will keep us going even when we are at times discouraged in the race of life?
Here is the answer. It is Jesus. We do it for Jesus.
We keep running for Him because one day we will stand before Him and we will see Him face to face. Let me take you back again to verse 1. It says, Therefore, I have often said whenever you see the word therefore in the Bible find out what it is there for.
It is always drawing upon what has been previously said. So the author of Hebrews is saying, Therefore, or another way of putting it, in light of what we have just learned from these heroes of faith in Hebrews 11, because of this example, therefore let us run with endurance. I am going to share with you six principles about being a world changer.
Number one. World changers are in good company. World changers are in good company.
Verse 1 says, You are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. When we were in the White House and we went upstairs to the second floor and we are walking down the hallway and you look at all those portraits of presidents you are reminded of the rich living history of this house. The house of the people. The house of the president and those that serve with him. And you think of all those that have come before.
You think about President Lincoln and President Kennedy and President Reagan and President Jefferson and on the list goes with all these luminaries. Well we look back at Hebrews 11. Here are all these great people of faith. They ran the race of life so well. Hey they weren't perfect. They messed up. They had flaws.
We pointed this out. But yet they changed their world. The world changers in Hebrews 11 opposed the Pharaoh and they counseled Nebuchadnezzar. They passed through the Red Sea. They shouted down the walls of Jericho.
They shut the mouths of lions. They both called down and walked through fire. Now the author of Hebrews is saying listen run like they did. Live like they did. This can be done.
And keep this in mind. The world changers of Hebrews 11 did not have as much light as we do. And by that I mean they didn't know all that we know. For starters they didn't have Jesus Christ living in their heart. That is a new covenant possibility. Not an Old Testament possibility. And they didn't have the Holy Spirit empowering them.
That happens for those in the new covenant because of the death and resurrection of Christ. And so they didn't know all that we know. But yet they pressed on. Hebrews 11 says all these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised. But they saw it from a distance and they welcomed it.
And listen. The same God who was their God is also our God. The God of yesterday is the God of both today and tomorrow. He has not grown weaker.
He has not lost interest in us. And He is telling us to run on. Now some have wondered if this cloud of witnesses. Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses let us run with endurance. Is referring to people watching us from heaven.
Sort of the idea of heavenly grandstands. I don't know. I do know that we like encouragement. Right? Going back to my days of running. I always noticed that when I ran if there was a pretty girl watching I ran faster. Right?
A little motivation. My granddaughter Allie is playing soccer now. She has become very good. At first she was a little reluctant and now she is like taking the ball down the field and scoring goals.
And it is amazing. And so I watched her play the other day and they took a little break and she came up and she said, Papa did you see the goal I just scored? Yes I did Allie.
Way to go. So great. She says, where is Nama? That is what she calls my wife Kathy. I said, Nama is sick today. She said, Papa did you take a video and send it to Nama of me scoring a goal? It is nice to know that someone is rooting for you.
Isn't it? So are we being rooted for by loved ones that have gone to heaven before us? Some would say there is no way because people in heaven have no knowledge of what is happening on earth. They are just so absorbed in God's glory and worshiping Him. They don't care about life on this earth. They are not watching you. Others would take it to the other extreme and say, oh no our loved ones are watching us every day. In fact I even have conversations with them and I feel their presence with me at times and sometimes they even tell me what to do.
You might be surprised. I don't really agree with either one of those points of view. First of all your loved ones are not speaking to you so don't be having conversations with them. Ok. And they are not guiding you and they are not with you. If your loved one has died they are with Jesus if they put their faith in Him and you will see them again. As David said of His child who had died, He cannot come to me but I will go to Him.
Ok. But now in the other extreme or the other side I should say, someone would say they have nothing to do with us. They don't know about us or care about us.
I don't know that that is completely true. Because in the book of Revelation we read about the martyrs who die and go to heaven. Their lives are taken from them and in heaven they pray, How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood and those that dwell on the earth. So that says right away these people, they are not angels. They are regular people like us, are aware of an injustice done on earth. They are aware of the passing of time.
How long, O Lord, until You avenge this. They want this wrong to be righted. So there is an awareness at least on their part about what is happening on earth. And then Jesus said there is rejoicing in heaven over every sinner that comes to repentance. So that means there must be a lot of rejoicing in heaven. Because people are coming to Jesus all the time. Could it be that if one of your loved ones or someone you knew came to Christ on earth you might be aware of it in heaven?
I think it is possible. So I don't know if this is referring to heavenly grandstands but I know this much. They set the pace. They have provided an example that we should follow. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us run. Coming up, Pastor Greg has some practical advice for running our race with speed and endurance.
Stay tuned. We love to hear stories of how lives have been changed through Greg Laurie's teachings of God's Word through the years. Pastor Greg, I grew up listening to you whenever we were in my mom's car driving somewhere.
My first concert was in the fourth grade to see Zoey Girl at your Riverside campus. Recently I have been overcome with anxiety and fear in regards to the coronavirus and the end of the world stuff. I started listening to your sermons again and you have helped me so much. Your voice and teaching is one that really calms me. I feel like the Lord is drawing me nearer and closer to Him when I had unknowingly been distanced from Him. Thank you for the wake-up call and for your continued ministry. I find myself tearing up because I'm so blessed. Thank you. It's so encouraging when we hear that listeners are growing by hearing these studies. Do you have a story to tell of how Pastor Greg's teachings have impacted your life? If so, would you let us know? Call us at 1-866-871-1144.
That's 866-871-1144. Well today, Pastor Greg is bringing us six principles about being world changers. It's the final message in his World Changers series, available at Harvest.org. Point number two, world changers are in a race for their life. World changers are in a race for their life. Verse one, let us run. One of the reasons I think Paul may be the author of Hebrews is because Paul often used the analogy of running in other writings like Philippians and 1 Corinthians and Galatians. And in 1 Corinthians 9-24 Paul said, Remember in a race everyone runs but only one person gets a prize, so run in such a way that you will win.
Did you hear that? See we live in a time when we say, everyone's a winner. We give participation trophies for just showing up, right? We say to the kids, doesn't matter what the score is, you're a winner.
No they're not. There's a winner and there's a loser. And that's how life works too, right?
And here's something that may come as a revelation. God says, I want you to be a winner. I don't want you to be a loser.
Paul says run that you may win. When Ali was, my granddaughter was playing soccer at first I said she was a little reluctant. You know she wasn't really going for it. And so I'd give her the pep talk.
I'd call her over at the break. Ali, Ali, listen. You need the eye of the tiger. Ok. I didn't do that. But anyway, press on.
You need the eye of the tiger. She's like, Papa, what? I just, Ali try harder.
So then I tried something else. I said, if you score a goal, I'll buy you a doll. And she scored a goal and I bought her a doll. Then the next game she scored two goals and I got her a doll. Then she scored four goals. I said, I can't give a doll for every goal anymore.
I'll go bankrupt. But she's doing that well. But the idea is winning. Play to win. If you're in a game, score in the game. And we're in the race of life.
But this is very important. You are not my opponent. I'm not competing with you.
You're not competing with me. As a church, we're not competing with another church in town. I say, for all the churches in our community, preaching the gospel, teaching God's word, God bless all of them.
All of us. We're all the church. We're all the church. My competition isn't with another pastor. Listen, my competition, if you will, my opponents are the world, the flesh, and the devil. I'm running with fellow Christians. We're running together.
Point number three. World changers run light. World changers run light.
Verse one. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and run with endurance the race that is set before us. Listen, you don't want excess baggage in the race of life. This is hard for me because I'm the original pack rat. No, I wasn't in the rat pack. I'm a pack rat. I just save everything. I schlep everything along with me. When I travel, I take way too much stuff. I don't know why, but I do it. I fill my suitcases up, and when they check them on the scale, they look at me like an idiot.
I always weigh a little too much. I'm dragging this stuff, and it's a bad idea because sometimes if your flight's a little late in landing and your connector is taking off, you have to run to the next plane to catch it. So I have everything on wheels now. All my suitcases are on wheels. Everything's on wheels. Kathy's on wheels. No, she isn't, but wheels.
Wheels are great until you hit carpet or asphalt. Then the party's over. So my philosophy is you can't carry it.
I shouldn't take it. But this is weight that slows us down. This could be true in life too, you know, carrying extra poundage on our bodies. You know, sometimes as we get a little older, we'll say, oh, I'm just getting old. Well, you might be getting fat too. You can't stop age, but you can work on the fat. Maybe lose a few pounds.
You'll probably feel better. But here's the thing. I'm talking not about weight gain or loss or suitcases or wheels.
Here's what I'm really saying. Ask yourself this question in the race of life, and I'm speaking of the Christian life. Is there someone or something that is slowing you down? See, if I'm running a race and someone's hanging on to me and I'm dragging them, is that a productive relationship for winning a race? No. If I'm trying to have an appetite for the things of God and somebody's feeding me something that dulls my appetite, is that a good thing to eat?
So periodically I have to take stock of my life and ask myself of certain relationships, is this a good relationship for me? You need to run the race with godly people that spur you on, not with ungodly people that slow you down. So look for godly friends.
And even more, be a godly friend. You know, one of our world changers that we looked at was Abraham. You remember God said to Abraham, leave your country, leave your family, and go to a land that I'll show you. In Abraham, obey.
Sort of. He left his country and he left most of his family, but he took along his nephew Lot, who was sort of like spiritual dead weight. And it caused conflict with Abraham and ultimately they had to part ways.
But it's interesting, as soon as Abraham sort of cut off contact with Lot, God spoke to him again. Sometimes we have relationships like that that are hurting us in the race of life. Lay aside the weight and the sin that so easily besets you. Ask yourself the question, is this thing, is it speeding me up or is it slowing me down?
This thing that I'm doing, is it building me up or is it tearing me down? There are certain kind of foods they say are energy foods. I'm told a banana's an energy food. A glazed donut is not an energy food, okay?
So if I eat certain things, it will affect me mentally and to some degree physically and we all have different metabolisms. This is important. Notice it says lay aside the weight and the sin that so easily besets you. There's a distinction. See, sin is sin.
There's a lot of sins out there, breaking God's commandments, falling short of the standards, not doing what God tells you to do, which would be the sin of omission. But then there's the weight. See, what may be a weight for one person is not necessarily a weight for another person. You might say, well, look, that Christian is doing thus and so and they're okay. Why can't I do it? Because you're not that person. And maybe it doesn't affect them the same way that it affects you.
What is a weight to one is not necessarily a weight for another. Pastor Greg Laurie with good insight today on how we can run our own race for the Lord. And there's more to come as he completes his list of six principles for being a world changer.
And Pastor Greg has a final comment before we go today as well. And you can hear this study again online. It's a message called The Secret to Being a World Changer. If you missed any part, just go online to harvest.org.
There you can stream it from the site or download a copy to hear later. For a CD copy, call us anytime at 1-800-821-3300. Well, we're so happy to be making available an outstanding resource for kids for the holiday season. It's The Jesus Storybook Bible, a Christmas collection by Sally Lloyd-Jones. You know, I think there's a book that's called something like Comedy is Serious Business. And along those same lines, I think you could say writing for children isn't child's play. You know, it takes a certain amount of talent and understanding of where a child's coming from to be able to communicate effectively on their level. And Sally is such a gifted children's author.
Sally, you know how to speak to them in a way that really resonates. Let me ask you, what can you tell us about the dynamics of sharing spiritual truth with kids? Well, I think someone said this to me that the difference between, if there's complexity in this, you know, Bible stories, they're very complex, aren't they? And to understand them enough to make them simple enough for a child, you have to go through complexity out the other side to simplicity.
If you don't do the work and you stay this side of complexity, then you dumb it down. So I just think, whoever we are, we have to make sure that we, in our own hearts, have really responded to the truth of what the Bible is saying. First, that's the most important thing. And we need to know God loves us so that we can tell a child God loves them. I love how, Sally, you begin oftentimes in telling your story, you bring in the adult and the child into a place of wonder and amazement and seeing with childlike eyes because we're not to be childish, but we're to be childlike. And I love how often you refer to the Bible and refer to the Bible stories as a love story or the story of an adventure story about a young hero that comes from a far country to redeem his lost treasure. Those are things that not only speak to a child's heart, but to an adult's heart as well because deep inside, we're all longing for that to be true. And then you turn around and say, but this isn't just a story. This is real.
This happened. And it impacts our lives to this day. And I just love how you come at it with that because a child will relate to a fairy tale.
They'll relate to an adventure story or a love story. And it's all there in the scripture. And the readings that you have for Advent beginning on December 1st will take us through these incredible stories that you have selected from the Jesus Storybook Bible and package them up for us. You do the handpicking for us so it's easy for us to get into that story during the Advent season.
Yeah. And I think if I was to really sum up how you take very big concepts, you made me remember, really it all comes down to story. And we make the mistake with children where we think we've got to summarize and we've got to have points and we're going to say to some, we might read a story and then we say to a child, well, what that story means is, and whatever we put on the other side of means is, is basically going to limit what God might want to say to that child. And I think the best thing you can do is tell a story because a story is powerful and it will be like a seed that's planted and you may not see what it's doing, but it's working and it might be between God and the child and you don't have to sort of wrap everything up in a bow and if you do, in fact, you might actually kill the story. So I just recommend people trust the story, choose the right story and then trust it and let the story be a story and it will be powerful. We all can point back to stories that have changed us.
Quite apart from the Bible story which changed us, but you know, story's very powerful. That's right and if you want to read what Sally has done with the greatest of all stories, the greatest story ever told, the story of the birth of Jesus, but it wasn't just a celebration of Jesus being born because when Christ came to this earth, it wasn't just an arrival, it was a departure. He left heaven to come to earth. As Isaiah says, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. So from earth's perspective, a child was born. From heaven's perspective, a son was given and Sally writes about that in a beautiful, understandable way that you can read to your children or grandchildren in this special resource that we're offering called the Jesus Storybook Bible, A Christmas Collection, including stories, songs and reflections of the Advent season and we want to rush you a copy of this for the holiday season for your gift of any size.
Yeah, that's right. It's your investments in this daily radio ministry that allow Pastor Greg's insight to keep coming your way here on this station and if the Lord is putting it on your heart to support us on a regular basis, ask about becoming a Harvest Partner. They're the close friends who help us reach so much further with the gospel. With your first gift as a Harvest Partner, we'll be glad to send you the Jesus Storybook Bible, A Christmas Collection. Just write us at a new beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514 or call 1-800-821-3300. You can dial anytime 24 hours a day and again the number 1-800-821-3300 or go online to harvest.org and we'll only be mentioning this resource a short time longer. Next time, the final installment in Pastor Greg's series called World Changers.
Hope you'll tune in. But before we go, Pastor Greg closes with this illustration from today's message called The Secret to Being a World Changer. You know, when I was younger, when I was in my 20s and I would finish preaching, I would always go out to a restaurant called Nuggles. How many of you have heard of Nuggles? Yeah, and there was one here in Riverside and they're in Orange County. Someone heard me in the first service said there's one in Fountain Valley.
I'm gonna do some research on that because I love Nuggles. I thought it was the best take-up Mexican food ever and there was something I always ordered there so I hate to admit this but I'd be preaching a sermon and I'm toward the end of my message at night. I'm speaking and I'm literally thinking macho combo burrito, macho combo burrito. I'm thinking about it like this, macho combo. It's a five minute macho combo burrito so I'd finish the service.
Yes, amen, God bless. Macho combo burrito. Drive through, get it. This thing was like the size of a sleeping bag. It was huge. It was absurdly large.
You know, eat this thing. It was massive and it had no effect on me. I didn't get heartburn. I didn't feel bad afterwards. I couldn't even think of eating something like that late at night now. See, I've gone from acid rock to acid reflux. That's part of the problem. World changers run light.
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