Kingdom Come - Better Than Gold - Jason Paredes

Jason: 00:00:00

in just a moment. Matthew: 13:44

Those of you who might be joining us as the semester is getting cranked up, we are going through chapter by chapter, verse by verse through the Gospel of Matthew. We're done with Matthew. We're going to go on to Mark, and we're done with Mark.

We're going to go on to Luke, and we're done with Luke, we're going to go on to John.

And over the next several years, my goal and hope is that we get to drink deeply of King Jesus week after week after week, and that by the time we're done with this journey, there is a body of people who are utterly obsessed with King Jesus. That's my hope and my prayer, and we're going to stick to it and keep learning what he has to say.

But before I jump into the passage, I want to tell you, maybe, maybe I want to defend myself a little bit before I get into the passage. So I've heard some people grumble a little bit about my leadership. Don't worry, it's not that severe. I'm not gonna get that heavy.

But really, it's because I push hard is what I'm told anyway, that I keep asking for a lot. Like, Jason, you keep demanding more and more from us. Like, you want me to give like 10% is not enough for you, Jason.

Now you want me to give like 20% of my income away. You want me to adopt four kids. You want me to go on 12 mission trips a year. You want me to make mentor out in the schools.

You want me to serve you cause us to give up our Sunday morning worship to go serve in the schools and whatever. You have such high demands for us, Jason. When are you going to slow down? Okay, if you feel that way, I want you to hear me out.

There is going to come a moment one day when you are going to stand before King Jesus and you're going to wish I pushed you harder.

I promise you there is coming a day when your one regret will be that I didn't ask for more, that I didn't demand more, that I didn't push, or you're gonna go, jason, you should have pushed us more. Because now that I see what I get in return for everything I gave up, I realize it's worth it. You should have pushed us more.

I just want you to hear that Because I want you to know why I do what I do. I will one day stand before Almighty God. And I'm afraid he's gonna say, you should have pushed him more.

I believe today God wants to show us why the call to follow Jesus is so high. Because it's going to be absolutely worth it. He tells us that through two quick parables in Matthew, chapter 13, verse 44 through 46.

I want you to see what he has to say about the kingdom of God and why it's worth it. Let's read it. Matthew 13, beginning in verse 44. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up.

Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. Okay, we're going to pause just after those couple of parables. One of the things I love about Jesus is that he just.

He can say so much in such a little amount of time. It's both super simple and unbelievably complex at one time. I mean, you read these two parables and you get his idea.

He's saying, the kingdom of God is incredibly valuable, worth giving up everything for.

But he has two words or two ideas in there that are just these little nuggets that help you see a nuanced understanding of just how beautiful the kingdom of God is. The first one was about the treasure when it says, and in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has so he can buy that field in his joy.

He's not reluctant. He's not going, why are you forcing me to give up everything I have to buy that field?

It says that he is unbelievably overjoyed, like with joy and excitement, oh, my goodness, I get to give up everything because I'm gonna get something so much more. He knew what he was giving up because he knew even more what he was gaining. And in joy, he gave it up. See, this is where I think we get off.

This is where people get frustrated, where they start obeying God because they think that's what you're supposed to do as a good Christian. And you don't realize the reward that's coming back, but it is absolutely worth it. Maybe I could illustrate it for you.

Is there anybody in the room who has a $1 bill? Anybody? Okay, I saw that hand go up in the back. Can you pull? You have it on you right now. Yeah, you got it.

Okay, go ahead and come over here if you don't mind. Got a $1 bill over here. Now is it legit? Are you sure you're not trying to fake me out, are you? Okay, come on up here.

Don't trip up the steps because that'd be super embarrassing. But we gonna make it up here. Tell me your name. Jake. Jake. All right, Jake. Yeah, there you go. Okay, put your dollar out. Let me see it.

I want you to hold it. I don't want anybody to think I'm taking something from you. It's upside down. Go ahead and flip it for me. Yeah, there we go. That looks legit.

Now would you give me that $1 bill? Sure. Do you do it reluctantly or happily? Okay. You're not smiling, but okay. Well, I want to give you something. Okay. What's this $50 bill?

It's a $50 bill. You gave me one, I'm gonna give you 50. You wanna take it? Are you sure? I'm sure. Is that a good deal? Not for me. You're right. But for you. Take it.

Have it. Let's give them a hand. Yeah, take it. Okay, so I want you to know that was not your tithes and offerings. That was my money.

And my kids aren't going to eat this afternoon. But we'll be fine. Sure be all right. Come looking for you later. I did it in the first service, So I have $2 now to my name. But so Jake. Is that right?

Is that the. So you know Jake would have been a fool if he didn't give me his $1 and take the 50. Like that's just a no brainer.

You don't have to pray over that decision. His one thing he was worried about was taking money from me. But he knew that was going to be worth it. Literally. 50x return on investment.

This is what Jesus is talking about.

That when we invest in the kingdom of God, when we give up something so much less we can't even believe how wild and beautiful what we get back is going to be over what we gave up. So I'm going to give you two points today. They're going to come pretty quick. Here's the first one. I want you to write this down.

Take a picture, whatever you got to do. What God calls us to relinquish pales in comparison to what God promises to reward.

Whatever he's calling you, that $1 bill he's calling you to let go of, it pales in comparison. You can't even imagine in fact, Paul talks about this.

He says that whatever I have to suffer in this life is not even worth comparing to the glory that's gonna be revealed to me. The suffering of this present time, the things I have to give up, and they pale in comparison to what's coming my way.

That's how the kingdom of God works. Whatever God requires you to give up pales in comparison to this beautiful, eternal, unbelievable reward that he wants to give you.

That's why with joy, he sells everything he has. So if you don't have joy in the service to your king, that shows me you might not be understanding what the kingdom of God is really like.

But then there's a second little nuance he gives to this. It's in verses 40, really in verse 45, but in 45, 46, when he talks about the merchant. Cause it says doesn't say with joy he sells.

I think it gives a different nuance. He says, and this merchant was searching for a pearl of great value. Now, let me tell you why that's a nuanced difference.

Because it meant this guy hadn't yet seen the treasure. He's a merchant, and in his mind he has the image of this perfect pearl.

And he is literally combing the world, hunting over the world, searching for that beautiful thing he has in his mind. And that's why when he comes upon it, he knows immediately what it's worth, Sells everything he has so that he can get that pearl.

He didn't have to see it. He knew it existed and he went hunting for it. This right here, this is what I think our main problem is.

You and I don't have the holy imagination enough to believe there's a pearl that's so great, we'll go search the whole world to find it. You gotta be able to imagine in your mind something worth all that before you go hunting for it. And this is where we fail.

We can't even conceive of a kingdom that is so glorious and beautiful that we would gladly search the whole world and give up everything in order to have it. We can't even picture it in our minds. And so we settle for something so much less.

I'm actually disturbed by most of the culture's idea of what eternal life is like. In fact, I saw a cartoon that really, I think, depicts how far too many people view it. Let's bring that up there.

This is what most people think of when they think of eternal life. Oh, God, this is boring. Sitting on a cloud, the harp next to you for all eternity. Napping, strumming your harp and falling back to sleep again.

A fate worse than death.

Listen, if that's your idea of eternal life, I'm go ahead and tell you it does not make sense to give up anything in this world in order to gain that. But that is not what the Bible teaches eternal life is, and the kingdom of God is.

I want to correct some mistaken theology that has permeated the church and it's this idea that when you die, you become an angel. I want to go and tell you when you die, you do not become an angel. Angels are heavenly beings that exist.

And then there's human beings that exist and we don't become angels that sit on clouds and play harps. When we die, our body goes in the ground and our soul is present with Jesus.

And we wait for the time when Christ returns and, and our bodies are lifted up from the grave and we are reunited. And it says that out of heaven will come a new earth that will descend down to the earth. And we will live on this new earth for all eternity.

But this new earth is gonna be the best of everything you could possibly imagine. It's gonna be the most amazing tasting food you've ever had. That's gonna be yours. You're gonna run and you're not gonna grow weary.

You're never gonna get a sore knee, you're never gonna have cancer, you're never gonna have death or pain or suffering or tears. It's gonna be everything you've always wanted. But right here on this earth that you experience to the fullest degree, that's what he's promising us.

He's promising us something so beautiful we can't even conceptualize it. The problem is, because we can't conceptualize it, we end up settling for something so much less. There's a quote from a guy, C.S. lewis.

Many of you are familiar with this quote. I've quoted it before. I want to say it right, so I'm going to see if I can pull it up here. But here's what he says.

He says, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half hearted creatures fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.

Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum. Because you cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased. This is our problem.

We're so easily pleased because we can't even imagine. All the more that God has And so we're making mud pies, and we're filling ourselves without thinking, that's enough.

I mean, how many times have we gotten. Maybe I'm just confessing to you right now. How many times have I got overly excited when I hear the ring go off? And I go, ooh, an Amazon box. Yay.

Like, I get a little too excited about whatever's inside that box. I forgot what I ordered. Cause I ordered so much from Amazon. It's like Christmas Day every time Amazon comes.

Or somebody gifted me a pair of shoes, which I love them. I get a little too excited about a pair of shoes sometimes. Like, I'm satisfied with a pair of shoes.

I'm satisfied by things that I don't need to be satisfied with. Someone who pays me a compliment, makes me feel good about myself. I get hungry for it. I want to be satisfied. And I'm eating mud pies.

A car I drive, a house I live in, a vacation. I take all these little things, and I settle for those things, these little pleasure hits. Because sometimes I forget there's something so much more.

And so whenever that thing is threatened, when God wants to take that thing away, I get frustrated and angry with God. Don't take away my pleasure hit. Don't take away my mud pie. Because I can't even conceptualize there's something so much better. That's our problem.

We can't dream it. And the reason why is because it takes great faith to believe that there's a kingdom out there because of the kingdom we live in right now.

This is where Jesus ended last week with the whole parable of the wheat and the weeds. If you were here last week, then you remember me talking about the fact that you have the kingdom of God.

That's the wheat, and you have the kingdom of darkness. Those are the weeds, and they're intertwined. We're on earth right now, side by side. So this is the already but not yet kingdom of God.

It's already here, but it's not yet fully here. And so we don't see its power and its glory quite yet because it's interspersed with the kingdom of darkness.

So we can't even imagine how much more there is out there. And that this is our problem. We live in this world and we can't imagine something so beautiful and perfect. And so we settle for less.

Jesus is trying to teach us to dream for more. But it requires faith to see it, because we won't yet have it by sight. I'm curious. Have any of you seen the First Santa Claus movie.

Raise your hand if you've seen the first Santa Claus movie. Okay? Bunch of sinners out there. No, I'm just kidding. I love it. Y' all know I love Christmas movies.

And about this season right now, August, I'm already thinking about Christmas, like my light plan for my house and stuff like that, and the mapping out of Christmas movies. But there's a line in the Santa Claus that is. It's super fun.

It's when Scott Calvin is in the North Pole and he's looking out over, and he goes, is that a polar bear down there directing traffic? And it's just this glorious thing. And this little elf, Judy, comes up and he goes, I see it, but I don't believe it.

And Judy says, no, you're looking at the strong. Seeing isn't believing. Believing is seeing. It's a fun line. I love it. It's one of my favorite.

And then I realized that's got a lot of theological truth to it. Judy just didn't know it. This is the second point I want you to write down about the kingdom of God.

We don't see the kingdom of God in order to believe in it. We believe in the kingdom of God in order to see it. This is where we get off.

We think, okay, God, when I see your kingdom, when I see your power, when I see everything work out right the way that I want it, then I'll believe in your kingdom. That's why I need you to fix on my problems, God. Show me your power, heal my circumstances, then I'll believe in your kingdom.

But that is not how it works. Faith never works that way. It is believing in the kingdom of God that opens your eyes.

To be able to see what is hidden with your physical eyes, you have to believe the kingdom exists or you will never see it. That requires faith. The author of Hebrews mentioned this. Chapter 11, verse 6. Without faith, it is impossible to please God.

For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him the reward. It's gonna be worth it. You have to have faith to believe he exists and that the reward is worth it. That's how you see the kingdom. It requires faith.

So the question is, do you have enough faith?

Do you have enough faith to have holy imagination and believe there really is a kingdom that good, that whatever he would ask you to give up, you'd be willing to give up? Because you recognize it's just mud pies and he's got a holiday at sea ready for you. You know, I want to forewarn you.

Your answer to that question has unbelievable implications. There's a fork that God presents to every single one of us.

And it's a fork between unbelievable, unimaginable, wildest dream, bliss and unfathomable, horrible, worst nightmare. And there is no middle ground between the two, the two roads that we're on. And they determine which one we end at.

I think sometimes people think like, if I follow Jesus, my life will be slightly better. If I don't follow him, my life will be slightly worse. But that is not the way Jesus parses it out.

You're about to see him do something pretty jolting. He tells two back to back parables about the greatness of the kingdom of God, and then the next parable is to talk about the horror of hell itself.

Listen to how he puts these parables together. There's a reason why he does it. We're going to move on.

Verse 47 says again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. And when it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers, but threw away the bad.

So it will be at the end of the age, the angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now I want you to notice verse 50. I want you to keep your eyes fixed on it.

And those of you who have your Bible open, keep your eye on verse 50, but go back to verse 42 as well. And I want to read verse 42. Keep that slide up on the screen, if you don't mind. I want you to see something.

I'm reading verse 42, but you look at verse 50. Verse 42 says, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That seem pretty, pretty similar.

It's exact verbatim in Greek, every letter the exact same way. When he was talking about the wheat and the weeds, and he says, the end of the weeds is that they're going to be thrown into the fiery furnace.

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. I told you last week he was talking about hell. It's a real place and you don't want to go there. Now, just a few verses later, he says it verbatim.

I'm going to throw you into the fiery furnace. And that place will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. In just a few short verses. Jesus talks about hell twice. I said this last week.

I'm going to say it again. Jesus talked a lot about hell because he didn't want anybody to go there.

But do not think that just because it's not politically correct to talk about hell that it's not a real place. It is your worst nightmare on steroids.

And Jesus is saying, the kingdom of God is beyond your wildest dreams good, and hell is beyond your wildest nightmare bad. And you have a choice to make. Which one are you going to? I just want to make sure you understand how clear and grave the decision is.

Which road are you on?

Jesus earlier I mentioned this often because I think he makes it so clear back in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, yeah, you got the broad gate and the easy way that leads to destruction, and there are many who are on that road. But the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life. And those who find it are few. Two roads, no middle ground. Which one are you on?

Now, I want you to be really cautious about what you answer here, because I hear back all the time people who think they're on the right road because they were born Christians.

You hear me mention this often because I think it's such a severe problem in the church, especially in the United States of America, where it's pretty safe to be a Christian.

This is not happening in the Middle east, where you have to give up your life to be a follower of Jesus and your family rejects you and many die for their faith in Jesus because they're not going to do that. It's not easy. But here it can actually, at least for now, be easy to claim to be a follower of Jesus.

And there are so many who say, no, no, I'm a follower of Jesus. I was born in my Christian home. I. I love Jesus. I go to church, put up with your long sermons, Jason. I'm a Christian. I'm on the right road.

Here's what I want you to hear. The only way to be on the right road is to know who Jesus is and to know why he came to earth.

If you don't really know who he is and why he came, you cannot be on the right road. And if you don't believe me, Matthew, as he puts this gospel together, is about to show the 2 discrepancy.

He's going to show the disciples who are doing their best to understand who Jesus is and why he came. And then you're going to see people from his own hometown, who do not know who he is and do not understand why he came.

And you're going to see the end between the two. So let's look first of all at the disciples, verses 51 and 52. Listen to how Jesus responds.

Jesus now turns to his disciples and he says, have you understood all these things they said to him? Yes.

And he said to them, therefore, every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. Now Jesus asked them, do you understand what I'm saying? They answer, yes.

They probably should have said no, because they don't really understand what he's talking about. But you notice he doesn't chide them. He doesn't say, oh, you're wrong.

He agrees with them because he knows they're trying to the best of their ability to understand all the teachings about the kingdom of God. That there is a kingdom that is beautiful and glorious and there is a place of destruction, and we don't want to go there. They understand that much.

They believe in who Jesus is and what he's trying to teach them. He says, therefore, because you believe you are like a master of a house who brings out of your treasure what is new and what is old.

That's a really confusing statement. And because I haven't figured out what it means, I want to keep on moving.

No, I honestly, I thought I was gonna have to say that because I pored over this. I studied. I'm like, I don't know what you mean by that, Jesus.

And it wasn't until later on in the week that I finally felt like the Lord granted me understanding of that. But I'm not gonna tell you yet. Put a pin in it. I'm gonna come back to it in a moment. It's gonna be important in a second.

First of all, though, I want you to see what it looks like when people don't understand who Jesus is and don't believe why he came to this earth. And that's people in his own hometown, Nazareth. Let's finish up the passage picking up in verse 53.

And when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there and coming to his hometown, he taught them in the synagogue so that they were astonished and said, where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? Are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?

Are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things. And they took offense at him.

But Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household. And he did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

So super interesting, the people who were the most familiar with Jesus were the most likely to reject him. This is why growing up in church, being familiar with Jesus is not enough.

In fact, sometimes being familiar with Jesus breeds contempt and and not connection with Jesus. They knew who this guy Jesus was. Here's what's interesting. And they didn't even deny the fact that Jesus had incredible power.

Did you notice what they said in verse 54? They didn't say, no man, this man is not wise, he doesn't have power. They said, where did this man get this wisdom?

And where did these mighty works come from? By the way, when it says mighty works, it's talking about miracles.

They know that this guy Jesus is, is wise beyond any other human they've met and has mighty power beyond anything they've ever seen. They just don't know where it came from. And the reason why they don't know where it came from is because they had grown up with this brother.

This was Jesus. The first thing they say is not this, the carpenter's son.

Most believe that because they didn't say the name Joseph, that likely he was already passed away at this point and Jesus had taken over the family business.

Now, according to Jewish pattern of life, at the time of Jesus, when you bar mitzvahed, when you were 13, you would begin to apprentice under your father in his trade. So Joseph was a carpenter. By the way, in biblical times, carpenter meant both woodworker and stone worker. So they would do both of those trades.

And they had a local shop right there in the little village of Nazareth where they would work. And so at the age of 13, there's little Jesus working right alongside his daddy, learning the trade. Now, at some point, Joseph likely passes away.

And so Jesus has been the local carpenter right there in Nazareth. Now I want you to stop and think about this. So at this point now, there's some debate about exactly what year Jesus was born.

But when you put all the events taking place, most likely Jesus is somewhere between 30 to 35 years old when this is happening. So let's just say, you know, he's at least 33 around there. That means that he has been the local carpenter in Nazareth for the last 20 years.

Like these people took their broken chair to Jesus and he fixed it. He was as ordinary as they come, he was like lower than ordinary. Just, that's Jesus. We know his mama and we know the whole scandal of Mary.

I mean, we know Jesus story. He said, aren't his siblings with us? And they don't even believe in him.

What did this guy get off thinking he's got all this power and wisdom and where did that come from? Because they thought they knew him. They rejected him.

You know, it's interesting though, what actually led them to reject him wasn't just that they were familiar with him. It's that he didn't fit the bill of what they were looking for.

Because every single Jew was looking for a conquering soldier to come who could rally the troops against the enemy Rome and solve the their broken circumstances. I mention this every week because it's the context you need to have. Rome is oppressing them.

Their life is overwhelmingly painful and they're just hoping for some relief from Almighty God.

And they're waiting for a Messiah to come with incredible wisdom and supernatural power who can overcome rally the troops, overcome Rome, and finally solve their problems and give them all the things they want. They want to be rich, they want to be comfortable, they want to taste fine foods, they want to be at ease.

They want the conveniences of life they see Rome having. They want all these things and they think the Messiah is going to bring it to them. And they're looking at this guy Jesus going, are you kidding me?

The carpenter? You think he's going to come lead the soldiers against Rome, please. And it says in verse 57, they took offense at him.

That word offense in Greek is skandelizo. Obviously it's where the word scandal comes from.

So they didn't just dismiss Jesus, but it was a scandal in little Nazareth that Jesus would claim to be somebody like the Messiah with that wisdom and power. It was a whole scandal in Nazareth. Like that guy, give me a break. Because he didn't come.

He didn't come ready or willing or able to do what they were hoping for. Truth be told, what they were wanting were mud pies. They wanted good food, they wanted power, they wanted convenience.

They wanted to be the ones telling Rome what to do. They wanted mud pies. But Jesus came to bring them a holiday at sea. They just couldn't tell, but the disciples could.

That's what verses 51 and 52 were about.

Remember I told you when they said yes, he said, well, you're going to be like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. What Jesus was trying to teach there to his disciples is that he was the new fulfillment of the ancient covenant.

You see, they weren't looking for fulfillment of the covenant, the old Covenant, by the way, that's the law of Moses, the Torah.

You read that in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, all these laws of Moses, which ultimately are trying to teach the people of God how to be in right relationship with the holy God. There's this massive sacrificial system. You have blood everywhere, all these animals dying to make them right with Almighty God.

This whole system was set up for one day to be fulfilled in the perfect animal that would finally satisfy the full wrath of God. And Jesus didn't come to lead a rebellion against Rome. He came to be the Lamb of God, sacrificed so that the law could finally be fulfilled.

He gave them this all the way back in Matthew chapter five, when he started in to the Sermon on the Mount. When he said, I didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

He says, truly, truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. I came to fulfill the law, the new fulfillment of the old covenant, because that's what you need.

You think you need me to change your circumstances, but here's the problem. As soon as I change your circumstances, you screw it all up again. Because the problem in your circumstances, it's your heart.

And you keep taking your heart everywhere with you. I came not to heal your circumstances, but to heal your heart, to do what you need most.

And the only way I can do that is not by being your conquering king, but by being the Lamb of God who was sacrificed so that the wrath of God could be absorbed and you could be in right relationship with Almighty God. I came to do what you cannot do, what you don't even want. Because I love you that much.

This is why Jesus says to us today, do you understand what I'm teaching you? Cause it's so hard to see it when the whole world is telling us, eat the mud pie. Eat the mud pie. Eat the mud pie.

And Jesus is saying, I got something so much better for you. But it requires faith. Faith to believe that there's something out there worth more.

Because until you have faith, you're only going to get angrier and angrier at God when he takes away the mud pies so that you can actually see the glory of his kingdom. I See this all the time.

The reason why in our country the health, wealth and prosperity gospel is exploding is because we're revealing this is what we really want and expect from God.

I want you that anytime I pray, I demand that you're going to heal me when I need to be healed, that you're going to bless me with wealth beyond measure, that you're gonna prosper me in every way that I want. And if you don't, I get frustrated with you, God, because my expectation is you're gonna solve all my problems.

And I want you to know in the Bible, God nowhere promises in this life to fix all our circumstances. He promises to heal our hearts. And we have to believe that him doing the hard work is worth it, or we're just gonna get angrier and angrier with God.

I had a moment recently to get a glimpse of the goodness of God through him stripping away some things, how he took some things away so that I could see his glory in a new way. It happened, and I've shared a number of times about my climb up Mount Kilimanjaro with my eldest daughter, Abby.

But God gave me a gift on that mountain, and the gift came through some really hard circumstances. I've shared some with you, but it was a very difficult thing.

Not primarily, or not even only because of the physicality of it and the altitude sickness, but also because I didn't have any of the comforts and conveniences I'm used to. So we're going on a mountain, and there is no running water, which means we don't shower for six days.

That bus when we were done was pretty much the picture he was given of hell. It was bad. You didn't know how bad you smelled. We all got confined in one space. It was rugged, though. You go on six days, your hair is all like.

I don't even want to describe it. It was pretty ugly. You don't have any electricity while you're going along, so you have a headlamp at night to try to.

You're tripping over plants and rocks and stuff like that. When it was time to brush your teeth at nighttime, by the way, it was so amazingly cold. In our sleeping bag, puffer jacket, gloves, beanie.

You could see your breath inside the tent. I don't know if you've ever been tenting before, but if you go tent camping, like, there's not that much between you and outside. It's just cloth.

So it's pretty much just as cold inside the tent as it is outside the tent. And that's what we were doing every night. And we'd go every night sometime around 8, 9, 10 o' clock to go brush our teeth.

Cause you know, fur starts to build on your teeth, you don't brush it. So we got our toothpaste and toothbrush and it's super cold. And you got your water bottle and your hand shaking.

You're trying to pour it over and it's just getting all over your hand. You're freezing, brushing. And on the third night, we were at 14,200ft. The overall climb was gonna be to 19,300.

But we were on the third night in that campsite and we're brushing our teeth, we got little headlamps on and. And I'm freezing, I'm chattering, shaking.

And I don't know, I don't know if it was a prompting from the spirit or what, but I felt like the spirit said, turn off your light and look up. So I went and I looked up.

Now at this point now at 14,000ft, we're above all the clouds and I saw a night sky like I had never seen in my life before. In fact, my friend Kaz took a picture of it. I want you to see what it looked like. I want you to show that that's really what it looked like.

We're in those tents down there in the bottom. You have Mount Mwenzi in the background. And above it you could literally see the Milky Way. It was breathtaking.

And as if God just to delight us on cue, right as Abby and I look up, cause I go, abby, turn off your light and look up. And we look up and see a shooting star goes right across the horizon. And I put my arm around my daughter and I say, abby, can you believe our God?

He spoke that into being in the beginning of the Bible. He just said, let there be light. And that was created. We're seeing light from.

I'm like this animated next to my daughter, people trying to sleep in the tents. Cause I'm so overwhelmed by it. Like we're seeing light from millions of years away. Excuse me, millions of years away. And it's just now arriving.

And that right there, that endless expanse my God created, the glory of the kingdom of God was visible by looking up. And do you know why I could see it? Because I wasn't looking down at a glowing phone.

Because I wasn't comfortable inside my air conditioned house looking up at a popcorn ceiling. Instead of the glory of the splendor of the kingdom of God, it took God taking away My comforts and conveniences.

All the things that I most want for me to see a glimpse of the glory of his kingdom. God takes away things not because he wants to punish you, but because he wants to free you to look up and see the glory of his kingdom.

Because we're too busy looking down at all our comforts and conveniences. In fact, the very things that we're asking God to give us can impede us from seeing the very glory of God.

And he loves us too much to fill our tummies with mud pies when he wants to give us the glory of his kingdom. I just think there are some of you who need to say, okay, God, I'm gonna stop arguing with you and being angry at you. I know what you're doing now.

You're trying to get me to look up into the night sky and see the glory of your kingdom. I just wonder, will you have faith enough to do it? Without faith, it is impossible to see the kingdom of God. But would you be willing?

The Apostle Paul, he says something absolutely profound. I want to finish with this verse. Comes in the book of Philippians, chapter three. It's verses seven and eight, actually, two verses right here.

Verse seven, Philippians three. He says, 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 all the stuff this world has to offer me, he says I count as rubbish. I'm willing to give it up, all of it, because I want Christ and his kingdom, because I believe there's something worth more.

And that's what he's asking. When I ask you to take wild steps of faith, to be willing to go overseas, to take the gospel to a place that doesn't want to hear it, will you go?

Stop pushing me or will you go? Okay, I'm ready to see all the more he has.

If you want me to give up vacation, if you want me to give up finances, if you want me to give up my perfect little American Dream home and disrupt it with bringing a child in, if you want me to give up an hour a week to go mentor to school, if you want me to do all these things that are a part of this God, I say yes because I want to give up. You know, Jim Elliot, missionary says this. He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose.

And God is saying, would you be willing to give these things up? Because I have something so much more. It just takes faith. And you're going, where does that faith come from?

That faith comes from belief in the Gospel of Jesus. Because we have a king who didn't just tell us what to do, but he did it himself.

He had faith when he came to earth and took on flesh, that when his daddy said, I want you to go die on a cross, I want you to give up everything, including your own life. And even when he said, I don't want to do it, Daddy, if there's any other way for this cup to pass from me.

But his statement, not your will, not my will, yours be done, was saying, but I trust you can't see it yet, God, but I trust you. And I'm willing to give up everything in this life if that's how I get the kingdom.

And when you see a king who does that, you say, I'm willing to follow suit. I trust you. We have on this stage a baptistry, and we have it for one reason.

This is the picture of God's call for us to follow Jesus means to live like he lived. And the way he lived was being willing to give up everything for the sake of something worth so much more.

This is why the symbol has to be a baptistery. It can't be a patch you put on a jacket, it's not a certificate you put on the wall. It has to be a symbol that you come and die.

Jesus says, if anyone wants to be my disciple, he has to deny himself, pick up his cross and follow me. The cross is the picture of death.

And so the symbol of following Jesus is not just crossing your heart, hoping it's coming up here and saying, I'm gonna come in and I'm gonna die with King Jesus. Because when I die with him, I give up my rights to everything.

But when I'm resurrected, I'm resurrected into a brand new kingdom that though right now I only see it in part. One day I'm gonna see it in full and I know it's gonna be completely worth it. Do you have that kind of faith?

I believe there are some of you who are here today. And the reason God's gonna give you that kind of faith is because you're so fed up with the world, it has not satisfied you.

You're like the book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon, who says, I've tried everything under the sun and it's useless and it doesn't satisfy. It's all Vanity, Vanity does not fulfill me.

There are some of you who've tried drugs, you've tried sex, you've tried alcohol, you've tried work, you've tried success, you've tried everything. And it's left you broken and empty because you're eating mud pies.

And today is the day you say, at the end of yourself, this world has nothing to offer me, King Jesus. I believe what you have to offer is true. And by faith I give up all of myself to get all of you.

If you're ready to do that, come and die and be raised again. Then we have the Baptistry with warm water ready for you today.

What'll happen is you'll come down in just a moment and you'll tell one of the prayer team down front and we'll talk with you in council. And if you're ready, we'll give you shorts to change into and a T shirt that says Jesus in my place, just like that Baptistry says.

And you can declare your faith in Jesus today before you even leave. Today can be the day when you step into the kingdom of God. Just gotta come. I can't make it happen for you.

I'm gonna invite you in just a moment to do it. One last thing I wanna say, though, there are some of you who are here and you're carrying heavy burdens.

You know that every time at the end of service, we have a time for prayer. But I wanna make sure you understand what you're doing when you come and receive. Prayer for your circumstances.

You're not saying, God, I love you only if you heal my circumstances. But you are saying, lord, you want me to put my circumstances into your hands.

You know, at the very end of it, it said, and Jesus did not do many miracles because of their unbelief, their lack of faith. Actually, in Mark, chapter 6, verse 5, it says Jesus could not do many miracles because of their lack of faith.

It's not because Jesus didn't have power, but it's because Jesus only works with faith. And when faith is absent his power, it's like bringing a torch, but there's no wood to burn.

The heat can come, but unless there's wood to catch fire, it's not gonna burn.

Our prayers, our faith, that's the wood we're heaping on the pile so that when the heat of King Jesus comes, it bursts into flame and mighty power and we see him do what only he can do. I don't want you to sit back in your problems and struggles unbelief and miss the miracle working power of God.

I want you to come before him and say, okay, here's my need. I'm putting wood on the fire. I'm coming in faith, asking you to do what only you can do. God, if you fix my problems, I'll praise you.

If you don't, I'll trust you. But I lay it at your feet. That's what I'm offering for you. I want you to stand to your feet right now, inviting the prayer team to come.

If you're ready to respond, if you're ready to say, I'm ready to come pray. I'm ready to put my faith in what Jesus can do and trust in him no matter how he responds, you can come, let us pray for you.

If you're coming here going, I haven't lived for King Jesus, I need to repent.

You can get down on the steps and you can bow down and say, forgive me for living for this world instead of for your kingdom, God forgive me, you can do that. Or if you're coming to say, I'm ready to place my faith in Jesus Christ, I'm ready for him to be king. This world cannot satisfy.

I believe only he can. And I'm ready to come die and be raised in Christ, you can come, let us know. We'll help you take the step of faith. Now's the time.