What We Find Important

i'm going to read one passage of scripture and then i'll let you be seated here it's from first peter chapter 2 and verse 6. it says for in scripture it says see i lay a stone in zion a chosen and precious cornerstone and the one who trusts in him meaning jesus the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame i want to read that one more time because i want it to resonate in the building and through the live stream this morning that see i lay a stone in zion he's talking about jesus here he's chosen and he's precious and the one who trusts in him they will never they will never be put to shame i want to hear at the opening if we would just pray and say god let this message resonate with me today let it challenge me today let's pray that here at the opening father we want to be challenged by your word we've already heard just this short bit lord that you've laid that stone in zion and we can put our hope in that we can put our trust in that jesus and we

will never ever be put to shame we'll never be embarrassed we'll never regret our commitments to you jesus i pray that that message would resonate this morning and it would help us lead us in jesus name amen amen amen y'all can go ahead and be seated i want to speak just for a few moments brother thomas just for a few moments about what we find important in fact that is my title this morning what we find important peter is is writing his second epistle this is near the the end of his life this would appear to be his last will and testament as you read it and he says this in in chapter one starting in verse five he says for this reason and he just had spoken about the power of god in the life of the believer but then he says for this reason make every effort and i want us to pay attention to that phrase because it will come up time and again throughout second peter he says make every effort to add to your faith goodness and to goodness knowledge and to knowledge self-control and to self-control perseverance and the

perseverance godliness and to godliness mutual affection and to mutual affection love for if you possess these qualities in increasing measure they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our lord jesus christ but whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins therefore my brothers and sisters and here's that phrase again make every effort to confirm your calling an election for if you do these things you will never stumble and you will receive a rich welcome and to the eternal kingdom of our lord and savior jesus christ i love how peter starts off this second epistle with the idea of spiritual growth or spiritual maturity he says okay you have faith well let's add something to that faith and once you've added that first thing let's add another thing and another thing and another thing and it should culminate in mutual affection or brotherly love love for one of one for another and these are the things that he says if you have these qualities and if you have them in increasing measure you never stop adding these things to your

faith then they will keep you from being ineffective and they'll keep you for being unproductive in the kingdom of god but not only that he says it again make every effort to confirm your calling by having these qualities and he says if you do then you will receive a rich welcome and to the eternal kingdom of our lord and savior jesus christ what he's talking about here is at the end of it all jesus comes back and he sees you and you've done what he's saying here you've added things to your faith and you've spiritually matured and you've pursued after god he says that you will receive a rich welcome into the kingdom of god y'all must not be reading the same passage that is so awesome to me are you kidding me jesus is going to roll up in all his glory and majesty and we're going to be like yeah we're excited jesus is here and he's like no hold on let me get the red carpet for you i haven't had time to lay it out yet and do you hear what he's saying here that if we live a life that

is in line with godly principles and spiritual maturity yes we're going to welcome jesus when he returns but he in turn is going to welcome us and it says he's going to welcome us richly and peter feels so passionate about this that he goes on in verse 12 he says so i will always remind you of these things i'll always remind you to pursue spiritual maturity and spiritual growth i'll always try to do that and he says even though you know them and you're firmly established in the truth you now have i'll continue to remind you he says i think it is right to refresh your memory as long as i live in the tent of this body because i know that i will soon put it aside as our lord jesus christ has made clear to me and i will here it is again make every effort peter says i will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things this is the great apostle peter and he's about to go on and enter into the other side of eternity says my last will and

testament to you the last thing i want to say to you before i depart this earth is to make every effort to make sure you are in right relationship with god to make every effort that you are pursuing spiritual relationship and maturity or as he says to confirm your calling in election the last thing i want to say to the church before i'm taken off the face of the planet is to make sure to make sure that you are right with jesus this is his call to us to live a godly life to live in a way as he says apc you're established you know the truth you get it you understand it all but he says even still we need to remember this that we have to live this way because jesus is coming back and i want you to have that rich welcome and to the kingdom of our lord and savior jesus christ and then he says this in second peter chapter three says some people are going to make fun of us some people are going to make fun of us thanks so there's going to be scoffers in the last

days that say where is this jesus you're doing all this stuff you're separating yourself from popular culture and society by trying to live godly by trying to pursue this sort of lifestyle and you're saying you're doing it so that when jesus returns you're going to be welcomed into this kingdom but where is this jesus you're talking about where is this one that you're living this life for he says you have to understand in the last days these people are going to come these scoffers scoffing and following their own evil desires they're going to make fun of you amen they're going to make fun of us they're going to say why are you living that life why are you living that life and why do you say you're living that life because some magical guy is going to come from the clouds one day i know i'm being kind of silly but i i remember even when i was in high school not too long ago although it keeps getting further away it appears i never thought i would actually say that but it is getting further away when i was in high school one of

my uh teachers and i really liked this teacher is the thing i really enjoyed the class i i love it but he passed out he was an admitted atheist he passed out a piece of paper and it had a story on it and it was speaking about a spaghetti monster in the sky who has these magical books that we get to read and when he returns we're all going to get spaghetti and we're going to have a great time if if you're not catching it already it was meant to make fun of the christian faith and here i was 16 17 years old trying to live for god and here's this person that i respected and loved he was my teacher i was like man this guy knows his stuff and then he makes fun of what i thought was precious to me peter says this is going to happen people are going to look at us and look at our lifestyle look at the reasons for the way we live the way we do and they're going to scoff at it they're going to make fun of it but peter goes on to say

this second peter 3 10 he says but that day the day of the lord when he's going to come back he said that day will come and it will come like a thief in the night and the heavens will disappear with the roar the elements will be destroyed by fire and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare and that language there that everything in the earth will be laid bare is sort of interesting it doesn't just mean everything's burnt up so all you see is just burnt dirt it actually means there's a revealing of all the actions all of the deeds in the earth in their purest form all of the individuals all of the human beings that lived on the earth all of their lives will be laid bare before god on that day and he'll be able to look at your life like he's looking at a record and he'll be able to see it in its purest form not the facade that we put on to be perceived a certain way not the masks that we put on to be viewed a certain way but in our most

pure and unfettered form god will see us in that way and then he goes on he says since you know that that sort of day is coming what manner of persons do you think you should be he says you ought to live holy and godly lives and this goes back to what he's saying in chapter one you ought to live in such a way that you were pursuing passionately after a life in christ adding to your spiritual walk things each and every day until the day you die continuing in them because that day is surely coming i know this is weird i know it's even weird sometimes in our churches to preach this and i know that it's technically eight something but nine something in the morning thanks to the change in time and and maybe we can we can get too used to this sort of message we can get too used to the reasons why we live a certain way we can get too used to the message of the bible yeah jesus is coming back and so we need to live a life pleasing to him i i i just i have

to refer to another preacher of mine is his friend not really a friend i just like him his name is francis chan you all know him but he's reading the bible and he's talking about all these things and he says are people reading the same book that i am are we reading the same passages together that one day the sky will split and the heavens will melt with the roar all of the elements everything we see right here will be purified and done away with and jesus will come riding in and all of our deeds all of the deeds of the earth everything that has happened on this planet will be laid bare before him i don't ever picture myself being prideful in that moment i don't ever picture myself even being sure of myself in that moment i picture myself passing out in that moment i'm like jesus wake me up when you're done just let me lay there that's what i picture happening just to be honest in fact if you go and read daniel in revelation that is what happens a lot of times when god shows up they just go knees

are gone i think that's probably what's gonna happen he says people are gonna make fun of the way you live but all you have to say is no that day will come that moment in the course of history will come and because that day is coming i will live this day in light of that day i will live and try to organize my life in light of that coming day in light of what is happening and then he says this at the close of ii peter he says so then dear friends so then seeing that this day is coming seeing that this sort of thing is going to happen in the course of history he says it again and says since you're looking forward to this you're looking forward to jesus coming back he says again make every effort to be found spotless blameless and at peace with him really there's no other way to say that in light of what is going to happen on that day like i said i'm just going to pass out but while we're still alive while we're still moving he says make every effort god has been working

on me whenever i was i had like 65 sermons trying to put him together for today i you can ask my wife i brand everyone by her she knows the whole bible by now i was just we were running through a lot okay but god was working on me on this one because i had to ask myself am i making every effort am i making every effort making a lot of effort and making every effort are still two different things i can make a lot of effort i can give god my time i i can give him my energy i i can pursue him i can do all of these things but if i lack somewhere in my walk with god then i am not making every effort you know whenever i was uh interested in my wife originally when i was just trying to hang out with her you know get to know her i made every effort to look real cool i made every effort to make her think that i was a nice guy sometimes i didn't do well but i was trying i was making every i remember i called my

friend thomas at school i knew that she had some stuff to get moved or something like that i i called my friend and i said hey i'm not going to be there i was off campus but can you uh check in on tressa and see if she needs help you can help her stuff like that i was making every effort because i liked her i wanted her to view me in a certain way she's walking like she's 50 yards ahead of me she's about to hit a door i'm like hold on i'm going to open the door you know every time we went in the car i'm like opening her car door and i still do that sometimes but maybe not as often you know because i got her no um you know i was making every effort i was making every effort every turn of the corner i was like what can i do what can i do to make her like me what can i do to make her think that i'm this awesome guy what can i do to please her what can i do what what can i do in my

life that will make her happy that will do you understand what i'm trying to say and i and i understand that as we've been married for four plus years now we're gonna hit five this year sometimes you get comfortable and you don't open the door as much you're like 50 yards is a long way away she's got it she's a strong independent woman i don't want to be chauvinistic you know you get comfortable and you quit making all of those efforts throughout the day abc we we're pretty enriched with god we have a relationship with god at this church i was born and raised at this church i know the spiritual pedigree i i know the power here but i also know that i've sat on a pew and i've gotten comfortable with my relationship with jesus and i i've gotten comfortable in my spiritual walk and i realized as i may i took stock of my life that i wasn't making every effort anymore i wasn't making every effort anymore i may have made a lot of effort but i wasn't pursuing him like i used to whenever i was first in whenever i

first met him whenever i first received the holy ghost things began to change and peter simply his last breath he's trying to say please remember christians please remember saints of god to make every effort to make sure you are in right standing with jesus christ and why are christians even compelled to behave this way why should we make every effort why should we think it's so important to follow jesus why is it that peter seems so intent and so passionate and so sold on the idea that we ought to take every second of our life and ask the question how can i pursue god with this he answers it but he answers it in his previous letter in first peter chapter 1 starting verse 3 says praise be to the god and father of our lord jesus christ in his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of jesus christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish or spoil or fade this inheritance is kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by god's power until the coming of the

salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time we we want to listen to peter's words and we want to make every effort because we know what is waiting on the other side you remember that song in my father's house what are the one of the the lyrics of that song i was thinking about this the other day uh this big big table lots and lots of food big big yard we can play football you know a childhood dream of heaven but i love the spirit of that song because what it really is trying to say is that in heaven it's going to be the greatest thing and i know we try not to be escapists and you know it's not like we're trying to do our thing until jesus comes back and then you know we don't have to worry about what's going on in the earth or anything i i don't mean that i just mean i realize what god has promised on that side so peter says that you're going to receive this inheritance but then he goes on and in chapter one eight through nine because sometimes we get

lost and that you're like yeah god but that's then that's then and we can lose height he says in in verse 8 he says though you have not seen him not like peter did said you haven't seen him but you love him even though you don't see him right now he's physically he's gone he's just here with us spirit you don't see him now but you believe in him and you are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy for you receiving the end result of your faith the salvation of your souls the only thing i really feel to do to try to explain what is going on is to appeal to our experience in the presence of god we know what it is like to be in the presence of god where everything else seems to fade from our perceptions even the pain even the difficult times even the hardships even the stuff we really don't want to think about in the first place that all fades away as we experience god's presence in our life what peter calls the inexpressible in glorious joy i really don't even know how to explain it to you

this morning except to say you know what i'm talking about you know what i'm talking about when you've dealt with things in your life and then you find yourself in a time of prayer and god sweeps into that room and whatever you were dealing with fades you know what i'm talking about whenever you don't know where your next paycheck is going to come from but you find yourself in the presence of god and all of a sudden that doesn't matter so much anymore and in fact he provides for you you know what i'm talking about when you've been struggling with depression and you've been struggling with oppression you've been struggling with hurts from different people maybe hurts from society you know what i'm talking about whenever you have those feelings put inside of you but you get in the presence of god and everything changes in that moment you know what i am talking about and peter says in light of that relationship in light of everything that you've experienced in the presence of god you ought to make every effort to be in right relationship with him it compels us to be in right

relationship to him there is no other option he's been too good he's given me too much joy he's given me too much peace he's given me too much purpose he's given me a reason to live he's given me a reason to go on i have no other option than to make him my highest priority i have no other option than to make him what is most important in my life i have no other thing that i could turn to that is worthy of my life than jesus that's why he says in chapter 2 of first peter he says like newborn babies then crave that pure spiritual milk so that by you might grow up in your salvation now that you have tasted that the lord is good now that you've experienced his goodness church now that you've experienced his grace he says crave spiritual maturity crave to grow up in him crave to live a life worthy of that grace that we've received he says as you come to him the living stone you he's talking about the church you're rejected by humans but chosen by god and precious to him you also like living

stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifice is acceptable to god through jesus christ why are we living the way that we're living why should we make every effort why should we pursue jesus because peter says you know brick by brick and stone by stone god is building something that is bigger than just you or i as individuals it's bigger than what i can do on my own it's bigger than what you can do on your own it is a holy temple a dwelling place for god to live in and if i just think throughout my biblical history every time somebody built god a house it was the most ornate and beautiful thing he had ever seen in fact that first house that was built after they built the second one it says the elders looked at the second one they said this isn't good enough it's not as beautiful as the first one it's not as good as the first one and i i feel like i talk about catholics a lot but you look at the basilica you look at their churches all the beauty

all of the stained glass windows all that stuff i i've talked to a lot of catholic friends i the saint louis basilica all those tiles on the wall they say somebody went in there with a punch and knocked each one at its own individual unique angle that way when the light would come in through the windows the light would bounce off in every different direction that way it would look like the glory of god filling that place when people build a house for god it is the most beautiful thing they make every effort to make sure that house is right and appropriate for god to dwell in and here is peter telling me that i'm one of the bricks in that house i'll just i'll be frank and blunt i don't want to be an ugly brick i don't have a better way of saying it i could try to be real professional you know i don't want to be an ugly brick peter tells me i'm part of that temple that god dwells in i'll tell you what if we can continue with this analogy i'd be polishing up this ugly brick every day

i'd be making every effort that this ugly brick has a prayer life that this ugly brick fasts that this ugly brick comes to church that this brick reads his bible that this brick tries to do good in the world in the name of jesus i would be making every effort he's been too good for me to turn in just a slosh job i know that this is raw and this is it's not real pretty and refined but he's been too good apc to get comfortable he's been too good for me to settle for anything less than making every effort you know what's really cool about this is he goes on and he he pins that opening text that we read at the start of this sermon he says because see in scripture it says i lay a stone in zion he's chosen and precious and the one who trusts in him they'll never be put to shame we can put our trust in a lot of other things we can make every effort i know because i've done it we can make every effort in our careers we can make every effort in our educations

we can make every effort in our relationships we can make every effort in a lot of different venues and avenues in our life i i know that and these things aren't bad these i'm not preaching against these things but what i am here to say is that there's really only one thing in life that should occupy that highest seed of importance and that is our trust in jesus our relationship with him our attitude should be i can figure everything else out i can work out any other things that might come in my life i can figure out a career i can figure out education i i can figure out relationships i can figure all that out but one thing that i have to have settled one thing that i have to have for sure in my life is my relationship with that one who has given me a life that i would never have on my own some of you all know my story and i'm done i'm wrapping up some of you all know my family story my dad ex-drug addict parents separated at a time and they got in church got saved god

began to work on them they're still in church they'll be here at the 11 o'clock god willing you hear me mom and dad yeah sorry put them on the spot there but they got saved and i hadn't been born yet before they got in church in fact i was quite down the line if you know how many kids they ended up having i was like a generation away but they got in church and all i can really say is i i physically wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the gospel if it wasn't for god if it wasn't for my parents relationship i i wouldn't exist i wouldn't be here and i know that's more obvious to see meaning i literally wouldn't be born but let me just say this to abc you would not be here outside of god's intervening in your life you wouldn't be in this pew you wouldn't have the life you live you wouldn't have the blessings you wouldn't have the hope you wouldn't have any of that outside of that chosen and precious stone that god ordained in your life and so the only response that we have is

what peter's calling for here where he says church make every effort make every effort church i'm about to fade off the scene i'm about to be dead you're not going to have me as an apostle anymore so all i can really say that will keep you and will secure you in your faith is this remember please remember to make every effort to stand in right relationship with him let's all stand in this place as i was preparing i was asking god what what are you what are you trying to accomplish you know you have a sermon and i've said a lot i'm sorry for that but you know there's normally a driving force what's god trying to do and all he told me is that i'm just trying to draw people i'm just trying to call more out of people i'm just trying to draw them closer to me i'm just trying to ask for them to give me more to give me everything that they have and i said okay i can do that so i wonder if you will every every eye close i want you to enter in a time of prayer

with me we're going to have music i want to have a time to respond but i wonder i wonder if you can hear that call of the lord like i heard it in preparation and like i'm hearing it right now god's beginning to speak to his people right here right now it's beginning to remind you of everything he's done in your life the places that you could have ended up that he kept you from the places that you are currently now that you would not have gotten to without him it's beginning to generate those memories in your in your mind and that he's calling you in light of all that church make every effort god i pray you reveal things to us right now wherever we're not making every effort god i pray you show us and call us to it jesus that's right church let's begin to pray let's begin to respond yes breath that i take every moment if you want to maintain social distancing and pray that's fine if you want to pray in your view but i would ask that you just respond to the call of the lord for you

let's make every effort this morning every bad day starts right here in this moment let's make every effort lord have your way in me lord i give you my heart