Make It Your Aim

there are endless conversations about heaven and hell, eternity, what happens after we die, right? People have been asking that question for all of time. What happens after? In scripture, it actually has a lot to say about what eternity will be like. But scripture also wants us to understand how eternity should change the way we actually live today. And we're gonna read a lot of scripture today. We're mainly gonna be in second Corinthians chapter five. So if you brought your Bible, you wanna go and flip there. Second Corinthians chapter five is where we're gonna spend the majority of our time. Then we're gonna bounce around to some other scriptures all over the place that I'll have you jot down, that you can go back and kind of unpack more later. Because what we're gonna do is let the scripture define itself today. We're gonna let the scripture commentate on itself. And Paul here in his letter to the Corinthian church is gonna tell us that this world is not our forever home. That for those who belong to Christ, there's something infinitely better waiting and that should shape a lot of the things in our lives now. Now he doesn't just talk about where we're going. He tells us how we should live while we're still here. So let's read it together. Second Corinthians chapter five, starting in verse one, it says this.

"For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." So Paul's saying that this current body isn't forever, okay? It isn't eternal. We're all gonna one day, sorry to break it to you, die. Sorry to be the bareness of amen that, I mean, it is true. That's, I mean, 10 out of 10 people will breathe their last breath one day, right? And so he's reminding the believers of this. Verse two, for in this tent, in this body we groan, longing to put our heavenly dwelling. If indeed by putting it on, we may not be found naked. He's saying, there's this thing in us that desires eternity. And on this side of eternity, we're groaning. We're just like, why do you think so many people try to mask their aging so often? It's like we have this groan. Verse four, for while we are still in this tent, we groan being burdened. Not that we would be uncloed, but that we would be further close so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight.

So we say we can trust that if we are in Christ, we're spending eternity with him. Verse eight, yes, we are of good courage. And we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. Verse nine, I want you to hone in right here. Verse nine in your Bible, circle verse nine. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. So right here, verse nine, I want us to focus on verse nine. We make it our aim to please him. Who's him? We make it our aim to please God. That yes, like eternity will one day come and if you are in Christ, you have your guarantee of eternity with God forever. Like you are joined with him. But on this side of eternity, what do we do? Paul says we make it our aim to please God. So two phrases there, we make it our aim to please God. The Greek word that this was originally written in Greek. And Paul, the word he uses is a phrase, make it our aim. And it carries this idea of ambition, something that you aspire to, something that you make your goal.

And we all have ambitions, right? We all have things that we're striving toward. But Paul says here, there's one ambition that rises above everything else. Whether I'm on earth or with Christ in eternity, my aim, my focus, my ambition is to please him. Because really there are two options. We can either live our lives to please God or we can live our lives to please man. That's really the only two options that we have. And I would argue, if I were to ask you, do you want your life to please God? You would probably say yes. Like, of course man, I would love for my life to please God. That sounds great. But what do our actions prove? If I were to follow you around all day and listen to the things that you say or see the things you post or just watch how you interact with people. How about this? If I were to look at your calendar and your bank account with those things on our God, with those things, please God. You see what I'm saying here? It's not just that we would agree. Oh yeah, I want to please God. But what do our actions actually... Or I'm trying to please my boss, or I'm trying to please my friends, my culture? Because all of that is pleasing man.

Or is it my ambition to please Christ with my life? What do my actions prove? We make it our aim, our ambition, this intense affection to drive something forward. That's our aim to please God. And if we live to please man, it's like we're being enslaved to cultures ever-changing preferences. It's like every generation, their culture has a different way of pleasing man. And when we do that, we're living for man's approval. Another way to think of it is to ask yourself this question. What is your greatest treasure in life, your greatest treasure, that if you got that thing, it'd be like, oh man, I've finally Arrived. Is it to get into that school or that college? Is it to get that job? To get that promotion goal at work? To be in that relationship, to have a family, to one day retire and live large. Notice those things are not bad. Those are good things. But are those things the main goal in your life? Is that the number one thing on your list is to achieve whatever that is? Is it your greatest treasure? Or can you honestly say your greatest treasure, your aim? Regardless of everything else and in the midst of everything else is to please God. Which in the immediate follow-up question becomes, okay, how do we please God? What exactly please is God? And what I love about scripture is there are a ton of scriptures that actually tell us things that please God. It's all over the Bible. And so what we're going to do for our remaining time together is we're going to look at four things. Four things in scripture where scripture says, that's why I said we're going to let scripture define itself and commentate on itself. What does it say are things that please God? If you're taking notes, number one, we're going to start right here. We know that God is pleased with his son. We know that God is pleased with his son. In Matthew 3 verse 17 it says, "And behold, a voice from heaven said, 'This is my beloved son, with whom I am well," what? Please. In this scripture, this was at the baptism of Jesus. So Jesus is about to start his earthly ministry and he goes and John, what we now call him is John the Baptist, John the baptizer. He was baptizing people. So Jesus goes to him and John baptizes Jesus.

And it's this crazy, beautiful, wild moment where it says the spirit descends on Jesus like a dove. And this voice says, "This is my son with whom I am well pleased." That's what's going on right here. That God the Father is pleased with God the Son. Now this is super important for us. This is very important for us. Because if you are a believer that you've put your faith and trust in Christ, you believe that what he did on the cross counted for you and your sins, you're made new in Christ, that his spirit is at work in your life. He covers you so, this becomes an identity thing, that when your when your faith is in Christ, scripture also tells us in Ephesians that we are adopted into God's family and Ephesians 1 verse 5, we're adopted into his family. So that when you put your faith in Christ, he no longer sees you and your sin. He sees his son and his daughter. And what is God with his son? He's pleased with his son. So this is all about our identity. And now because of Christ, this is your identity. And then what's so important with this is that our activity then flows out of our identity. We can't get that flipped because so often we think we have to do certain things in order to be accepted by God. This is the majority of any religion that you see you have to do in order to. But this flips that on its head that we did absolutely nothing. We didn't go to the cross. Jesus did. He died for our sins. He rose. And our only thing we do in that is to by faith walk and trust and believe and accept that what he did was for us. And when that happens, then we have a new identity and our identity then produces activity. Activity does not produce identity. We have to know that. Think about kids. My children are my children just because they are my children. They did nothing. It's not like I went on Amazon or went to Walmart and was like, those kids over there look very well behaved. I choose them to be my kids. No, I didn't do that. They are my kids, because they are my kids. They did nothing to earn being my kids. That's kind of what this is. This is the closest we can get to really understanding it.

We did nothing in this equation. It's Jesus plus nothing that equals everything. And we get to accept that our identity then produces some things in our lives. Think about it this way. We spend a lot of time here talking about how God should be first in our life. Yes, amen, that is true. We put like, God is first. But not only is he first. Think about it this way, that he's also the page that we write the rest of the list on. So yeah, he's first on that list. But then he's also the page that the rest of the list is on, meaning we ask ourselves, how do I honor God with all these other things on this list? So those things I talked about earlier, you know, getting into a college, getting that job, having that promotion, having that relationship, being in that family, retiring, whatever it is that's on your list of like life goals. How do you honor God through all of those things? Like yes, the focus on Jesus first, but then how do you honor him through everything? It's all about our identity. That our activity flows out of our identity, which goes right into number two here. So we know God is pleased with his son, and when we are in Christ, he's pleased with us, 'cause he sees us as sons and daughters.

Number two, we know that God is pleased when we live sacrificially. We know that God is pleased when we live sacrificially. We don't have this scripture for you, but I want you to write down Romans 12 verse one. Romans 12 verse one, go back and really unpack this. What I love about Romans 12 one is that it is right after the first 11 chapters of Romans. And you might be thinking, okay, Mr. Obvious, why is that important? Well, the first 11 chapters are all like really, I mean, it's gospel soaked of like identity stuff. This is who you are in Christ. This is what Jesus did. It's all this beautiful stuff about what Christ did on the cross and our identity that's found in that. And then he starts and then he kind of changes gears and he's like, because of all of that, because of everything I listed out, he says, I want you to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. And that is pleasing to God. That when we offer our lives as a living sacrifice, how can you be a living sacrifice? A sacrifice is something that is dead, but a living sacrifice means, this is no longer me living for me. God, I am living for you. I am offering my life to you as a living sacrifice.

And Paul says that pleases God. In response to God, we offer ourselves back. And the way my brain thinks about this is in kind of like three big categories. We live, we are this living sacrifice in the way that we work, in the way that we give, and then the way that we live, which is basically everything else. And how we work and how we give and how we live. Think about it in terms of how we work. Another verse for you to write down, Philippians two verses 13 and 14. Philippians two, 13 and 14. Paul's talking about this and he says that, God is at work for his good pleasure, so do all things without grumbling or disputing. You know what that means? When you are working without grumbling, when you are working without disputing, it turns heads in culture. People are like, oh man, this person's a little different. And you know why that's a sacrifice in our life? Because you know one of the main ways we grumble and dispute in the office or at work or at our jobs, gossip. Do you wanna know what gossip is? This is the easiest way I know how to define gossip. When you talk about somebody to somebody, if I'm talking about this person to this person, that's gossip. And you might be like, oh, I'm just venting into my friend.

Call it whatever you want, it's gossip. Yeah, sure, you're venting and gossiping. Because that person is not right there, so you're not actually saying it to that person. And when you choose to not do that, it's a sacrifice because you're gonna sacrifice some relationships. People are gonna be like, what are you too good now? Can't talk about Johnny over there? Like, no, I actually, I'm gonna just kind of excuse myself out of the conversation. Or how about when you work with integrity? When you choose to do the right thing, even if it's not the easiest thing, It's living sacrificially in your work. We also sacrifice in how we give. Here's another Philippians verse four, Philippians 4.18, write that one down too. Philippians 4.18, so Paul is writing and he's commending the church for the way they have given financially. And Paul tells them because of their sacrifice in giving financially, that sacrifice is pleasing to God. There's another thing that pleases God. So what that means is when we bring God our first and our best, not our leftovers, God is pleased. And believe me man, I love leftovers. Thanksgiving's right around the corner. My favorite thing about Thanksgiving is the leftovers. But we don't bring our leftovers to God

because giving's all about our heart. And if we give God first, if we give Him best, before everything else, we're saying, God, I'm actually trusting you with my heart. And then our heart follows wherever our money goes. If you don't believe me, think about die-hard Gator fan. I mean, like, if you cut this person, they bleed orange and blue. But then their daughter gets into FSU. What does that dad do? He might buy an FSU hat. Probably not though. He's gonna hold strong. But you know what he does without even realizing it? His heart, his daughter is going to FSU. So what happens? His wallet follows. He's paying tuition. He's helping cover books. He's helping cover room and board. Whether he wants to, his heart is simply following where his money goes. I know that's a silly example, but think about that with our giving. When we give God first and best, we're giving him our heart. That's what this is. That is why it is a sacrifice. We also sacrifice in how we live. So in how we work, how we give, how we live.

So if you still have 2 Corinthians 5 opened up, I want you to go to verse 14. It says this in verse 14. "The love of Christ controls us." For the love of Christ controls us. It's all about living sacrificially. This word, control, it implies different things. And what I love about this word is when you go back to the original Greek, where this was originally written, that Greek word can actually be translated a few different ways to give us a full picture of what it means to control. And what's even more interesting, if you take the top, I'll just call them three of the top English translations of the Bible. So the King James Version, the English Standard Version, and the New International Version. If you were to take those three translations, they each translate that Greek word three different ways. And I love it because it gives us a full picture of what the Scripture says. In the KJV, it says constraineth, which means surrounds. ESV says controls, which means steers. And then the NIV says compels, which means drive forward. So what this means is when we see the cross, when we understand what Christ did for us, Christ love surrounds us, it steers us, and it drives us forward. That we are living sacrificially with our entire life.

That it's not our ways, it's not our opinions, it's not our feelings, it's what Christ says in His word. That's what this is. And when we live sacrificially in this way, it pleases God. God is pleased with His Son, which means when we are in Christ, that is our identity, sons and daughters. God is pleased when we live sacrificially, when what we do flows out of who we are. And then number three, we know that God is pleased with faith in Him, with faith in Him. If you still have 2 Corinthians 5 opened up, we already read this together. But in verse seven, it says we walk by faith, not by sight. We walk by faith, not by sight. And then if you jump over, write down Hebrews 11. So in Hebrews 11, this is right before we get to what we now call the Hall of Fame of Faith. All these great like people in the Old Testament throughout history, who just walked out, not perfect people, but people who walked out faith and trust in God. And in Hebrews 11, six, it says this, without faith, it is impossible to please Him, to please God. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. Says without faith, it is impossible to please Him. So that means the inverse must be true,

that faith pleases God. Faith pleases God. And faith, trust, believe. Those are all closely related biblical concepts. through trust in Jesus and His finished work on the cross. So we have to ask ourselves another question here. Does my life demonstrate that I actually trust God? Does my life demonstrate that I actually trust God? We can say we do, but do our actions prove it? Because it's easy to trust God when life is great. It's easy to trust God when everything's up and to the right. You just feel blessed. It's like, oh, yeah, man, of course I'm trusting God. Everything's going so good in my life. But what about when your prayers are not answered? What about when you've been praying for something for years? And it's nothing. What about when obedience to God is actually going to cost us something or someone? What about when God's word goes against what culture celebrates? What about when the future is uncertain? What about when you get sick or you lose a loved one? When life is difficult, do you still trust God then? 'Cause you know what we want? You know what I want? I want a floodlight to my future. I want following God to mean I can just turn this floodlight on and I can see everything in the future. I can see how God's working all these things out. Oh my goodness, you know how great that would be?

You know, stress-free life would be if we could just get the floodlight. But you know what we actually get in Psalm 119? It doesn't say, "God, you are a floodlight to my future." You know what it says? Your word is a lamp to my feet. Oh, that's a terrible verse. A lamp to my feet? That means I can only see this much. Then this much, then this much, then this much. And I know, man, God, can you just, can you reword that? Can the Hebrew actually mean floodlight and not lamp? No, man, you know why? Because every step takes trust. Every step takes trust. Every step takes faith. Even when you don't see it, faith is all about trust. And this is important to know here that you are trusting even in the midst of sometimes doubts. I think a lot of times we think that the opposite of faith is doubt. It's actually not true. The opposite of faith is not doubt. You know how I know that's true? Because all throughout scripture, there are examples showing us that they actually are intertwined, that you can have doubts while having faith. Okay, let's go back to John the Baptist.

Earlier we read how he baptized Jesus, okay? So keep this in mind. John was there telling everybody that the Messiah is coming. Jesus shows up on the scene and John's like, this is the guy. Then he baptizes him. He sees the Spirit descend. He hears the voice say, this is my son. And he continues to proclaim Christ after that, that Jesus is the guy. Okay, fast forward a couple years. He gets thrown in prison for it. John does. And he's about to be killed. And scripture tells us that he calls some of his people together and he's like, guys, I want you to go find Jesus, ask him, and just make sure he's the Messiah. Can you imagine that, can you imagine his friends going up to Jesus and be like, hey, Jesus. Remember John, your cousin, the guy who's been telling everybody you're the Messiah? He kind of is just wondering if you actually are the Messiah. And then it just blows me away. Jesus, well, first he tells them, man, just go back and tell John everything you've seen and heard, meaning all these prophecies that Jesus is fulfilling saying he is the Messiah. They're like, go back and tell him.

And then scripture tells us Jesus turns to everybody else. And what he immediately says to everybody is no one who has ever lived has greater faith than John. What? Jesus, did you misunderstand everything that just happened? No, he didn't. While John was in his greatest doubt, Jesus commends him for his faith. You know what that tells me? The opposite of faith is not doubt. So you know what we do with our doubts? We pick them all up in our arms and we take those steps after Jesus. We follow after him with our questions, with our doubts 'cause he can handle them. And we just keep following. Even when our feelings don't want us to, faith is a choice we make to follow after Christ. It's all about trust. on in moments where nothing seems to be changing, because you know what, actually the opposite of faith, you know what the opposite of faith is? It's fear that you are afraid to trust God with all of these things, that you are afraid because we can't see the floodlight to the future. We're afraid because these prayers aren't being answered. But even in the midst of all that, we can choose to trust in God. I've been praying for certain people in my life to surrender their life to Christ for years, for decades of my life. And they still haven't. But you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to still go to war for them every single day. Sure, I have questions in all of that. But I pick those up and I bring it to God. And I'm still going to call out that He would save them, that He would draw their souls to Him like only He can, because He's the only one who can. Don't faith. It isn't just trusting God when He answers prayers, it's trusting God in the middle of those prayers. That's what faith is. Do you trust God in every season? Not just when life is easy, but when it's difficult. That kind of faith, it pleases God. We make it our aim to please God. He's pleased with His Son. That's our identity in Him. He's pleased when we live sacrificially because of that identity. And He's pleased when our faith and our trust is in Him and then forth and finally. We know that God rejoices when the lost are found. Not only is it something that pleases Him, I love that scripture tells us He rejoices. In Matthew 18, Jesus has given a parable, a story, an example of God's love towards us. And it's in the greater context of sin, accountability, God's mercy, but there's this beautiful moment where the heart of God is shown in Matthew 18, verses 12 and 13, it says this, "If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray. He rejoices over it." In Luke 15, 7, write that one down, it says, "There's more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, that heaven parties when the lost are rescued." Man, I love that.

I remember when I was a kid, probably in middle school, we took a family trip to the beach. And there was a few different families who all had like the same, roughly the same age of kids. I'll go to the beach, everyone gets like their own little spot. And one day, me and some of my middle school friends, keep in mind middle school there, so we are young, dumb and broke. We're hanging out on the beach and one of us, probably me, has this great idea to just start walking down the beach. And you can see this hotel at a distance off and I guarantee they got a pool. Let's go and let's swim in their pool. I don't know if you also know this about the beach, but distance is very deceiving. You can think something's like 50 yards away and it's about five miles away. So we start walking for a while and I'm finally like, "Maybe we should turn around." That thing, we haven't gotten any closer. And I turn around and look though and there's a storm coming through right back where we were and I'm like, "Oh my goodness, I don't want to walk through that. Let's just keep going till the storm passes, then we'll come back." So we keep walking and keep walking and keep walking. And then we walk a little bit more and we finally get to this place. We hang out in the pool for probably five minutes and we're like, "All right, storm has passed. Let's go ahead and make our way back." As soon as we step foot back on the beach, these four wheelers and stuff all surround us. They're asking us our names. We're like, "Tell them all my names. I hope you have packages, secured packages, secure." I'm like, "Oh no." First thought, "What have we done?" Second thought, "My mom is going to actually kill me. She's going to actually kill me when we get back."

So they load us up, they drive us back, honestly, probably like four miles down the beach back to where our family was. And then you see all the parents there and I'm walking up like, "Oh no, like shaking. This is not going to be good." If you know my mom, she's like one of the sweetest ladies in the world, but if it's your mama and she's angry, you're a little nervous. So I'm walking up and you know what she does? She walks right over to me and she hugs me. She hugs me. She doesn't say a word. She just hugs me and I just start crying. She's crying. It's this... Now, there were consequences to my actions later on. Don't get that wrong. But in that moment, there was nothing. the worst possible scenarios in her mind, 'cause she couldn't find her son, 'cause her son was lost. But in that moment, her son was found and she rejoiced. And that's what this is, heaven parties. While I was out wandering, not even aware I was lost, there were people desperately searching for me. And they were filled with nothing but relief and joy when I was found. When you made that decision to put your trust in Christ, heaven, partied. Every week when people make that decision, heaven, parties. So how should that affect us? How should that affect us?

Well, if my greatest ambition is to please God, then the things that matter to God's heart should matter to mine. And right here, scripture tells us that God rejoices when the lost are found, so shouldn't reaching people far from God be one of the greatest ambitions of our lives. Why isn't it? Why isn't it? When's the light, and this isn't to throw shade at anybody, I'm asking myself this question too. When's the last time you simply invited someone to church with you? When's the last time you prayed for somebody who's far from God? I mean, prayed for them. When we open up the altars at the end of service and you don't know what to pray for, when's the last time you came forward, knelt down and just called out to God for that person who doesn't know Christ? When is the last time, do we actually believe this stuff, man? Is this actually one of the greatest ambitions of our lives? 'Cause Jesus tells us to go, make disciples, and you know what making disciples is? It's helping somebody take whatever their next step is towards Christ. And some people, their next step is their first step. So what are we doing? Are we just coming in and getting comfortable and singing the songs and leaving

and going about our day? What is that? What are we doing if we're not living on mission, praying, inviting? If you keep reading in St. Corinthians 5, you go to verse 20. Paul says we're ambassadors for Christ. You know what that means? We represent Him everywhere we go. We represent Christ. Back to verse 10 from that too. Paul said we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. So his ambition to please Christ was connected to the reality that all of us are gonna stand before Him. And that fired Paul up to the point where he wanted to inspire others to go, to live this out because eternity actually shapes our reality. Or to say this way, if you're taking notes, when eternity is our perspective, pleasing Christ becomes our ambition. And that should change everything about how we live our life. It should change everything about everything, about how we actually live our lives. There's this poem maybe you've heard it before, it's called "The Dash" by Linda Ellis. And it's how every gravestone has two dates on it. The day someone was born and the day that person died. But then right in between those two dates is a dash.

And that one little dash, it represents a lifetime. Of relationships, of moments, of ambitions, of accomplishments, of failure, success, sacrifice, conversations, decisions, all represented in that one small dash. And for us, the question is not what did you do with that dash? The question is who did you live it for? Because in eternity, we're not gonna care so much about if we try to impress others. We're not gonna care so much about what seemed successful to other people. We're gonna realize the only life ambition that mattered was living a life surrender to Jesus and inviting as many people as we possibly can on that journey with us. One day, our dash will be finished, but it's not finished yet. If there's breath in your lungs, God's not done. Wherever you are watching this from right now, if there's breath in your lungs, God is not done with you. So what are you gonna do? Who are you gonna live for in that dash? So where are you at today? I think there's two groups of people in this place. There's two groups of people. Wherever you're watching from. First group is the believer, the person who has already been rescued,

who has put their faith and trust in Jesus. What's your next step? If you've been rescued, how are you now gonna live out being a part of the rescue team? There's this old phrase, found people, find people. Who you findin'? Who's in your life? for somebody in your life who doesn't know Christ, someone probably popped in your head. So how can you go to a war for that person? Now Jesus is the only one who can save the soul, but how are you gonna go to a war for them? For opportunities, who can you invite? Say, hey man, and you know how easy an invite is? It's as simple as a text. Hey, I was just thinking about you, wanted to invite you to church with me. We have services Sunday at nine and 11, and then Thursday is at seven p.m. When everyone works for you, I'll meet you there. It can be that easy. If they say no, no problem, just keep praying for them. I guarantee you got hundreds of people in your phone that you could probably reach out to. How are you gonna live this out? Know that your identity is first found in Christ, and then our activity flows from that. Then there's a second group of people in here, those who have not put their trust in Christ. The starting point isn't just trying to live a better life.

It's surrendering your life to Jesus. Trusting in his death and resurrection, that accounted for you to surrender and say yes to following him. And we've spent today talking about what pleases God. You don't have to clean up your life before you come to him. That's good news for us. Jesus has already done what you can never do for yourself. All there left to do is just respond to what he's done for you. That he lived the sinless life you could not live. He died the death that our sin deserved. And he did that for God so loved the world. And in that, we can put our hope and our trust in him. (gentle music)