It’s the End of the World As We Know It

Pastor Scott Smith- February 24, 2026

This message teaches that while the world as we know it is coming to an end, no one knows when—so the goal of studying the end times is not fear or speculation, but readiness. It calls us to live with the end in mind, carrying hope and purpose by helping others know and follow Jesus.

Transcript

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Alright, so we are going to end our 30-minute theology series, or as we can now call it, our 48-minute theology series with a little bit of bad news. And I don't actually want to be the one to deliver the bad news, so I've asked someone else to deliver the bad news. Here's the news. It's the end of the world as we know it. And before you think I'm going to email him because he put Homer Simpson on screen in a church service, it's funny. So that'll be my response to your email. I just thought it was funny. This is a funny picture, but here's the deal. We joke about it. But the reality is it's the end of the world as we know it. And that's not a very positive thing to hear when you walk into church, but here's what I mean by that. It is something that whether you are in the realm of atheism or religion, if you believe in creation or if you uh prescribe to evolution, it doesn't matter. You can call yourself a Christian or not call yourself a Christian. The majority of people on this earth believe that the earth as we know it is coming to an end as we know it. Things are degrading, whether it's natural science, we see different things like that, or we see from an anthropological perspective, cultural behaviors, things are moving in a direction where it does seem like the world is going to end. It's actually the one thing that most people tend to be able to agree upon is that the world as we know it is coming to an end. Thousands of books have been written about this. I mean, you're talking hundreds and hundreds of years. Fiction, nonfiction. There are scholars who have devoted their entire lives to studying the end of the world. And the end of the world, that study, that pursuit, it's a five-syllable, it takes you an entire hand to pronounce it. It is this, it is called eschatology. You can read it with me. Eschatology, right there on the screen. And it is the right there on the screen. Hey, the study of that. They're messing with me. See, this is what happens. When you lie to them for seven weeks straight and you tell them, I promise I will not go long. They're like, Well, we'll get you back in the last service. And you're gonna point to the screen and we're gonna, we're gonna run long on you. So, for that I would say, kudos to y'all. Well played. I deserve that. Eschatology, the study of last things. Why do we say that it's the study of last things? Because the world as we know it, I had to pause, has not ended yet. Because if it would have ended, then that would have been awkward, and then that would have been, I would have missed my point there. It's not the end of the world yet. So we study the last things. The world now, here's the deal. We are closer to the end of the world than we've ever been. And we are now closer to the end of the world than we've ever been. It's like people show you that photo of themselves and they're like, hey, here's a photo of me when I was younger. And then you kind of look at them and you're like, isn't every photo of you a photo of you when you were younger? It's the end of the world as we know it. We know the world's coming to an end. And so the reality within this realm of eschatology, this study of last things, is we're looking at prophetic words. We're looking at things that have been said about the end of the world to understand how to approach the end of the world. So essentially, what we do when we study the end times is we look at things that have been said looking back so that we can look ahead as to what's going to come. And I need to toss out this disclaimer because it is impossible for us to cover all of the prophecies about the end of the world. Because there are people in the room or watching online who are waiting for this type of message because they want me to tell them what they should believe about the end of the world. Or maybe they've been waiting for that pastor to agree with their opinion and their perspective on the end of the world. And it's like, great, Pastor Scott, just tell us exactly what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, how it's going to happen, so that we know exactly what's going on. Here's the disclaimer. You ready for it? That is not this message. That is not this one. Because scholars can't even agree on some of these things. However, the purpose of this conversation is we are going to look at some basic understanding of the study of last things. Hopefully, we're going to learn a few things, and more importantly, we are going to realize, maybe for some of us for the first time, why it is important to look at the last things, to understand the end times, to approach the end of the world as we know it. Because we do believe the world as we know it is coming to an end. When? And Jesus himself actually commented on it as he was teaching his disciples right before he went to the cross. He's giving them a final bit of instruction. And he tells them, hey, look, in the last days, you're going to start to see evidence. You're going to see what there are called signs that are going to point to that. Things like signs of deception, meaning at that time in the last days, people will be dishonest people. People will start to lie. And you're going to hear some of this and you're going to think, man, we really are, because he goes in and he says, there's going to be wars among nations. There's going to be devastation, pestilence, famines, sickness, an anti-Christian posture towards the world. In the last six years, do you know how many people have gone online or ordered off the phone at 2 o'clock in the morning because they were up in the middle of the night and they couldn't sleep and they saw somebody selling one of those five-gallon buckets of macaroni and cheese on the internet in case the apocalypse happened? Why? There was a global pandemic. There were, I mean, talk about an anti-Christian posture, and our generation, especially in the last six years, the fear of the end of the world has just shot through the roof. And every generation has observed the signs. See, we can only see what we can see, but the generations before us also saw the signs. There are people who are no longer living who experienced World War I. There are people who are no longer living who experienced World War II. And there are people who have experienced global pandemics who are no longer living. These things are happening and have been happening. And Jesus himself told his disciples, these things are going to happen. Not only that, Paul, who in his second letter to his protege Timothy, he actually describes the last days as terrible times. And in it, he describes the behaviors of people. He actually puts together a list that he says, look, here's how people are going to be in the last days. Now I'm going to read these for you and just see if some of them maybe sound familiar to you. In the last days, in these terrible times, people will love themselves, they will love money, they will be boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, without self-control, slanderous, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, conceited, reckless, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. We can all pull out our phones this afternoon and probably check off half of that list within about five minutes of just scrolling on social media. Because the world as we know it is coming to an end. Everything points in that direction. Everything points in that direction from an ecological and a natural science perspective, and from an anthropological, from a cultural behavior perspective, in what we have in Scripture that has kind of forewarned us. Now, here's the kicker for everybody, though, is everybody wants to know if this is the end of the world, then when is it going down? We want to know. And I'll say it like this it's gonna be cheesy. It might be the end of the world, or it might not be right now, but it is the world of the end. The things that are happening are going to continue to happen as we approach the end of the world. But that's not good enough for a lot of us because a lot of us want to know when is it going to end? We want to know, look, here's the deal. I'm retiring in about seven years, and so you look at your thing and you're like, all right, well, okay, God, look, I know we're supposed to trust you, and you know, and we don't know, but it would really help me know how much to invest in my 401k if the world's gonna end, then we're just gonna splurge and take that vacation. You're like, look, I've always wanted that car, we're gonna buy that car because you know what? God's coming back. For some of us, it would change where we went to lunch today if we knew that God was coming back next week. You wouldn't have that normal conversation, right? That conversation that every parent has with their kid and every kid hates to hear. Can we go out? We got food at home. If you knew Jesus was coming back next week, you'd say, we do have food at home, and I don't care. Let's go spend it all. We want to know because people, we we're fixated on when it's going to happen, and this is not new. There's fear involved in that. We want to control kind of the outcome of things, and it's normal for people to want to know when the world is gonna end. People have been trying to find out when the world is gonna end for forever. I mean, you're talking about, I mean, the Mayans, in their calendar that they constructed eons ago, the Mayans put together this uh predicted calendar set that said in the year 2012, the world would come to an end. Well, I checked my phone this morning and it's 2026. But Danny Glover and John Cusack and Woody Harrelson all still got paid for being in the movie 2012 that came out 15 years ago to showcase the end of the world as was predicted by the Mayans. Even does anybody remember Y2K? Does anybody okay? If you're if you were not born in the 1900s, Y2K stands for year 2000, and here's what that meant. The the year was turning from 1999 to 2000. Here's why that's important. Computers were not invented when it was year 999. So nothing had to scroll over from a digital and and an information age perspective when we went from year 999 to year 1000. That's different when we went from 1999 to 2000. Has anybody heard the song? Tonight we're gonna party like it. Yeah, okay. Why? Because people thought it was gonna be the end of the world. They thought the world lives in a digital uh space now, and we're not prepared for all the computers. The banking system will collapse, planes will fall out from the sky, because the year 2000 is going to be the end of the world. I mean, panic ensued. I remember we came home, me and my friends came home, New Year's Eve, 1999, it's like 11:30, 11:45, and we're all in my basement at my parents' house, and we're watching the ball drop. And it's exciting, man. There's a bunch of us, and we're having a good time. And as soon as it hit midnight, unbeknownst to us, my dad had gone outside to the breaker box. And as soon as it hit midnight, he hit the breaker box and everything went out. And we're like, And you can just hear him outside laughing, the dogs barking. It was wild. Just to mess with us. Because we thought in the year Y2K it was gonna, the world was gonna end. It goes back even further. In the 80s, there was a religious leader from Taiwan. He created this new religion he called the true religion, also just FYI. If anybody comes out with a new one and says this is the true one, it's probably not the true one. But in the 80s, this man goes on TV and he says, Listen, I know exactly when the world is gonna end. It's gonna be March 25th, 1988. Mark your calendars. That's gonna be the end of the world. God's gonna come back and it's gonna destroy the world, but there's a way out. So I need you to know some things. And he told all these people on television, when God comes back, he's gonna look just like me. Red flag, one. And then he's like, but here's the deal: you're gonna be able to escape the end of the world. All you have to do is send me some money, and I'll give you a ticket. And that ticket will allow you to board a spaceship on March 25th. Now, the spaceships are really, they look like clouds because the clouds you see in the sky are just disguising themselves. They're really spaceships. People sent this man money. Some of you didn't know that. Now you're gonna look at clouds and be like, oh, whoa, are they spaceships? Now I've been on many flights and I've flown through some clouds and I've never seen any aliens, but this happened in the 80s. And I don't know if you can tell time not, but uh March 25th, 1988 came and went. And I don't know that anybody boarded a cloud and went to Mars. In 1910, I want to show you what people thought was gonna end the world. In 1910, this is what people thought uh was gonna end the world. This is called Halley's Comet. Right here. Boom. They thought that was gonna end the world in 1910. They thought this thing is gonna smash into the earth and the world's gonna be over. Now, here's what scientists would eventually learn is that Haley's Comet actually uh comes around every 76 years, did not slam into the earth, but people thought it would, and so people went nuts. I'm talking worldwide panic ensued in 1910, and because those of us in America possess a level of ingenuity, some good folks in the state of Oklahoma decided that since Haley's comet was gonna destroy the earth, they would bottle air and sell it. Because it's gonna destroy the earth as we know it and it's not gonna be livable. But if you want to breathe, we've bottled up the air in Oklahoma. Now, no offense if you're from Oklahoma. I've been to Oklahoma. That is not the state I would choose to purchase air from. Now, of course, Haley's Comet would come right back around in the 80s. I don't know, maybe people were preoccupied trying to board one of those cloud spaceships and didn't realize, but it came by. And who knows what happened to those bottles of air. They've probably been sold on eBay at this point. Maybe you can find one later today. Some Oklahoma air to avoid the end of the world so you can live. People have been guessing when the end of the world is for a long time, but no one knows. And I'll tell you why we believe no one knows is because Jesus said, no one knows. In that same conversation as he was talking about the signs at the end of the world, Jesus in Matthew 24, verse 36, he's telling his disciples, listen, here's what's going to happen. End of the world is coming. This is what things are gonna look like. However, Matthew 24, 36, no one knows the day or the hour when these things will happen. Not even the angels in heaven or the son himself, only the Father knows. He goes on a few verses later in verse 44 of Matthew 24, he tells them, So you must also be ready all the time. For the Son of Man will come when least expected. We know that the world is gonna end as we know it because all signs point in that direction. But no one knows when. And people have tried for a long time. And the reason people want to know when is because they want to be prepared for things that are going to happen. Because there are some things that are going to occur at the end of the world. And we're gonna look at those, and we're gonna look at what people believe about those. And it's not a conversation to convince uh any of us into one particular perspective. In fact, I would encourage you to utilize the resources at sunrise.net. Every single message in the 30-minute theology series has resources available to dig deeper. And we have those available for you. And even through the website, those resources that look at the end times, some of those perspectives will be varied. But all of them involve certain elements. And some of those elements have invoked a lot of wonder. And so a lot of the movies and television shows and books that have been written are taking their cues from what's commonly referred to as apocalyptic literature in Scripture. We would call that the book of Revelation specifically, because in the book of Revelation, it's the very last book of your Bible, it highlights a few things that are going to happen at the end of the year. The first that people seem to be the most enthralled by is what is commonly referred to as the rapture. And the rapture, if I can just put it simply, I'm not going to give a very eloquent description to it, but the rapture is essentially a future event in which Jesus comes back and the believers who are alive on the earth poof, get taken up in with him. And so it's where you find phrases, even in scripture of people in a field together walking, and one of them disappearing. There was a song that came out in kind of the Woodstock days. It said, I wish we'd all been ready. DC Talk redid it back in the 90s. And it talks about a man and wife asleep in bed, she hears a noise and turns her head, he's gone. And it was this idea that you could be walking next to someone who is a believer. And when the rapture comes, the believer is gone. They used to sell these shirts in the 80s and 90s. They used to sell these shirts. My dad had one. It said, in case of rapture, you can have this shirt. Because the idea is that you would disappear, and that shirt would be for someone else. And it's it's produced quite a bit of wonder. What's interesting about rapture is that word rapture is not actually found in your Bible. And for some of us, we think we know exactly how the world is going to end, and that rocked us because we thought, no, it's in there. No, it's actually not. The English word that we use, rapture, traces its roots back to a Latin word called rapire. Rapire means to be seized or to be dragged off, to be carried away. And the reason we get that Latin word is because the Latin word takes its cues from some Greek words that are found in multiple places in the New Testament of your Bible. One of them being from a man named Paul who writes a letter to a church in a place called Corinth. And in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes this, and this is something to make note of. It produces such a spirit of wonder around it, this rapture, because it is indeed a great mystery. And Paul says that in verse 51 of 1 Corinthians 15. He says, Listen, I tell you what, a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, the dead will raise, imperishable, and will be changed. That's where we pull out this caught up rapire in Latin, translated into rapture in English, this carrying away, caught up, seizing of at that moment. And it is a mysterious thing. It's so mysterious, it has provoked so much interest and wonder that people have written books and produced movies. One of them is a book series that was later turned into a movie series called the Left Behind Series. Does anybody know what the Left Behind Series is? Great. For the half of us who maybe don't know what that is, there was an author, he's in heaven now with Jesus. His name was Dr. Tim LaHaye. Dr. Tim LaHaye was a pastor and then he became an author. And he wrote what is the most uh known and prolific series in literature uh form and basically probably all of American literary history and potentially the world, and he wrote this series about the end times called the Left Behind Series. To give you some context for how widespread these books were, over 65 million copies of the Left Behind series were sold worldwide. He was on the best sellers list in three different categories for seven of these books. It was the most, and probably is still considered the most popular set of literature concerning the end times. They would make a movie about it. Nicolas Cage would be in the movie. I'm talking Con Air, National Treasure, and the Left Behind series. Nicolas Cage has been in everything. They made a movie about it. Here's why I share that with you. People soaked up these books because everybody wanted to know what was going to happen. You've got figures like the Antichrist, this global figure who's going to be able to attract people to himself and deceive others. And some people think the Antichrist. As we read about them in Revelation. And you're going to see places in Revelation 6, in Revelation 20, in Revelation 7. You're going to see these things called tribulation and millennial reign of Christ, these thousand years of reign where Jesus is going to bring global peace to the world. But there's going to be seven years of God's wrath, of tribulation. The Greek word is philipsis. It's what we see in Revelation, where there's going to be this great beast figure, and this antichrist figure is going to pop up somewhere in there who takes his cues from Satan, who seems to attract everybody and kind of be able to influence people on a global scale. And you've got elements of the end times that are so intriguing, they're so fascinating that when you read of the end times, it can be a little scary. It can be confusing. And so what has happened is people who form their opinions on what Revelation says and what we believe about the end of the world, we say, well, this is how it's going to end. And so I'm going to push my book and you're going to read my book. Well, this is how it's going to end. So I'm going to say my thing and you're going to follow my thing. And this conversation is not to prove or disprove any of those. It's to simply understand there are some basic elements that are going to happen at the end of the world. The millennial reign of Jesus in Revelation 20. We are going to encounter that. You're going to see the ultimate defeat of Satan, where he will encounter his final rebellion and final judgment. This picture of him being bound and thrown into an abyss, no longer having power to influence anyone on earth or deceiving people at that time. You're going to see this tribulation, this distress, that Greek word plipsis, it means a great affliction that the world is going to experience. And these things produce a lot of wonder. I told you about Dr. Tim LaHay, the author. He wrote those books left behind. I have to share this because it's the last time I'll probably ever get to share this story. And I apologize to my in-laws who will watch this online, but oh well, it's the last one of these, so here we go. So Robin and I, 20 plus years ago, 21 years ago, Robin and I had uh just gotten engaged. And I'm talking about we were engaged for maybe a few weeks. And um we were all together, and the ministry that her parents uh led at the time, there was a whole bunch of people, and we were having lunch one day, and they said, Hey, we have some friends in town who are gonna come have lunch with us. And so, Scott, we would like to introduce you to them, and we're all gonna have lunch together. I said, Great. Who are your friends? Our friends are Dr. Tim LaHaye and his wife Beverly. Well, in my mind, I'm thinking, the author Tim, I mean, in Christian authorship, he's the guy, right? I'm super excited. And my brain went to a place that yours may or may not go, and I thought, oh, oh, I got jokes. I got jokes for Tim LaHay. So we all huddled up for lunch and we had our table, and there's about a hundred other people, it's the whole buffet spread, and everybody sits down, and it's me, Robin's right next to me, her parents are on the end, and Tim and Bevila Haye are right across the table from me. I mean, four feet from me, right across the table. He's eating, we're talking, I'm looking at him. I get up to go get my food, and I come back and I just had dessert. And I sit down and Robin's like, Scott, why did you just get dessert? I was like, Well, there are a lot of people here, and I wanted to make sure I got my dessert before it ran out because, and I paused when I said it. I paused. I was like, because I didn't want to be. I paused and then I made eye contact with him. I made sure he was looking at me. I said, I didn't want to be left behind. Nobody left. One guy nearby started to chuckle, looked up quickly, and realized no one thought it was funny. Tim LaHaye himself did not even budge. The man was mid-bite potato salad. The fork didn't even move. He just did this. He death eyed me, didn't say a word. Robin grabbed my leg and not the grab of like, oh man, that's so funny, but I can't laugh out loud because my parents are here. She grabbed my leg in a way of like, I'm going to kill you. We just got engaged. Why would you embarrass me like this in front of my family? Her dad looked at, he didn't even look at me. Her dad looked at her and he gave her the look like, this guy? We said yes to this guy. I have no reason to tell you that story other than that it's funny, and I got to do it, and I seized the day, and it has almost nothing to do with our message, but I will never get a chance to tell that story again. So you're welcome for that. I wanted to share that with you. Here's the deal, though. Tim LaHaye wrote all those books. Why did he write all those books? Why did he write all those books? Because people want to know. The world's going to come to an end. What is it going to look like? You're talking of a rapture where people are taken away. You're talking about this Antichrist figure. You're talking about seven years where you mean it's worse, it's going to be worse than what it is now? Some of us, some of us spend our weeks yelling at our phone or yelling at Fox News or yelling at CNN, cursing the darkness, because the end of the world is here. And I'm up here telling you, oh, it's going to get worse. And we're like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? And then you're like, a thousand years? I can't even count to a thousand. There's gonna be a thousand years of global. Like, what is going on? And here's what we learn when we approach eschatology, a study of the last things. We know that the world as we know it is coming to an end. When? We don't know. We don't know. Jesus makes that very clear. No one knows. And we also know there's some things that are gonna happen. There's gonna be this rapture, there's gonna be this tribulation, there's gonna be this thousand-year reign. And I'll show you because here's what people believe. I have a graphic for you that we can look at together because here's what a lot of people believe, just to break it down. And Tim LaHay's books follow a certain thing, other resources, there's resources we have online that will follow different perspectives. Here's four popular perspectives on the end of the world in the realm of Christian theology. The first is that the rapture will happen, that trumpet will sound, as we read of, and then as soon as that happens, Christians alive will be taken up, and then the wrath of God, which would we call the seven-year tribulation, the thlipsis in Greek, will happen for seven years, and at the end of that, people will have time to respond to God, and at the end of that, Jesus will return for a millennial, 1,000-year reign of global peace as we then head on into eternity. Now, the other thing is what's called mid-trib in the middle of the tribulation, meaning we're going to be about halfway through three and a half years, through what is the worst of the worst, and then Jesus is going to come and rapire, seize, drag, carry off those Christians who are alive. Then we'll do the last half of the tribulation, and then we'll enter into the thousand years. Now, then pre-wrath, this is an interesting one because you go for about two-thirds of the way, and then you've got the wrath of Satan, which is another thing that you're going to find in different literature when you study it. And then it's the worst of the worst. Then the rapture happens, and then there's just a few more years of tribulation, giving people the chance to respond, and then the millennial reign. Then you've got what is called post-trib perspective, which is basically we're going to go through all that seven years of tribulation. Somehow we're going to have to spot that we're in it, or maybe not. And then at the end of that, Jesus is going to come, rapture all those living, and then go in to this thousand-year millennial reign. Now we put all these up here so we can look at this together. And I'm not going to defend any of these or uh try to disprove any of these. I'm simply showing you a picture of this is what people tend to believe the sequence of events will look like. Because some of us in the room might believe this, might believe that, we might not be sure. Here's the reason we show this and study this. We should look at the end times. We should study the last days. But not so we can worry more, not so we can yell at the news more, and not so we can behave like punks of Tony Phil coming out of his cave, looking at his shadow, getting scared, cursing the darkness, going back in our hole, and trying to ignore the end of the world. We should study the last days because the church should know what to do in light of the last days that are coming. And in order for us to do that, I want you to look at a scripture with me. I don't have it on the screen because it's long, but I want to read it to you. And to me, it is perhaps the most important piece of scripture we will read today in terms of applying our conversation to our lives. There was a man named Peter, you've heard of him. He was one of Jesus' disciples. And Peter writes these letters to early churches. And Peter had more of a reason to understand the last days conversation than anyone because Peter's in that conversation that we just read in Matthew 24, when Jesus says, here's what's going to happen, be on guard for this. This is what you're going to see, and nobody knows. So Peter in that moment had this opportunity. He's been given this mission by Jesus directly to take the gospel to the world and told the world's going to end. And Peter's like, Well, I'm seeing a lot of this and a lot of this and a lot of this. And Peter's one of those I gotta know type of people. Maybe you're like one of those, you're like, I gotta know. I just gotta know. You can't be surprised, you hate surprises. Peter's one of those I hate surprises types of people. And through his lens, he saw the world differently than you and I do. See, we have somebody like me or somebody on the internet or maybe a book we've read or a church we've been to or a service or an event we've been to, and somebody has told us the world we know is coming to an end. And so we're like, okay, let's be on guard. Can you imagine if it was Jesus himself who looked at you and said, Be on guard, the world's gonna end. And here's what you need to do about it. And Peter does something here in his letter in 2 Peter 3 that is the tangible takeaway for all of us. Because what Peter does is he listens to the words of Jesus in Matthew 24, but then he listens further to the words of Jesus in Matthew 28, where Jesus tells them, not only, yes, is the last days going to look like this, but then Jesus says, So go and tell people the good news. Listen to what Peter writes, because it's the takeaway for all of us. In 2 Peter 3, verse 11, he says, Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live. Looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire and the elements will melt away in the flames. But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised. A world filled with God's righteousness. And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight. And remember, our Lord's patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him, speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture, and this will result in their destruction. You already know these things, dear friends. So be on guard. Then you will not be carried away by the errors of these wicked people and lose your own secure footing. Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All glory to him, both now and forever. Amen. Do you know the biggest takeaway for us as we study the last days? It's not, okay, well, I'm pre-trib, I'm mid-trib, I'm post-trib, I'm I don't know trib. I'm, I just found out there was a trib. It's not to be educated for education's sake. It's to be educated so that we would be motivated and we would put feet to that faith. The reason that we learn about the last days is so that we can live with the end in mind. I once heard an old theologian from the 1800s, he was uh coaching a group of uh pastoral residents that he was training. And he told them, Listen, when you go into these ministry stations in life, you need to stop asking, Wilt thou of God? You're approaching it saying, Well, wilt thou do this if I do this? Wilt thou bless me? Wilt thou show me? He said, instead, you should approach these situations with hast thou? And the reason he said this is I want you to picture when you're standing before Jesus and at him asking you, Hast thou lived with the faith I have told you to live with? Oftentimes people live with the end in mind, worrying about what the end is going to be. But for the Christian, living with the end in mind is to live with the knowledge that everyone will spend eternity somewhere, and that the only eligible hope for mankind is faith in Jesus Christ. By grace, through faith, are you saved in believing Jesus is the Son of God, paid the price we couldn't pay, died the death we should have died, and made a way for us to spend eternity with God. Living with the end in mind for the Christian is living with hope and with purpose. Hope that we have an eternally existent relationship with God and purpose to know that as we live our lives with the end in mind, that we have been given this purpose to help others find faith in Jesus so that they too would carry that same hope with them in life and thus jump into the same purpose that Jesus has laid out 2,000 years ago when he prepped his followers for the last day. He did not prep them with apocalypse five-gallon macaroni buckets, he did not prep them to go shy away from it. He did not prep them to be afraid, he prepped them to go intel. Why do we study the end times as Christians? From the time I started the message to the time I'm ending the message, we are closer to the end of the world than when we started. So when we walk out of these doors, there are people in our lives who need that hope that we carry as Christians. And I say that, and a lot of people look at me like I'm supposed to say that. We got that phone call, and all of a sudden life got real. How many of us have had those conversations with people? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure, I'm sure they'll know about Jesus one day. I hope somebody else tells them. And then that person exits our lives and we wonder where they are, and we think, man, I I may not get the chance to share Jesus with them again. This is not a guilt trip. Don't hear what I'm not saying. This ain't that. I'm not that preacher. That's not what we do. But I will say this. People need Jesus. The purpose of studying the last days is not so we can dunk on people on the internet because we watch the TikTok video and we think that's right and we think they're wrong. It's not to be so afraid of it, it's not to curse the darkness and yellow stuff. You know what the purpose of studying the last days is? It's so that we would live with the end in mind. We would live with hope and purpose as Christians so that we take the message of the gospel with us into our lives every single day. There are seats right now that do not have people in them. And this ain't about getting more people to come to church. This is about the people who could be represented in those empty spaces who need the hope that you have. So here's the challenge. You ready? I'm gonna ask you to picture somebody, and I haven't done this all year and get used to it because I'm gonna spend the rest of the year doing this. Picture someone in your mind right now who you know needs hope that Jesus can give. Now ask God to not let you forget that person all year long. Maybe that person will be sitting with you in church one day. Maybe that person will have a conversation with you at your kitchen table one day about your faith in Jesus Christ. Maybe that person will find a church because they don't live here, but you reached out to them and you shared the gospel love with them. Maybe that will happen if we live with the end of mind. So that's the challenge for all of us. It may not be the end of the world like we think it is, but it is the world of the end. And as we approach it, there's only one thing we can take with us when the world ends, and that's people. So would we, as Christians, would we as a church live with the end in mind to live out our faith? Don't leave it here. Take it with us and see more people find faith and hope in Jesus. That's the tangible takeaway. That's the wrap-up. I have one final thing before we close out our service, and it is this. I have a group of people I would like to introduce you to. Some of you may know them already, some of you may not. Their names are Ellie, Caleb, and Gio. Now, there's also Sarah, but Sarah got called into work today, and so she can't be here. So, Sarah, you'll have to just figure out who she is on your own and go introduce yourself to her. They know who Sarah is. This is Ellie, this is Caleb, this is Gio. Gio, you saw, just baptized Tobias just a minute ago because Gio's a small group leader. And wow, the reason I'm introducing you to them is our church this year, we have encouraged everybody to show up, jump in, and live out your faith. That's what we're encouraging everyone to do. And people have been doing that. They've been jumping into serving, they've been jumping into giving to the mission, they've been jumping into inviting people to jumping into foster care supply drive, living their faith outside the walls of this place. And it's been a beautiful thing. And this group who you see before you have decided to take that jumping in exercise to a new level. And we have onboarded this group of uh church interns who are here to serve in multiple areas. And they do a lot of stuff: social media, worship, they're small group leaders, a whole lot of things. And we meet regularly because they're interested in learning what ministry looks like. And so they're in school, they have jobs, they have lives, but they are taking above and beyond time because they want to be a part of what God is doing at Sunrise Church and model for a lot of us what it looks like to jump in. So there's a twofold reason I wanted to bring them up on stage is one, to introduce you to them. So when you see their faces, you're not just like, why do I always see these folks everywhere? Or you see Geo and you're like, who's Geo? And why was he baptizing somebody? Well, now you know. So, A, to introduce you, they're wonderful people. You should get to know them. Come say hello to them, and care for them as they continue to serve in ministry. And the second reason is this I'm gonna ask you right where you are to just pray over them with me. Because they are endeavoring to do something on the front lines of ministry and they're taking time above and beyond. And we don't know what God's gonna do in their lives three, four, five years down the road. They may be spread out all over the world doing ministry somewhere. They may still be right here at sunrise doing ministry, whatever it is, they're moving in the direction of ministry service with their lives, and that is an incredibly exciting, adventurous, and a little bit scary sometimes endeavor. And so I want to ask that you would join me in praying for them, that God would continue to minister through them as we pursue what God has for us as a church to do what? Help people. There you go. Let's pray. God, thank you again for the work you're doing in and through this church. Thank you again for Gigi, for Tobias, for Sam, this week, who we get to celebrate. Thank you for the diapers that are in the lobby because people have chosen to help those families who are serving in a way that honors you, God. Thank you for the people that are being reached in our personal relationships, the prayer that's happening on Wednesday nights and the relationships that are forming, the groups that are launching and starting and the discipleship that is happening week after week. And God, I thank you for this group, for Sarah who can't be here, for Gio, for Caleb, for Ellie. I thank you for their hearts to serve. And God, I pray that you bless their efforts, that you grow them. And God, I'm going to include all of us who are jumping into what you're doing. That you would continue to go before us, that you would lead us and that we would follow you well, that this group of interns would follow you well. That our kids' ministry would follow you well, that our student ministry would follow you well, that our groups would follow you well, that our hospitality ministries would follow you well, that our facilities, that our outreach to our people serving in every single area, that we would follow you well. So that you would be honored by our service. And through that service, help people know and follow your son Jesus. So, God, thank you for blessing your church and continuing to move in and through us in spite of us. And I pray over this group and for our entire church that we would live with the end in mind. Being a people carrying hope and purpose so that many more will know and follow your Son Jesus and carry the same hope you have given us. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Thank you so much for joining us today at Sunrise Church. We hope this message encouraged you and blessed you. If one of the ways that you choose to worship with us here at Sunrise is by giving online, there's a link right here that you can follow and it'll take you to that payment portal. Everything that you donate helps not only go towards reaching people in the greater San Diego area, but also all around the world through our ministry partner. If you want to get further connected, whether in person or online, you can email this email right here, and either myself or some one of our team members will be there to answer it and help you get connected in any way that you need. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next week.