GAURD RAILS: DON'T BLOW UP YOUR LIFE | Plan Ahead | Ben Anderson

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to Redeemer. If we haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Ben Anderson. I'm one of the pastors here, and it's so great to spend a little time with you this morning. Before we jump into our sermon today, I do want to recognize a couple groups of people this morning. First of all, if you are a first-time guest with us this morning, uh thank you for joining us. And we are so looking forward to getting to know you when you are ready to get to know us. And so if you are ready to have your story heard, your name to be known, and to make a connection, one of the best things that you can do is make your way to our welcome desk, which is in the Commons area. And there's gonna be someone there who would love to hear your story and connect all the dots for who we are as a church so you can find your fit. Plus, here's the best part you walk away with a free gift. So don't miss out on that. Now, speaking of free gifts, we have a special gift for every single lady in the room, for all of our moms, for all of our future moms, for all those who have been like moms to us, we want to show just express our gratitude to you. And so we have a rose for every single one of you. Make sure that you grab that on the way out. Especially if your husband forgot to buy you a rose, right? This is the perfect opportunity. In fact, husbands hustle out there, grab it, and you can pretend it's from you, right? It's a kind of a win-win scenario. Well, today we are going to jump back into our latest sermon series that we have been traveling through for the last number of weeks called Guardrails. Don't blow up your life. Because isn't it true that every single one of us, we do not wake up in the morning thinking, how do I ruin my life today? How do I mess up my marriage? How do I blow up my finances? None of us thinks that. None of us plans for that. But despite that, isn't it true that every one of us at some point in time, maybe this week, we have looked at someone else's life and we have thought these things. What were they thinking? I mean, what were they thinking? How do they get themselves into that mess? In fact, if you are a parent in the room, you haven't just thought that this week. You have probably said that this week. What were you thinking? This past week I said those words. I I just gotten our pool ready for the season. Now, before you get too excited, Pastor has a pool. Let me explain. It's not an in-ground pool. It's not even in a pool from Walmart. It is a cattle trough that I have in my backyard and I fill with water. I I like to lovingly call it my poverty pool, but it's very, very nice for my kids and for my dogs. And so we have this pool in the backyard, and despite what it is, I still have to clean it. So I have to get the dirt out, leaves out, all that type of stuff, make sure the water is balanced so it's crystal clear for my kids, you know, it doesn't turn into a swamp. And so I'm out there just doing work, like lots of hours, getting it all cleaned up, go inside, I'm I'm dirty, I'm hot, I'm over it. Take a shower, come outside to cook some burgers on the grill for my family. And I look into my pool and I see just this pile of dirt sitting at the bottom. And I knew exactly who it was. I was like, Cooper! That's my son. Cooper, get over here. What am I looking at? What happened? I said, Well, I scooped up this dirt, and there's some worms inside, and I thought I would give them a nice new home. Of course, I was thinking, and I said it. What were you thinking? Like, that's not a good idea. But how often do you think this? You turn on the TV. Maybe you hear the story of some athlete who's made hundreds of millions of dollars over their lifetime, but somehow they're filing bankruptcy, and you look at them and you think, and you say to your spouse sitting next to you, what were they thinking? How is this possible? Or maybe you reflect on your college years, and you think about that time when you had that paper due, that project due, and you were feeling the stress of it, but your buddies were like, hey, there's that party, we should go, and she's gonna be there, and you're like, okay. And so you spend the night there, you have some fun, and you wake up feeling a little bit sick, you wake up tired, you wake up, you have not won the heart of the girl that you went there to win the heart of, and now your project is past you, and you look at yourself in the mirror and you think, What was I thinking? Well, the answer to every one of those questions and every one of those moments is this. You were thinking, you just weren't thinking about the future, were you? You were thinking about what do I want in the present with no reflection on how this would impact you in the upcoming days, months, or years. That's the conversation that we're having today. How one of the most important guardrails that you can have in your life is to plan ahead. But before we get there, I want to give you a refresher on where we have been. Our first week, we had the conversation around renewing our minds. This is one of the most important guardrails that you can have. Because if you think differently, guess what will happen? You will act differently, you will live differently. So when you take God's truth and you put it into your mind, it'll change the way that you see the world, it'll change the way you think about the world, it will change the way that you act in the world, and it will protect you from so much mess. The next week we talked about fleeing temptation. Let's not put ourselves in those situations where we know we are already weak. Let's not even go close to those things. Don't go close to those lines. And if we find ourselves in a situation where we were surprised by the temptation, just get out of there as fast as you can. Protect your life. That's the conversation we've been having. How do we protect our life? Last week we talked about the power of accountability and how important that is. You see, people aren't just going to offer it. We need to invite them in. We need to seek it. Give them permission. Tell me what you're seeing in my life. Tell me the blind spots in my life so I don't screw this up. In fact, even being candid and honest, if you trust them, tell them everything. These are my weaknesses, these are my struggles, these are the ways I've screwed up in the past. I don't want to do these again. Hold me to account, protect my life. Well, today, as we have this conversation all around this idea of how do I protect my future, we're gonna dive into Luke 14. So if you have your Bibles with you, you can open them up or your phones, or you can just look at the screen. It will be available for you. But this is where we begin. Large crowds were traveling with Jesus. Now, there's a lot more teaching to the story, but I want to stop there because I think this is important and it's incredibly interesting. Jesus at this point in time is attracting massive, massive crowds. He's at kind of like the height of his popularity, and it says that they aren't just finding him where he goes and meeting him there. What does it say? They're following with him, they're traveling with him. This is phenomenal. This means that people are hearing the teachings multiple times. That's how engaging he is. They're hearing the stories multiple times. They're seeing these miracles, they're having these experiences, and the crowds are growing and growing and growing and growing. His influence is at an all-time high at this point. Now, if you've ever had one of these moments when you feel like your popularity is growing, or maybe your followers on Instagram is starting to tick up, or maybe work is going really well, you get kind of nervous. In fact, you stop asking the questions, how do I grow? And you think more about, well, how do I protect this number? In fact, most people, if they were in the place of Jesus at this moment, they'd be thinking these things. How do I not offend these people? How do I not upset these people? Because if I do that, well, I'm gonna start having diminished numbers. But this is what Jesus does. And I think this is so informative to us as a people of how Christ lives his life and how ultimately that we should navigate life. Because this is what we see next in verse 25. And turning to them, he said, If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even their own life, such a person cannot be my disciple. Now, if Jesus had a PR specialist at this point in time, like we would have in our modern day, what would happen? This this person would run onto the stage, pull Jesus off, take the microphone away, and say, Hey, thanks for being here. Jesus has been incredibly tired and fatigued. And so we're just gonna let him get a break. We're gonna reimburse you for the tickets that you paid to see him, and then you can come back next time for free. And then about a week later, what would happen? There would be this big media thing, and Jesus would be there with a sheet of paper where he has to read verbatim what the PR specialist told him to say. I'm so sorry about the words that I said. I didn't mean to offend. I've been very tired, I was trying to be funny. Obviously, it didn't come across that way. I'm sorry for anyone I hurt.

unknown 9:36

Right?

SPEAKER_00 9:37

That's what we do in our modern day. But of course, Jesus didn't have a PR specialist because he didn't need a PR specialist. He said what he meant, and he meant what he said. So what did he actually mean? Because, after all, was he really saying, especially on Mother's Day, Jesus, hate your mom? I mean, the person who changed their diapers, like took care of your knee when you fell down on your bike, helped you mend your heart after that first breakup that you experienced. I mean, is that really what Christ is saying? If you want to be a follower of Christ, you have to hate the closest people to you? Of course that's not what he's saying. In fact, we know this because we can interpret scripture in light of scripture. This is so important. If we go back to a different point in Christ's life, we see that this is not what he's saying. Because you might remember the story where the Pharisees come to Jesus and they're trying to trick him. And they say, What is the greatest law? What's the greatest commandment? He says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. He doesn't stop there. He says, and love your neighbor as yourself. Love all of the people around you. It wasn't love God and hate people, it was love God and love people. So obviously, Christ isn't saying that you actually have to hate people. You see, what's happening here is this is something that doesn't translate all that well to our 21st century. This was a way in that day, in the first century, it was a Semitic expression to say, reprioritize your relationships. What Christ was really saying is, I have to be in the number one slot, and everyone else comes after me. This is how the people would have heard it in that day. In fact, this makes sense even to us because every single person in this room, all the people watching online, we all prioritize our relationships, don't we? Right? I care about my kids far more than you will ever care about my kids. You care about your kids far more than you will ever care about my kids. That makes total sense. In fact, one of the most powerful ways that I see this on a regular basis is at weddings. Think about what happens at a wedding. This is a reprioritization of relationships in the most significant way. You have a groom standing up front, he's looking out in the door in the back. There's doors that are typically shut. They open up and walks the bride. Who's she with? Normally dad. Dad walks her down the aisle, stops at the front. The pastor says, Who gives this woman to be married to this man? And the dad says, I do. The groom goes down, brings his bride. Typically they walk up steps to the highest point in that venue or in that church, and they're looking down at all of the people who have meant so much to them. Mom, dad, grandpa, grandma, friends, family, all these people who've made such an impact in their life. That's why they're at the wedding. And what they're saying in that moment, whether they realize it or not, is this relationship up here, this marriage, is now getting shifted to the most important relationship in our lives. And here's what's so interesting about that. If you do that properly, you will have a healthy marriage. If your marriage is more important than everything else in your life outside of God, you will have a healthy marriage. But here's what's so interesting about that, even beyond that, is when you prioritize properly, everything else gets blessed because of it. Your kids will get blessed if you have a healthy marriage. Your parents will be blessed, your siblings will be blessed, your neighbors will be blessed, because they won't have to hear you shouting at each other, right? Everyone is blessed when we get this right. And how much more so when we get this right when it comes to Christ. If he's sitting in the number one slot in our life and we are following him closely, our spouse is blessed, our kids are blessed, our neighbors are blessed, our friends are blessed, our parents are blessed, our teammates are blessed, our coworkers are blessed. Everyone wins when we have the proper priority in our life. Here's where Jesus goes next in verse 27. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. So here Jesus takes it even further. He's moved on from the relationships in our life to the everyday realities, the core being the breath in our lungs, the heart that beats within our chest. Because what does he say? Carry your cross. Now, when we hear carry a cross, we know the whole Easter story, we know the passion, we know that Jesus carried his cross, died on the cross, came back from the dead. But when these people are hearing this, when Christ is speaking this, they don't have that in their mind. They couldn't. It hadn't happened yet. But they did have a very clear picture of what Christ was saying, because in that day, if you were an enemy of Rome, guess what the punishment was? A very public execution. You would drag your cross outside of town, they would pin you to it, and they would watch you slowly die, and it would tell every single person, you better think twice before you turn on Rome. But when you know you are dying, when you know the end is near, when you look at the end, when you think about the end, it changes how you live, doesn't it? You see, Christ lived his life with the end in mind, and it changed everything. And for us, this is one of the guardrails that we have to have in our life when it comes to planning. See, proper planning starts with the end in mind. Think about this. If you could go back, or maybe you are already at this age, if I go back to when I was 20, if I would just sit down with a financial planner and say, someday I want to retire, and they told me how to do that well, which would be save money this month, you need to set aside, put it into the stock market, your 401k, whatever that might be. And over time it will compile. And guess what? By the time you hit 67 years old, you will be able to retire. Right? If you started with the end in mind, you will end up with financial success. But if you caught in the moment, I just want to have fun. I want to go on that trip. I want that car, whatever it might be. And all of a sudden you're 20, you're 30, you're 40, you're 50, maybe even your 60. Retirement is looming, and you're thinking, I well, how am I gonna pull this off? And the answer is you might not be able to because you didn't start with the end in mind. And all of a sudden, well, there's so much financial stress that you've lived in the moment. It's put a strain on your marriage. You are gonna work for the rest of your life, and behind the scenes, the people that you should be blessing at this stage of life, well, they're having conversations behind your back. How are we gonna pull this off? How are we gonna take care of mom and dad because they have nothing you didn't plan ahead? See, when it comes to our spiritual life, we have to do the same thing. It is so healthy for us when we start with the end in mind. In fact, think about all the stress and strain that you experience in this life. If you are focused on the end, paradise with God and what he offers, it just turns the volume knob down of what you experience in life. And when your car breaks down in light of heaven, is that that big a deal? No. It turns the volume down. It's annoying. But it's not anything compared to the riches waiting for us. Even in the most crucial and critical and painful things in life, it turns the volume down. I mean, if I find out tomorrow that I am terminal with some form of cancer in light of eternity, it's so much different. Yeah, it's devastating. It'd be devastating for me, it'd be devastating for my family. But what awaits after that day. Eternity with Christ in a place where there's no pain or no sorrow, it changes everything. In fact, it changes how we live our lives. If we start with the end in mind of what waits for us, it changes our priorities of what we value and how we live. Here's where Christ goes next in verse 28. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, This person began to build and wasn't able to finish. So I live in a city like most everyone who's here live in a city, which means you're surrounded by neighbors and homes around you. And I started noticing something about the homes around me. All the homes are about the same age, it's a fairly newer development, it's about 10 to 15 years old. But I started looking at these homes and I noticed that almost none of them have decks. Now they are designed to have a deck. There's sliding glass doors that are really, really nice on the back of these homes. There's that board across to hook the deck too. But there's no deck. In fact, if they opened the door and walked out, they would just fall about 12 feet straight down. I mean, that's how these things are set up. In fact, last night I looked out and I just started counting. There's six houses I can see behind my house. Only one of them, after 15 years of owning this home, after 15 years of this house existing, only one of them had a deck. Now, how did that happen? Well, because someone wanted a house. And they wanted that house. And they thought, ah, sooner or later we'll have more money. But then you start paying the gas bill and the electric bill, and then you gotta buy a mower. You got to put the furniture inside the house, and then you want newer furniture. All of a sudden the bills start piling up, and guess what puts on the back burner? Having a deck, and so you have this big glass door that you lock, and you maybe put stuff against it so the kids don't open up and fall out. What happens? You did do the math. You see, proper planning requires counting the cost. Now, Jesus, in this moment, he doesn't use the metaphor of a deck, he talks about a tower. In fact, you can kind of put yourself into this conversation of what that would look like. This person decides he's gonna build this tower, everyone's gonna see it, it's gonna be amazing. Start telling everyone about it. I'm building this tower. When it's done, you you can come, you can come to the top of my tower, we'll look over the city, it's gonna be amazing. You're gonna love it. In fact, the parties I'm gonna throw at this tower, like he's bragging up to everyone in that city, like how amazing his tower is going to be. And then what happens? Didn't count the cost, ran out of money, and now it's not a monument to him, it's a monument to his failure. And I would imagine that parents probably walk their kids past this tower, and they tell the story and they teach the lesson about planning ahead, about counting the cost. Here's the spiritual connection for us. You see, the Bible is very clear that salvation is free. In fact, in Ephesians 2. 8 through 9 says it this way. For as by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. But here's the thing just because our relationship with Christ, our salvation, is free, it doesn't mean that it won't cost anything. In fact, when you get baptized, when you give your life to Christ, life doesn't normally get easier. It gets more challenging. Because you put a bullseye on your back. And Satan wants to reduce your impact for Christ. In fact, if he can, he wants to pry you away from Jesus. In fact, think about this. If you're walking in the way of Christ, right, if you're walking in the footsteps of your master, what's gonna happen? You're gonna start looking differently. And all of a sudden, you might not match your friends anymore. You might not match your neighbor anymore. You might not match your community anymore because the way that you are living, now that you're living like Christ, well, that can be challenging and honestly pretty upsetting to other people. In fact, you might even feel under attack because of it. And then what makes it worse is if you don't live up to your ideals that you are speaking but maybe not living in, guess what will happen? You'll be mocked. And then if you walk away from your ideals because it's just a little bit too hard, the very people who used to mock you will now celebrate you. And now you're stuck in that place. A number of months ago, my wife started following this guy online, and he was kind of telling a story of exploring faith and exploring Christ, and it was a very magnetic story. She was watching it every time he'd release a video, she was paying attention to it. And I normally was in the room, so as a byproduct, I sort of was paying attention to it. But he started touring all these churches, trying to understand what Jesus was all about. And as he was exposed to churches, well, what was he learning? That Christ can save his eternity. But also Christ wants to change his life, and that's where the tension comes in, because he doesn't want their eternity saved. Right? We all want that. We all want to live in paradise. However, not all of us want our lives to be impacted by Christ. And this is what this guy was wrestling with. And as he wrestled with it, he came to the conclusion that he wanted to get baptized. He wanted to go all in. He wanted to get baptized specifically on Easter Sunday. I mean, how cool is that! So now I started paying attention. What's gonna happen with this guy? And Easter came and Easter went and he wasn't baptized. And I thought, what happened with the scenario? What happened with this gentleman? Well, later on he posted a video. And he was just doing a little selfie video, and he said, I want you to all know. I didn't end up getting baptized. However, I love Jesus and Jesus loves me just the way I am. No, he's correct. Jesus loves him just the way he is. But he missed out and was missing out and was rejecting. Another crucial component to that statement is that Jesus loved him too much to leave him where he was at. Right? The invitation of Christ is not just an eternity change, it is a life change. And it requires sacrifice, it requires cost. He wants to bring you into something better. And guess what happened to this person? Has now become a half-built tower. One group of people is ridiculing him, and the other group of people, well, they're celebrating him. Here's where Christ goes next. Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Wouldn't he first sit down and consider whether he's able with 10,000 men to oppose the one coming against him with 20,000? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those who do not give up everything, you have cannot be my disciples. Now, this gives a picture of two kings. It's kind of funny to think about this actually, because as I was reflecting on this and reflecting on what this dynamic probably was like, I'm like, this is basically like our modern world, isn't it? We have two leaders. They're puffed up. I'm stronger, no, I'm stronger. My army's bigger, no, my army's bigger. It just goes back and forth. I mean, nothing ever changes in life. And they're going back and forth and they're having this banter, but one of the kings has made a fatal flaw. What did he not realize? He didn't realize the other army was significantly bigger than his, and now he's stuck with this moment in history. After all that talking, after all that banter, after all that bragging, he's given two options. He can go to the war, as is currently, his army is currently constructed, and he can get wiped out, and he'll look like a fool. Or he can go for terms of peace and he will look weak. I actually think there's a third option that he didn't explore, which is he can recalibrate for the victory, change his strategy despite the size of his army, and find a new path forward. You see, proper planning makes the necessary adjustments within life. In fact, if you guys have been watching the Minnesota Wild playoff run, uh they actually won yesterday, which is phenomenal. But in order for a team to get ready to go against the component, what do they do? Before the series starts, they sit down. What are our strengths? What are our weaknesses? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? How do we take this strategy and win the day? And then once they get to the game, they put that game plan into practice. But guess what? They are not done, are they? After the first period, what happens? Intermission. The Zamboni goes around the ice. They're in the locker room talking. What went well? What went poorly? What can we change to win the day? They go back out. They try it again. They learn some lessons. Zamboni machine comes back out. They go back to the locker room. And they rinse, repeat this over and over and over, right? Throughout the series, throughout these games, at the end of the game, they're doing the same thing. What went well? What do we not expect? What do we learn? How do we grow? They are focused on winning by making adjustments. And maybe today is a day that you need to make an adjustment. In fact, maybe you've been hearing some of this hard truth and it's been hitting you right in the chest, like, oh man, I do not have Christ in the proper priority. I am not living my life the way I should. In fact, I think Sunday is the best intermission that we can have. We take a break, we come in here, this is our locker room. We talk about the truth of Christ and we recalibrate to win the day. We can't go back. We can't undo the past, but we can move forward. In fact, one of the my favorite questions to challenge myself each morning is this Will what I do today bring joy to the person tomorrow? Will my future self thank me for what I'm doing today? I mean, I can push off working out, and often I do, unfortunately. I can push off eating healthy, and unfortunately, I do far too frequently. I can push off praying, reading my Bible, being in a small group. I can push off all of that stuff, but you know what that doesn't do? It doesn't benefit the version of myself that I will experience the next day. I want to do the work today so that my future self will thank me. Well, since it's Mother's Day, I wanted to end with a story, and so I asked Isaac to come out here and play something really emotive. Something really emotional to get you guys in the mood. Now, this is gonna be a story about my mom. Sort of. You see, my mom is an online attender here. She is very faithful, which means she is watching right now. And the reason I say she's gonna be involved in this story is because this is the first time she's hearing this story. She is not gonna be happy about it. A number of months ago, I told a story about my life, and before I even got off the platform and sat down, she just wrote a text message and said, You did what? This is gonna be one of those moments. So back when I was in high school, I grew up in a very small town, kind of a farming community, not a lot to do. I wasn't a farmer, but I lived in the town. And you're always trying to find something fun to do and interesting to do to entertain yourself. Now, in that type of community, if you go outside of town, it is like pitch black. There's no street lights, there's not many people, there's not really many other cars. You can go like 15 miles and not see a soul. So my friends and I, when we're in high school, we like to do this thing where we would drive out of town, we'd get up to about 60 or 70 miles an hour, and we'd shut off our lights. And see how long that we could drive before we'd panic and turn the lights back on. And I will tell you, it was so much fun. And so unwise, don't this is not like you shouldn't, it's not an endorsement on that behavior. Now, I haven't thought about that story or that reality in a long, long time. But when I thought about the conversation that we're having today, I thought, oh man, this is how many of us live our lives, isn't it? We get focused on the now. What's gonna make me happy today, and we don't look forward to the future. We shut off our lights. And what happens? We can only do that for so long before something bad transpires. We crash, we hit something, and here's what's even worse about that. Our life is not built in a small country community with no cars. I mean, our lives are built on busyness. It's like driving through Chicago, there's six, seven lanes, there's traffic all around there is noise, there's pedestrians that are just cutting across. I mean, that's our life. And what makes it even more scary is who's in the car with us. Who will be impacted by our failure? My spouse, my kids, maybe it's a work. For me, it's the church. But if I don't look towards the road, if I don't put up these guardrails and I run up into something, there's so much pain and there's so much loss. You see, I'm convinced that before I sit down, my mom is gonna say, What were you thinking? In fact, I am certain of it. But I don't want you to hear those words. I don't want someone to look at your life and look at you and think, what were they thinking? I don't want you to look in the mirror and say, What was I thinking? I want you to look at your life. And I want you to look forward into your life and ask yourself those tough questions. If I behave this way today, if I live my life this way today, what will tomorrow look like? You see, when we play the tape forward, we look at the results of our choices, we will protect our lives. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for these moments of intermission to take a break, to get away from the world, to sit here, to be challenged. And Lord, I know there are things that I say that don't always make people happy in the room. They don't even make me happy. Because, Lord, it's your truth challenging us, pushing us, nudging us towards something better. And today, Lord, we have been challenged with this idea that we need to plan ahead, to count the cost, to keep what is next in mind, to recalibrate how we live our lives and the choices that we make. And so, Lord, I'm my prayer is this that every morning, this is what we think. God, in light of eternity, God, in light of you, in light of what my choices could do to the people who matter to me, Lord, what should I do? And how should I live? Lord, we pray this all in your mighty name. Amen.