[0:00] John chapter 17, verses 24 through 26, if you would please stand with me as we honor the reading!
[0:30] May God add a blessing to the reading of His Word.
[0:56] Would you please be seated? Many of us know of the Watergate scandal which took place in the early 70s involving President Richard Nixon, which resulted with his resignation.
[1:14] Even almost 50 years later, whenever there is a scandal and an attempted cover-up, in our culture we give it a nickname usually by adding the suffix gate to it.
[1:27] So, for example, back in 2015, if you remember, we had a couple of scandals. We had Emailgate involving Hillary Clinton, and then we had Deflategate involving Tom Brady.
[1:38] Wouldn't you wish that guy would just stay retired? One of the primary players during the Watergate scandal was an attorney named John Wesley Dean.
[1:52] Dean served as White House counsel for President Nixon from 1970 to 1973, and he's best known for his role in attempting to cover up the Watergate scandal.
[2:08] Years later, after that, Dean wrote a book about his experience in the White House called Blind Ambition. And in the book, he addresses his rise within the Nixon White House and the subsequent power and prestige he gained as he became a close confidant of the president.
[2:27] Dean points out in his book that, unbeknownst to him at the time, his rise was truly a descent. So, I want to read to you what he wrote about that. He said, I soon learned that to make my way upward into a position of confidence and influence, I had to travel downward through factional power plays, corruption, and finally outright crimes.
[2:48] Although I would be rewarded for diligence, true advancement would come from doing those things which built a common bond of trust or guilt between me and my superiors. In the Nixon White House, these upward and downward paths diverged yet joined like prongs on a tuning fork pitched to a note of expediency.
[3:08] Slowly, steadily, I would climb down toward the moral abyss of the president's inner circle, and I finally fell into it, thinking I had made it to the top, just as I began to realize I had actually touched bottom.
[3:23] Like John Dean, millions of people have spent a lifetime striving to arrive at positions of great influence and power only to find that everything they had worked for cannot be taken with them into the next life.
[3:40] And often the depths to which they've stooped to achieve those things have left them unable to recognize themselves or even like the person that they've become.
[3:53] But the Christian life that we have been called to live and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live is a life that should produce much different results for us.
[4:04] The Christian life is a call to live by dying to self. It is a life that is to be buried in service to God, a life where much is made of Christ and little is made of yourself.
[4:19] And though a Christian life may die in obscurity, though a Christian may die in obscurity, the result we know for that person is resurrection. A life lived for Christ is a life of selfless dissension as we seek to exalt not ourselves, but Jesus Christ, our Lord.
[4:40] It's an attitude towards life that is perfectly described by John the Baptist, who was the forerunner of Christ. As John's disciples were coming to him and saying, hey, Jesus and his disciples are making more disciples than we are, listen to what John said.
[4:56] Speaking of Jesus, he says, he must increase, but I must decrease. But you know, in reality, John understood something that we need to understand as well is that a decrease for us when it comes to Christ is truly an increase.
[5:13] Our sinking, our dying to self, our pursuit of Christ and his will for us instead of our wills for ourselves is actually an ascension, not a descension.
[5:25] The life lived for Christ may look like a demotion to the world, but it's truly a promotion because God has decreed that the life and death of a Christian will not end in tragedy, but in triumph.
[5:38] Now, outside of our Lord, perhaps few have endured the level and the lengths and the depths of tragedy that Job has endured.
[5:51] But Job knew God, and he came to understand that though he had lost everything that the world treasures, he still had reason to hope. Look at his words in Job 19, 25 through 27.
[6:03] For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has thus been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another, my heart faints within me.
[6:24] In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul spoke frequently of his desire not for earthly treasures which perish, but in the hope of his heavenly reward, which was to be with Christ.
[6:38] In 2 Corinthians 5, 8, Paul says, Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. These men expressed a desire, as did many others in Scripture, that knowing Christ and being with him is far greater than anything that this world has to offer.
[7:01] They understood that for those in Christ, death is not something to be afraid of, but something to be desired. That might sound really strange to you, because so often we think of death as the end instead of a beginning.
[7:18] We think of it as a loss of all things instead of the gain of greater things. At the close of Jesus' high priestly prayer for his disciples recorded in John 17, he prays that all of his disciples would learn this principle, that they would live their lives for him in anticipation of being with him.
[7:41] Our Lord has great things in store for those whom he saved. He has great things in store for you, and those things that he has prepared for you who have believed in him come into focus here as Jesus brings this prayer to a close.
[7:58] They are things which the Bible says are so great that human language, human words, are incapable of describing them. 1 Corinthians 2, 9 says, But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.
[8:17] Jesus' last request that he makes on your behalf as he concludes this prayer just hours before his death is that you experience the things that he desires for you, and that your life now would be lived in anticipation of those things.
[8:37] And so the main idea that comes out of these verses of this request is this, Jesus desires that you desire what he desires for you.
[8:49] And I said it without stuttering. Yeah, praise God. Jesus desires that you desire what he desires for you. Jesus' greatest desire for you is that one day you will be where he is.
[9:03] Jesus, do you share that desire? Is that your greatest desire? Are you ready for heaven?
[9:16] Is it your supreme desire right now to be in heaven with Christ? Yes. Yes. Or, do you live as if heaven would be an unwelcome intrusion into your busy schedule?
[9:38] You know, maybe you think, I do want to go to heaven one day, but there are things that I want to do. There are things that I want to see.
[9:48] When I'm old and I no longer am able to do those things or see those things or enjoy those things, whatever those things might be, then I'll be ready for heaven.
[10:01] But right now, I've got things to do. I've got goals to achieve. I've got items to cross off my bucket list. But I'll desire heaven when there's nothing left for me to do here or experience here.
[10:20] You know, I think we all have a fear of missing out. And if you view heaven as an unwelcome intrusion on your life, which will cause you to miss out on something here, you'll have been the one who has truly missed out.
[10:36] No one loves you more and no one knows you better than Jesus. And he doesn't want you to waste your life pursuing perishable things.
[10:50] His prayer for you, brother, his prayer for you, sister, as recorded here in John 17, 24 through 26, is that you desire what he desires for you.
[11:00] So that you won't waste your life in pursuit of perishable earthly treasures, but the imperishable treasures of heaven. And so in these verses, Jesus expresses three desires that he has for you.
[11:17] Three desires that he wants you to desire. And if you desire them, you will not waste your life, but you will have it in abundance.
[11:27] And so the first desire that Jesus requests here or makes plain here is that Jesus desires for you to be with him in heaven. Jesus desires for you to be with him in heaven.
[11:38] Look again at the beginning of verse 24. Father, he prays, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am. Right now, Jesus is in heaven.
[11:50] But at this point, he was not there. He still had the cross and our sins to bear before he would die and rise three days later. But here he speaks with certainty, knowing where he is going.
[12:05] He's going to go to heaven. And he expresses his desire that those who have been given to him by the Father will join him there one day. You know, people speak of heaven as if it's a certainty for every person, no matter what they believe.
[12:22] But the Bible makes it clear that that is not the case. Jesus has already explained to the disciples that he's leaving them. And he's leaving them to go prepare a place for them in heaven.
[12:33] And if you remember, Thomas has a question in regards to that statement. In which he stated that he didn't know where Jesus was going. And he was uncertain and confused about how to find that way.
[12:44] And in response, Jesus says this. I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
[12:56] And you know the amazing thing about heaven isn't that some of us will be there, but that any of us will be allowed to be there at all. We don't gain entrance by being good enough, by having performed a certain amount of good deeds which outweigh our bad deeds.
[13:13] We don't gain access to heaven because we've cracked some kind of secret Bible code and we know how to break into heaven and there's nothing God can do about it.
[13:24] In 1 Corinthians 1.26, Paul calls Christians to remember the condition they were in before Christ saved them. He says, For considering your calling, brothers, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards.
[13:38] Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. You see, we don't arrive in heaven because of something we've done for ourselves, but because of what God has done for us. The Bible says that before salvation, you and I were enemies of God.
[13:53] That's what Romans 5.10 says. Romans 3.23 says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Ephesians 2.1-3 explains the hopeless state and helplessness of any of us to be able to save ourselves.
[14:08] And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work and the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
[14:30] But you know, one of the greatest phrases in Scripture, it's a two-word phrase. But God. But God. And in Ephesians 2.4-7, we are reminded of what God has done to transform His enemies into His sons and into His daughters, transforming those who are born spiritually dead to those who now have spiritual life, and transforming foreigners of His kingdom to those who are citizens of it eternally.
[15:01] But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
[15:27] Our Lord's desire for you is for you to be with Him in heaven. As I was thinking about this verse again, I thought, you know, it's not difficult to understand why believers would want to be with Jesus, but it's amazing that Jesus, that God, would desire to be with us.
[15:48] It made me think about when I had met Danny, my wife, when we were freshmen in college, but then it wasn't until our junior year that we met back up again, and we hung out with a group of friends, and I thought she liked one of my friends, and not me, though I liked her.
[16:11] And so, you know, I didn't think I had a chance there. And then eventually one of my other friends, who ended up being my best man, just kind of approached her. We were over at one of their apartments, and she lived with a roommate in the same complex, and just said, you know, what's going on?
[16:28] And she said to him that she was interested in me. And then she left soon afterwards. And then my friend came and told me, and he's like, hey, this is what's going on. And I just kind of stopped, and I was dumbfounded, like, this is a dream.
[16:41] This is a dream. And what I did is I said, I've got to go. And he's like, yeah, yeah. And so I busted out that apartment, and I sprinted down to where I knew she lived.
[16:54] And I couldn't believe that whole way there, that somebody so beautiful would want to be with someone like me. You know, there's none more glorious than Jesus.
[17:09] There's none more beautiful. There's none more desirable. And you know, there's no utter match in all of the universe than for the sinless Son of God, Creator of all things, to want to be matched with sinful creatures who have rejected Him.
[17:29] And God's love is great. The phrase, they whom you have given me, expresses once more the reason believers are special to Jesus. It's because they are a gift to Him.
[17:41] They're a love gift to Him from the Father to the Son. You know, the Bible describes us, the church, as the bride of Christ. And just as many times at a wedding, a father places his daughter's hand into the hand of his soon-to-be son-in-law, giving her away to him, so the Father has gifted you to His Son by placing you safely into His hand.
[18:07] And you know, I've done quite a few weddings, and one thing I've never seen is that as the father brings his bride down to the front of the stage, and there I'm standing with the groom, I've never seen a groom, whenever the father is ready to hand his daughter's hand over to his soon-to-be son-in-law, I've never seen that groom say, I don't know, you know.
[18:31] Okay. No, they take it. And there's excitement there. This day has come. You know, she's now going to be with me forever.
[18:43] We are entering into this covenant of marriage, and there's love, and there's joy, and there's excitement in that, and it's no different for Christ and His church. In fact, it's amplified. It's much greater. All of us at some point or another, though, have experienced what it's like to not be desired, haven't we?
[19:02] We've experienced what it's like to feel rejection. You were once desired, but then either because of something you've done or because of no fault of your own, you're no longer desired by maybe a friend or a spouse or a place where you work, and it could be a number of different things.
[19:25] And that hurts. But listen to what Jesus has to say to you here. He does not desire that you experience heaven on earth, but that you experience heaven in heaven with Him.
[19:42] And His desire for you, whom the Father has given you, whom He's saved, will never diminish. He's not going to stop desiring you after He's saved you.
[19:54] He's continually gracious. He's continually forgiving. He's continually loving. And no one desires better for you than Jesus. And His desire for you is that you be with Him in heaven.
[20:06] And at salvation, He sealed you with His Holy Spirit, ensuring that what He desires for you will come to pass. And so I ask you again, do you desire to be with Christ?
[20:19] Do you share the same desire? Oftentimes, you know what? I think, and this is true of me, that the only time I really desire heaven is whenever I want to escape something on earth.
[20:31] Anytime I think about the dissertation that I'm going to have to write for my doctorate, I was like, maybe the Lord will come back before then and I can get credit without having to have done it.
[20:49] But you know, we don't think about heaven enough. We can become so earthly-minded that we are not doing any kind of heavenly good. So don't waste your life seeking things of this world that the Bible says passes away or seeking to be desired by someone who doesn't really know you and doesn't really love you as much as Christ loves you.
[21:12] He wants you to be with Him in heaven because He's got great things to reveal to you there, which goes on to the next point of His prayer. prayer, the next thing that Jesus desires for you is this.
[21:23] He desires for you to behold His glory. He desires for you to be in heaven and when in heaven, He desires for you to behold His glory. In verse 24, He says, to see my glory that you have given me because you have loved me before the foundation of the world.
[21:39] For most of His time on earth, Jesus' glory was hidden, but there were moments when His glory broke through and was revealed to those who were present with Him. The clearest example that we have of that is on the Mount of Transfiguration where in the presence of Peter, James, and John, He was transfigured before their eyes.
[21:57] Let's read that account, Matthew 17, 1 through 2. And after six days, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, His brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves and He was transfigured before them and His face shone like the sun and His clothes became white as light.
[22:14] Later, John and Peter would testify in 1 John 1, 14 and 2 Peter 1, 16 through 18 that they had beheld His glory.
[22:25] Yet those were only brief foretastes of the glory that awaits you when you enter into heaven and you behold the glory of Christ and its absolute fullness. When the Holy Spirit transformed you at salvation, He filled your heart with love for Jesus.
[22:42] Having seen sin for what it truly is, knowing that you are unworthy of the grace that you have received and understanding that nothing will satisfy you more than seeing Christ in His unfilled glory.
[22:53] That is the end purpose for which you have been made. The first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is this, what is the chief end of man? And the answer is, man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
[23:08] Do you know that that's your purpose? People will save money to go to a concert, to go to a professional sports game and sit in the front rows, or a vacation to some exotic faraway place.
[23:24] We all, at times, search for some event, some experience to glory in it. And those things aren't necessarily bad things, but sometimes we make them the chief end of our existence, just to accumulate a multitude of experiences.
[23:53] Forgetting that one day, we will be in the presence of the King of Kings. And we will see and we will bask in His glory.
[24:10] Does that sound boring to you? When you read Isaiah 6 or Revelation 5, it's hard to envision how heaven is described in those passages.
[24:22] In 2 Corinthians 12, 2-4, the Apostle Paul writes in the third person, out of humility, about His being taken to heaven, either in a vision or physically, he's not sure.
[24:33] But here is a person who saw heaven and could have described it for us, but he doesn't. Instead, what we constantly see Him doing and hear Him talking about is His desire to be with the Lord.
[24:50] Philippians 1, 21-22, For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me, yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell.
[25:04] You know, there are some of those for whom these words are meaningful right now. to live is Christ and to die is gain. They are typically old, or they're sick, or they're old and sick.
[25:21] They are ready to enter into heaven's eternal rest. For them, the thought of being with Jesus and seeing His glory is something that they are anticipating with joy right now.
[25:33] On the other hand, there are those who don't share that anticipation. They are young, and they're healthy. And so maybe if that's you, you don't see this sermon as being very timely for your present situation in life.
[25:50] But every day, we're reminded of human fragility, aren't we? Any moment could be your last moment. God has your days numbered, and only He knows when your final day on earth will be.
[26:06] It could be 30 years from now. It could be tonight. Paul wasn't looking for death, but he wasn't afraid of death because he was certain that he would enter into Christ's presence and behold His glory.
[26:20] But until that time came, he would live his life for Christ in bringing Him glory. And a life lived in pursuit of Christ's glory now won't be wasted, especially when you get to heaven and you behold the fullness of His majesty.
[26:40] The Lord has made it possible for you to experience His glory today, to spend time with Him in prayer, to spend time with Him in His Word, to gather together with His church, to hear testimonies of lives that are being transformed, to belong to a community that loves and cares about you and is committed to helping you become more like Jesus.
[27:10] After all, what would you think of a couple who were about to get married but who did not seem to feel the need to spend time together before marriage? And they say something like, well, you know, we're engaged, but we've got all of the rest of our lives to live together.
[27:28] And so right now, during this engagement time, we're just going to do our own things and then when we come to get married, then we'll be together. If that was the attitude of a couple, wouldn't you have some hesitations about whether or not they should truly spend the rest of their life together?
[27:47] So why would it be any different for us with Jesus? Why would we think that, oh, you know, there will come a time, I'll spend time with you, Jesus. Be in heaven. I mean, you're going to be there, right?
[27:59] I'll see you everywhere. We'll get to know each other then. No, spend your time with the Lord now. He has things to reveal to you. He has things to show you.
[28:12] Jesus desires to reveal his glory to you. And then one day in Christ, you will get to experience that. But, you know, it's something that you should long for now.
[28:24] And something that I believe he gives you glimpses of. Again, by spending time in his word, by being out in his creation, to revel in what he has created, and to be in prayer.
[28:39] those things feed a desire within you to see the word who became flesh, to embrace the creator of creation, and to converse face-to-face with the one who has prayed and interceded for you.
[29:01] You know, how kids are so excited whenever it's their turn to bring something for show and tell.
[29:13] They can't wait to show this thing to their classmates. And you know what? As adults, we're not all that different, are we? You know what happens is sometimes, I know for me, I'll be invited to someone's house.
[29:28] and I can't wait to show you this thing. Come with me, look at this new edition or look at this, you know, thing that I have in my garage.
[29:39] Isn't it awesome? And it's not that they're bragging, it's just that they want you to enjoy it with them. Why are we like that? Well, we've been created in the image of God who wants to show us things that our eyes and our words could not describe with the language that we know right now.
[29:59] Jesus wants to show you His glory. You know, the pearly gates and the streets of gold in heaven will be amazing to see, but I'm convinced that once you see Jesus, you won't want to see anything else.
[30:16] Once you see Jesus in the fullness of His glory, you won't care to see anything else. So why spend your life wasting it on things to satisfy the longing of your hearts that only Jesus can truly satisfy.
[30:34] Don't waste your life. The third desire that Jesus has for you which He expresses in His prayer is this. Jesus desires for you to know the fullness of His love. He desires for you to know the fullness of His love.
[30:47] Verses 25 through 26, O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.
[31:03] Once again, I love the confidence that Jesus expresses when He prays. Don't you? He is confident that His righteous Father is going to grant His requests. God is righteous in everything that He does.
[31:17] In His love, He has called His people to receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ, His Son, by faith in Him. But there's a warning here for those who have rejected Christ as their Lord and Savior.
[31:32] To reject Him is to never know God. We know what John 3.16 says, don't we? For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
[31:45] Sometimes we forget what verse 18 says. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
[31:59] Adrian Rogers once said, there are only two places where there's no hope. One is hell because when you go to hell you've lost all hope. The other is heaven because when you're in heaven you don't need hope.
[32:12] There's only one God and Jesus Christ, His Son, has fully revealed Him. He has made Him known. In John 14, when Philip asked Jesus to show Him the Father, Jesus answered by saying, whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
[32:29] Jesus initially makes the Father known at salvation and then He continues to make Him known to believers throughout the process of sanctification. And finally, He ushers them into the love with which the Father loved Christ in glorification when we are in heaven and we see Jesus.
[32:48] It was out of love that God sent His Son to die for you and in love Christ willingly endured the cross because of His desire to bring you to heaven, to reveal to you His glory and enable for you to one day experience the fullness of His love.
[33:03] To the world that doesn't know Christ, it is the mission of the church to make that love known. And again, we are called to experience and share the love of Christ right now with one another as the church in anticipation of the love that we have received in Christ now and which we will fully view and see and be a part of when we arrive in our heavenly home.
[33:30] So the main point of application for this sermon is that you must align your desires with Christ. Isn't that what Jesus is asking of you here?
[33:41] Align your desires with mine. But again, perhaps the problem that a lot of us have with aligning our desires with Christ is that we fear heaven might be boring.
[33:56] I think we all suffer from something I call Looney Tunes theology. Remember watching Looney Tunes and, you know, Sylvester or Wile E. Coyote, one of the bad guys, sometimes one of the good guys will die, you know, they'll get crushed by a boulder and then all of a sudden their spirit floats up into heaven and they've got a white robe on and little angel wings in there on a puffy cloud and they're strumming a harp.
[34:27] And that doesn't sound enjoyable to me, right? No offense, harp players, but I don't want to play the harp on earth.
[34:39] I don't think I want to play it in heaven. But you know what I'm saying? We have this vision of heaven as just being like boring. Just got to float around and do what?
[34:51] Wear white robes and play the harp? That doesn't sound that interesting to me. And heaven is indescribable and I think that's why it's so hard for us.
[35:06] Even as we read Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah's vision in the throne room of God and how awesome that is. Even when we read Revelations 21 and we see John's vision of heaven there, it's still so hard for us to fathom and envision it in our minds, isn't it?
[35:28] This is so different from what we experience in this world. And so that's why I love Revelation 21 because sometimes the best way to define something is to define what it isn't.
[35:43] We understand sin, we understand death, we understand suffering because our world is full of those things. Look at Revelations 21, 1-4.
[35:53] I love how it defines heaven by describing what it isn't. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more.
[36:05] And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
[36:18] He will dwell with them and they will be His people and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more.
[36:32] Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. I don't know about you, but I desire to live in a place like that.
[36:45] And the reality is, is that what Jesus prays for, He always prays according to God the Father's will for.
[36:57] And whatever He prays for in accordance to the Father's will, guess what? It gets answered. It gets answered. Heaven is a reality for those who are in Christ.
[37:13] Christ. If you know Christ, that is a reality for you. And so, since Christ has been so gracious to give you so much, shouldn't you determine to live your life for Him now?
[37:31] Don't waste it here on things that are going to perish, on things that you can't take with you. Don't waste it trying to climb the ladder of success, which is truly, in many cases, a downward ascension because of what you're forced to do to get to that place.
[37:46] Well, what would that look like to live your life for Christ here and storing heavenly treasures for yourself? Well, maybe it means selling a possession that you delight in but that you have no use for.
[37:58] Maybe it means you sell that and you give it to missions. You sell it and you give it towards something like the Annie Armstrong Easter offering. Maybe it means answering a call to ministry.
[38:09] ministry. Maybe God has called you but you know ministry is hard. It's tough. I could make more money in the secular world doing this. Maybe what it means for you to live your life for Christ now and not waste it is to pursue that call to ministry.
[38:26] Maybe it means something like a church. Just volunteering in places where we need you. Our nursery is always in need of helpers. You say, you know, for one day, one Sunday a month, Lord, I'm going to go down there and I'm going to invest my lives into the lives of those kids and give those parents an opportunity to be together in the church to worship and be fed by you.
[38:49] Maybe it means for you that you need someone to help you keep yourself accountable so that you are in God's word, so that you are spending time with him in prayer instead of poisoning your mind with sinful images of things on the internet or substances that you take to avoid confronting the real issues that you have in life that the Lord can help you with.
[39:15] Maybe it's canceling a vacation so that you can go on a mission trip instead. Maybe it's prioritizing your children's spiritual growth over their academic or athletic pursuits.
[39:29] Are your desires in line with Christ's desires for you? Because again, no one loves you more and no one loves you better.
[39:43] No one has given you more and no one has more still to give you. You won't regret it living your life, pursuing our Lord's desires for you.
[40:00] You won't regret it when that day comes and you enter into His eternal presence and as He's known you fully throughout your whole existence, you will know Him in His totality.
[40:20] That's an awesome thing and a day that we should all look for with great anticipation. Four application questions that we'll discuss in our community groups tonight.
[40:33] Question number one. If you were to align your desires with Jesus' desires for you, what things would you stand to lose and gain?
[40:45] If you were to align your desires with Jesus' desires for you, what things would you stand to lose? What things would you stand to gain? Question number two.
[40:57] What things are currently distracting you from dwelling on the things that Jesus desires for you? Will the goals you have set for yourself result in earthly or heavenly rewards?
[41:08] What things are currently distracting you from dwelling on the things that Jesus desires for you? Question number three. How do these verses fuel your excitement for heaven and what Jesus desires for you to see there?
[41:23] And I encourage you again to read Revelation 21, 1 through 5. How do these verses fuel your excitement for heaven? And then finally, since heaven is a certainty for those saved, how should Christians live now in anticipation of it, in preparation for it?
[41:45] God has great things in store for those whom he's loved, for those who love him. And in this world, no matter what we go through, we always have reason to hope because for the Christian, the best is always yet to come.
[42:03] Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that it would truly be our desire to desire the things that you desire most for us.
[42:16] Lord, I know that so often we get distracted by things of this world, we become convinced that what we should be spending our time and money chasing our things that we think are going to make us happy and give us satisfaction.
[42:37] But Lord, we see in your word and we can see through many experiences of those who've gone down that route that they end in despair. Lord, help each one of us to evaluate our lives, to evaluate what we truly desire.
[42:59] Lord, we pray that your spirit would search our hearts and our minds and would bring those things to our attention, that we would be honest with ourselves and that your spirit again would grant repentance so that, Lord, for all of us, we would choose to live our lives in pursuit of the things that truly matter and not waste them pursuing the things that don't.
[43:23] God, be glorified in our lives until that day when we are with you to see you and to bask in the great fullness of your glory. In Jesus' name we pray.
[43:34] Amen.