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No it is. It is a blessing for for me and Gregan and in our lives, just to be able to work with youth. The reason that I’m so drawn to the younger people and the teenagers is I know the struggles that I went through in high school, the questions that I had, the dilemmas that I faced and I want to see, um, another generation not have to deal with that. Um, and it’s a blessing that God’s allowed me to be able to work with the teens for. I think it’s going on 5 or 6 years now. I’m not all here at Alpine Bible Church, but that’s how long I’ve been in youth ministry. And God’s just blessed me with that, and I thank him for that. But what we talked about at the Youth retreat, I kind of want to because it’s not just for teens. I wanted to share it with you guys too, because it’s something that we all need a reminder of in our lives. But we talked about driven. That was our that was our focus. This week is what drives you as a person. What is your motivation in life? What are your life’s ambitions? And we talked about some of the things, you know, that that you would typically get a response from if you were to just go out on the street and ask any random person walking down the street, you know, what’s your motivation in life? What are you driven by? And so, you know, the typical, you know, a good career, a healthy family, um, and things like that money.
You know, I’d like a nice house. These are things that we work for and strive for. But what God’s word is something, something different from that. Now, it’s not saying that you’re not allowed to have a good career and a healthy family and a nice house, but that, if that is your only goal in life, is to attain those things, then you’ve missed the point of life. And we saw that there’s really three things that should drive us in that, in that knowledge, that or in that, in that life is the one of the things that we looked at is knowledge. If you don’t have the right knowledge, then you’re not going to know what should be driving you, what should be moving you forward, what you should be looking for and growing towards. And then we looked at mercy and how God’s mercy should drive us then, and also his love, and then what we should be driven to. So the first thing we’re going to look at is going to be in Philippians chapter three, verses four through 14. If you want to go ahead and turn your Bibles there. We’re going to look at at knowledge. We’re going to look a lot, particularly at the Apostle Paul. And we’re going to kind of do it a little bit backwards.
We’re going to look at, uh, his after he became a Christian, and then we’re going to look back and we’re going to jump back and see how he became a Christian and what change happened there. But first, in Philippians chapter three, we’re going to start in verse four, and we’re going to read through verse 14. So Paul is is talking to the Philippians, and he’s talking to them about people who would who would boast in the in the flesh, who would be proud of things that they can achieve on their own. And Paul basically just puts everybody in his place. And in verse four he starts and he says, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh. Also, if anyone else thinks he has a reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call in Christ Jesus. So we see, Paul, you know, if you want to list of life achievements, that’s pretty good. That’s not too shabby. His his family heritage. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin. He had the right genealogy as to the law blameless. Anything that you would blame Paul for falling short of of obeying the Old Testament law? Paul would be like, okay, that’s fine, but I’m way better than you because you’ve got five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten here that you’re missing, you know, and I’m doing everything else, including just that one. So Paul was blameless compared to other people.
He was next in line to take over as the religious leader of his day. For the Jewish people. He had the power. He had the prestige, he had influence that typically came along with wealth. And he says that I count all these things as loss for knowing Christ, these things that I have already gained, I’ve already had these things. And those aren’t bad things to have. It’s not bad to be influential. It’s not bad to live a good life and and follow God’s law. It’s not bad to to be a religious leader. But Paul says those things are nothing. They’re rubbish, garbage compared to knowing Christ. All Paul wanted in life was to know. When you know Christ. It motivates you. Um, and we’re going to look at this a little bit later. But Paul says in first Timothy that he considered himself the foremost sinner. Um, and yet Christ saved him. And that’s what motivated Paul to do what he did, because he knew who he was, and he knew who Christ was and what he did. And he knew it wasn’t any special gift that he had, but it was what Christ was doing in him. But he didn’t have that unless he didn’t know who Christ was and he didn’t dive into that knowledge. He says that. And this is Paul, the guy who wrote most of your New Testament. If you open your Bible up to the New Testament randomly, odds are you’re going to land into a book that Paul wrote and he says, I haven’t even obtained it.
I don’t even know it all yet. I haven’t even got there. I want to know more. And if Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, gave us the guidelines for how we as a church should live and operate, didn’t know enough. Why do you think that you do? Why are you content in the knowledge that you have right now? Why am I content where I’m at? Why am I not striving to know more, to understand more, to dig deeper? If you look at the dictionary, it defines knowledge as an acquaintance with facts, truth or principles as from study or investigation. It doesn’t just happen. You can’t just wake up and say, you know, I want to know Jesus more. Boom, I know Jesus more. If it did, that would be awesome. Um, but yeah, yeah, get me on that list. I want on that program, you know? But that’s not the way it works through study or investigation. If you’re not in God’s word, if you’re not seeking it out, you’re not going to grow in your knowledge. It doesn’t just happen overnight. It takes a decision, a conscious effort. I like in the video how he said, you know, there was a time in worship where he gave his life to God and just said, I’m yours.
But then as time went on, he forgot about it. But then he got that chance to do it again. That’s what it is. Every day we wake up, we have to decide, am I going to try and dig deeper into my knowledge of God? Am I going to try and strive to learn more? Am I going to study? Am I going to intend to grow this relationship, or am I going to be content where I’m at? When me and Greg and first started dating, before we first started dating, when we first met, I wanted to find out more about her, so I started studying her. Right, guys? You know what I’m talking about, ladies. You know what I’m talking about. Because you can see them from a distance trying to figure it. All right, I got it, and it’s a puzzle. I’m still studying, but I want to grow in that knowledge of her because I love her. And I want to know what I can do that makes her happy. What I do that makes her mad. So I don’t do that again. I want to learn these things and I want to know these things. But if I just say, well, we’re married now, all right, I’m done and just call it a day. That’s not going to be enough, because I’m not going to know something else that’s going to make her mad. And then I’m going to do something stupid again, which happens regularly.
She’s probably not going to be too happy with me, but I continue to grow in that relationship by talking to her, by communicating with her, by seeing how she operates. And that’s how it works with God. We want to seek him out. We want to study. We want to talk to him. We want to see how he operates so that we know what he likes us to do, what he doesn’t like us to do, what makes him happy, what we can do to share him with other people. I love telling people about my wife because she’s awesome. Okay, sorry guys. I got the best one and God’s the same way. He’s awesome. Sorry everybody else. I got the best one out there and he even says it. So I’m going to tell people about it. But if you don’t know him, you’re not going to tell. So it’s that knowledge and knowing Christ. And the more you know about him, the more you’re going to want to share about him, the more you’re going to want to share them with other people. The more I started to know Greg, and when I would call my brothers or sisters and talk, they’d ask me how life was doing, man, let’s talk about Greg, because I learned something new about her and how much more awesome she was than I thought she was. That was really good at grammar.
Just so you guys know, I didn’t know if you caught that. That was pretty good. Um, but I was excited because I learned something new about her that I knew they would be excited about, too. And that’s the way it should be with God. The more you study and the more. Man I’ve been. I was born in church pretty much. I was two weeks old and I was already going on retreats. Um, and so I’ve heard it all, and, you know, I’ve heard all the old cliches. But seriously, this cliche is so true that you never stop learning. Every time I read a passage, no matter how many times I’ve taught it, no matter how many times I’ve read it, something new about God’s amazing love, or his grace, or his power or his justice or something, stands out and says, wow, that’s new. Why didn’t I see that before? That’s what motivates us. It’s knowing more. You can never get enough. You can never dive deep enough to get more of God. And that knowledge is what motivated Paul. And we’re going to see later what that knowledge actually motivated Paul to do and some of the things that he did. But the other thing that should motivate us, one of the other things is mercy. We’re going to be in this. If you look at Romans chapter 12, verse one, you’re going to see why this should motivate us.
The first 11 chapters of Romans, if you’re not familiar with it, is, uh, basically Paul laying it out there. He doesn’t hold any punches back. He just tells you like it is. You’re all sinners. We’re all sinners. We all deserve God’s wrath on our own. We cannot become righteous. No one is righteous. We can’t earn our way out of this predicament of sin. As sinners. We all deserve that punishment and we can’t get out of it. But God, because of his love, saved us through Christ Jesus and the work that he performed on the cross. And Paul lays this out there just plainly. And then in 12 we get the verse, chapter 12, verse one. Therefore. So in light of all that I just told you, in light of your condition before God as an unholy sinner needing and God needing justice, and him providing that way to get to heaven and have that justice provided without us paying that punishment. In light of that, I urge you, I beseech, I beg you, I’m on my knees pleading with you by the mercies of God, by those mercies that I just explained to you. For 11 chapters present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. God’s mercy should drive us. It should motivate us. Every day I wake up and typically some of the first questions that come to mind other than why is my alarm clock already going off? I feel like I just went to bed is what? Why me? Why did why would God die for me? And why did Greg and marry me? Those are the two things that I just can’t wrap my mind around.
Um, but I’m focusing a lot on Greg, and I don’t know if she likes it or not. I don’t think she does, but she’s awesome. So, um. But those are. God’s mercy is so amazing. Why me? I’m 25. I’m bald. I’m overweight. I’m not that smart. Like really? Me? What? I’m stubborn. I’m selfish. I’m a jerk. I don’t know why you guys like me, but God loved me, man, that mercy’s awesome. Because I know that once my feet hit the floor in the morning and I take a shower and I get ready for work, the second I get to work, I’m going to do something stupid. That sin and God’s not going to like it. But he died for it anyway. And then I’m going to be like, dang it, that was stupid. Why did I do that? And as I finished that thought, I’m going to do something else. And he still shows me mercy. He still shows me grace. That motivates me. I want to know more. I want to feel that mercy. I want to share that mercy. That’s awesome. That doesn’t happen a lot.
A lot of times I screw up, people get mad at me, and then they’re done. Maybe they’ll come back and then they’ll be done again. Not God, I don’t know how many times I’ve stabbed God in the back, spat in his face, drove the nails into his hands, and he still loves me. And you get that? That’s huge. It’s amazing. So many times I think we sing songs and we just forget about what we’re singing. But amazing love. How can it be that you, my king, would die for me? That mercy is huge. If that doesn’t motivate you and make you want to live for him, you need to check your pulse because there’s something wrong. Because that’s crazy. The other thing that should motivate us in life is God’s love. If you look in Matthew chapter 22, verses 36 through 40, Jesus, the um, the scribes and Pharisees, Sadducees and Pharisees are having a debate. They’re trying to figure out which commandment, if you were going to live out one of the Old Testament commandments, which one is the most important to live out? Which one is the most important that every person should do? And they decided they’d try and ask Jesus this to stump him so the other side would get mad at him. And they always tried these, these little tricks that would get Jesus, you know, trick him. So he couldn’t figure it out.
And he always answered their questions like, are you kidding me? Go ahead, try again. Um, but what he says the most important thing in the world, the most important commandment that you can do is, is teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law. And he said to them, you shall love your the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the greatest and foremost commandment. The second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. That’s what life boils down to is loving God and loving others. The dictionary defines love as a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. The Bible uses the word agape, which is a Greek word that’s unconditional, un circumstantial, never ending, sacrificial love. And that’s how God loves us. And he calls us to share that love. And this is something this this part here is something new that I’d never really read before. I knew that it was you shall agape the Lord your God. Just love God. Love God. And then it says, you shall agone your neighbor as yourself. Agone is another Greek word that comes from that agape, but it carries the idea of jumping or gushing forth. The love that you have for God should just pour out of you and explode out of you onto the people around you, so that anybody that comes in contact with you knows that you love God because it’s just overflowing.
If you read in John chapter seven, verse 38, it says, whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. God’s love isn’t meant to be dammed up and kept inside of you for yourself. It’s meant to overflow and spread over everybody that you come in contact with. It’s a river. It’s a flowing river. And one thing about rivers is they always change and affect where the area around them. They carve a path. They wear down rock. When I think of a powerful river, I think of Niagara Falls. If you’ve never had a chance to go there, if you ever get a chance, it’s awesome. I went when I was in sixth grade, and I wish I would have been a little bit older, so I could really appreciate what I was seeing, but just some facts about the power of rushing water that’s flowing over Niagara Falls. You can hear the sound of the falls from six miles away. It’s loud enough that as you’re driving up to them, if you roll the windows down in your car and Mark’s not by you in his Harley, you can hear the falls from six miles away. That’s powerful noise. 3160 tons of water flow over the falls every second. If you don’t know how much a ton of water is, that’s 757,500 gallons of water every second.
That’s a lot of water. That’s a lot of power. That’s a lot of movement. The force that the water hits the rocks at the bottom is 3000 times more force than an average NFL football tackle. So come this fall when you’re watching, um, Ray Lewis and he just plasters somebody coming across the middle and puts them in the ground and you’re like, Holy cow, that would hurt. Multiply that by 3000. And that’s the force that that water hits the ground. Flowing rivers have power. Flowing rivers make change. It’s the same force falling at Niagara Falls. There. That’s 230 times. 39 times more force than a car driving at 40 miles an hour into a brick wall. That’s God’s love coming out of us. It’s not a trickle. It’s not a pretty little brook or a little stream. It is a raging river. It should be a raging river. Too many times I think we we dam up God’s love inside of us. And we every now and then we’ll let the reservoir overflow. And we’ll open up the spill gates. And we’ll let a little bit pour out. But man, God’s love is supposed to be rushing out of us, covering everybody we come in contact with, changing them. God’s love. When you love sacrificially, unconditionally, un circumstantially, it changes people because it doesn’t make sense to them.
That’s why. That’s why God’s mercy is so mind blowing to me every day. It doesn’t make sense. God, I don’t always love you back. Why are you still loving me? When you continue to love the people around you, whether they love you back or not, it’s not going to make sense to them. And they’re going to want to know why do you still love me? I’m a jerk to you. I’m hateful to you. I don’t want to hear what you have to tell me about about your Jesus and your God. But why do you keep doing this? It’s because I know Jesus, and I know God, and I want you to know him, too. And eventually it can make a change. But if you if you just block that that river up. There’s nothing there. God’s love should motivate us to just open the floodgates and just pour it out on people. And what happens when we know God more, and we dive deep into that relationship with him, and we understand his mercy, and we begin to see how great that is. And we feel his love and we pour it out on other people is it drives us to service. When we talked about being driven, if you’re going to be driven somewhere, you’re driven. You have to be driven to something. You don’t just aimlessly wander around. You have a destination in mind. And when we see God’s love, we see his mercy, and we know more about him.
It drives us to service. We already talked about the Apostle Paul and and what he is, some of the things that he’s done. But if you look in your Bible in acts chapter nine and verses one through 20, this is how Paul became a Christian. So this is kind of a background of of Paul. So acts chapter nine, verse one, it says, but Saul, still breathing threats of murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the way or the church, Christians, believers in Christ, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now, as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him, and falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying, saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do. The men who were traveling with with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.
And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias. And he said, here I am, Lord. And the Lord said to him, rise and go to the street called straight. And at the house of Judas, look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. For behold, he is praying. And he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay hands on him, that he might regain his sight. But Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name. But the Lord said to him, go, he is, for he is chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. So Ananias departed and entered the house, and laying his hands on him, he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me, so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized and taking food.
He was strengthened for some days. He was with the with the disciples at Damascus. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogue, saying, he is the Son of God. It’s a lot of text there. But basically Saul, who then later a couple of chapters later, you’ll see changes his name to Paul is basically a terrorist. He’s on his way to Damascus to to put every Christian in jail where they’ll be tortured or killed or both. And that’s his goal in life. That was what he wanted to do, because they were in complete opposition to the way he lived his life. On his way to put these leaders in jail, Jesus stops him and says, why are you doing this, man? And a change happens in Paul, and he goes from trying to kill and imprison all the Christians that he can find to verse 20, immediately proclaiming Jesus in the synagogue, saying, he is the Son of God. A change happened. Christ came into Paul’s life and immediately he wanted to serve. He didn’t want to sit back and say, okay, I got this, got this Jesus thing. Now I’m just going to sit back in church for a little bit, learn some stuff. You know, maybe in a couple of years I’ll actually say something at small group Bible study and discussion time, but for now, I’m just going to sit back.
And then after that, maybe a couple of years, I might even be brave enough to say something to my family about this thing. But he didn’t. He says immediately he went to the synagogues and proclaimed, Jesus the synagogues. This is what’s crazy about this. Okay, so Paul goes from one extreme over here saying, I’m going to kill all the Christians, and all the Jews and Pharisees are like, yes, do it. That’s what we want you to do. Then he’s all of a sudden now he’s on this side saying, no, wait, Jesus is awesome. And where does he go to say Jesus is awesome? He goes back right to these guys faces whose side he was on. Now he’s on the other team and he’s saying, look, Jesus is awesome. And they’re like, wait a minute, you were supposed to go there to kill all those people, and now you’re one of them. That’s dangerous. But Paul didn’t care because he was driven by God’s mercy that he was shown. He was driven by the love that he felt from God to go to those people and say, look, this is legit. This is serious. When we see God’s love and mercy, it should drive us into service. Church isn’t a spectator sport. It’s called when you’re a Christian, you’re called into active duty. You’re called to serve. Whether that be handing out coffee, cleaning the church, teaching it, teaching a Bible study at your home, teaching the kids whatever you’re not called to sit back and be inactive.
You’re called to serve. We’re all called to serve in some way, shape or form. Our church is growing. We’re looking to expand and buy our own building. That’s going to come with a lot of needs, not just in the construction and the build out, but in the functioning of that church. There’s a lot of things that we’re going to need. People that say, you know what? I’m willing to serve? I felt God’s mercy and I’m feeling his love, and I’m digging deeper into knowing him. And I want to just share that with other people in whatever way I can. And if that means scrubbing toilets, I’ll scrub toilets. If you need me to hand out coffee, I’ll hand out coffee. What you need me to do, I’m willing to serve, and that’s what we need. And when a church does that as a whole, big things happen in the church, as a unit and in the community, because there’s a group of believers that are driven and motivated to serve the great and mighty God of this universe because of his love and his mercy that he’s poured out on them. Big things can happen. The other thing that those that this should drive us to is to cause a change through that service. If you read in acts chapter 19 through 27, um 1923 through 27, uh, Paul is in Ephesus at this time and he’s he’s teaching and he’s starting.
Churches in Ephesus was known for their worship of the Greek goddess um Artemis’s or Diana. And they had a big temple to her. And it was people would travel from thousands of miles just to see this temple. Paul starts a church in Ephesus that grew, and the people were so on fire for Jesus that it comes to the point. In acts chapter 19, we see that there’s a group of silversmiths that start a riot because they can’t make any money selling their their little mini shrines to all these Greek gods and goddesses, and they start a riot. Because this Paul of the way is bringing a threat to our business. Paul is driven into service and driven by God’s love, so much so that he changed the entire economic state of a large city. He went into New York City and changed the way the economy ran, because he was driven by God’s love, not because he was a great speaker, not because he was so impressive as a person, but because he knew who God was and what love and mercy God had shown him. And he was showing it to other people. And other people were blown away just like him, and they wanted to share it. And it changed the city that they were in. It also drove Paul to endure.
If you read in Second Corinthians 11, verse 24 through 27, Paul says, five times I received at the hands of the Jews the 40 lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked a night and a day I was adrift at sea. On frequent journeys. In danger from rivers. Danger from robbers. Danger from my own people. Danger from Gentiles. Danger in the city. Danger in the wilderness. Danger at sea. Danger from false brothers. In toil and hardship through many a sleepless night in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. That’s a lot. The 39 lashes. The reason they stopped at 39 is because one more would kill you. And so literally five times Paul is beaten within an inch of his life. And each time he goes right back to doing the same thing that got him the first 39. The only way you do that is if you are really insane or really motivated by a great God. And judging by Paul’s writings, he’s a pretty smart guy. So I’m going to go ahead and say he was really motivated by a great, great God. Amen. Paul’s shipwrecked. Okay, so he’s put in prison. He’s in jail on his way to be tried, where he’s probably going to be executed while he’s on the ship. The ship gets in a shipwreck. He’s floating around at sea, finds a piece of whatever floats back to shore, gets to shore, and he’s like, Holy cow! Glad that’s over and gets bit by a snake.
If you have ever gone through a day and been like, this is the worst day ever, it’s not. If anybody has ever been able to say, oh, come on, it was Paul. Paul had it rough. But he says it’s worth it. It’s worth it because I know who God is. And his mercy and love are huge. And I got to share this and it’s worth it, I don’t care. Beat me, throw me in jail, torture me, let me get bit by a snake, I don’t care. But somebody’s got to hear this. That’s motivation that’s being driven. If it wasn’t for Paul being so driven and motivated, we probably wouldn’t be here today because of the churches that Paul had planted in Europe and taking the gospel to people that had never heard it before, and writing what he has written. It changed the world. That’s one man. It’s cliche, but sometimes I like cliche things. One person can make a difference. It just takes one person in Alpine Bible Church to say, I’m never going to stop knowing more. I’m never going to stop. I got to get more. And somebody else got to say, I like that I want on their team and they’re going to want more. And Alpine Bible Church is going to be a force to be reckoned with in Utah Valley for God.
You got to be motivated. What drives you in life? What are you focused on? Are you more concerned about about your job and your career? Are you more concerned about how you look in the community and putting on a facade and making sure that everybody thinks you’re okay, or you’re more concerned with knowing that they know Jesus. Because the more that you know about God, the less you’re going to care about all that other stuff. The more that you understand that his mercy is so undeserved, the more that you understand that his love is unconditional. Something’s going to happen inside of you that can’t be contained, and you’re going to share it, and that’s going to motivate you to focus on him and what he wants. I’m not saying everybody should quit their jobs because that’s a bad idea, but what I’m saying is, in that job where God has you, how can you serve him? It’s not my life ambition to be a manager at a Sears outlet store, but since I’m there, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that while I’m a manager at a Sears outlet store, everything I do is for God’s glory. Wherever you’re at in life, God’s love and mercy should motivate you and drive you in life to make your life’s goal. Everyone around you knows who he is and what he’s done for them.