I Believe; The Resurrection and Eternity | Keeping Eternity in Mind

(crickets chirping) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (crickets chirping) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (crickets chirping) (upbeat music) (crickets chirping) - What's up everybody? How you doing today? (crickets chirping) - Come on ladies, are y'all excited for the gathering or what? (crickets chirping) Man, that was pretty weak. I thought it was going to be more like, oh my gosh! (crickets chirping) Come on ladies, y'all excited or what? (crickets chirping) All right, all right, then make sure you get your tickets. Both nights are the same. It's going to be an incredible night

and it's a great night to invite your friends. So make sure you get those tickets going. Hey, my name's Jordan. I'm part of the team here. And look, if we haven't got to meet one another, the good news is we go to the same church, y'all. What's up? We're going to learn each other at some point. We don't bump into each other. But it's such an honor and a privilege to be able to share with you God's Word today. And let me just say, can you just help me to welcome all of our first-time guests? We are so honored that you have carved out this part of your weekend. It's fun with us. Come on, show your love at all of our campuses. All those watching online, our big, happy family. Let's go, show your love everybody. (audience applauds) So glad you're here. You know, we're in a series called I Believe and it's kind of founded on the Apostles' Creed. Now, I've been struggling since this has started as a series because I hear the word creed and all I hear is ♪ Can you take me ♪ ♪ I know ♪ ♪ Now, now, now, now, now ♪ You know what I'm saying? Like anybody else with me on that?

Thank you. I feel like there's a few of you that are and I just want to embrace you. ♪ We're the ones who I'd hope on ♪ ♪ Under the sunlight ♪ You know, I actually thought maybe I could just preach this whole sermon doing creed songs, you know? 'Cause for me, it'd bring tears to my eyes, my sacrifice. I don't know, okay, I'm done. I'm finished, that's it. Thank you so much for indulging me. I hope that it blessed you as much as it blessed me or maybe not at all. (audience laughing) So, so we're in this series. I don't even know where to go from here. I'm gonna just take a hard left. Come with me, okay, here we go. We're in this series before creed was a ban and we were talking about the Apostles' Creed. It was a confession. A creed is a confession. It's a statement of belief. The word creed comes from the Latin word credo, which means I believe. This is a confession that we as Christ followers believe at declaration of who our God is, of what Jesus has done

and where our hope is ultimately found. Listen, if you wanna study a little bit more through this series about this creed, where it comes from, why did we do a whole series on it? We put a bunch of resources on the Bayside app. If you click the next steps area of the app, you'll actually see videos and different just Bible studies that you can engage in personally for your spiritual growth. I would encourage you that you should be taking ownership of your spiritual growth throughout the week before we come back together on the weekends. And so, we've put a bunch of resources there that I just wanna encourage you to check out. And so, as we've done every week, I want us all to stand together. We're gonna recite the creed if you're able to stand with us. And let's all recite this creed together that has been declared by thousands upon thousands of saints throughout the centuries to declare what we believe and who we believe in. Let's say it together. I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended to hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there, he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, and the life everlasting. Amen, you can be seated. We've been breaking this creed down section by section each week in the series, and I pray that you can feel your belief and your theology growing stronger and maybe more secure as we are understanding and being reminded of some foundational beliefs that we have as Christ followers. Now, some of the things that this is your first week with us, it might have caught you off guard and I wanna encourage you to go back and watch the first two weeks of this series because you might have declared, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church and that might have confused you. But let me remind you, the word Catholic here, it's not talking about a denomination we know, but it means and refers to the universal church, the capital C church, the church that is the bride of Christ that spans no matter the denomination. And so we are discovering each section of this creed and today we're moving towards hope. A hope that would say, regardless of the circumstances

that you're going through, it's not over. A hope that begs the question, death, where is your sting? A hope that would help us to realize that we're not living to die, but we are dying to live. Come on, somebody. (audience applauds) So today, we're gonna focus on eternity. Now, let me say something real quick. We could do a whole message series about eternity. We could maybe even preach a whole year on eternity because there's a whole lot there. Some of you will get that later. When we could talk about what heaven will be like. We could talk about what happens after we die, but that's not what today's message is. Today's message is about living with eternity in mind. Because when eternity becomes real to us, it changes how we live it today. And the choices that we make in this temporary life can have eternal significance. The creed states the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. You know, as I read that this week, it just reminded me of like all the superhero movies that I like to watch. And sounds like a fairy tale, life everlasting, like watching and fantasizing about these things that we could just live for forever. And I wanna ask you a question

that maybe you would wrestle with throughout today. Where do you think all of our fairy tales that we've ever heard got their storyline from? Do you think it's just someone's imagination? Or is it an elaboration of a good story? You know, can I tell you what I think the greatest stories are doing to us? They're waking something up deep within our hearts. Why are we fascinated by places like Narnia and Pandora? Why did Tolkien create and write something as epic as the Lord of the Rings? Why are we drawing the stories where a kingdom has fallen and darkness has covered the land and a rightful king returns and evil is defeated? Why do we love stories where the curse is finally broken and everybody gets to go home? I think it's because those stories touch something deep inside of all of us. Something in us knows that beauty should last. That love should not end at the grave side. Where evil should not get the final word and somehow, somewhere, some way, we all get to go home. Here's the strange thing. We've never seen that world and yet somehow we miss it. We dream about it. We write stories about it to try to capture what we think this realm and this world could look like. Have you ever felt that? Where you're standing somewhere beautiful? Maybe you're watching the sunset at a beach

or maybe you climbed to the mountain top or you're sitting around the table with all the people that you love. And just for a moment, everything feels right. You know that feeling? And even while we're in those moments, there's a deep ache inside of us because you know it won't last. The sun will go down, everybody will go home, the kids will grow up, the seasons will change My son, this past week, turned 16. This is your warning. Be mindful on the roads. For those of you that have gone before us as parents, there's a part of this season that is incredibly liberating. It's like, hey, you go to publics. I don't have to anymore. You go pick up your sister. But then there's this deep grief that the child you raise needs you less than ever before. Another season where joy and sorrow exist together. Why does life have to be this way? Why do we feel this way? Dream this way. You're in this way. You know what? The Bible actually tells us why. In Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 11, it says that God has set eternity in the human heart. This longing of better things, better places, better circumstances. It's not childish. It's not silly. It is not proof that we're disconnected from reality. It may actually be a clue that there's so much more in store for us than we realize that God has put something in your heart to make you homesick. C.S. Lewis said it like this, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." So the fairy tales we grew up hearing and watching, that wasn't what put this longing in us. They simply gave it a language for it. We didn't invent eternity because we were afraid to die. Maybe we keep imagining worlds made right because we were made for one and we were made from one. And there lies one of the deepest questions underneath so much of the human story. Where is home?

I'll tell you where it's not. It's not the building you grew up in as a child. It's not your little neighborhood that's run by an HOA that you don't like. You know where home is? Home is where nothing is missing, nothing broken, nobody has to leave. Home is where you're fully known, completely loved, and finally whole in the presence of God. And so when we declared in the creed, I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life after lasting, that we are naming the home that ultimately our hearts have been searching for all this time. Psalm 23, David, the psalmist gives us another beautiful picture of what living with eternity in mind looks like. He says this in verse Psalm 23, "Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever." It's the goodness of God surrounding us forever. It's the unfailing love of God pursuing us forever. It is living in the presence of the Lord forever that is home. And sadly, I see so many of us living with a very limited view of eternity. We live as if this is all there is. And we plan and we prepare for everything. We plan our weeks. We plan our vacations. We plan where we're going to eat after lunch. And some of y'all been thinking about that since the second song. We prepare for school. We prepare for a career. We spend years preparing for retirement. And those things are great, and they matter. But let me ask you something, Church, how much are we preparing our hearts for forever? See this rope here, this rope represents eternity. And this rope just keeps going and going and going out the backstage into And if you try to follow it, you'll never find the end of it. And this little tiny red section, this represents the life that we get here, 70, 80, 90 years if we're blessed and everything after it represents eternity. And here's what's crazy, that most of the things that keep us awake at night are packed into this little red section. The stress, the pressure, the promotion, the bills, the things somebody said about you, the thing that somebody did to you, the thing that you're trying to prove, all right here. All of it right here. Now, I'm not saying that this part doesn't matter, it matters deeply. Your family matters, your work matters, your pain matters, your choices matter, this life matters. But what I am trying to tell you is that it's just not all that matters because it's not

all that's there. Forever is not just something that we believe about later, forever should change how we live in today. Psalm 16 says, "You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever, a life with Jesus forever in the fullness of joy because we are forever in the presence of God the Father Almighty." This is what eternity looks like. And now that you have this picture of eternity growing inside of you, growing in your hearts and minds, I want you to know that three things are happening to you right now. Three things that are growing and building inside of you that you don't yet realize, but as you're focused on eternity, here's what's happening, here's the first thing. Hope is getting stronger. Can you feel it? Can you feel hope arising? And no matter what you're facing, that's not the end. You see, a Christian's hope is not built on our circumstances. It is built on an empty tomb, come on somebody, because Jesus rose, the cemetery is not the end of our story, because Jesus rose, cancer does not have the last word, because Jesus rose, the worst thing that has happened to you will not be the last thing that has happened to you. That means our future is not less real, it's actually more real. The resurrection of Jesus was just a glimpse of what he is promising us. Look at Jesus after the resurrection. He didn't come out of the grave less alive, he came out more alive than ever before. He walked, he talked, he ate breakfast with his friends, he could have been seen, he could be touched, he had scars on his hands and one in his side and at his feet, but the wounds did not define the story anymore, his resurrected life did. Because he got up, guess what everybody, we get up to. You know, I think that a lot of times our picture of eternity is just way too small. I think we think that when we get on the other side of this thing and we step into this eternal

presence, that we think we're going to be floating on a cloud somewhere, maybe playing a little harp, we might even picture us having a little wing, floating around like it's almost not real. But you know what the Bible gives us something so much better? The creed gives us something solid to reframe our bad pictures, says I believe in the resurrection of the body. That means it's going to be as real as you feel this moment is right now. The apostle John caught a glimpse of what this is going to look like. And in Revelation 21, he says this, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth and for I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look, God's dwelling place is now among the people and He will dwell with them and they will be His people and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things that have passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new." And then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." And if you haven't read the end of the book yet, spoiler alert, the King will come back. The curse will be broken, broken bodies will be made whole, the dead will rise, grief will give way to reunion, creation will be renewed and God will dwell with His people. And everything that sin has fractured, Jesus will make whole, shame will be gone forever. No more death, no more pain, God Himself will wipe every tear from your eyes. This is not another movie posing as a happily ever after. This is what the believers are promised by Jesus Christ, who is our Lord. So what do we do? I'm so glad you asked, because Paul says, "Hey, something important while you're waiting here before you step into eternity." Second Corinthians 4, he says, "Therefore, we do not lose heart, though outwardly we are

wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day, for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes, not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. It's what is seen as temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." You know what Paul is saying? Paul is saying, "Your suffering isn't imaginary." He understands the pains that we go through in this world. Paul knew pain. He is saying pain is just temporary. It has an expiration date, but look at this, you don't. You don't. When eternity gets bigger in our hearts, hope gets stronger. But here's the second thing that it does, priorities get clearer. Going back to the Apostles Creed, it says, "Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead." Now that line can make us feel a little nervous, because when we hear judgment, we think, "Oh, again, here comes the hammer," and we start feeling condemnation. We start feeling guilty. We start feeling shame. We start feeling rejected, but I need to make something very clear to us today. Heaven is real, and hell is real. These are not metaphors that the church has invented to make good people feel better about their future, or bad people frightened into acting right. No, Jesus actually spoke about both of these as eternal possibilities, as eternal realities. In Matthew 25, Jesus said, "Then they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life." Jesus uses the word "eternal" to describe both outcomes. If we're going to believe Jesus when he promises eternal life, "Oh, man, that's good. I like that, Jesus." And then yet we also have to believe him when he warns us about an eternal separation from

him. God is not looking for people to condemn. That's why he sent his son, Jesus. Jesus carried all of our sins. Jesus died in our place. Jesus rose from the grave and made a way for us to come home. He's gone to the greatest possible lengths to save us and rescue us from eternal separation. So maybe, maybe you're crying. Listen, I'm not saying that your goals are bad. I'm not saying stop planning or stop working hard. I'm just saying don't spend your whole life climbing a ladder only to discover it was leaning against the wrong wall. When we see eternity clearly, we become more faithful with the right things. We start to realize that I'm a steward of what God has given me while I'm here. I think we need to start asking ourselves what am I treating like a huge deal that eternity says is pretty small? And what am I treating as a small thing that heaven says that's a really big deal. See, when eternity gets bigger in our hearts, our priorities get clearer and eternity helps us to live for what really matters the most. Listen to the heart of God truly wanting us to understand that He's working with us, that He's walking beside us, that He's not leaving you and He's not forsaking you, but He wants you to understand that what He has for you is far greater than what your human mind can comprehend. So 2 Peter says that the Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness instead He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance. And so the reality of heaven and hell and the scope of eternity is not meant to make us afraid to live. It is actually meant to free us, to live for what really matters, to look to Jesus first, to care for our families. And that includes the church family, to give generously knowing that we can't take it with us because the currency of heaven is not the currency of this earth. The kingdom currency is time, talent, touch, treasure and words. When eternity gets bigger in our hearts, hope gets stronger. Priorities get clearer and here's the last thing that happens. Repentance gets quicker. I need somebody to hear this from the deepest part of your heart. Repentance is not shame. Eternal life is received, not

achieved. Eternal life is not a prize for people who finally got good enough. No, we receive it by putting our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews, chapter 3 says, "Be careful, then, dear brothers and sisters, make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day while it is still today so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. For if we are faithful to the end, trust in God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ." Remember what it says. Today, when you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts as Israel did when they were built. That scripture talks with some urgency, doesn't it? It says, "While it's still today, and today when you hear his voice, not someday, not when life calms down, not when you feel more spiritual, not when you feel more comfortable, not when you've carved out a little room for God to come into your life." No. Today, get your priorities together today because here's the thing. You can't repent yesterday. Yesterday is gone. And you can't repent tomorrow because tomorrow isn't promised to us. The only moment that you can give God is the one that you're standing in right now reminds me of this song that we used to sing in my church growing up. oh it's so much easier to say tomorrow who promised you tomorrow better choose the Lord today for tomorrow very well might be too late in light of eternity later can be a dangerous word later I will forgive later I will tell the truth later I will obey what God told me to do later I will come back to Jesus listen to me the place of repentance is always now and I would say that and I don't sing this to scare you I say it because I love you and more importantly Jesus loves you way more than anyone humanly possibly could I just don't want us to leave here afraid about eternity I want us to leave here wide awake to the fact that he is being patient with us he doesn't want anyone to perish but later tomorrow very well might be too late the creed says I believe in the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting aren't you glad that it doesn't say I believe in the perfection of the saints thank God because none of us would make it there we'd all miss it but that's why the place of repentance is right now and you know what repentance means all it simply means is to do an about face to

turn from the way that you have been going and to start walking back into the arms of God the Father Almighty I pray that eternity is becoming real to us today and I pray that if so just buy a little bit that it would start to challenge us and change what we are willing to tolerate in our lives just a moment we're gonna give you some space to have a conversation between you and the Lord and in just a moment some words are gonna come up on the screen there's gonna be a couple of different slides and this is an opportunity for you to posture your heart to be transformed to receive forgiveness to allow the reality of eternity to maybe reorder some of our priorities one of the most meaningful practices in Christian liturgy is confession and repentance now what is liturgy maybe for some of you you come from a more liturgical background in the church you were brought up in and it sounds like it could be pretty formal pretty proper but every church has some form of liturgy liturgy is how the church unites together and we use scripture and songs and prayers to respond to God corporately in unity as one church that we would all choose to turn our hearts towards God that's liturgy and so you may need something you may need to share something before God that you've never shared with him yet you may need to release someone that you have refused to forgive maybe there's something God has asked you to do and you have not done it I don't want the words on the screen to just be words on the screen I want to invite you to posture your heart whatever campus you look why Would you just take a moment right now and just prepare your heart? Open your heart. Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart. This is a moment that you need. We all need this. We all need to come back together. We all need to come and understand that repentance is now. And let me make sure that we're all in understanding

that this is not just some religious exercise. This is not a thing of religiosity. This is a follower of Jesus' thing that we turn our hearts and repent to Him. And so turn your attention to the screens. Open your hearts and take some time. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) Now as one church family and all of our campuses together, we're gonna pray a prayer of confession. And again, don't simply let these just be words on the screen. Let them become the honest confession of your heart. Let's pray this together. Merciful God, we come before you and we confess that we have sinned against you in what we have thought, what we have said, and what we have done. As well as in the things you called us to do that we left undone. We have not loved you with our whole hearts

and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We do not want sin, pride, unforgiveness, or compromise to harden our hearts or pull us away from you. We wanna live with eternity in view and nothing between our hearts and yours. We are truly sorry and we turn from our sin because of what Jesus has done for us, have mercy on us and forgive us. Thank you that eternal life is not something we earn, but a gift we receive through faith in Jesus. Together we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, and we believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead by your Holy Spirit. Search our hearts and reveal anything that does not belong. Teach us to live a life of confession. Humble enough to admit when we are wrong. Quick to repent and ready to receive your grace. Help us to light in your will. Walk in your ways and live in the freedom you have given us. May our lives bring glory to your name, both now and for eternity. In Jesus' name, amen, amen. I pray that for all of us here, that you heard something from the Lord, because one word from the Lord is better than 10,000 from anybody else. I also know that some of you prayed that prayer, as it was the first time you invited Jesus Christ to be the Lord and Savior of your life. And we as a church, man, we want to equip you.

We want to walk with you. We want to help you on this journey. While we're in this life together, man, we are so much better together. And we want to walk with you and help you. And I just want to ask, just for some boldness, that you wouldn't deny the Lord before man, that you just made just changed the course of your eternity. And so if that's you, if you just made that decision to make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life for the first time or for the first time in a long time, you recommitted your life to Christ on the count of three. I want you to boldly lift your hand. You ready? One, two, three, come on, come on, yeah, come on, brother. Come on, sister, let's go, let's go. Come on, I see you in the back. Yes, let's go, praise God, praise God. Come on, I saw you in the back there. Amazing, amazing. Come on.