Redeeming Time: Abiding in Christ for Impact

1. "How we spend our time, what we spend our time doing over your lifetime will add to that legacy of how you will be remembered. But here's the question, and I'll just admit, I've asked this before of you all, and it's a somewhat depressing question. In 100 years, who will be remembered, right? In 100 years, who will be remembered? Think about this. In 100 years, we will surely be gone. And so will our children. Our grandchildren will be in their latter years and perhaps gone as well. Will we be remembered then? Who is going to remember us? Probably not. Our name will probably fall somewhere within a family tree, but we really, our name might be there, but we won't be remembered." [33:28] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "However, we have a chance to make an impact. We have a chance to make an impact on the lives of others that will be remembered for all of eternity by the one true God who we all have to give an account to, right? We have a chance to claim our time, to do things that actually matter, to redeem our time, to not just simply having a perspective on that chart of how everything's kind of broken up within our day and our week and our lifetime, but actually looking at our time and seeing how we can redeem it. How we can use it all for the glory of God as we think about how we spend our time. Let's make it count, this side of heaven. Let's make our time count because our actions will echo into eternity." [35:33] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Live your life out of your connection with Jesus for us to get this right, to stay true north. We must stay connected to the one that can actually keep us focused. Keep us in that eternal perspective at all times. So how do we get there? What does this actually look like? What does this actually look like for us for that we're going to be reading out of John 15, one through six is Jesus has a simple and yet complicated response, right? It's simple, but it's really hard to put it into practice. But with him, all things are possible." [36:37] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "He is the son of God. He is the Messiah. He is the king of kings. He is the Lord of lords. And when he said this last statement, I am the true vine, all the good Jewish boys and girls would have been doing a double take like, wait, what? What did you? Wait, you just called yourself the true? Vine? And they would have done that because Israel was always seen as the vine or the vineyard of God. This is painted for us all throughout scripture, but Isaiah 5 is the famous one, the song of the vineyard. And here, Jesus is saying, yes, I realize Israel is painted as the vine, but I am the true vine. I am everything Israel is not. He is the true Israel." [39:28] (50 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "The path to God doesn't go through Israel, which all good Israelites would have believed. The path goes through Israel. It is all about him. It is all about following, going to temple. Being a good Jewish boy and girl was what it's all about, to be that citizen. But rather, he's declaring, it goes through me. The path to God goes through Jesus. You don't need to be a citizen of Israel to be right with God. You need to be a disciple of Jesus. He's ultimately saying, as what we've already talked about, is live your life out of your connection with Jesus. As he's saying to them and he's saying to us, live your life out of your connection with me." [41:32] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "Every part of your life that is helping you become more like Jesus, he trims. Every part of your life that is helping others become more like Jesus, he trims. Every part of your life that is helping others see Jesus in you, he trims. Think about all the hats that you wear within a given day. A spouse, a parent, i.e. Uber driver, right? Son, daughter, leader, co-worker, friend, and hopefully a member of Asbury Church. Think about those hats that you have to wear. How time is given out to all these different positions and hats that you wear." [44:28] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "God takes away the things that don't belong. God takes away the things that weigh us down in life. God takes away the things that keep us from bringing who God created us to be. Now think about your life as I am sure there are things in your life that shouldn't be there that may be little shootouts. Things that are forming into branches within your life shouldn't exist, but they do see God is in that process of cutting that away, helping us to flourish. And what could those things be? It could be unhealthy distractions, and I'm sure maybe those things are popping your head of what those unhealthy distractions might be in your life." [47:55] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "God is so determined to shape you and make you into something better, more beautiful, than you are right now. He is determined to make you more like Jesus each and every day. God is so committed to this that he has God's commitment to you is greater than your commitment to comfort. God is committed to you. Your God's commitment to you is greater than your commitment to comfort. Let's face it. This is what we do. This is why God says, I am going to come in and trim. I am going to cut in and cut away because we will always. Gravitate to easy or the comfortable and yet God, when we say yes to him, he is going to mold us." [53:10] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "When we look at this, they're all the same, but there is a difference though. When we choose to disconnect, to step away from God to say, you know what? I got this. God, I got this. I can do this under my own power. When the world starts to come at us and we feel crunched and we feel self coming in, we feel the things that we're possibly clinging to of how time is coming at us. We feel drained from all the things that we're possibly clinging to. All the different demands and everything else we have is that when that happens to us, what happens? Crunch. They look the same, right? Everything on the outside looked the same. And yet when the world's pressures happen, when time started to crunch in, it crumbled." [56:04] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10. "When we remain, when we abide in him, this is what's possible. There might be some dents in the can. There might be some bruises, discoloring, but we're still here. We're still here. And this is what God promises for us. Promises to, to each and every one of us and to get this, to stay just like this with the bruises with the dirtiness that might happen. Yet God cleans us off through the sacrifice of his son on that cross, right? This can can easily get cleaned up. And so can we, and it comes back to this point that we made. I made at the very beginning is live your life out of your connection with Jesus, because when we don't, we are testing to be a disaster, to get crumpled." [57:48] (50 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)