How To Waste Your Life - Life Together | Week 8 | Tim Birdwell

You'll hit the wrong bull's eye and you'll nail it. But it is not the mission of Christ. It's not the kingdom of heaven, and that will be a tragedy. And I don't want that for you. I I don't want you and I to come here every Sunday to open up God's word, to go home and take our time and our talent and our treasure and and maybe even do some good things that are not worthy of God things. But but keep trekking along because culturally, we're we go to church and we call ourselves Christians and then get to the end of life and realize we have wasted our lives. [00:01:27] (40 seconds)  #DontWasteYourLife

Listen. Because of Jesus and in Jesus, if you do not quit, you will win. Christ, remember last week, you're found not in you, you're clothed not in you, praise God. You're found in Christ, you're clothed in Christ. If you are in him and you stay faithful with him, you will win in the end. Because he won in the end. So don't quit too soon. [00:35:41] (30 seconds)  #PersevereInChrist

And you guys, you're bright people. You look great today. You got an education. You're you're smart. You're you're driven. You live in the fifth largest city in the country for a reason. You're you're a driven person, an ambitious person. Some of y'all live in the center. You wanna be amidst the action of the fifth largest city in the country. And and my fear for you and what keeps me up at night is not that you will fail, it's that you will succeed at things that will not matter in the end. [00:00:54] (33 seconds)  #AimForEternalImpact

If you're watching somebody on YouTube who's a great preacher, who's crushing it, and thousands of people are coming, but they act like they're Jesus and they've arrived, run and turn off YouTube. Amen? Amen. If there's people at our church who you think, well, they're the most mature because they walk with a strut and they act like they've already arrived and they already know everything and they're like, hey, where is Philippians? And they look at you with a condescending, like what do you need, your table of contents? Like what are you, new here? You just need to know at Phoenix Bible Church, we do not define those people as mature but immature. [00:17:44] (35 seconds)  #NoFalseMaturity

And the saddest thing, the most tragic thing that I get to see as a pastor is not even when somebody dies, it's right before they die. And they realize as they're laying in that bed that they've spent their time, talent, treasure, energy, relationship on the wrong finish line. And how could I how could I get those days back? How could I get those years back? How could I get that money back? I know now it needs to go here. [00:13:46] (29 seconds)  #NoRegretsAtTheEnd

There's a lot of people to look to the side of you to compare yourself to on social media. And this person's doing that, and this person's doing that, and why does this person have that, and why don't they have that? And you're meant to see that imagery and say, I could look to the side, I could look back, but I'm meant to look forward at Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of my faith, and throw off everything else that hinders. And we will waste, you will literally waste your life on social media scrolling, looking back, looking to your side. [00:27:15] (29 seconds)  #ScrollLessWorshipMore

Pick the right finish line. The second way to waste our life is to think we've already arrived. Paul uses the word maturity in this text. A lot of what he's talking about is pressing on towards a mature life in Jesus Christ. And yet it's interesting, we often think about maturity as confidence, as certainty, as arrival, but Paul talks about it differently. Paul talks about it like an awareness of lack. [00:16:17] (27 seconds)  #MaturityIsHumility

Some of you, that's your biggest temptation is to hang on to the past success, to hang on to the past success in your career, hang on to the past success of your church and how many churches we planted back in the day and how many baptisms back in 1960. And we used to do things this way, and we used to sing these types of song, and you were stuck not in failure but in achievement. And Paul says, hey, you need to forget that as well and redeem that to see it renew in the in the future and not just cling to the old. [00:24:17] (34 seconds)  #RedeemDontRelive

Some of y'all are running the race with the wrong people, and you're never gonna get to the finish line with that group text. Anybody with me? You're never gonna get to the finish line with those people who are your closest friends, and they're going to Glendale, not Tippie. And you're like, why is this so hard? You're running with the wrong people. And so Paul is clear, you run with the people of God, fellow citizens of the same destination, the same home, heaven. [00:31:09] (32 seconds)  #RunWithGodsPeople

That's what Paul's talking about. So here's the reality. Some of y'all have some past trauma, some past sins that you've committed and that have been committed against you. You need to go to counseling because you're like, well, just forget about it, move past it. That'll work, right? You need some healthy gospel biblical counselor, pastor, friends, community, to maybe excavate that, some of that stuff, and yes, remember it, but remember it now redemptively. [00:23:22] (26 seconds)  #HealWithGospelCounseling

Do you know in heaven there's gonna be people there? Some of the imagery and paintings that I always see, it's like just the person in Jesus sitting on the lap hearing about the dinosaurs. All the questions you wanna ask, did you know there's gonna be like other people there too? Other believers in Jesus, some of them who you love and some of them who annoy you. And the finish line for the Christian is not in isolation, it's in community. And so wouldn't we wanna practice for eternity in that community right now? [00:29:44] (39 seconds)  #PracticeHeavenlyCommunity

Wouldn't we wanna get so close to somebody you can imitate their lives? Some of you, your homework today is go ask somebody who's a little ahead of you for coffee. That's with this whole move to one. We got these bracelets. We got this discipleship resource center, seven marks of a disciple booklet, all that kind of stuff going. But just it could start with a cup of coffee. Here's what that will do, two things. It will honor that person. You go ask somebody, hey, could I just get a cup of coffee? I wanna hear your story. [00:30:23] (25 seconds)  #CoffeeAndDiscipleship

What is he talking about? Forgetting this so you can press on towards this. He's talking about remembering your past, yes, but doing that in light of your present and future reality in Christ. How many of you have that old picture of you on Instagram or for maybe some of you in a photo album? Anybody with me? And you pull it out at a family reunion or when you're trying to impress your friends or when your friends are trying to make fun of you. I'm not sure which one it is. [00:21:45] (29 seconds)  #RememberRedemptively

See, Paul is gonna talk about Philippians chapter three. There's one thing. There's a focus. There's a pressing onward. There's a fixed momentum for the Christian, and it's on a specific finish line. And there are other competing finish lines, and there's false finish lines, and there's other tracks we can go down, and we can get distracted, and we can even dominate those, and we can waste our lives because we're not fixated on the finish line of Christ and his mission. [00:02:07] (29 seconds)  #OneFinishLineInChrist

He said, no, God's got this. God's got the finish line. God's gonna keep us going. God is redeeming all these things that are messy, and he one day will make all things right. Let's be a part of that, and let's lock arms. He didn't physically pick me up, but he did spiritually, and we ran the race together. And just to be clear, we didn't actually run a physical race. I walked home. But, man, who do you have that's like that? [00:39:26] (32 seconds)  #GodRedeemsAndSustains

And pastor AC walks in, and he forgave me for showing everybody that yearbook photo of him. And he just said, hey, are you doing okay? I'm on the couch, you can picture it. Hey. Are you doing okay? And I was like, man, I just like, I don't know. I don't know. You ever been there? he just he came along. He was one of those people that was running the race with the right person at the right time. Thank God. [00:38:48] (27 seconds)  #BeTheOneWhoShowsUp

And that's the kind of perspective that we're meant to have so that we don't waste our lives. We don't act like we've already arrived. We don't stay stuck in the past. So one of the ways we can waste our lives is to stay stuck in the past. Look at verse 13 again with me. Paul says, one thing I do. This is pretty important. This is the one thing he wants you to focus on, forgetting what lies behind. [00:20:23] (24 seconds)  #LeavePastBehindPressOn

And I I what I would tell you is what Paul is painting is a bigger picture than that. He's saying, hey. It's not that you just put him first on your list of priorities on a sheet of paper. Jesus Christ and his mission is the sheet of paper, And it informs and affects everything else on that list. He's the prize. He's the goal. This is the finish line. [00:10:30] (23 seconds)  #JesusIsTheBlueprint

Paul's saying, hey, course correct. There's still time. It's a marathon, not a sprint. There's still time to go after the finish line of Jesus Christ, the surpassing greatness of knowing him and making him known. Go after that finish line. Make him the paper on which you put all of your priorities. [00:16:00] (17 seconds)  #MarathonForChrist

Because some of y'all are stuck in your past because of shame and guilt that just constantly hovers over you, and you need to see that redeemed in Jesus Christ. He died for you to redeem your past, and you need to view it differently, forget what lies behind, and move forward toward Christ. And you need to do that. [00:23:48] (19 seconds)  #RedeemedFromShame