James Meehan - Living for What Matters Most

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I have some terrible news for all of you. All of this stuff that we spend the majority of our lives chasing after, the stuff that so many of us are striving for, it all shares the same exact problem. And it’s important for us to know that that problem is not just a problem for ordinary people like us. It is a problem that even the greats throughout history have had to deal with.

The greats, like the Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Steve Jobs, Elvis Presley, Babe Ruth, Picasso, Mozart, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. Every single one of them ran into the same problem. Do you know what it is? It’s the problem that at some point, every single one of them, their career, their work, their time at the top, for some of the people that were on that wall, even their lives, eventually came to an end. That’s the problem that none of us can escape from, that eventually all good things come to an end.

Now, for you that may look like your time on honor roll, like all the hours you have put into studying and being the best student you can be, eventually that time will come to an end. Eventually, your high school football career will come to an end. Eventually, for 98% of those of you who are dating, your dating relationship will end. Because in middle school and high school, 98% of romantic relationships end in a messy breakup. And for those of you who maybe aren’t dating, but you’ve got great friendships, like sadly, most of your friendships at some point, whether in school or after school will end. That’s bad news. But that’s not even the worst part of it. Because in the same way that a lot of the good stuff but slightly different, a lot of the good stuff will come to an end, throughout your life, you’ll experience a whole lot of bad things.

And yes, those bad things will come to an end at some point, but then another bad thing will just take its place. The situation or the circumstance might change, but you will keep facing hard things throughout your life. All of that is the bad news. But there is good news. The good news of the gospel, the good news of Jesus is that with Jesus, when you put your faith in him, the best stuff never ends. Love, joy, peace, friendship, fulfillment, life and life to the full goes on for eternity. And with Jesus, all of the worst stuff eventually fades away. Pain, sickness, suffering, death, broken trust, broken friendships, tragedies that are beyond your control. Eventually all of that stuff fades because it’s temporary. And that’s why as followers of Jesus, one of the most important things and one of the most difficult things that we have to learn how to do is fix our eyes on what is eternal.

The apostle Paul in II Corinthians chapter four, he says these words, he says, «Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly on the outside we are wasting away. Yet inwardly, we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us any eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what on what is unseen. Because what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal». That’s why if you’re taking notes, I want you to write this down 'cause this is the main point of our message, that fakers focus on the temporary, but followers fix their eyes on the eternal. Fakers focus on the temporary, but followers fix their eyes on the eternal.

And so Lord Jesus, we come before you now and we ask that you help us to see the way we ought to see, not just being blinded by what’s in front of us, but seeing past that to what you have promised. We pray all this in your name. Amen.

We are in a message series called Fakers or Followers, where we’re learning together how to become fully devoted followers of Christ, how to become people who love God and love others the same way that Jesus did. And how to avoid the trap of becoming half-hearted fakers, the kind of people who like talk the Christian talk but don’t actually walk the walk. The kind of people who say they are all about Jesus, but they aren’t actually living for Jesus. This is what we’re learning how to do together. And so in this week’s message, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna look at a guy named the apostle Paul, and we’re going to look at his journey from faker to follower.

Now, what’s crazy about Paul is that before he was a Christian, he hunted Christians, he had them thrown in jail. And on more than one occasion, he sat there nodding in approval when Christians, followers of Jesus were put to death because of their faith in Jesus. And then everything changed when Jesus revealed himself to Paul in a miraculous vision. And so what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna start in Acts chapter nine. It’s a little bit after Paul has this encounter with Jesus, and it’s after Paul is blinded and God tells Paul to go to the city of Damascus. And there there’s gonna be a guy named Ananias. And God gives these instructions to Ananias to go to Paul, to pray for him and for his sight to be restored.

And here’s what God says to Ananias about Paul. He says in Acts chapter 9:15, «Go, because this man, Paul is my chosen instrument to proclaim a my name, to preach the good news to the Gentiles, to their kings, and to the people of Israel». And this right here is important. God says, «I will show Paul how much he must suffer for my name». That’s what God said is gonna happen to Paul, his chosen instrument. He’s gonna suffer. That’s why if you’re taking notes, I want you to write this down. Following Jesus will make your life better, but it won’t make your life easier. It will make your life better because following Jesus makes you better at life. Because you’re not walking through life alone. You have the spirit of God inside of you. You have the family of God around you. You have the grace of Jesus to sustain you.

All of that will make your life better, but it’s not gonna make your life easier because following Jesus is going to require you to make really hard choices, to do things that most people won’t do. To experience suffering, persecution, pressure that most people never want to deal with. And there are some of you who need to hear this because when you gave your life to Jesus, you thought that every problem was gonna go away, that your life would be sunshine and rainbows forever and ever. But since you started following Jesus, things haven’t gotten easier. They’ve gotten harder. Like your faith in Jesus has cost you friendships. Your faith in Jesus, like your trust in him, you thought it was going to fix your family, but things have just gotten worse.

Even though you are praying and asking God to move, you’re doing the best you can to help things get better. But it’s just not. There are some of you who you gave your life to Jesus and you thought your lustful thoughts would be taken away, but they’re worse than they’ve ever been. Following Jesus will make your life better, but it will not make your life easier. That’s why it matters we understand how to not just focus on what’s in front of us, but see past the struggles, see past the suffering, to see the purpose that God is working through all of it.

So how do we fix our eyes on what is eternal? We’re gonna jump ahead a little bit in Paul’s journey to Acts chapter 20, and it’s in Acts chapter 20 that the apostle Paul is having a conversation with some of his friends and we’re gonna look at just a snippet of what Paul has to say because in these few verses, we see three really, really powerful practices that can help us, like the Apostle Paul see past the temporary and fix our eyes on the eternal.

So in Acts chapter 20, verses 22 through 24, here’s what Paul says, he says, «And now compelled by the spirit, I’m going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me. My only aim is to finish the race, to complete the task that the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace». How do we fix our eyes on the eternal?

The first thing that we have to do is we have to remember what God has done. Paul said in every city, the Holy Spirit, the spirit of God that fills us when we put our faith in Jesus, warns him that prison and hardships are facing him. And every single time he faced prison and hardships, the Holy Spirit wasn’t lying, but every single time the spirit of God carried Paul through it. I want you to see just a few examples in Acts chapter nine, like this is right after Paul becomes a Christian, he arrives at Jerusalem, he tries to join the disciples, but they’re all afraid of him. They didn’t think he was really a disciple. But then a guy named Barnabas vouches for Paul.

And then Paul is brought into the church and he proves that his faith is genuine by preaching the name of Jesus boldly. In Acts 14, there are some Jews who come from Antioch. They win this crowd over and this whole crowd stones Paul, drags him outside the city and they think he is dead. But then Paul gets right back up on his feet and goes back into the city. Acts chapter 16, there’s this crowd that joins in the attack against Paul, the magistrates, the officials. They order him to be stripped and beaten with rods and then thrown into prison.

But then, that very night, Paul preaches the gospel to the jailer and the jailer and his whole family get saved and baptized. Every single time Paul faced hardship, the Holy Spirit brought him through it and God used it to bring more good out of the bad. This is how God works. When we follow him, he’s going to lead us into situations that are more than we can handle on our own. That’s why he gives us the Holy Spirit. That’s why he invites us to be a part of a family. That’s why he shows us how to live through the example of Jesus so that even though our lives won’t be easier, our lives will be better.

And there’s some of you who need to remember what God has done because what you’re walking through right now is so difficult that you’re starting to forget why you follow Jesus in the first place. Maybe for you, the reason that you became a follower of Jesus is because you were wrestling with suicidal ideation, questioning if your life was worth living and then God delivered you from those questions.

Maybe for you, you’re somebody who your family was falling apart, but God worked miraculously to restore your parents' marriage so that now your family is stronger than it has ever been. Maybe some of you were like me when I became a Christian, where before that I was lost. I was going through life without any sense of purpose, but then Jesus showed me what I was made for. He surrounded with me with people who love me, and he gave me a part to play in his good plans for the world that was so much better than I deserved. Remember what God has done because you’re gonna need that to carry you through the difficult times. How do we fix our eyes on the eternal?

The first thing we do is we remember what God has done. And the second thing is we do the right thing today. Paul said, «And now». Right now, today compelled by the spirit of God, I am going to Jerusalem and I don’t know what’s gonna happen to me there. Here’s the thing that some of you need to hear. You feel stuck because you’ve stopped moving. And the more you stay where you are, the more you stay in the suffering you’re currently facing. And the only way to get through it is to move through it. If you wanna see the other side of it, you have to start moving.

So what step do you need to take? What is the fear of of the future that’s holding you back from moving? Whatever it is, you’re not gonna know if that’s true or not until you get there. And here’s the thing, Paul was warned that if he goes to Jerusalem prison and hardship would face him. So guess what happened when he got there? Prison and hardship faced him. And yet God used every step of obedience that Paul took to advance the kingdom of God, to bring people into his family, that the name of Jesus would be spread to every corner of the Roman Empire. To the point that today, wherever you are watching this from, you have heard the name of Jesus. Why? Because faithful men and women throughout the centuries chose to do the right thing today. The best way to get unstuck is to take a step of faith. The outcome is not your responsibility. That’s God’s. Your responsibility is to be obedient today.

So, so what step of faith do you need to take? What right thing do you need to do today? For some of you, it’s to actually open up your Bible and start reading God’s word so you can know what it is that he wants you to do with your life. For some of you, it’s going to be to ask the Holy Spirit to give you guidance. For some of you, it’s gonna be to sign up to start serving. Others, it’s to invite your friend to the bash. For some of you, it is to tell that person you are sorry for the choices that you’ve made. Others are going to open up to your switch leader about how you are struggling and you need their help.

Whatever step it is you need to take, do it today and watch God work through your step of obedience in ways that you can never imagine until you’ve actually experienced it. How do we fix our eyes? On the eternal? The first thing that we do is we remember what God has done. The second thing is we do the right thing today. And the third thing is we hold onto what God will do. Paul said, «My only aim is to finish the race», to complete the task that Jesus has given him. At the very beginning, that first verse we read, acts chapter nine, God said that Paul would be his chosen instrument to proclaim his name to the Gentiles, to their kings, and to the Jewish people.

Now at this point in Acts chapter 20, Paul has preached the good news of Jesus to Gentiles and to Jews, but he has not yet preached to their kings. And so God, his promise that he made in Acts nine, Paul knew had not yet been completed, that there was still work to do. So he held onto the hope that if God said it, God will do it. That because he hasn’t yet preached to the kings that his job isn’t done. And there are some of you who need to hear this, that God is not done with you. That as long as there is breath in your lungs, as long as there is a heart beating in your chest, God is not done with you. He has not abandoned you. He still wants to use you to be a part of his good plans for the world, to preach his good news to everybody who needs to hear it.

Romans 8:28 tells us that God works all things, everything, the good, the bad, the ugly together for the good of those who love him and who have been called according to his purpose. Every bad thing you’ve had to face, God will use it for good. That’s how good he is. And so for you, you need to hold on to hope. You need to trust and believe that God’s not done working and that he wants you to keep working with him. Because with Jesus, the bad stuff eventually will come to an end, but the good stuff never will.

That’s why it matters that we take our eyes off of the temporary and we fix them on the eternal, because all of the struggles we experience, all the suffering we endure, God will use for good. In Romans chapter five, Paul writes about it this way. He talks about how God works in our pain. He says, Romans chapter five, verse two, «That as followers of Jesus, we boast in the hope of the glory of God. But we don’t just boast in that we glory in our sufferings. We celebrate our struggles because we know that suffering produces perseverance. It makes us stronger. That perseverance produces character. It makes us better, and that character builds our hope. And the hope that we have in Jesus does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us».

When you’re going through life without Jesus, suffering sucks. Period. That’s the end of it. But with Jesus, with the spirit of God inside of you, suffering sucks. Yes. And it strengthens you. It sanctifies you. It makes you more of who you were created to be. It produces perseverance and character and hope. And the hope of God never puts us to shame, because his love is being poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

So hold onto hope. Don’t just obsess about what’s in front of you. Fix your eyes on the things that you cannot see because at some point, all of the things that should not be, will not be because Jesus is going to deal with them once and for all. But all of the stuff that we wish always would be, will always be because they will go on in eternity.

And so I’m holding onto the hope that someday my wife will be healed of her chronic illness that she has been carrying for the last decade. I’m praying and believing that it will be on this side of heaven, but even if it’s not, I’m holding onto hope because I know that there will come a day when Jesus heals her completely. I’m holding onto the hope that someday I will get to see my dad again, and that he’s gonna get to hold his granddaughter in his arms, that she’s gonna know where she came from, the legacy that he left, because of how Jesus worked in his suffering and through his suffering to bring my family to salvation. I am holding onto the hope that every single struggle that you face will be redeemed, that God will make everything new, that all the bad things will come to an end. But with Jesus, the best stuff never will. That’s why as followers, we don’t focus on the temporary. We fix our eyes on the eternal.

And so Lord Jesus, we come to you right now and we ask that you help us to see the unseen, that you give us the strength to remember what you’ve done, to do what you’ve called us to do today, and to hold onto the hope that never puts us to shame. It’s in your name we pray, amen and amen.