Pastor Brian and Jacque Lother
Jacque: It's just so good to be here together with the Lord. This Wednesday begins our winter session for the women for Bible study. We are going to be meeting on Zoom during this cold weather. I tell ya, I have had so many relationships that have grown deeper this last year and a half doing Zoom studies and Zoom meetings and Zoom conversations. Come and join us. Everything is online and you can catch the link there and text me if you need the link. I will text it or email it to you, but we are going to study the words of Jesus. We are going to study the things Jesus said.
Brian: It's a good place to start.
Jacque: Mary Gibson leads our study. She is wonderful. And then every week we have several scriptures that we read throughout the week, and then we just get together and discuss them. It's a wonderful format and it is a blessing. So ladies, come join us.
Brian: We also have a postponement that we want to talk about. This Friday we were scheduled. We had scheduled a dinner and worship evening here. Some of the people that are part and central to that are actually under the weather and we just thought it might be better for us to wait for a few weeks to reschedule that. And so we are not going to actually be doing our dinner and worship gathering this coming Friday evening. We just rather err on the side of caution when people are not well and they are responsible for the evening and so forth. That's just kind of where we are living right now, but you know what, if you want some more worship, you can always go online and there's a lot of Hope worship online, or I'm sure that you know, that there's other good radio stations that play a lot of good worship music.
Jacque: YouTube is a great place to worship.
Brian: And worship from YouTube and everything else. There's nothing quite like being together as a family of God to worship together, but when we can't do that, there are some pretty good alternatives out there for us. This past week, I went to the a doctor's office and as I was walking in to the doctor's office, there was another fellow that was walking in at the same time with me, but I noticed he was carrying this kind of strange looking-- it looked like a toolbox, but it wasn't really a toolbox, but it was kind of a box that obviously there were some things in it that appeared to be on the technical side of the things. And so we kind of went up to the front counter together and the people at the counter asked him if he had an appointment, what time his appointment was. He responded by saying, "I'm here to recalibrate the equipment in the office." That phrase just kind of struck me that I think with so much of the loss that we've all experienced this past year, it's important that we recalibrate our thinking on just our life here on earth.
The fact is our life here on earth is a temporary assignment. It's not a permanent assignment. There certainly is a purpose for why every single one of us have been created by God. He has got a purpose and things for us to do. But sometimes we forget because the only thing we've ever really known, and the only thing we've ever really experienced is life here. Very few of us have had like the apostle Paul kind of out body experiences where he was taken to heaven and came back. We know a few friends, Mickey Robinson is one of those, who have died and experienced, in a sense, the afterlife, and then came back to this dimension. But the fact of the matter is that's a rare, rare exception that that happens. Most of us have not ever really experienced that.
We've had kind of visions of it. The word of God reveals certain things to us, et cetera, et cetera, but experientially, the only thing that we've really ever experienced is this life, life on earth. And because of that, we have a tendency to tenaciously hang on real tight to it and we tenaciously hang on to all the things of this life, but I wanted to help us to recalibrate just like that fellow who went into the doctor's office. Their equipment is used on a regular basis and over time it just needs to be re-tweaked a little bit. It needs to be recalibrated. It needs to be brought, in a sense, back online so that it's functioning completely as it was intended.
That's really what my message is about today to help us in the midst of, especially all of the losses that we've experienced. I can look out here; I know Jack and Sharon, they lost a son this past year. Lee lost a son. Carrie lost a brother. We lost our parents. There are others here who have experienced other losses this year in terms of people dying. So I think it's important that during these seasons, especially of sorrow and sadness that we recalibrate and we re-fix our eyes on what God has for us and the bigger picture. I wanna begin with some scripture, the first one is found in Psalm 39, verse four. And we'll read this from the New Living Translation.
Jacque: Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, how fleeting my life is.
Brian: What a powerful verse. Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth is. You can live to be a hundred years old. My mom was a month away from 99. Ruby, Jacque's mom was 97, I believe, or just about 97 when she passed.
Jacque: Just about 97.
Brian: We heard a story recently of a gal who works in a school. The fact the matter is there's all sorts of opinions about COVID protocols. And this gal who worked in the office of this school was responsible for trying to implement COVID protocols and the administrator of the school was actually resisting these protocols. This gal said to her boss, "It's important for me that we follow these things because I have elderly parents and I don't want to do anything that would jeopardize their health." I was very saddened to hear of his response when he said, "Well, they've lived long enough."
Jacque: They live good long lives.
Brian: Yeah. They've lived good long lives. And it's like, wait a minute; we need to have a greater value of life. We need to value life more. But even if we have lived a long, good life, which maybe would be 85, 90, 95 or 100 years, that is just but a whiff of smoke in the eyes of God and eternity. This scripture talks about that. Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. It's not saying that we are only going to live 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years. Even if you live a hundred. I remember I did a funeral a number of years ago, and the gentleman that died I think it was 104 or 105. He had 11 children who were all at the funeral. The youngest of those children were in their early seventies. Did you get the picture? A lot of gray hairs at this funeral.
I was just really amazed because a part of me thought at that time, well he lived long enough and they were all standing around his casket and almost every single one of them said, 'I wish I had one more day with dad." So it tells me no matter how long you live, we still want more in this life. It's never really quite long enough and it's important that we are reminded that my days are numbered, that our days are numbered and how fleeting our life can be. I remember talking to Sally Ross many years ago. Sally was part of our church many years ago. Her husband was in the hospital, dying. Sally and I and Jackie were kind of walking down the hallway of the hospital and I said to her, "Sally, how, how long have you and OJ been married?" And she said, "65 years." I thought to myself, man, is that a long time? And then she said, "And it went just like that. It went just like that."
I have very clear vivid memories of this beautiful gal walking down the aisle, ready to say "I do" to me. And that was 47 and a half years ago. How fleeting life is? The Bible is full of descriptions that teach how brief and how temporary and how transient life on earth truly is. It uses phrases like life is a mist or a breath or a wisp of smoke. We see another really good verse in Job chapter 8, verse 9, where he describes it in this manner.
Jacque: For we were born but yesterday and no nothing. Our days on earth are as fleeting as a shadow.
Brian: So even if we lived to be a hundred years in eternity, that a hundred years is just like yesterday and our days on earth are as fleeting as a shadow. I don't know if you've ever been outside and you've seen an airplane fly kind of through the sun and the shadow passes by on the ground, but it doesn't stay there very long. It's just-- that's the description of our life. To make the best use of our life, I think we have to not forget two very important truths. The first is this: compared to eternity life on earth is very, very, very brief. Compared to eternity life on earth is very, very brief. Number two, it's very important for us to remember that earth is only a temporary place of residence for us.
There is a building over at the University of Minnesota; I went to the universe of Minnesota from 1969 to 1975 and then I went back, did some work on a master's degree from 78 to 79. Back in the late sixties and early seventies, there was a building over there. It was very old and the name of the building-- because all buildings on campuses have names: Scott Hall or whatever and this building's name was Temporary North of Mines. Obviously, there are mines in Minnesota and mineralogy was a big, big study at the University of Minnesota. It still is. There was this old, big building made out of granite, like all those old buildings were made out of. They ran out of space and so they built another building just stick framed and it was not put together very well. It was called Temporary North of Mines. It was North of the Mines Building.
When I was there, I was probably 50 years old and it was a temporary building that they had been using for years and years and years and years. And sometimes we forget that even things that are old are still temporary on earth. they are still temporary. We won't be here very long. So in some respects, let's not get too attached to everything here. Let's not have all of our values and all of the things that we live for be for the things that will fade away here in this life. Let's read another verse. It's found in that same Psalm 39, but only this time, verse 5.
Jacque: You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you at best. Each of us is but a breath.
Brian: When I used to think of this verse, I was always thinking that my life was the breadth of God's hand, but that's not really what it says. It says you made my life no longer than the width of my hand. I actually, for a guy have not a very big hands. I have a small hand. And so I hope that doesn't mean my life is going to be shorter. I don't know. But there's all these descriptions. The scriptures describe the followers of Jesus with terms such as aliens or, and I don't mean like aliens, but like illegal aliens or foreigners or strangers, visitors, or travelers. These are the descriptions of people who are called followers of Jesus. All of these are used to describe what I would call our brief stay here on earth. The psalmist in Psalm 119 says that this way.
Jacque: I am only a foreigner in the land.
Brian: I'm only a foreigner in the land. Have you ever gone to another country? Have any of you been to another country? Sometimes we stand out like sore thumbs, don't we?
Jacque: Most of the time.
Brian: Most of the time we do because we are Americans and we think the whole world should speak English. And so we go to these countries and we expect them to speak our language and it makes us stand out like a sore thumb. Doesn't it? So here's another one. 1st Peter 1:24 says it this way.
Jacque: As the scriptures say, people are like grass. Their beauty is like a flower in the field. The grass Withers and the flowers fade.
Brian: Boy, if we can't learn that in Minnesota, we are just blind. The grass Withers, the flower spade. That's a lesson that Californians don't learn very well. We lived in California for a while and we had a Palm tree in our yard and all this sort of stuff. There were geraniums, they were so big. I never knew geraniums got that big.
Jacque: There's flowers blooming all month.
Brian: All year long. But in Minnesota, this verse makes a lot more sense that we are light grass green and lush and beautiful. And then all of a sudden we get brown and we wither and we fade. It's kind of like God has given us a spiritual green card. A green card is permission for a foreigner to work in a country. It's like God has given us these spiritual green cards. We work here even though we aren't citizens of earth. We work here even though we aren't citizens of earth, but rather we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven, a kingdom of God. And so Paul in writing through the church of Philippi says it this way, Philippians chapter 3, verse 20 and 21.
Jacque: But we are citizens of heaven where the Lord Jesus Christ lives.
Brian: So we are citizens of heaven. That's where our citizenship is.
Jacque: An unshakeable kingdom.
Brian: In my family, my father was actually born in Constable, Poland. My mother was born in Winnipeg, Canada. And so most of our relatives-- and then my dad immigrated to Canada when he was five years old and was raised there and met my mom there. All their family was from Canada. We would go a lot to visit family. But I happened to be born in America. My sister was actually born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She was in ninth grade before she knew how to pronounce that, by the way, not really. I was born in America and my mom and dad immigrated to America six weeks before I was born. And so my grandpa would always brag to all of his Canadian friends that his grandson was able to be something that none of their grandsons could ever be. And that was, I could be president because I was actually born in America. All their grandchildren weren't. You have to be born in America to be present. We have this concept of working here in a country and living here in a country, but our citizenship really is in heaven. Our citizenship is not here on the earth. Paul says it really clearly that we are citizens of heaven where the Lord Jesus Christ lives.
Jacque: And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our savior. He will take our weak, mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.
Brian: I have a confession to make; I haven't always eagerly waited for Christ's return, especially when Jacque and I first got engaged and The Late Great Planet Earth had been written by Hal Lindsay, and Jesus was going to come back at any moment. Right, Paul? I was thinking, I know I'm supposed to want Jesus to come back, but I really would like to get married first. Don't snort.
Jacque: I thought the same thing.
Brian: Well, we all did. We wanted Jesus to come back, but not quite yet.
Jacque: We wanted to experience more of life.
Brian: Yes, yes. But the older we get, the more we actually can relate to that we eagerly wait for him to return. Sometimes because it feels, because I remember as a five year old sitting in our Wednesday evening service singing, he's coming soon. and because we've said, he's coming soon for so long, sometimes you feel as though his coming isn't going to happen. Israel felt that way, especially between the book of Malachi and the book of Matthew, those 400 years where they were waiting and waiting and waiting. But we do wait for the return of the Lord. The same power that's going to allow that to happen and bring that to pass, he's going to use that same power to transform us. I'll admit to you today that I'm not feeling the best today, not so much from flu or anything, just my muscle's ache. I kind of fell and hurt my shoulder and my hip was hurting and it's like I could use that new body that Jesus promised me. I could use that new body. I would really like it.
Jacque: I would like you to stay here a little longer.
Brian: Yeah. I would like to have the new body here. I would like that golden age to come here. But the fact of the matter is we-- one of the things that people talk a lot about today is our identity and even to the point of, well, what do you identify as in our culture today. The reality of our walk with Jesus is that our true identity is an eternity and our true Homeland is actually heaven. As we come to this realization that our true identity is in eternity and that our true Homeland is in heaven, as we come to this realization, we won't be as easily tempted to get caught up in having it all right here. It's easy, especially in our culture, which is based so much on consumerism. If you listen to advertisements, either on the radio or television or any other form of advertisement, you are made to feel as though your life is lacking in value if you do not have this object that is being presented to you.
The fact of the matter is God wants us to understand that our you isn't in the things that we possess, but our value is in the fact that he loves us with a never ending love. Our real value comes in knowing that we are eternal beings and that heaven is our Homeland. So our value system actually begins to change when we actually receive and we discover the pearl of great price. Our whole value system begins to change. We no longer live for the things that this world seems to want to offer us, but rather we begin to live for things that are kingdom oriented and kingdom valued. Again, the apostle Paul writes this, and one of my favorite books, I love the book of 2nd Corinthians and I love chapter 5. I find myself coming back to that chapter so often because it's so rich with so many wonderful things. He says it this way in 2nd Corinthians 5 verse 18 through 20.
Jacque: And all of this is a gift from God who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.
Brian: That's one of our temporary assignments. We all have a temporary assignment. It's not a permanent assignment. It's temporary. We can only do that here. And that assignment is reconciling.
Jacque: Reconciling people to him, for God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them.
Brian: Just ponder that for a second.
Jacque: No longer counting people's sins against them.
Brian: And God was in Christ. Our heavenly father was in Christ. Jesus said, I and my father are one. So God, our heavenly father, was in Christ. And what was God doing in Christ?
Jacque: Reconciling the world to himself and not counting peoples' sins against them.
Brian: See, it wasn't that Jesus didn't count peoples' sins against them, that God was being appeased by Jesus. That's a theological concept that has been taught a lot. God needed to be appeased, so therefore Jesus came to appease God.
Jacque: The angry God.
Brian: The angry God, but that's not what the scriptures teach. The scriptures teach that God, the father was in Christ and that they were, he God, the father was in Christ reconciling all of us to himself while we were still yet sinners. That's why he says to us come as you are. Come as you are.
Jacque: And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.
Brian: What is thought of at times as a gospel isn't always a very good message. But the gospel message really is good news and the good news is that he is desiring to reconcile all men to himself.
Jacque: So we are Christ ambassadors.
Brian: There's that word ambassador there again, a representative.
Jacque: God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead “Come back to God.”
Brian: Yes, we are representing and we speak for Christ when we say, come back to God. Here we have this word ambassador used, Christ ambassadors, and if we were to be an ambassador to another country, one of the first things we would need to do is learn the language. It's important that you learn the language of the people that you are an ambassador to.
It would be important to learn their customs and some of their behaviors. That would be important as an ambassador. You don't isolate yourself. You don't stay up in some ivory tower, but you actually engage with the people. You get to know the people. So you don't isolate yourself from the nation you are an ambassador to, but you become connected to that nation. You reach out, make contact with the people of this new nation. But let's just suppose for a moment, you are ambassador to a country and you fell in love with this nation to the point of preferring that nation to the one that you are actually representing your value as an ambassador would not cease.
And sometimes that's what has happened with us. We've been ambassadors of heaven to earth, and yet we have fallen in love with earth so much more so than we've fallen in love with the kingdom of heaven that we no longer really are truly representing heaven properly. Let's look at 1st Peter chapter 2 verses 11 and 12.
Jacque: Dear friends, I warn you as temporary residents and foreigners.
Brian: And there we go again as temporary residents and foreigners.
Jacque: To keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.
Brian: I think the temptation here is to make a whole bunch of lists of don'ts. That's kind of the stream that denomination that I was raised in growing up. Steve and I, and Janise had a conversation about that even this past week that so much of my concept about following Jesus was about what we couldn't do. I remember saying over and over and over and over as a child and as an early teen, this phrase, “Well, that's against my religion.” Have you ever heard that? That's against my religion. At some point in my twenties, I began to ask myself this question, why is it that it feels like my religion is about everything I'm against. Shouldn't what I believe in terms of God and my walk with God and my following of Jesus be about what he is for rather than what he is against?
As I began this transformation going from all the things that we were against to all the things that God was for, my whole perspective of the world really began to change. I looked at this verse being a temporary resident foreigner, I wanted to make sure that my desires for heaven and eternity superseded my desires for the things of this world.
Jacque: I just had to stop Brian. I don't know that I'm always wanting to do a lot of sinful things that we have on that list, that is what he's talking about too, but it's like, sometimes I can look to the world for what I should be looking to God for. Like, my value and my worth and my trust sometimes in things around me. I don't know quite if I'm saying this clearly, but I look to the world for the things I need to be all always looking to God for.
Brian: Yeah. There is a phrase that I've been using for the last few years that I think represents what I'm trying to say here. And it's this: we are to love people and use things, not to love things and use people. Or to love people and use things rather than love things and use people. I do believe in the prosperity of God. I've been blessed. I've been blessed beyond what I could have ever asked, imagined or thought of. When I say blessed and I don't just mean with good relationships, but eleven financially. I have been blessed beyond what I could have ever thought of as a child in the economic strata that we were raised in. And God has been very, very good to me in that regard, but I don't believe God gave me some of the wealth that I have, and I'm by far, not a super rich man. Ask my wife. But I--
Jacque: I think your dad made $25 a week.
Brian: Yes. I remember one time coming home. It was during the Christmas season and my dad had brought a hundred dollar check as a Christmas bonus from the church. That a hundred dollars check was worth a month's salary. That was a month's salary to my dad. We were making $25 a week. He was making $25 a week. And yet I always understood that the blessings that God gave me weren't a measure of my faith. The blessings that God gave me were a measure of God's goodness to me, and that those blessings were to be used to honor him and to give glory to him.
Jacque: And to bless others.
Brian: To bless other people. Yes. I have another verse, a couple more that I want to go over before we are done here, but another one in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, verse 18, really talks about this temporary of life and how he who dies with the most toys actually doesn't win.
Jacque: So we don't look at the troubles we can see now, rather we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen.
Brian: So just think of that for a second. I'm going to fix my eyes on something I can't see. That doesn't even make sense. I want you to look at what you can't see, but you don't look with your eyes. You look with your heart. You look with that intuitive sense of relationship that God has given to all of us. And so he says we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen.
Jacque: For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
Brian: The things that we actually see with our eyes will be gone, but the things that we can or perceive or understand with our hearts, they will last forever. They will last forever. In the hearts of every single person that's ever been born is this intuitive sense of, there must be more than just what I can see with my eyes. There must be more. This life really is temporary. Wouldn't you agree that 2021 showed us that? It showed us that by all of the friends and family members and so forth, that we are here with us a year ago and who aren't with us today. And we remember that; I did a sermon on this, but that life is a test and it's a trust, but it's also a temporary assignment. Life really is that. Life is a test at times, isn't it?
Life is about trusting God. It's also about what he's entrusted to us and it's also a temporary assignment. When we understand that the allurement and the appeal of the things around us we will not have as strong a grip. We will not have a strong grip. When we hang onto this world too tightly, then some of the promises of God seem to become unfulfilled. Because we are hanging onto this world so tight, some of the promises of God in our minds become unfulfilled. Some of the prayers that we prayed seem to go unanswered and some of the circumstances that we are in seem to be so unfair if we are hanging onto this world. But this is not the end of the story. What happened in 2021 is not the end of the story.
As followers of Jesus, we have longings that God has, I believe, placed in our hearts that will only be fulfilled in eternity, only in eternity and earth is not our final home. We were created for something much better than even earth. In God's eyes, the greatest heroes of the faith are actually not those people who have created this huge earthly prosperity or earthly success, or even earthly power in this life. But rather in God's eyes, the greatest heroes of the faith are those who treat this life as a temporary assignment and use the things of this life for eternal values.
There's one more portion of scripture. We find it in Hebrews chapter 11. I want to read two verses: versus 13 and 16. Hebrews chapter 11. It has kind of been called the great faith chapter. In it, it says by faith, this person to do this, that, and what have you. Oftentimes, we equate faith, especially in the west, with some great accomplishment or performing some great miracle or something that will acquire something of great value in this world. There seems to be some of that spoken of in Hebrews 11, but there's another third of that chapter that also talks about people who suffered greatly through faith, people who lost their lives through faith, people who were torn asunder. Can you imagine that? by faith, people who were persecuted and had all sorts of terrible things happen to them by faith.
That is not a kind of faith concept that we in America and the west idolize or value. The faith concept that we value is if I have the faith, I can have a nicer car, or if I have the faith, I'll have a bigger house. If I have enough faith, I'll make more money. I'm not saying that that doesn't ever relate to any of those things, but faith is much bigger than simply having more stuff because that stuff isn't going to be taken with us to heaven. We need to understand that as we acquire more earthly possessions, God gives those things to us, or he entrusts them to us so that we can be a greater blessing to more people, to more people.
Jacque: Because we are his ambassadors. So I wanna say one thing real quick before we read this portion of scripture. God truly has blessed Hope Community Church, especially at the very end of this last year. We've had many blessings in so many ways. One of the blessings that happened to our church, you wouldn't know this when you look at the size of whole community church, but we had an incredible blessings from God over the last, probably six weeks of the year, financially in this church and there are more blessings to come in January with some things happening with the city. And then subsequently to that over the course of the next year or two that have already been promised to us by attorneys and so forth.
One of the things that the financial blessing allowed us to do is this past week, we were able to hire Pastor Robert full time on our staff. I'm very excited about this. I think I'm more excited than Pastor Robert is actually, and I think he's pretty excited too. There has been a great walk of faith by many people, even here at hope community church. And that faith has resulted in God, blessing us financially and giving us prosperity. But I believe it's because in our hearts want to give and use that prosperity to bless other people. With that in mind, I want to finish with Hebrews chapter 11 versus 13 and 16.
Jacque: All these people died, still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth.
Brian: So this is a description of all these Old Testament people who had faith that were looking forward to the cross and it was accounted to them as righteousness. And they believed, but they felt and knew in their heart that they were still foreigners, that they were nomads in a sense here on earth, this was not their permanent home. Then it goes on to say this:
Jacque: But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly Homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God for, he has prepared a city for them.
Brian: I can't think of something better than God not being ashamed of me. I can't think of anything better than God being proud of me. I remember my dad telling me a story about when I was born and there was another fella that had a son born up right around the same time I was. Back in those days, there were a lot more restrictions on births and all that sort of stuff, but fathers could stand out a window and look in and see their babies. This one fella, he was so proud. My dad said he wasn't sure if this baby was actually a monkey or if it was really a human being, but this guy was so proud of his child, his son. I thought to myself, that's how God is. That's how God is how he thinks about us. He is so proud of us. I can't think of something more valuable for me to have than God's smiling and saying, let me show you, Brian. Let me show you Jacque.
Our time here on earth is not the complete story of our life. Our time here on earth, and I hope this brings comfort to you who have lost loved ones and family members and friends this past year, but our time on earth is simply the introduction of a never ending story. That's all it is. Chapter one never starts here on earth. Chapter one begins the day we step into our Homeland. Our life here on earth, whether it's one day or over a hundred years is just the introduction to a never ending story. Heaven is where chapter one of our never ending story takes place. When life gets tough, and it has been tough this past year, and when you are overwhelmed, you might be overwhelmed with fear, you might be overwhelmed with grief, you might be overwhelmed with questions when we become overwhelmed, and when we wonder if living for Christ is actually worth it, because it doesn't seem like God is answering our prayers like we want him to, we have to remember we are not home yet. we are not home yet.
When we die, we won't be leaving home. We will be going home when we die. We won't be leaving home; we will be going home. There is a reward that awaits us all. I reflect from time to time on the last moments of my father's life here on earth. This coming May, he will have been gone for nine years now. It's almost unbelievable. But many of you know that he had a stroke and Jacque and I set up a hospice in our home and he was in our home the last few days of his life. I could see that he was struggling to still stay alive. There was a part of my dad, even though he couldn't verbally communicate with us. I believe there's a cognizance there that he loved my mom so much and he wanted to take care of my mom. He gave his whole life to serving other people, his whole, and he never thought of himself first.
He was lying in that bed, in our home and I had this urge to go say to him, "Dad, you don't owe anybody anything. You've given everything for other people and it's okay to go now. It's okay to go now and you go into the reward that God has prepared for you." As God is my witness in less than 10 seconds, he was gone. I whispered that into his ear and 10 seconds later, he breathed his last. He knew that there was a home waiting for him. He knew in spite of the connection of family, which he loved dearly here, that this was not his home, that there was something greater for him.
And even though we mourn the loss of our moms, and I know Jack and Sharon mourn the loss of their son and Lee, you mourn the loss of your son and we miss Bob here and so many of others from this past year, they are home. They are home. I wouldn't want them to come back. And so we have to just kind of hold onto things here a little bit more loosely and let those things of this life be used to love people with. Let's use all the things that God has given to us, to love people with. Let's not use people to acquire more things and let us recalibrate a little bit with all the pain that we've all gone through this past year. Let's just hopefully recalibrate today that life on earth is temporary. This is not our home. There's something far greater that awaits us.
Even though we have sorrow because of the loss of relationships, we don't sorrow as those who have no hope because Christ is preparing a home for every single one of us, and heaven is our home man. Pastor Robert, why don't you come and pray?
Robert: Praise God. That story just touched me. It brought me back to a moment. My mom's late husband wasn't my father, but my mom's late husband was home at hospice. When they first got married, let's just say we didn't have the best of relationships. He got sick and the Lord told me that I would be used to repair his relationship with God. But in turn, our relationship was repaired at the same time. I was there at his hospice bed. I remember I was by my mom's side and she said to him, "Greg is okay." Moments after she said that, he shed a tear and he was gone.
We can hold onto things in this life so much, but we need to focus on the important things. In the gospel of Matthew chapter 6, verse 19 through 21, this scripture has been misused many times just to focus on financial giving. But if you look at the heart of what it is saying, you'll hear the heart of this message today. It says don't store up treasures here on earth where moths eat them and rust destroys them and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, they are the desires of your heart will also be.
My desires for heaven and the things of heaven and I've dedicated my life in serving people to bring their focus to which is eternal. That's what salvation is all about. It's the things eternal, being eternal with our father in heaven. It's not about the dos and don'ts while we are here on this earth. It's about making a decision, an eternal decision, not a temporary decision, not an emotional decision, not a fleshly decision, but you lining up with desire of the father's heart, who desires for you to be with him eternally before you were even born in this earth.
I don't know if there is anyone here watching on the live stream that needs to make that decision. Again, I don't assume that there are you here in the building. I don't assume that you make that decision now. So all I do is give you that opportunity to respond to the wooing of God's spirit that moves on you, that loves on you, so that you can surrender to him, not for this moment, but for all eternity. It's very easy. All we have to do is this: open up our mouth and confess; Lord, I'm a sinner and I need you and I ask you to forgive me of my sins and that I believe that you sent your son, Jesus, the Christ, the anointed one, the messiahs to die for me so that my sins would be forgiven. And that although he was in the grave, he rose again, he was resurrected, which gives me the hope of being resurrected to be eternally with you.
I make that confession today that I believe that, and I want to be a part of the family of God. When I leave this temporary land, I want to wake up in the land of my destiny, which is forever with you. I pray that the Lord has ministered to you and those that haven't, that you responded to his call and that the heavens and the angels are rejoicing because you didn't let this moment pass by for your eternal invitation. So I bless you, and I bless this house and I bless these pastors who I am very excited to be with until the Lord takes us home in Jesus' name.
Brian: Amen. Thank you for being here today. Dave and Deb will be serving communion for anybody who wants to have communion after the service today. If you are at home watching online, we just thank you again for being a part of our faith community. Keep remembering that even though there are so many beautiful things in this world that we can find ourselves very attached to, we are still just foreigners in this land and that heaven is our home. Let's raise our hands together. Shall we?
And now may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you and may the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to yoU. And may the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. And may you have a hunger for your Homeland.This we pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Thanks for being here today. Have a wonderful, wonderful day. Bye-bye.
Jacque: Remember we are taking the decorations down today. Everybody can stay. We have a light lunch and it shouldn't take too long to take them down. So thank you so much.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 1-9-22. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.