[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the message podcast of High Ridge Church, Longview, where our vision is to help, you know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and ultimately make a difference. We are so glad that you're here, and we pray that this message impacts your life as you apply the spiritual truths from God's word in practical ways.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Let's listen in. Thank you, everybody. Good morning. Good morning, Good morning. I'm glad you made it to church, everybody. It's going to be good. I want to say a very special welcome. I'm going to look right in that camera right there and welcome all of our friends watching from all around the world. Come on. Irish family from Africa to Abilene to Austin to Commerce to Mineral Wells to Fort Worth. We love you guys. I'm so grateful that you could tune in, you could find us online, that you could find a way to connect a little bit with God's family, with God's Word. Today, I think God's going to bless you as you turn your attention to God's word. So grab your Bible if you would. First Corinthians, chapter three is where we're going to spend the most of our time as we start a brand new series today called A Life that Matters. Somebody say it with me. A life that matters. I think we have different ideas, different versions of what's most important about life. If we were to go along your row and ask people, what is your definition of a successful life? Your answer is going to be different than the person next to you. We all have different answers for what we think success really is. What does. Here's. Here's the most important question. What does God say? Success is. What does God say is a significant life? What does God say? That's a life that matters. That's what I'm looking to find. And so for many of us, we'd have different versions of what that might look like. And we're gonna spend the next four weeks kind of breaking that down, of what would my life look like if I lived my life according to God's principles and God's standards, so that I could stand before him at the end of all things and say, lord, I gave you the best of what I had with the time that you gave me. This is my gift to you. And so as we're digging into God's word, it's important that we kind of take a good, long look at that. And so First Corinthians, chapter three. What's happening here? If you're. If you're not familiar with. With The Corinthian Church that Paul is writing to, what's happening at this moment in time is Paul is doing something that in theological circles, we would say he's beating the sheep. And what that means is, as a shepherd, those sheep need some discipline. And Paul is just taking them out to the woodshed and giving them a little bit of what for. Because the Corinthian Church had a lot of issues, a lot of problems. And Paul is saying, you know what? We're going to make some wrong things right today. And so he just begins to lay it down. You're doing this wrong. You're doing this wrong. You're doing this wrong. This is what you need to be doing. This is what you need to be doing. You need to be talking like this, acting like this. And then Paul begins to lay out all these things to help get them back onto a track that matters. And so as he's doing this, he begins to lay out principles of what a life that is lived for Christ should really look like. And by the way, Paul knows the difference, because Paul has spent the first half of his life living for himself, and he's become a great success. He's built a great business. He's done things according to the world standards that would say that's a successful man. But God, literally and figuratively and spiritually knocks him off of his high horse and said, that's not important. This is what's important to me. And so Paul looks at his life and says, look, I've made a lot of mistakes in this area. I've done things really, really wrong. But the Lord gave me a revelation to do something that matters, and I've built my life upon something that's significant, and I want to help people to do the same. And so as I've been laboring, laboring over Scripture for you this week, and as I've been spending some time studying, I always try to make sure that I bring something from the pulpit that you can actually use. I don't know about you, but I grew up in a church that would present things that were great to hear but didn't really matter a lot to me. Like, I think that's a great story. That's a great scripture. What does it have to do with me? How do I apply that to my life? And so this is something I think every single person can apply to themselves right where they are today.
So what does success look like to you?
What does a significant life look like to you? And how would you know? I think for some of Us, if we were to be honest, we would just say, you know what my definition of success is? My kids aren't in prison. Praise God. You know, I didn't kill my spouse, although you should have heard him snoring last night or whatever that may be. I'm just thankful that I have a 401k, or that I was able to branch out and start my own business or, you know, my kids still have a relationship with me that's a success. Those are all good things, wonderful things.
But ultimately, is. Is what we define success that. Does that look like what God defines success? Asks.
Even good things can become distractions if we don't understand what is most important.
So today we're talking about a life that matters. We'll spend the next three or four weeks discussing this at length. But. 1 Corinthians, chapter 3. The apostle Paul begins to look at his life, and he begins to apply this to the church. And he starts thinking about some things that we need to understand today.
And he lays out some principles that I think are important about a life of significance. He gives some insight to some things that we don't consider, but we really should.
So let's pick it up there in verse, verse 10.
He says, by the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder. That means I took a lot of care to make sure that my life was built right this time, because I had to tear it all down and do it right. So I put some wisdom behind this, and this is what was right. He goes, and now somebody else is building on that. But each one should build with care. And so as I was digging into God's word, that was the statement that was jumping out to me, jumping off the, off the page, as it were, where God says, each one should build with care.
As you look at your life, are you building your life with care? Or is your life just kind of something that just happens to you? Is it. Are you one of those people that's like, you know what? Whatever happens, I'm just going to find a way to have a little bit of joy and try to have a little fun. Or could it be that what, what we're doing really matters more than what we think? He said each one should build with care. In the, in, in the, in the original language, the word that he used here is the Greek word blepo, which means, take a real good, hard look at how you're building your life. And it goes beyond just, just looking at my past or just looking at my, my successes. It's. It gives us spiritual insight. He said, what we're doing here matters over there.
Is what I'm doing today making any difference in the spiritual realm? That's something that many of us don't think about. They said each one should build with care. Because what you're doing today matters not just here, but matters over there. As the old saints used to say, over yonder. Remember that? Over yonder. That doesn't. That doesn't just mean like over in Gilmer. No, no, it means like over there, on the other side of life.
Does this have any spiritual significance? Are the things that I'm worried about today, the things that I'm deeply caring about, do they really matter to God? And if so, how can I make sure that what I'm doing has eternal significance? He said, each one should build their life with care.
Take a good long look at your life and say, does this really matter, Lord? What matters to you?
So he goes on to say this. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. That means before you do anything else, if it's not built on the foundation of what matters most to him, I could be making some huge mistakes. I could be building my life around some things that do not matter whatsoever. Why? Because they're built on other. Different. Other platforms, different ways of building lives. And by the way, lots of people do it.
But he said, the foundation of my life has to be Jesus Christ, Lord, does this matter to you, Jesus? I want to build my foundation on you.
And so he says this. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, he's saying, you're going to build your life with some things that are really, really valuable or some things that do not matter. Right? So these are things that are really, really important to some people, but are not important to God. So he's saying, there's some things that are really, really valuable and some things that people think are valuable that just. It ain't cutting it. And he says, this is what's going to happen.
The day. Notice the capital D on that word day. So it's an important day. The day is going to bring it to light. It meaning your life's work. It will be revealed with fire. And fire will test the quality. Somebody say quality, the worth.
Fire is going to test the things that you built your life around, the things that were most important to you. The fire is going to test the quality of what that was of each person's work.
He says, if what has been built, survives. The builder that's you receives a reward. I like that part.
He says, if it's burned up, then the builder will suffer loss, but yet will be saved, even though as only as one escaping through the flames. In other words, you're still saved. You just didn't do anything with Jesus. You might have accepted Christ into your heart, but you never let him change you. You never let him be the foundation of what you're building your life on. Jesus became nothing more than our fire insurance. And unfortunately, many people still live their life with that kind of mentality.
I trust God with my eternity, but I will not let him change me because I like me some me.
So he said, there are going to be people that are in heaven like you made it.
But when the reward ceremony is happening, you're like, I probably should have done a whole lot more.
I could have done a whole lot more, but I instead focused things, focused my attention on things that just didn't matter a whole lot. He said, you're going to be in heaven, but you're going to smell like smoke. Like you barely made it. Whoo.
Just barely made it in. Now the good news is you're still there. The bad news is, what did you do with your life? What'd you do with the gift of Jesus Christ? What did you do with the grace that God has given you? And so, as we're digging into God's word, there's a couple things that I want to talk about along the subject of a life that matters, that really matters.
I want to give you three things that are important, and we're going to kind of dive into this deeper over the next few weeks. And so we want you to be a part of that and kind of get a good, good look at your life and kind of judge yourself by Lord. Does. Does my life really matter to you?
Here's the first thing I want to show you. Number one. A significant life begins with God's grace. Somebody say that word with me. Grace. Grace. It cannot be overstated how important that is to us. A significant life, a life that truly matters, is going to be built with grace. Grace, grace, grace. There at the beginning, notice Paul says, by the grace that God has given me, I laid a foundation. Now we know that the foundation is Jesus Christ. But before that, he said it was grace. Grace did the prep work.
Now, when I was younger, most of you know my story. We were. We were raised mostly in homeschool. I didn't get a whole lot of public school stuff. And so I Didn't understand a lot of things that other people would. But right about the age of 10, in our homeschool kind of consortium, what we realized is that, and I say we, I meant they. What they realize is that, you know what these kids are getting done with their, with their work really, really quickly. What should we do? And they came up with the thing called child labor. And so I was, I was farmed out to a guy in our church whose name was Carl Daniels. Carl was a great old guy. When I say good old boy, you, you have the, you have the right person in mind. Carl, Carl was, was a hillbilly from Kentucky. And when, I mean from Kentucky, like not the civilized part, the other part.
And Carl Daniels was a huge man. He was well over six five, I mean big, big, big guy, like in the 400 pound range. Wore overalls every day. And it took a lot for me to understand him as a 10 year old kid. And so he was looking for like an apprentice, somebody he could bring along to carry tools and stuff. And so I was farmed out to him. And because Carl never had any kids, he just loved to talk. And I learned how to speak hillbilly really, really quickly from listening to him, which prepared me for my role as pastor in East Texas. You're welcome.
I get you.
And so he would point at things and he would tell me stuff and I didn't understand, is that the real word for it? Is it just how he pronounces it? Like, what's the real thing? But he was actually a successful businessman, even though he couldn't. He could barely even read. And so he took me to a place called the Six Flags Mall and he had one of his biggest jobs where they were laying concrete at the Six Flags Mall. A massive job. If you've ever been to the Six Flags Mall in Arlington, you know this is a huge project.
And so I asked him, like, what are we doing today? He said, we'll be pouring concrete.
And so I had an idea of what concrete was. It's that hard stuff that we, that we drive on. Is that what we're doing? He said yes. And so he had me pulling out what seemed to be miles and miles of rebar. Now if you don't know what rebar is, don't worry, I'm going to explain to you. Rebar is like tiny pieces of steel that they put out and lay on the ground, tie it together in a grid so that you could pour the concrete over it.
And I said, well, I thought concrete was super strong. Why do we need this? He said, no, no, no. This is where the real strength comes from. This is what gives the concrete its strength, is the rebar. And so we would pull it out and lay it down and tie it together in this huge grid, and then he would pour the concrete over it. He said, you know, when the sun comes out on the Texas sky, it gets really, really hot. And the rebar is what keeps the concrete from breaking up. The rebar is what gives it all of the strength so we can make it last for years and years and years. And. And I understood the importance of the prep work that had to happen before the concrete was laid.
And so Paul says, before I even laid the foundation, it was by the grace that God has given me. And grace is what's gonna give your life significant meaning. Grace keeps me from building a foolish life on a platform of pride.
And I wanna make sure that you see this because the majority of the people in our world today are. Are going to build their life on a platform of, what can I be proud of?
And because we list pride as our version of success, we end up missing what we should really be proud of.
Grace matters more than we give it credit for.
Grace is a beautiful thing. It's a beneficial thing. It's a necessary thing. In the book of James, chapter four, he writes this, that God gives grace generously. And I'm so thankful that he does. But he says, as the scriptures say, look at this. This is important. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
So God gives generous grace.
And then it says, if you build your life on a platform of pride, you know what's going to happen. It says, God literally begins to stand on the other side and begins to work against you. You.
There's a reason why many of us live a life that is incredibly frustrating because we're building it for the wrong reasons.
It's about my pride, about what I can accomplish, about what I did on my own strength. I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps. I did everything by my own strength.
The Bible says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Now, to really understand a good look at what. What grace is, we could just spend the next six or eight weeks just diving into what grace means. I want to break it down as simply as possible to make sure you understand how important, how critical this is in the life of believers. So write it. Write it down this way, if you wouldn't mind. Grace is God's favor to those who are unworthy.
And I wish you could underline that word unworthy about 12 times. Because in our world today, we live in a culture where everyone is amazing and perfect in every way, and we celebrate how awesome and how amazing you are.
But understand that's not what the Bible says about us.
The greatest part of us is only discovered on the other side of grace. Grace was given to those of us who are completely un worthy.
I want to see it this way. To fully understand grace, I need to see who I was without Christ, without Christ, before Christ, and after Christ.
There's a different version of me, One with God's grace and one without. And see, Paul understood this because he had lived his life built on a foundation of pride. And so God literally knocked him off his high horse and gave him a different calling, a different life. And that moment, he experienced the grace of God. And he recognized that everything I'd built my life around was foolish.
And he's grateful that God loved him enough to help him build a life that could ultimately make a difference.
Grace matters.
When I was. When I was five years old, I've shared with this with you some of the. Some of the stories of my life. And I've shared this one before. But my grandfather took me and my brother out on a boat and took us out in the middle of the lake, and we were hanging out, and he was doing a little fishing. He's like, you guys should jump in. It's a hot summer today. Y'all should go go swimming. I'm like, we can't swim. He's like, yeah, you can. He grabbed us up and just throws us in the lake.
Now, it was shocking to me because I came right up, and immediately I'm like, wow, I guess I do know how to swim. What I didn't know was he put little life jackets on us, but I had no idea. I just thought I could swim.
And so I'm like, wow, this is awesome. This is great. This feels great. I'm gonna stay in the lake all day. We became water bugs. I mean, this is awesome.
Fast forward till when I'm about 12 years old, and my dad said, we should have. Have your friends over. We're gonna go to the pool later on tonight. Now, that was a big deal for us because I was raised Pentecostal and there was no mixed bathing, which I don't even know what it is. I just knew you couldn't do it at a pool.
And he took us all at night to a pool, and we were hanging out, splashing around the deep end with a few of My friends. And it was a wonderful time until some of my friends started diving off the deep end into the 12 foot end and they're doing these awesome dives. I'm like, oh, I could do that.
And so I go up on that diving board and I look out across my friends and there was one girl that happened to be there. She's like 12 years old, 13 years old. I'm like, I'm going to really impress her. I'm going to do a triple gainer, like whatever they call them. I'm going to do like all kinds of stuff. I'm going to make her love me for the rest of her life. This is going to be awesome. I'm really going to impress her. And I just put everything I could into that dive and I hit that water, went all the way down to the bottom of that pool, tried to push off. And then I realized something's different.
I'm splashing around, my head comes right up above the water and I go right back down. And I'm trying, scratching, clawing, like, why am I not floating? Like I, I know how to swim, except I don't.
There's no life jacket, there's no water wings, there's no floaties. There's just me.
And here I am floating around in this water, trying to swim, falling to the bottom. I remember taking my first huge gulp of water and thinking, this is how it ends. This is the end of Tim. This is it. My life flashes before my eyes and it wasn't very long.
I realized some important lessons. Like, number one, I can't swim, I need help. Like number two, I'm going to end up doing a lot of dumb things to impress girls for the rest of my life if I don't get a handle on this right about now. And so as I'm splashing around trying to figure out, is this the end of my life? One of the most beautiful things ever happened to me. That same girl jumped into the deep end, saw me struggling to breathe, puts her elbow around my chin, drags me up out of the water, sits me on the conquer, begins to pump my chest, begin to vomit out all that chlorine water. Nasty. And I'm. There's no, there's no dignity in that moment like you.
Pretty embarrassing.
But I recognize some, some, some important things. Like I, I couldn't save myself.
Please hear me.
I need grace. I need somebody to see me in my struggle and to find me and save me. And you couldn't save yourself either on your best day with your Best efforts, you could not save yourself.
And when we look at God's word, it's important that we don't just see ourselves as the apple of God's eye, as his precious treasure, which you are.
But without Christ before grace, you need to remember. You need to go back in your mind and recognize how important God's grace is. God's word tells us very, very clearly that before Christ, you were born in sin, that you violated God's law, you're shapen in iniquity, that you're destined to die, that you could never pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. Scripture calls us enemies of God, deserving of death, unrighteous, no way to fix it on your best day. Unclean, blind, naked, hopeless. That is our life before Christ. Grace matters.
Grace matters. God's grace saved me when I couldn't save myself. I want you to see that because this is critical. You will never build a life of great significance if you don't stop. Start with the grace of God. It is by grace that I'm saved. It's by grace that I'm even here. It's by God's grace that I even take the next breath.
Grace found me and saved me. Grace gave me a purpose, gave me freedom when I didn't deserve it. So a significant life is built on God's grace. Here's the second point. You guys aren't listening fast enough. I'm gonna have to preach faster.
Number two. A significant life is built. Please hear me. To be given away. It's built to be given away. Notice Paul says this. I laid a foundation, and now somebody else is building on it. And that's a completely different mindset than what many of us have today when we think about, I'm building my life. No, no, no. You're building a part of God's plan.
The most important thing is to be faithful and to do it right with the part that God has you to play. The There's a part for you, there's purpose for you. But there are people that came before you. There are people that will come after you. And if they've done their job and you've done your job, and those that are coming after us do their job, what happens is God's kingdom advances.
We find a significant life because I did what the Lord asked me to do in my time. It's a beautiful thing to be a part of God's plan. We see this in the history of our church from those that were here from the very beginning, almost 50 years ago. Now there's a group of believers that formed together what would be known eventually as High Ridge Church. Then it was known as Longview Christian Fellowship.
But a group of people that stepped out on faith and believed God, that one day we would see something like this.
The question is, what are you believing God for? Are you willing to play your part so that your children and your grandchildren can stand on the promises of God for themselves when you leave them something better than what you received? You're literally sitting in the chair that somebody else's faith built. You're sitting in the chair that somebody had to generously give to make sure that you had a place to come. Today we have a part to play. And once we understand how important it is that we play our part, we become a part of something that's bigger than ourselves.
Things begin to change. This is where God begins to change our heart. From personal success to spiritual significance.
When it's not just about how much I can get before I die, but about what I'm leaving behind and will it actually matter?
Think about your life, the things that you're building your life around, and recognize that I have to play my part. I have a responsibility as a child of God to do what God is requiring of me in my time. You see, success stops with you, but significance carries on.
Success stops with you.
There's gonna be a meeting at some point at the right about 30 minutes past your funeral, where your kids and grandkids, people that know you love you, are like, what do I get?
They're gonna start clamoring over your stuff, and you would roll over in your grave if you knew, like, she cannot have that. No, they just divide up your stuff. I've seen it happen.
Divide up your stuff and move on. Will it have made a significant difference? I want there to be people at the end of my life that say, you changed my life.
You could have my stuff. It's just stuff.
The question is, did I make a difference? Are there people's lives that are changed because of me? Because God's word said that that's what's important. It's the people. It's the lives that you've impacted. Here's the third and final thing. I'll close up with this number three. A significant life is lived with the end in mind.
Lived with the end in mind. Now, that might be a morbid thought for many people in this room. I get it. But it shouldn't be.
That's a morbid thought. The end in my. No, no, no, no. It shouldn't be. Why? Because if you know Christ, the end is not the end.
The end is not the end. And Paul says we have a different hope than everybody else. We, we. We don't grieve as people that have hope. Why? Because the significance of our life does not end at a funeral. It ends at a party.
It is at a party over yonder where everything that we've done with our life starts getting rewards. There are great rewards that God has for his people. The end of your life. Significance is not a funeral. It's at a party. This is where believers stand before the Lord. And it's not judgment day, it's capital day, Capital D day. It's a reward day.
The world's going to be judged for whether or not they received Christ, but we are going to be judged by what we did with him.
What you did with the gift of grace, what you did with the gifts and the talents and the resources that God gave you. You will stand before the Lord and give an account for that. And said, in that moment, there's going to be some rewards handed out.
Will the substance of your life look like gold and silver precious stones? Or is it built around wood, hay, and stubble?
What's it going to look like? And it shows us very, very clearly in God's word that God judges your life's work by its quality, not its quantity. It's not how much stuff you have. It's the quality of what you did.
So I told you before, I was raised mostly in homeschooled, but there were several years where we went to public school and I didn't know some of the things that other kids knew. And so long about second or third grade, they did something called field day. And some of you guys remember what field day was like. I had no idea what that was. Field day, to me was, we're going to go outside and play all day and it's going to be awesome. And so they would have a bunch of different competitions set up and you would, you know, run these different things and this monkey bars and it's, you know, dodgeball and all the things that you can't play anymore for some reason or another.
Now, I had no idea that there were prizes given out at the end. And so in my mind, because we're playing outside, like, this is jokey joke time. Let's have some fun. I'm pulling people's hair. You ever walk up to somebody and like, you know, the knee that they're. That they keep straightening you, you. You kind of kick the Back of the knee through. They do that. Like I love that.
And I'm running around behind the bleachers, you know, I'm causing trouble and disrupting because ADHD didn't exist back then, but I had it.
And so at the end of all those three legged races and potato sacks at the end of all that stuff, I see that they walk us over to a big old table and they've got some trophies on that bad boy. I'm like, woo, trophy time. I never had a trophy. I want a trophy. They started handing out trophies to people that won those games. I didn't know that I might have approached those games a little bit differently had I known that There was a $4 trophy at the end.
And they started handing out these trophies to my friends, like, where's my trophy? Oh, you get a participation ribbon now. Long before this woke world started transitioning to everybody gets a trophy just for showing up. There used to be first, second and third place and then everybody else. And I was part of that everybody else. And I'm like, well, what ribbons do we get? Well, for the ones that came in fourth place, we get them blue ribbons.
Then everybody else gets red ribbons and then those that participated, you get pink ribbon. Pink ribbons, stupid. Pink ribbon. I don't want that. I want a trophy. Well, you should have played the game.
How many of us spend our life not knowing that there's rewards at the end?
That life is not a joke. That doesn't mean you can't have fun. But please hear me, you're here on purpose.
And there are rewards waiting for God's people that have done something with the grace that God has given them.
He says at the end of all things, it's not a funeral, it's a party where God begins to reward those who live lives according to God's purposes. He lays out five crowns scripturally that we're going to receive. He says, you're going to receive the crown of life, the incorruptible crown, the crown of righteousness, the crown of glory and the crown of rejoicing. There are five crowns available for God's people that play the game the right way.
Five crowns. I want to be a five crown guy. That'd be pretty cool to be walking around like you only got four. Five. Five for me.
What? You're already in heaven. Probably's not gonna be a problem. It's like, hey, I'm already here. You're not gonna cast me out. I'm already here.
Some of those people up there, it's like, they just barely got in. They smell like smoke. And you're like, mmm, participation trophy for you.
There's no vaping in heaven.
You barely made it, didn't you? But that's what he says is going to happen. So you barely made it. You did nothing with Christ. You're in.
But there were rewards, five rewards available for those that took it seriously and built a life that mattered. Please hear me. Your life matters. And it matters what you do with the grace of God. Because Scripture says at the end of it all, we take even all up to five crowns. We take those crowns off, you know what we do with them? Scripture says we lay them at the feet of Jesus.
Say, this is for you, not for me.
This is because of your grace and what you did on the cross. That I'm even here.
We take our crowns and we lay them at the feet of Jesus, showing us once and for all an important truth. Please hear me. Here's the truth. I'm not the main character in my own story. Jesus is. To build a life that matters, you need to recognize who the main character is. And it ain't me. And it's not you, it's him. Paul understood this, and he's given the most important insights to life. He lays this out in Acts, chapter 20. He says, I don't account my life as precious to myself.
It's not about me. He says, this here's what's important. Here's what I want. If only I may finish my course. He said, I want to finish well the course that God has laid out for my life. I want to carry out my purpose to the very end. What's my purpose? He says, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
That's why I'm here, because he found me when I couldn't save myself. He found my life when I was building trophies to things that didn't matter, building monuments to myself.
And he found me and he saved me. He redeemed me. And he's using me for a purpose that's bigger than me. That's why it matters when you serve God. That's why it matters when you give.
That's why it matters when you pray for someone. That's why it matters. When someone is open to the gospel and you step in and begin to share your testimony, it matters. God sees those things. That's why it matters. The way that we treat people.
That's why it matters how we testify about the grace of God. God sees that. He said, there are rewards for those who are willing to do things my way. Let me close out with this very final thought. A life that matters is lived by God's grace for God's glory.
It's not about you, it's not about me, but what we can do with the time that we have left to bring as much glory as possible to our Father. Can you receive that, everybody? Come on. Ashley, if you would, let's finish up this for just a moment. And I'm going to ask you to go ahead and bow your head and close your eyes. And let me just remind you, hey, if you're watching online today, if you've tuned in and you feel like this is an important message, would you do a huge favor? Would you share this message with your social media world? It's a big thing when you do that. There are thousands of people watching this every single week that may not have a church to go to. And just by you clicking that share button, you get to bring Jesus Christ into people's homes and into their phones, into their computers. They get a chance to hear the gospel of Jesus. People need to know that there is a life that doesn't matter and there's a life that matters.
Would you consider sharing this? That would be a huge thing, if you wouldn't mind.
And as we close today with heads bowed and eyes closed, I want to give you a chance to maybe respond to what the Holy Spirit is telling you right now. I think for some of us, if we're going to be honest, we would say, lord, I've built my life around some things that do not matter.
I've been worried about a lot of things that it's just not important. And I stress out and I have anxiety about things that it's not going to be spiritually significant at all. Lord, I.
I want my life to be built around things that matter to you.
So how does that change the way I treat people, Lord? How does it change the way that I pray, the way that I wake up in the morning, the way that I speak, the way that I pray, the way that I give of my finances? How does that affect that? Lord, I want to live a life that's pleasing to you.
I want to make much of my Savior.
Lord, we come to you today recognizing that we make a lot of mistakes and we do a lot of things that just don't matter. We pray that you would forgive us.
Help us, Lord, to build a life around your principles about the things that matter to you the most.
Father, help us to live this week with that in mind.
In Jesus name.
Now, with heads bowed and eyes closed, perhaps you're here today or maybe even watching online, and you would say, pastor, if I'm going to be honest with you, I don't have a relationship with Jesus. I need a relationship with Jesus. My friend, you're in the right place.
As a matter of fact, if you want a relationship with Jesus, then right where you are, you can ask him to be the Lord of your life with a prayer you may say. I'm not really sure how to do that. Let me help you the same way that somebody helped me one time.
So right now I'm gonna give you the prayer. I'm gonna give you the words to say. Your responsibility would just be, repeat after me. I'll help you. Now, you can do it out loud if you want to. You can do it silently. It doesn't matter. The most important thing is that you believe it, but right where you are. If you want a relationship with Jesus, pray this prayer with me. Just say, jesus, I believe you're the Son of God.
I believe that you came and died.
I believe you rose from the grave so that I could have life and forgiveness for my sins.
Please forgive me. I've made a mess of my life.
I ask you to come into my heart.
Take over Jesus. I'm all in.
Use me for your glory.
In Jesus name.
Now, with heads bowed and eyes closed, my friend, if you prayed that prayer, just those of you that prayed that prayer with me, would you do me a favor? Would you look up at me and go ahead and lift up your hand and say, that was me, Pastor. I prayed with you. I did that. I'm not ashamed. I prayed that prayer. Good. Good for you.
If you're here with us, live in person, or maybe you're even watching this, I want you to know that there is a phone number that's going to appear on your screen right now. And if you prayed that prayer, would you do me a huge favor? Would you text me, text the words I prayed to that number? And what happens when you do that? I'm going to send you back the link to some things that I prepared just for you. It'll help you understand kind of what just happened inside of your heart and what you're supposed to do next. It's the greatest joy of my life to help people meet Jesus. I. I love it. I'm so proud of you in the decision that you just made. Good for you.
For everybody else, would you go ahead and look up at me then? Stand to your feet and as we finish up today, I'm going to invite our elders and their wives forward to be available to pray for you about anything that you might need prayer for. If you're watching online and need some prayer, go ahead and type it in the chat. I could use some prayer. We would love to pray for you. There are people standing by ready to pray for you right where you are. We believe in the power of prayer. God still hears when his people pray. Amen. He still hears. God still heals. He still listens. He still delivers. God still does miracles. He does amazing things. And if you're struggling, if you're in a place where you need somebody to pray for you, please let us do that for you and for everybody else. I want to make a couple of quick announcements. If you have not registered for Daddy Daughter Dance, that's coming. It's one of the greatest things that we do, fathers and daughters. We have a huge thing, a huge shindig, as we call it, prepared for you. Let me just say there have been other churches contacting us saying, hey, we're not doing this, but can we just send all of our people to your thing? Because you guys did a great job. I'm like, hey, let me announce it to our people first. So this is already. It's really, really close to selling out. So I want to make sure that our people, our dads, our daughters get a chance to enjoy this because we are a fast growing church. There's a lot of people that come, and unfortunately, we cannot accommodate everybody in the city, but surely we can accommodate our people. So, dads, this is your last chance to register. After today, it'll probably be done, but I just want to let you know that that's coming up. So on our website, Daddy Daughter Dance, you can do that on your app. If you have an app, you can sign up for that on that app as well.
And it's gonna be awesome. Cannot wait. It's one of our favorite things. This is actually the first year that me and my daughter aren't coming.
She's got her bachelorette party planned for that night. And I'm like, don't say that. She's just about to get married. And I love it. It's an awesome thing. But I'm not okay. Pray for your boy.
As we finish up today, let me bless you and pray for you, Father. Would you bless my friends with an incredible week? Let them walk in your goodness and your favor. Let them walk in your grace all week long, Lord, representing you well. I pray that you bless their families, Bless their finances, bless them on the job, bless their careers, Lord, that they can bring you much glory in Jesus name and all of us said together. Amen. God bless you as you go. I hope you have an awesome week.
[00:39:20] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening in today. Our prayer is that you are encouraged and strengthened by the message. If you haven't done so yet, be sure to subscribe to this podcast and and leave us a review wherever you're listening. If you want to be a part of our online community, connect with us through Facebook or Instagram with the handle hyridgelv or you can check out our
[email protected] lastly, if this ministry has impacted your life and you'd like to support its work, visit highridgelv.com give we appreciate your support and we're believing with you today for God's best in your life. Have an incredible week and we will see you next time.
