Northside Church - Sydney
Never Ending Story Week 6 PM: Impacting Eternity
I'm listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. I had a really intriguing conversation with a relative this week. He was talking about an old work colleague that he's been looking after in palliative care. He said, "Where you go in hospital when the doctor says there's nothing more that we can do for you." So let's make up some names to protect their integrity, but this guy, Pat, gets a nurse to call my relative, John, and the nurse says, "You need to call Pat and have a chat." So it really picks up the phone. Pat picks up the phone, says, "I've got a problem." And it really says, "Well, what's going on?" He says, "I'm going to be out of here on Monday." And my relative goes, "I'm so sorry. The arrangements in place. What can I do? I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there in a second. I'll just hang on a bit. I'll come down. We'll work it all out." Pat says, "No, no, no, no. You don't understand the doctors came in this morning and they told me they got the diagnosis wrong. I'm going home." And my relative says, "You must be absolutely ecstatic." The guy goes, "No. In fact, I'm livid." And my relative is like, "Absolutely puzzled," says, "What are you talking about? You're going home on Monday." And this guy says, "Look, my health insurance covers me if I'm dying, but I want to send me to a nursing home and it doesn't cover that. What have I got to look forward to?" True story. And he was so angry and he was so bitter. You know, his last remarks on the end of that phone call was, "Someone's going to pay for this." I know, I struggled not to laugh in the gravity of the situation. If it was just an illustration, we could have a bit of a laugh. But here's the thing, guys, look, if you had been given a second chance at life, what would your reaction be? If you had effectively escaped a death sentence as it were, how would you react? Look, how is it that someone who has just been given another shot at life, taken from death literally to the life in the space of a week, can turn around and still be angry and bitter and resentful? See how we see our future affects how we live our present. And there is a dynamic in this passage that we're going to read from tonight that's going to help you avoid that. You see how you see your future affects how you live your present. And on one hand, if there is nothing after this life, if there is absolutely nothing, if a nursing home and all the hassles of paperwork is all that you've got to look forward to, then of course you're going to be angry and bitter and resentful. But friends, if there's something more, if there is a life after this life, if there is something other than this line that we draw in the sand called death and there's going to be joy and there's going to be wonder and there's going to be excitement and it's going to naturally flow from who we are, you see, eternity impacts how we live the present. The great truth in this passage tonight is we'll see that God also challenges us to use the present to impact eternity. So why don't we turn to God's Word, the great engine for hope, as we read through one of my favorite passages from all of the Bible, 2 Corinthians 5 verses 16 through to 21. So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view, though once we regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation, the old is gone, the new has come. All of this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the Ministry of Reconciliation. The God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them and he's committed to us the message of reconciliation. And therefore Christ's ambassadors, so God will make his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sinned for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Wow, what a verse. And you thought it was just a Chris Tomlin song, guys, we have been learning for the past six weeks, what it means to be a part of God's never-ending story. I mean, learning that God can use your story to impact other people's stories in order to be part of his story, history, that we've learned the way that he can take your passions regardless of whatever they are and use them for his purposes. We've been learning that he takes the intersections of life, charges us to take our good deeds so that we can create the good will to share the good news that there is something other than this life. And so tonight's message really is looking far beyond just the present, but stretching out into eternity. The gospel, what Jesus has done, I say the gospel is not what would Jesus do, the gospel is what has Jesus done, has the power to impact eternity, it has the power to impact your eternity tonight and it's going to happen one or four ways. First of all, it's going to happen by changing your perspective. The gospel changes your perspective as we see in this passage tonight, verse 16. It says from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view, though once we regard a Christ in this way, we do so no longer. We don't see things how we used to, you see, perspective is the vantage point from which you see something and we want to get a bit of perspective, you get the higher ground. What is the worldly point of view? What is the worldly perspective? You know what, we've got 30 years or 50 years or 80 years if we're lucky. That's the worldly perspective. And then the worldly perspective is we came out of the dirt and we grow, we live a life and we just go back into the dirt and that's it, right? And where's the fun in that, where's the hope in that? If that's all that life is, it's hardly compelling, right? You see, where's the hope? See, hope means these human beings are absolutely shaped by what they think they're future is going to be. And one ought to put it this way that human life and consciousness by its very nature requires a projected nature and everyone is deeply concerned with what that is. You know, what they're saying simply is you've got to have something more and bigger, more passionate than yourself to live for, you've got to have a bigger perspective on life. Your future, how you see it determines who you are now, totally shapes who you are. Look, classic example, what is the one thing that kids always say in the backseat of a car when you take them on a long trip? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Why? They don't have perspective. They don't have any sense of perspective. They don't know where the five minutes is 50 minutes, right? That's why it annoys the living daylights out of you if they're in the backseat of the car. Look, do you think that adults really stop acting like that when they grow up? We don't, we're never satisfied with how much money we've got. You know what we're really saying? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Not happy with the places that we build. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Not happy with the positions that we hold. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? You see, we as adults outside of the gospel have no perspective. No perspective. And every five minutes we're asking, are we out there yet? You see, Paul had the right perspective. He says earlier in this chapter, in chapter five. Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God and eternal house in heaven not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling. He's that's eternal perspective. That's outside the 30 and the 50 and the 80 years. You know, it's like Graham said it so well at the beginning of this series where he said, you know, if you drew a line from this pulpit and you took it out the door and out through Parramatta and out through Western Australia and out into whatever continent is on the other side of the ocean there and it spent the whole globe and it came around probably through Madagascar and all the way down and it came back here and if that line represented eternity, your life would be just one dot on that 25,000 kilometer line that had spanned the globe. What Paul is saying is that if you keep asking yourself, are we there yet? The way the gospel changes your perspective and it says that eternity is not something that happens when we die. Eternity starts now and moves forever into the future and that your life is just a dot on that line that spans the globe and here's the thing, how would your life look different if you looked from the vantage point of eternity and not the 30 or the 50 or the 80. What would you invest in? What would you be passionate about? What would you spend your time? The gospel changes your perspective and also changes your personality. I guess what I'm saying here is that the gospel, the gospel will get to that tonight. Really everything we've been learning through Paul's writings which have been most of this series is that you receive a new kind of life. Have a look at what he says here verse 17, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ there are new creation, the old is gone and the new has come." There's a difference between living and existing, right? You look at it, medical technology these days can keep people technically alive for months if not years. It could be comatose and still breathing but is that really living? That's the question, another way to put it, that person's not living but they're existing. Jesus talks of eternity all the time but specifically in John chapter 17, he says it's the entire reason why he's come and he says, "Father for you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those that you have given him." Jesus says that's what he's come to give people this life and whilst it sounds sweet, that Jesus comes with this gift for us, some gifts can't be received without admitting that there's something wrong in yourself. I mean say that someone comes to you at Christmas time and they give you a nice big bottle of mouthwash and you say, "Well I thank you, that's a beautiful gift." You know what I know it, if you accept that gift, you're admitting that you've got sticky breath. You see whilst it sounds sweet, Jesus saying, "I've come to give the world eternal life is actually a slap in the face." Can you see what he's saying here, that you can't receive the gift of eternal life unless you first admit that you were dead? What are you talking about? Look, we've been learning that the human state apart from Jesus Christ is like a living death. Spiritually there's a difference between existing and living and the two are as different as being on life support and running free in the fields. Remember I said it was a sleeping beauty principle. The Word of God says that outside of God's grace and action in our life, then we're all sleeping beauties. Guys, you're all Han Solo's frozen in carbonite freezing. You're living a living death. Paul says of visions too you were dead in your transgressions until that person comes in and wakes you out of your death slumber. And so in that sense, can you see how inadequate the modern day perceptions of Christianity are? People think being Christians about being a good person and going to church and praying really hard and being nice, right, but Jesus didn't come to make people nice, he came to make him new and so in that sense when Paul says anyone who has faith in Jesus Christ is a new creation, he says you've got a whole new kind of life, total kind of life. C.S. Lewis calls it from Bios de Zoe, the spiritual life which is in God from all eternity and which made the whole natural universe is Zoe. Bios has to be sure a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe, but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place or a statue and a man, a man who has changed from having Bios to having Zoe, he would have gone through as big as a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone into being a real man and that is precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor's shop. We are the statues and there's a rumor going around the shop that some of us are someday going to come to life. Guys, you don't add Christianity to your life, you don't just have a little extra bit of it, you can't just pick Christianity up, Christianity picks you up. Eternal life, let me put it this way, it's just not a quantity of life, it's a quality of life, it's totally different altogether and so the gospel not only changes your perspective, it changes your personality when you live that kind of life, how else to put it, your butterflies not caterpillars, it's springtime and so the Bible always tells you who you are before it tells you what to do, Paul is always saying stop acting like caterpillars kids, your butterflies now, totally different type of metamorphosis in that way, so the gospel impacts your eternity not just by your perspective but by your personality, it changes who you are. But also we learn from this passage of changes your position with God, let's have a look at this one verse 18 and 19, "All of this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, the God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ and not counting people's sins against them and he's committed to us the message of reconciliation." Changes your position, now we don't get that out of this translation because the NIV hides a little bit, but if you heard Graham's message this morning from the good news translation is Bible of choice, it says it heaps better than the NIV, it talks about the way that God has changed his position towards you and your position towards him of that from being an enemy to a friend, reconciliation we can mix the word up all the time but it just says that he's changed his position, look imagine that you go to someone's place, you're going to go to someone's place for dinner, you turn up, you're all dolled up, knock on the front door, you get in there, door opens into the fire, a little bit of a chit chat at the fire, you get a bit overzealous with your hands like I do and you knock this beautiful vase off the side of the side table and it smashes into a thousand pieces on the floor, you haven't even started, you're not even in the lounge room yet and what would you say, you're like I'm so sorry about your vase, I'm so sorry and it's that sickening feeling and what's the first thing that you would say, I'll pay for it, I'll pay for it, I'll pay for this, I'll pay it back, you see here's the thing because whenever someone is wronged there's one of two different choices, either you pay or they pay right and you hear those sickening words, I'm really sorry but that was my great, great, great, great grandmother's vase, that's priceless, you say I've got MasterCard, you see it's absolutely priceless, now what the heck do you do in this situation, you can't, there's nothing, you could work your entire life to bring and restore that back but you are never going to get it right, it's at that point either you pay or they pay and so what Paul is saying in here when he's talking about all this gobbledygook about God reconciling humanity, you know what, Paul was preaching the gospel here, you know in humanity in going its own way and wanting to live its own life and that bias we have to live around our own way and not live God's way, we call that sin, it's not saying that you're worthless, what it's saying is you've got a bias to live life your own way, really what it's saying is that when humanity first did that in the fall we broke the vase, we broke the relationship and it smashed into a thousand pieces and you know what, religions all around the world have been struggling and striving and on their knees trying to pick up every little bit and piece of this, they're getting all their best superglue through prayers and religiosity and they're trying to paste it all back up together again because they know that something's just not right and yet here in Christianity here we have a God who when his son Jesus by sending him to die for us picks us up off the lobby floor at the front door and he says I'll pay, I'll bear the cost, let's be reconciled, I've changed my position, how would you react, you know for you and I tonight friends it means the great news of the gospel is we need not spend the entire time of this side of eternity worrying about paying God back, instead he just, we worship and we serve a God who just wants you to sit down in the lounge room, let's get the night happening, it's done and it's passed and so many Christians keep moving back to the lobby, moving back to the vase thinking that somehow through their funny efforts and all their superglue that they're going to make this right again, it's never going to get fixed, someone had to absorb the cost and he did and so in that sense we learned the first week that you've been saved from something for something, you've been saved from having to pay back the price of the broken bars, that's cool, put the credit card away, you've been saved from that but it means it gives us a dynamic tonight as we come out of our death slumber into the most wonderful thing that the gospel does for us all in this passage here, see that's what Paul's doing here, Paul was summarizing the gospel, from a change in perspective, to the change in position, to a change now in purpose in life, you know, look why do you think I obsess over that stupid movie in 1984 so much, the never ending story, you know we had young adults in the morning service actually went and hired it out on DVD this week just to do a bit of research, they loved it, I loved it even with the old CGI graphics and the puppets and all that sort of thing, who thought a movie could be so much fun, I still love it, why, because it's the little boy in me, it's the thing that's in all of us that wants to be part of something bigger, wants to be sent off and identify with the great character of this story and have our own little secret missions or girls, you know, all girls want to be up in the top of a tower and rescued by a handsome prince or something like that, right? We want a sense of purpose, right, we want our lives to count for something, we want a dangerous mission, we want someone to be on a dangerous mission for us and God gives us that tonight, verse 20, let's look at this here, we are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us, we employ you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God, you know, what he's saying Paul saying tonight is really simply your God's ambassadors, our youth team know all about this, they spend a whole term studying about what it means to be ambassador in the high school, ambassador in everyday life so you could preach this message tonight, when I think about an ambassador, you know, I'm sure you're probably thinking of your K-Ruds and your Kim Beasley's over there, I went to Kim Beasley's house in Washington, he wasn't there, and all the pomp and the ceremony, but you know, an ambassador's not just the political sense, the ambassador in the most simplest of ways is a representative, and you know who I think is some of the most common ambassadors in this world, how do I put it this way, it's the Mac is principle, you've heard me say it before, I was driving for two hours, it was a long holiday, desperately thirsty, desperately hungry, desperately craving some form of salt, and that's when I saw the beautiful golden lights on the horizon, the big M, McDonald's, and I just drove towards the light, almost like the star in the Bethlehem story, and I drove and I drove and I knew what it would mean, the smell, can't you just smell it now of the oil and the burners and the chips, freshly mopped floor, I couldn't wait to be there, and as I walked in it was like something out of a nightmare, dropped patties on the floor, gherkins on the windows, it's like all hell had broken loose, a couple of teenage kids fighting behind the counter, and a young girl chewing on some chewing gum, what do you want, and I thought this is not the McDonald's that I know, this is not the McDonald's that I love, where was that, hi welcome to McDonald's, how may I help you, so it wasn't just me then, the whole personal interaction didn't represent the trademarks and the characteristic of the organisation I so longed to be a part of, it means for you and I today as Christians, for all the effort to build brand reputation into the church and society's perception of the church in the world, sometimes the only experience of the church for people in this world and in society is not going to be this snazzy message that I've delivered tonight, the wonderful worship that we've had tonight, and this incredible ministry centre tonight, the only experience that people are going to have of God and His church is going to be you, and what God is challenging me with tonight, and I believe He's challenging all of us here tonight, is that heaven help us if we replicate what happened in the McDonald's, people expect Christians to be distinct and holy and wonderful and loving and otherworldly, we have to be, you see, can't you see why the change in perspective and the change in personally and the change in our position with God so important because here's the thing, our witness to the world guys, our witness will be found when people start asking questions like Lisa said tonight, how can they be so joyful in the midst of suffering, our witness to the world will be found in the questions of how can they be satisfied with so little, our questions will be found, how are they so responsible with much, our witness will be found, how do they consider others in the face of attacking, you know what, we will always be first Peter 315 prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you for the reason for the what, the hope that you have, the eternal perspective that you have, the bigger picture that you have, the change perspective that you have, guys this is the final point of a six week series and Paul made it the best, I thought I was being creative, you're ambassadors, you're representatives, you're God's makas chicks and guys, you know what I'm saying, Bible always tells you who you are before you, what you got to do, you're his representative so live true to what his organization should be like in the world, go and do it, that's it, come on, you know I don't work like that, I don't work like that anymore, you know I said last week to the morning congregation, the Bible never shoulds you into anything, the Bible never says you should go and do this and you should go and do that, it always gives you a dynamic, it always gives you an engine, it always gives you a nuclear fuel road for your life to go and live out this Christian walk in this life and this ambassadorship and here it is in a couple of verses, 14, right them down, 14 and 21, they're your two nuclear fuel rods this week, verse 14, for Christ love compels us because we're convinced that one died for all and therefore all died and he died for all and those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again, raised again, you see that, what is that? You know up until that moment, up until that moment in history everyone thought that they were in palliative care, up until that point everyone thought there was no hope for the world, that we are on a downward spiral of a biological unwinding from age one through to eighty and that is it and when it talks about the resurrected Christ that was a message that exploded throughout history because for the first time in human history someone came back from the dead and stayed alive and it shows us guys first and foremost is that tonight death is not the end of the road, that's the heartbeat of the Christian hope, you know what the resurrection of Jesus is like, the resurrection of Jesus, it's like the talk they're coming in and telling the world you know what we've got the diagnosis wrong, you've got a second chance, you've got another life but you know that alone is not going to change you tonight, lots of people know of the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead, they still don't believe, they still don't have zoe because you need this, that alone won't change you, verse 21 you need this, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God, you know this is one of the most theologically debated verses on all the Bible, it's a great mystery, what does it mean that Jesus became sin, look the best I could put it to you tonight is this, you know it's like upon hearing the news that you've been cured from this blood disease of yours that you've got, the one that said the put you in that palliative care in the first place, it's like that you've seated down and the doctors told you that you can go home this Monday and that there's a second chance of life that you see that it begins to sweat and you think to yourself that's really funny because my symptoms was I used to sweat all the time, as he continues to explain this new life that you've got he starts to cough and you realize that's really funny because that cough was putting me out of action, that was the very thing I was dying from. You see that he's temperature soaring through the roof, he's already in the face and you go that's what I had and as the doctors telling you this you're being cured, you look down at your arm and you see a little pin prick and it dawns on you that while you were sleeping that night the doctor himself had come in given you a blood transfusion, gave you his fresh blood, took all yours out of you, took the sickness upon himself, guys at the cross, at the cross of Jesus Christ, it's why Christians always go on about the cross, it's why Paul always goes on about the cross, it's why I always go on about the cross, it was the biggest blood transfusion this universe had ever seen and the only things that could ever really kill you eternally tonight, sin and death, he sucked out and he pulled and ingested, took it upon himself so that you could have a second chance, so you could go home, how will you react, will you be like Pat, how will you react tonight to the good news that you have or can have a second chance at life, are you going to be totally indifferent or are you going to be indebted to him for the rest of this side of eternity, friends, in three minutes time you are going to have the ability to make a decision that will impact your eternity, for some of you tonight it's going to mean that Jesus Christ becomes your doctor, he becomes your specialist, you realize that he took on the sins of the world and not just of the world your sins, so that he could catapult you with his life into eternity, but first of all some of you tonight can make a step into eternal life with God by asking Jesus to be your doctor, the good doctor who only ever prescribes your stuff for your benefit. Friends for those of us that are already living out our second chance we make the decision this week again in light of what he has done for us to impact others for eternity. A thousand years from now, what in your life is going to matter, what's going to matter a thousand years from now. I'll leave you with this, great side services were over now, everyone had left and I was alone, I began to read the names and dates chiseled here and there on every stone, the name showed whether it was mum or dad or daughter or baby son, the dates were different, the amount the same, there were two dates on everyone, it was then I noticed something, just a simple line, it was the dash between the dates and place there it stood for time, all at once it dawned on me, how important that little line, the dates place there belong to God but the line is yours and mine, it's God who gives his precious life and it's he who takes away but the line he gives to us to do with what we may. [BLANK_AUDIO]