Set Your Sights

Morning. Yeah, if we haven’t met yet, my name’s Carter Lacey. Yeah, I’m just super excited to be with y’all. We’re gonna transition now into a time of congregational prayer. And so if y’all would grab a neighbor and as we think about this new year and December coming to an end, a lot of times we think about the ending of stuff and new beginnings. And I think all of us have different goals, whether it’s physical goals or financial goals, different stuff. But I think all of us would agree that we want to grow in our relationship with Jesus this upcoming year. And so just grab a neighbor and let’s pray about spiritual growth this year for ourselves and for Sauldam as a church and just the people around us. How can we grow in our relationship with Jesus and ask Him to help us in our relationship with God this year to pursue Him like we haven’t in these past years. So I’ll give y’all a few minutes to do that and then I’ll close us in prayer.

As we come into a new year, come into the last Sunday of December, God, I pray that all of us would want to grow in our relationship with you. Pray for our families and our friends. Lord, I pray that they would grow in their relationship with Jesus. God, I pray that this upcoming year, we could treasure you above everything else and that Lord, our time and our energy and our money and everything that we are, God, would just be shifted to wanting you and knowing you, Lord. Thank you for this Sunday, this time to gather together. Lord, I pray that you would lead us and speak to us this morning, God. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Like I said, my name is Carter Lacey. If we haven’t met, I’ve officially been down here at Sauldam for six months now. I primarily work with the student ministry and the local outreach ministry and I don’t get too many opportunities to come up here and address all of you at once. I guess they heard I was preaching. There’s not too many of you today, but for real, I just wanna say from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for all of your support, your love and your generosity towards me. I moved from Columbia and coming down to Charleston, coming to a new church, living with a pastor and his wife and three little kids. Like I didn’t know what to expect, but I can tell you that God has just blessed me so much and just exceeded my expectations in so many ways. And so really from the bottom of my heart, thank you guys so much for your generosity towards me, your kindness to me. And man, I’ve just had such a great experience being here at Sauldam and being a part of what God is doing here at this church.

So I wanna start with a story this morning. Like I mentioned, I lived with Jeremy, his wife and his three kids and about a month and a half ago, me and them are eating dinner and Jeremy says, man, tomorrow I’m going hunting. I’m going hunting on the Cordray’s land. And I’m like, man, that’s cool. I don’t know much about hunting. So he’s telling me all about it, what he’s gonna do, everything. I go to bed, I get up and I go to work. I kind of forget that he’s going hunting and I come back and we’re eating dinner again. And he brings up that he went hunting. I’m like, oh man, how was it? What happened? He says, Carter, you won’t believe it. I shot at a deer three times in a row and I missed it all three times. All three times I missed this deer. And I’m thinking, man, you have to be the worst hunter ever, right? Like you have to be terrible. Like he’s like, he’s like, it doesn’t even happen. Like once a deer hears a gunshot, they run away. He’s like, it stood still. And I shot it three times and I missed every time. But the thing about hunting with a rifle and a scope is that, man, if you don’t have your sights set, if your scope is not set right, then man, you could be looking at a target, your crosshairs be on that target and you could still miss, right? And so I’ll let you decide if Jeremy’s a terrible hunter. I don’t know. But I will say that there is something to be said about the sights of a gun need to be set. And even if you’re aiming at The right thing. If your gun isn’t zeroed and your sights aren’t set right, then you’ll miss every time. And I’ll think about that. I think, man, that relates so much to us. Like we could have good intentions and we could want the best for our lives. But if our sights aren’t set right, if our hope isn’t in the right place, then man, we’ll miss. We won’t live the life that God wants us to live. And we won’t live up to the full potential that God wants us to have. And all of you, like we would all agree, man, we wanna live a full life. We wanna live life to its full potential. None of us would say, “I wanna waste the 80 years of my life. I just, you know, I just throw it away.” We all want a full life, right?

And so this morning, as we think about this being the last Sunday in December, I think, man, what better place to go and to look at than the last book of the Bible, right? And so Jeremy has already read this passage. It’ll be on the screen, but Revelation chapter 21, verses one through four, this is what it says: “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. 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. 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, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’”

Man, what a beautiful picture, and what a beautiful hope that we have in Jesus, that this is the reality, and this is the reality that believers in Jesus are going to. But like anybody else in the room this morning, kind of like, man, that sounds great, but like I got real life, I got bills to pay, I got people to take care of, I got stuff to do, I got a job to work. Like it seems kind of like a fairy tale, maybe not a fairy tale because that’s fake, but like I would say, man, I believe the Bible, and I know that this is true, and since God says it, like I believe it, but this reality of heaven, it seems a little bit distant from my everyday life. Anybody agree? Kind of? Maybe just me.

But so this morning, I wanna talk about how our hope in heaven should change the way that we live today. And I would ask you, think in your mind, how do you think that your hope in heaven, as a believer in Jesus, that this is a secured hope for us, how do you think that that should change the way that you live your everyday life? Maybe some thoughts pop into your mind, but for me, I’m like, I don’t really know. I really don’t know. And so this morning, I wanna talk about three things that our hope in heaven should change our attitude towards. And those three things are this: our possessions, our pain, and people. Possessions, pain, and people.

And so we’re gonna jump in. How does our hope in heaven change our perspective on our possessions? And so turn with me to Matthew chapter six. Jesus talks about this subject. He’s talking about how we should treasure heaven instead of putting all of our treasure in the things of this world. Matthew chapter six, verse 19 through 21. Jesus says this, Jesus makes a big deal out of the fact that our heart is connected to our possessions. Our heart is connected to the way that we spend our time and our money. And so this morning, is all of your possessions, your time, your energy, your money, is it focused on building the kingdom here, your kingdom here? Or is it focused on building God’s kingdom and pointing to the fact that you will be with Jesus one day and that your real citizenship, as Philippians says, is in heaven? We’re not just citizens of this country. And we’re not just here for 80 years and then just gone. We’ll either spend eternity with God or without Him. We’re eternal. And so is our lives pointing to God’s kingdom or our own kingdom? And how are we using our possessions to further one of those kingdoms? You know, Jesus says in that last verse, He says, for where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.

Now, I love fishing. I love fishing so much and I’m really disappointed because since I’ve been down at Charleston, I haven’t gone fishing that much. I’ve been a few times, but I’ll tell you, throughout the day, I’m thinking about fishing a lot. Even though I haven’t been, I love fishing so much, I’m thinking about fishing lures, fishing rods, new boats. Anytime I pass a boat when I’m driving, I’m like, man, I wish I was on that boat going fishing. That’s because I love fishing, right? And so a lot of my time thinking and my money and my energy goes towards fishing. That’s what I treasure.

And so in the same way, like, what do you treasure? What is the thing that occupies your mind and your heart and your money and your time? Because that’s what you treasure. Jesus wants to be our treasure. He wants to be that thing that we spend our time thinking about and spending our money and our energy on. Not that those habits and those things that we do, those hobbies are bad, but does Jesus have the first place? Does He have our possessions, our time and our energy and money surrendered to Jesus? Or is it just our stuff? And then we kind of give God a little bit of it, you know? So Jesus deserves all of our possessions and our hope in heaven, the fact that we’re going to a kingdom there should change how we view our possessions here.

You see, our hope in heaven should not only change how we view our possessions, but also our pain. If you were to turn to the person beside you, most of you have a person beside you, but if you were to turn to someone around you and say, man, have you experienced pain this past year? Every single one of us would say, yeah. It could be a physical pain. It could be, man, I’ve had this sickness, I’ve had this disease, I’ve been in and out of the hospital. Or it could be an emotional pain, the loss of a loved one, hurt in a relationship. It could be a spiritual pain. Man, I was praying for this thing all year and God didn’t seem to answer it in the way I wanted. All of us come in here this morning with some type of pain. Maybe it’s not a level 10 pain, but it’s some type of pain that we deal with, right? And so what do we do with that?

You know, that passage that I read a minute ago, Revelation 21, verse 4, it says that God will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. It’s beautiful. God will make all things right one day. There will be no more sin in that place. It will be made right. But what about here? Can I assure you today that the one who’s gonna make it all right there is with you today? Jesus Christ, the one who will make everything right one day is with you today. And that is a hope that we can hold onto.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t have pain. You guys might remember in John chapter 12, there’s a story about a man named Lazarus. And Lazarus had a sickness and then he died. And Lazarus has two sisters, Mary and Martha. And Jesus is on His way to go raise Lazarus from the dead. And He goes there and you know what? He doesn’t say to Mary and Martha, He doesn’t say, hey guys, I’m about to raise your brother from the dead. Stop crying. Why are you crying? Because I’m gonna make everything right. If you had enough faith, if you believed more, then you should not feel this pain. You know what the Bible says? In John 12, verse 35, it says that Jesus wept. Jesus was with these people in their pain. He’s with you in your pain today. He doesn’t ignore your pain and He doesn’t say, because there’s a heaven, you should just go about life all happy and never feel any pain. No, Jesus is with you in your pain. And the one who will make all things right one day is with you today. And we can cling to Him because He is our hope.

This is what 2 Corinthians chapter four says, 2 Corinthians chapter four, verses 17 and 18. It says, For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

You know, I was thinking about how could I convey this idea that when we get to heaven, our pain here will seem small and seem light. And I was talking with Jeremy and he gave me this analogy and I really liked it. So I wanted to share it with you today. He said, imagine you’re in a swimming pool and you’re in a swimming pool and you’re surrounded by water, right? And all you can see is water. It’s a lot of water. Couldn’t drink it all. It’s a lot of water. But now step with me to the ocean. Step with me to the shore of the ocean and look out, what does that swimming pool look like in that ocean? Looks like just a drop, right? It’s like nothing.

So I encourage you today, look to the ocean. Look to God’s healing for it will far outweigh all of the pain that we feel here. It will not make us feel less of it. It will not make it hurt less, but it will remind us that we’re going to be with Jesus and He’s going to make everything right. And He’s our hope.

Our hope in heaven should change the way that we view our possessions and it should change the way that we view our pain. But it also should change the way that we look at people. You know, there’s another beautiful picture in the book of Revelation and it comes out of chapter seven. Revelation chapter seven, verse nine and 10. John says, After this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and people and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.

Is anybody else excited for that day when we worship Jesus? From every tribe and language and people, every single person that believes in Jesus is worshiping together, worshiping Him who has made all things right and has completed the work for us to be with Him forever. I’m excited for that day.

This is the reality for believers in Jesus Christ, that we will be with Him forever and that we will worship Him alongside people of every nation. But there’s also a very real reality for those who don’t believe in Jesus and who don’t put their faith in Jesus. Jesus talks about this a lot in the gospels and it’s being separated from God forever in a place called hell, place of eternal torment because you’re separated from the presence of Jesus and the full wrath of God is on you.

Could I ask you today, do you have the hope of heaven? You see, the hope of heaven isn’t the hope that we’re gonna do a bunch of fun things after we die. It isn’t that we’re gonna just get to do whatever we want in a fairytale land or jumping on the clouds. No, the hope of heaven is a person, the person of Jesus. Do you have a relationship with Jesus? Have you been united in faith with Him? Because that is what secures the reality that we’re talking about in Revelation 21 and Revelation 7 of worshiping Jesus forever.

Have you experienced that personal relationship with Jesus? It’s the only way to be with Jesus forever is putting your faith in Him. It’s not good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell. People who put their faith in Jesus and are united in faith to Him and have been transformed by the gospel who go to heaven and those who don’t place their faith in Jesus that are forever separated from God.

If you’d like to talk about having a relationship with Jesus, man, I would love to talk with you. Pastor Jeremy would love to talk with you. Becca would love to talk with you. Pastor Al would love to talk with you. Beth would love to talk with you. Donna would love to talk with you. Please reach out. Don’t let another day go by without saying, man, I want that. I want to be sure that I’m going to be there, that I’m going to be with Jesus on that day and that I’m united in faith with Him.

So how does our hope in heaven change the way that we view people? I think that Pastor J.D. Greer puts it best. I think I have a quote that’s going to come up on the screen, but he says this: there is one thing we can’t do there, talking about heaven, that we can do here—tell people about Jesus. You see, Jesus is worth us sharing the gospel with other people. Jesus is worth us getting uncomfortable and having hard conversations. Because one day after we die, we’re either gonna be with God forever or be separated from Him forever. It should change the way that we view people and not just see people as 80-year beings, but as eternal beings. I have an eternal destination, and it’s based on their faith or their lack of faith in Jesus.

Could I ask you today, like, where would you be without Jesus? What would your life look like without Jesus? Man, we could go around the room, and like, I don’t know all the things that would be said what Jesus rescued you from, right? But it would be a lot of stuff. But you see, where you would be without Jesus is exactly where so many people, billions of people, are in the world because they haven’t heard the gospel. They haven’t heard that message of Jesus. And man, that should just, that should touch our hearts. We want people to experience the life change and the transformation that is offered in the gospel. And so for all of this, this is more than about just this one section of the sermon. Like, all of our lives should be about pointing people to go and be with Jesus and come to the feet of Jesus and experience the freedom and the hope and the restoration that He brings, right? The reason that we can talk about the hope of heaven and the good things that we have to look forward to in heaven, it’s all because of what Jesus did for us. It’s all because Jesus came for us the first time. We’ve been celebrating it throughout the month of December, throughout Advent, how Jesus came as a baby to be born, to eventually die and take your place and my place on the cross, and then rise from the dead three days later. That’s the reason we can talk about how our lives should be changed by the hope of heaven, is because of what Jesus did for us in the gospel.

If it weren’t for Jesus, like, all of us would be like Jeremy. All of us would miss every time. All of us would be subjected to a life of futility and just wasting our life, really. Like, ’cause, man, Jesus has made a way for us to have our hope in heaven. ’Cause without Him, man, we have no hope. All we have is, man, we’ve sinned against God, and we deserve a penalty for that. Our only hope is that Jesus would take our place, and He did. Hallelujah, He took our place, and He took our cross, and took sin away so that we could have a relationship with God.

You know, I wanna end with this analogy right here. I hope no one stole my rope. I got it, here it is. This is a rope, right? I also stole, stole, not the rope, but I stole this analogy. So, this is a rope, right? Anybody guess how long it is? I don’t know. Maybe. No, I think it’s longer than five feet. But this is a long rope, right? Long, long, long, long, long, right? Cowboy, man. That’s a long rope, right? You see this? Oliver, what color is this section right here? Yeah, it’s black. It’s a little section. I don’t know if you guys can see it in the back, but it’s like, it’s only about, I don’t know, six inches long, right? Compared to this rope, right? And this is our lives right here. This 80 years, maybe shorter, maybe a little longer, but this other section of the rope is eternity. Man, it’s a lot longer than this black section, right? And we would be foolish. We would be so disappointed if we got to here and we said, man, I spent every waking moment of my life focusing on this section, these 80 years. Don’t you think that this part, all of eternity, should change and shape the way that we view our life here and our time here and the way that we spend our money and energy? Man, it’s not all about this. It’s not all about the 10 years of retirement, the 20 years of retirement. It’s not even about the whole black part. It’s about all of eternity, either being with Jesus, being separated from them, and trying to bring others to the feet of Jesus so that they can worship Him too. We’re gonna transition now to a time of communion to remember what God has done for us, and He made possible a way to be with Him forever and worship Him forever. And so Jeremy’s going to come up and lead us in a time of communion, and I’d love to just pray for us as we transition into that time.

Lord, thank You so much for this time. Thank You for Your grace and Your kindness to us, Lord. I pray that the hope that we have in You would change the way that we live here, God, the way that we view our possessions, the way that we view pain, and the way that we view people. Lord, thank You for what You’ve done for us in the cross. Thank You for taking our place, Lord, so that we could have life with You. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.