Be Engaged, Not Apathetic

Again, it's such a blessing to have those youth students and youth leaders and again all 30 youth students that we have on our roster. It really is a joy to have them in the youth ministry. If you're not already, please go back to 1 Peter chapter 4. That's where we'll be in for the remainder of our time.

And boy oh boy is it going to be good. In a world addicted to ease, we crave comforts but neglect character. We scroll, swipe, snack and separate our way to spiritual decay.

Our minds are flooded with opinions but starve for truth. Our hearts are entertained but rarely transformed. We consume wisdom like fast food, brief, bite-sized and shallow.

We like, we share, we move on, we do not wrestle. But discipline, that's the narrow path, the unpopular path, the one that doesn't show up in your algorithm, the one where your soul is formed, not just informed, the one that hurts and heals. The path to peace is a paved way with discipline.

That's pretty good, right? I didn't even write that. Chat GPT wrote that. And that's kind of the problem, isn't it? As Christians, we have outsourced our thinking.

We have outsourced our way of life and our sermons, our lectures, the way that we answer questions and everything else in between. Tonight I want to talk about the unknown, invisible, forgotten enemy because we've forgotten how to wrestle in life. God wants to form you through discipline.

He doesn't just want to give you information. This is not Chat GPT anymore, don't worry. He doesn't skip the process of learning.

So tonight, we're not just talking about discipline, but we are confronting the very depth of deep thinking and discipline in our culture. We're fighting the drift of passive Christianity. We're remembering that the spirit-empowered, Christ-exalting, grace-filled life is one that is trained, not merely copied from a machine.

See, Chat GPT is artificial intelligence, AI. You've probably heard about that. It is a machine that is designed to complete a task, not to sanctify your soul.

I'm sure that you've all heard John Piper's question for Chat GPT. If you have not, I'll reiterate it. In a sermon, John Piper said, I asked Chat GPT to compose a 30-second prayer to God in the spirit and theology of Don Carson in praise to the glory of God's grace.

Three seconds later, Chat GPT came up with this. Gracious Father, we bow before you, the sovereign Lord of history and redemption. From eternity past, you purposed to lavish grace upon undeserving sinners through the blood of your beloved Son.

We praise you for the glory of your mercy, unearned, unmeasured, made manifest in Christ, crucified and risen. May our lives, redeemed and sanctified by your spirit, be vessels of praise to the riches of your grace. To you be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

A machine came up with that. I mean, the rocks will cry out, the bots will cry out.

That was pretty good. I can't wait for that one. It's frightening what people will do to escape or get around or make it easy to learn something or to understand God's word and to really wrestle with something.

It's even frightening to see how they will twist scripture to make it fit what they want to fit in their own life. I remember John MacArthur telling a story, the late John MacArthur, telling a story of a charismatic TV host. He and his wife were hosting the show and they had some charismatic preacher on their show.

And the preacher said, oh, you know, well, I was born in 1929. So my life verse is Matthew 19:29. And the hosts were, oh, wow, that's amazing.

What? I can't believe God gave that to you. What does it say? And of course, well, that verse says, with men it is impossible, with God all things are possible. And the hosts were thrilled.

Wow, that is amazing. So the male host, the husband, said, well, I was born in 1934, so that must mean that my life verse is Matthew 19:34. So the wife had a Bible.

She quickly turned to Matthew 19:34. And of course, there's no 34 verses in Matthew 19, but that didn't stop the heresy. So of course, Mark only has 16 chapters.

So the next one was Luke, Luke 19:34. Wife turns there, frantic, and she says, here it is, I found it. This verse is for you.

It says, and the Lord said, I need it. The Lord needs you. And the husband was thrilled.

Yes, this is me. The Lord needs me. He has use of me.

And before he could even finish, the wife said, oh, wait, this is a passage that's talking about a donkey. So we can't twist scripture into the things that we want. We can't bypass the necessary means of discipline.

We cannot play with scripture like this, and we most certainly cannot allow someone else to do our thinking for us. What if tools like Chat GPT cause us to be? I think there are four issues with something like this that are important to go over. And I teach my students about this.

We have to have plagiarism statements, and we have to have an AI plagiarism statement. And of course, I tell my students, there are people who are literally dating AI bots. They're not humans.

They're AI bots, and they'll train it, transform it to date it. And we think that is gross. I would never do that.

And I tell my students that. You probably think that is so weird. I tell them the same thing.

You know what else was weird? You know what else was unthinkable? Eighteen years ago, someone sitting in your exact chair, they would have thought it was unthinkable for someone to write their own paper, think their own thoughts, and articulate what you are supposed to say. But that is just the drift of cultural Christianity. We just continue to drift and drift and drift.

There are four things I think that Chat GPT has done and 4 issues with it. Number one, I think it causes spiritual laziness. It's caused us to be spiritually lazy or physically, mentally, socially.

It gives us answers rather than having us wrestle with them. If you think of a math class, teacher's teaching a subject, copy down this formula, students copy it down. Here are the answers to it.

Here are the numbers. They plug in specific numbers. Go home and do questions one through ten on page 174 of your notebook.

So you go home. I got this. I learned in the class.

Open up the notebook, and there's different numbers than what the teacher had, and they don't get it. What does that mean? It means that they don't understand the process, the formula. They memorize an answer from a teacher.

They don't know how to get to the answer. And that's what Chat GPT does. It gives you an answer.

Well, what's the difference between Chat GPT and Google? It's the same thing. It gives you the answer, but you're actually wrestling through it. On Google, you can scroll and scroll and scroll and parse through different articles, different websites, different blogs.

But on Chat GPT, here it is. It's what I got for you. And sometimes people take it as gospel truth.

I've had students quote Chat GPT and TikTok to me in class. In Yucaipa, by my school, there was a baby that was recently taken, seven-month-old baby. So everyone in Yucaipa was freaking out about this, rightly so.

The student raises his hand. Mr. Sparks, I know what happened. What happened Noah?

He said, well, what happened was they think the dad killed the baby, and it's covering it up, the mom and dad are covering it up. And he went through this whole statement of the house. They've seen, like, there's been signs of abuse and all this.

Where did you learn this? All from TikTok. Okay? That's fine. I'm not saying it's bad to get your information or something like this, but if you're just giving answers and not wrestling with it, there's something wrong with that.

The third thing, it does not, cannot, and will never be able to sanctify your soul. It's a machine. And lastly, it is a machine.

It's not a human being made in God's image, and thus, it cannot bring praise to God. But I think that this has led to something even worse. That's apathy.

The modern Christian is apathetic. It is the unknown, invisible, and undetected enemy of today's age. It's not AI. People, tools have always been what we've used. Tools have always changed. But the sin is still the exact same.

Until the world gets so bad, where everyone except eight people are wiped off, that we need to stop blaming sin on technology, because it's not the technology's fault. We can use technology, and we have, as a means to advance the gospel. Technology is simply an aid.

That's what it means. The word technology means the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes. So technology is not the issue.

We've used roads, we've used a printing press, we've used cell phones, we've used cars to advance the gospel. So technology is not the issue. The issue is the individual. These tools have only amplified and brought out more of who we already are.

So how do we fight this off? I struggled with this for a while. I was talking to Henry before the service started, and I rewrote this message about eight different times.

I rewrote it on the way over here, as my wife drove, so I could clean up some last minute things. I really struggled for quite a while in coming up with what to talk about, because I had a lot of ideas, but I wanted to narrow it down to one question. If you remember the sermon I gave in May, I talked about the importance of every lecture starting off with a good question.

Why? This is the main reason why. And the word question is the word quest. And a quest is a long, arduous search for something.

And that is what the Christian should be engaged in. You should love questions. You shouldn't run away from them.

You should be excited to answer questions. I love when students come and ask me questions. Mr. Sparks, should gay marriage be legal in the United States? Let's talk about it.

This is amazing. A question is an open door, an opportunity for you to walk through, to discover something new with someone, possibly, or to impart truth on someone. Questions show us where we have been, where we are, and where we are going.

You not only need to get good at answering questions, but also asking questions, because the ability to answer or ask a good question is directly tied to your spiritual maturity. So what's the question for tonight? Are you engaged with what God has called you to do? Are you engaged with what God has called you to do? That is the question. Engagement is how we fight off apathy.

I'm not a fan of the word intentional, because I think it's overused, or authentic, that one's fun too. Intentional has to do with deliberate purpose in your actions, while being engaged looks to becoming involved in something. The act of becoming is what I want to emphasize tonight.

In youth ministry, we want to create real Christians as we pick up sometimes broken pieces of students in their lives. A lot of times, mainly as a teacher at my school, parents will come and just give us their kids, and they'll ask us, what are you teaching them? I can't stand parent-teacher conferences. I would love to turn it around and ask the parent, what are you doing at home? Don't ask me what I'm doing for an hour, what are you doing for the next twenty-three? That great, and other teachers have them, of course.

But it's so sad. I've realized how broken people are, and as a teacher, it's driven me to love my job more. I want my students to be engaged with the three H's, and I haven't introduced them yet, so this is also new to the youth students.

I'm not just repeating information. I don't like repeating information, although I have said, I think, some pretty decent stuff in youth ministry, and my rule is if it's going to feed my family, it can feed your family. But this is really good.

I want them to be involved with the three H's. So in 1 Peter 4, 1 through 11, we're talking about being engaged and not apathetic with the three H's, which I think are important. The home, through relationships and integrity, heaven, through quiet time, and hell, through evangelism.

I think those are all important things. That's not the main subject for tonight, but I do want students to be engaged with these things. Are you engaged with your home? When your parent asks you, how was your day, do you just say, good, and walk away, or do you engage with them in a conversation? And parents, do you engage with your students when they come home, or even your husband when he comes home, or your wife when she comes home, maybe your mom and dad when they come home? Secondly, with heaven, through quiet time.

How's your quiet time? Two questions, my favorite question to ask people, we'll throw in a third one. What's your testimony, how's your quiet time, and how can I be praying for you? Those three things, that's all I need to know about someone. In today's day and age, we like to know their occupation, their family, what do they do for fun, what are your hobbies? Tell us about your hobbies.

What's your testimony, how's your quiet time, and how can I be praying for you? Your quiet time has to be your best time in the whole day. And then the third thing is hell, through evangelism. We engage with the forces of evil through evangelism.

So tonight, as I thought of tonight, I thought of our solar system. This is for you, Mr. Mason, you can't answer this, okay? Anybody know what planet that is? No? Do you know what it is? It's not. Oh, man, Tom, I thought you had it.

It's okay, I'm not going to act like I knew what it was two weeks prior before I looked it up. This is Mercury. Mercury, the hottest planet in our solar system.

What is so unique about Mercury that it makes it the hottest planet in our solar system? Does anybody know? What? It's closest to the sun. Duh. Which one's this? Pluto.

Why is Pluto the coldest one in our solar system? It's furthest from the sun. How does that make this place right here? You better know what that place is. That's Earth.

Earth is just lukewarm. What kind of planet are you as a Christian? And where you're at in your relationship with the Lord is directly tied to how on fire you're going to be for the Lord. If you're far from the source, you're not going to be on fire.

If you're close to the source, you'll be on fire. A lot of us, we're living on Earth. We're lukewarm.

And if you've ever read Revelation, you know what happens to lukewarm things. They're spat out of the mouth of God. So we have to be engaged.

Engaged, engaged, engaged. Energetic. Excited about what God is doing.

So in doing so, we're going to look at this passage now. I want to discuss three principles, three practices within each principle so that we can be engaged with the three H's of home, heaven, and hell to fight off apathy in the modern Christian era and the rest of the world around us as we abide in God and are on fire for Him. So the first thing, again, you can follow on your outline if you have it.

If not, I also have it on the screen for you. The first principle, that your mindset must be pleasing. Your mindset must be pleasing to God specifically.

Listen, you cannot build your reputation off what you are going to do. Your reputation is based off what you are currently doing. And what you do is shaped by how you think and what you say.

And as A.W. Tozer said, what comes to mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. So our mindset is the first principle. Paul talks about, in 2 Corinthians 10 verse 5, casting down every argument and taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

So what are the three practices? The first one, that you must arm your mind. Your mind must be armed. So let's look at our passage.

What does Peter say? First one, therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. As Christians, we are to arm ourselves, not by getting answers from a robot, but through spiritual discipline and through wrestling, by meditating on the law of God, day and night. And that is why your quiet time is so important.

We are armed, so that in depression we are made hopeful, in destruction we are made holy, and in our downcasting we are made whole by God. Because we know God's word and we have been armed with God's word, and that is why we have the armor of God. That is our armor, and that is what we must arm our mind with.

The second practice, very simple, we have to aim for holiness. You aim for holiness. I don't care if you aim high and you miss, but I do care, and I'm even offended, if you aim low and hit.

We have to set high standards, because our standard that we have as Christians is the highest, it's Christ. We must aim, because if we're all going somewhere, you might as well have to give a bit of thought to where you're going. Our mind must be aimed to do God's will.

Let's see what Peter says, Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because one who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. Verse 2, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. We are aiming now at the will of God.

That is our goal. And when God's will is our will, you will get your will. It's that simple.

Hebrews 10:8-10, verse 8, After saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and offerings for sin you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them which are offered according to the law. Then he said, Behold, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first in order to establish the second.

People always want to know what God's will is. It's very simple. Five S's, Saved, Sanctified, Spirit-filled, Submissive, and Willing to Suffer.

Those aren't points for tonight. It's a great book by John MacArthur, the late John MacArthur. Five points.

Saved, you've got to be saved. You have to be saved if you want to know God's will. Then you have to be sanctified.

You have to be setting yourself apart daily. You have to be submissive, willing to be led by the Holy Spirit, which then leads to being Spirit-filled. We are filled with God, with His Word, and lastly, we are willing to suffer for whatever God has put in front of us.

That's why it's called the Old and New Testaments. Do you know what the word Testament means? It means will. So if you want to know God's will, it's called the Old Testament and the New Testament because that's what the word Testament means.

If you want to know God's will, read your Bible. If you want to hear audibly, read your Bible out loud. Your aim must be God's will.

And then the third practice, your mind is made aware. You have to make your mind aware. Verse 3 of 1 Peter chapter 4 says, For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lust, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.

So once you are saved, you know this time is past. It's gone. You understand you are now set apart, set aside for something new.

Peter's readers had indulged in these sins before, but now that they are saved, they know better because they know God's will. They've been made aware of this. We know what is wrong and what the desires of the world are.

When we are aimed, when we are armed, we then know how to get away from that sin because we are made aware. But not just to walk away from sin, but to flee from sin. Our biggest issue in church isn't even our sin sometimes.

It's a condoning of others' sins. We read in church two weeks ago, 1 Corinthians 5:9-11, some harsh verses in 1 Corinthians 5, that if someone is rebelling in the church, you hand them over to the devil. Your job is to keep this team, this group, this people pure.

And if you don't, you are held accountable for that. We can look to leaders 100%, but it is a team effort. On my team, I've kicked people off my team before because they defile the purity and the sanctity of the cross country or the swim team.

So when they're out in school, I tell them, hold each other accountable because I can't see you all the time. Nor do I want to see you all the time. But if your friends see each other, you keep each other accountable.

We're trying to keep the purity and the sanctity of this team. Christianity should be the model of this. So that is principle number one, our mindset.

Let's go to principle number two, our mannerisms. Your mannerisms are proper. In order to be disciplined, in order to not be apathetic, in order to be engaged, your mannerisms have to be proper.

So what is the first practice? Your conduct is different. Listen to what Peter says in verse four and five. In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation and they malign you, but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

Your conduct has to be different. You must be different in your walk. The word holy in the Greek is hagios, which means to be set apart.

By definition, that means that you are different. As I told you all before, people are going to talk bad about you. That's going to happen.

You're going to be different. We cannot get caught up in pleasing a world that crucified a perfect man. If you think for any second that you're going to be all satisfying to a world that crucified a perfect man, not only are you wrong, but you will be left bitter, empty, and downcast at the end of it.

We cannot set our sights on trying to please other people. We have to set our sights on God and living for an audience of one, and that is called to be different inherently. That is what the Christian walk entails.

You cannot assimilate to the world. Why? Because to assimilate means to resemble something. And saints, as you are called, if you are saved by the blood of Christ, light doesn't resemble darkness, or else everything would be dark.

Light must stand out. Do you stand out? That's why Peter wrote earlier, 1 Peter 1.6, to be holy. Why? Because God is holy.

You will be holy because Christ is holy. You will be different because Christ is different. You will be hated because Christ was hated.

You will be persecuted because Christ was persecuted. Your conduct has to be different from the world so we can match the conduct and the walk of Christ, as 1 John 2.6 says. The second practice, then, that we have to display our destiny.

Listen to verse 6 and 7. Verse 6 and 7. For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God. The end of all things is near. Therefore be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.

You should never have to convince someone that you're saved. Ever. They should just know.

They should look at your life. They do it differently. Do you drive your car differently? Do you order food at McDonald's differently? I love ordering food at McDonald's.

It's a lot of fun. Do you go grocery shopping differently? Do you cut your lawn differently? Do you raise your kids differently? Do you live your life differently? If you do these things, people will know your destiny because it is displayed through your actions. The end of all things is coming.

So where are you going? If you want your mannerisms to be right, you must be focused on your destiny. We are heaven-bound. We are not citizens of this earth.

So why put so much stock in it? It's often because we forget where we're going. I want to make this very clear. Forgetting is not a thing.

You do not forget anything. You don't prioritize something. I don't know hardly any of your birthdays in here, and I'm sorry if that offends you.

I know my wife's birthday because she's important to me. You guys are important to me, but it's a different level of priority. You may have told me your birthday.

I didn't forget it. I didn't prioritize it. When you tell me, oh, I forgot to do that, I'm so sorry.

You didn't prioritize it. If it was a priority, you wouldn't forget it. We have to prioritize our destiny.

Third practice, we have to be grounded in daily disciplines. Verse 7, again, says, Therefore be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. Prayer is the daily rescue for the Christian, the daily dependence for the Christian.

These are not passive requests that Peter is making. These are commands of God's Word for us to be disciplined. And as I said earlier, again, how is your quiet time? Matthew 6:6, when you pray, go into your room, close the door.

Where is your place? Where is your quiet time? Do you have a spot in your house that you go to that is set apart, sanctified, holy, so when you go there, this is worship time. This is quiet time. It doesn't have to be in the morning.

It can be at night. That's why the Bible says meditate on God's Word day and night. It doesn't just have to be one or the other.

It can be both. And it should be throughout the entire day. I tell my students all the time, whenever you start something new, pray.

It's that simple. Anytime you start something new, pray. Get in the car, pray.

Go home, pray. Get ready for bed, pray. Wake up, pray.

Eat, pray. Work, pray. But we forget, we don't prioritize.

My day starts at 3 a.m. It's rough. My day ends at 9. I go to bed pretty early. It's right to prayer.

Because if I don't do that, the rest of my day fails. And 3 a.m. is a whole heck of a lot of work. God's Word.

Can a Christian have a bad day? Absolutely. But they shouldn't. Because it should be bookended by routine, bookended by disciplines, daily disciplines.

Show me your quiet time, and I will show you your destiny. Then we come to our final principle, which is our ministry. This one's so good.

Your ministry is propelled. If you want to be engaged and not apathetic, if you are engaged and not apathetic, your ministry will be propelled. Listen to what he says in verse 8. Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.

So the first practice of this, show love. It's that simple. Show love.

Listen, ministry cannot and should not be a performance. Ministry should be an overflow of the life of the loving Christian that you are or should be. The reason people don't do ministry, and the reason people are not involved in ministry, and the reason why, as a church, as leaders in the church, we don't say, please stop, we have so many people, is simply this.

We do not know how to love. It's that simple. It's not energy.

It's not time. It's not resources. It's a lack of understanding of how to love people.

Peter says, listen, your mindset, mannerisms are important, but above all of that, show love. Let people experience the love of God in you and through you, and it will do more than just fix your life, but it will cover a multitude of sins and fix the lives of those around you. Because again, like I said earlier, you are responsible, not just for your life, but for the lives of those in this room and in this church.

Second practice, again, after showing love, share your resources. Listen to verse 10. I'm sorry, verse 9. Be hospitable to one another without complaints.

The world today is ashamed of nothing, offended by everything, contributes nothing, and entitled to everything. We have such a hard time being a lover of strangers. We cannot get over our own pride and ego.

God has given you what you have to give it to others. I think it was said last week, two weeks ago, that if there's something you have that you can't give up, you don't own it, it owns you. Proverbs 11:24.

One gives freely yet grows all the richer. Another withholds what he should give and only suffers once. Oh, we're so good on time.

Praise the Lord. Number three, showcase your gifts. Verses 10 and 11.

As each one has received a special gift, employ in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God. And just think of that.

When you speak, are you doing so as one who speaks the utterances of God? And it goes on. Whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs his glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

I do not care if somebody in a ministry has the exact same gift as you. You better be using your gift. With my youth leaders, I want them to be exercising their gifts, and if they're not, I want to see how they can benefit the church elsewhere.

If you're not using your gift, you're not being a good steward of the grace of God. A lack of service in the church is directly linked to a poor, immature misunderstanding of the grace of God and his goodness. Nobody can use the gift that God has given you like you can.

So don't suspect, because sometimes we'll even personally disqualify ourselves from the ministry. Oh, they're in the ministry, but they already have the gift of service and faith, so I have to find another ministry. God has given you, specifically, that gift to be used in that ministry.

So this is it. The way that we defeat apathy is by being engaged in the home, with heaven, and with hell, as we seek to make our mindset, mannerisms, and ministry pure before God. This is all done by discipline, and discipline is nothing more than doing what you ought to do on a consistent basis.

Again, discipline is no more than doing what you ought to do on a consistent basis, and it is the most prized possession of a man. Please turn to Hebrews 12. We'll close with this.

This is going to be good. Hebrews 12. If you're in 1 Peter, it's going to be to your left.

Just a little bit, not a lot. Hebrews 12 will be in verse 1. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and the sat down of the right hand of the throne of God. The marathon, the most legendary race ever.

Only 1% of the world's population has ever finished a marathon. 42 kilometers of pain, 26.2 miles. The youngest finisher, 5 years old. Oldest finisher, 100 years old.

But why? Why do so many people push their bodies to this limit? 2,500 years ago, the battle of Marathon. A Greek soldier sprints from Marathon to Athens, exhausted, dehydrated, running on nothing but duty, delivers his message to the city. Athens won.

The Western world is saved. He then collapsed, and he died. Today, the marathon isn't about an external war.

It's about the war within. It's the pain cave, the wall, the moment that your mind screams stop but your soul whispers to continue to move on. And there's no luck involved.

There's no way to fake it. In order to finish a marathon, you need commitment, sacrifice, and grit. These are three disciplines that are owned by the Kenyans, specifically Eliud Kipchoge, the only man to ever run a marathon in under 2 hours.

How is that possible? There are people out there in the world who just want it more than everybody else. That's how it's possible. That is their grind.

And those people are super valuable because they change the perspective of what is possible. The world doesn't need more celebrities, more athletes, more famous people. No people like that.

The world needs people doing daily habits. You see, the word extraordinary means something outside of the ordinary, right? A single space in that word between extra and ordinary is the opposite. But what I have found is what truly makes someone extraordinary is the person that does the ordinary things extra.

I'm infused with the idea that Christians must be the best in every single profession. When you think of a rapper, baseball player, plumber, musician, whatever you want, why isn't a Christian at the top of that list? I think Christians, again, should be infused with the idea of being the single best person at doing what they do. So when someone comes to you and asks why you do what you do, it borders on obsession, almost.

You might want something, but are you obsessed? Is it all you ever think about? Are you distracted and tangled by other things in the world? So when someone comes and asks you why you do what you do, the answer is singular, because I love the Lord and I'm doing what He requires of me. And there's nothing else outside of that? You hear the, oh, I'm just so tired, it's been a long week, Wednesdays are hard, Sunday is the rest day, I come here to get poured in too. And we should, and you do.

But how dare any of us go to bed with any ounce of energy? Sleep is for the exhausted. Sleep is not a reward for those that live the half-hearted day. You must go to bed exhausted.

Every day must be intentionally, fully lived with discipline for the Lord. I try to keep my desk in my room, my office specifically, and my school spotless. I shouldn't have taken a picture and shown it to you.

I have a calendar. It's just like a piece of paper like this. It sits on my desk.

And I have six pencils. I line up straight, straight, straight, straight, straight, straight. And every student comes in, well, what happens if I move it? He says, keep it straight.

Why? I do not have OCD, I promise. My students must know that every single thing I do is excellent, or the pursuit of excellence. Can you have a bad day? Again, absolutely.

But the routines that you have are there to hold your day in place, that when you crumble, you rely on the Lord and stay disciplined in your daily habits. I stumble and I fall every day. And in those moments, in those days, Christ is perfected in my weakness.

Yes, you will struggle, but you have to shift from daily disciplines are hard to no one else can do this except me. Because God has given this to me and is required of me, and this is what I do. And not go to bed with any energy left.

Because what is at stake? The race. The race set before us. The marathon.

The name of Christ. I mention this Jordan Peterson quote every single time, and I love it. Because he's not saved.

And I never talk about it more than just that, but I'm going to just for you. Oh, perfect. It's great timing.

Favorite quote from Jordan Peterson. You tell the people you love how to avoid the path to hell. And you don't do that in a morally superior way or a finger-wagging way.

You tell the people you love how to avoid the path to hell because you don't want them to burn. A non-believer knows that. Jordan Peterson is not a believer.

That's a good statement. That's a statement that I live by because I believe that statement has what is called world truth. Truth existed before the word of God.

God's word is a proclaimed word, but what do you think the people in the Old Testament did? Well, just wait around for the scrolls to come. They lived by the natural order and law and morals of God. And they used God's law as a reflection of who he was and what they should do.

So we can get truth from the world, and I believe that that is a truthful statement. He was just in a video, Jordan Peterson. A few million views it got.

It was called One Christian vs. Twenty Atheists. But that title was quickly taken down because everyone came to know that Jordan Peterson is not a Christian.

So then why did they choose Jordan Peterson? Because we have shown the world that that is what a Christian is like. We have shown the world what Christianity is about and that it is a place where we stand politically on something. When the organizers of the video looked for a Christian, they chose him because they thought he already was.

We have shown the world that Christianity is about being against trans rights, against anti-woke, or fighting the push against masculinity. And people think that that is our core foundation. Those beliefs save no one.

It is only Christ. Christ is our only boast. Christ is our only champion.

Our daily habits must be infused with Christ. Our discipline paints a picture to the world, so let it be an accurate one. Because as 1 Corinthians 15, verse 14 says, If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and our faith is in vain.

And guess what? Mohammed is still in the tomb. Buddha is still in the tomb. Joseph Smith is still in the tomb.

But there is one man who is not in the tomb. There is one God-man, Jesus Christ. I have been to Israel.

I have been there. The tomb is empty. If Christ is truly risen, then the only question left is this.

Are you living as if he is alive? Or are you living as if he is still in the tomb? If we claim to be Christians publicly, our daily disciplines better show it. If each interaction was your last, what is the most important thing that you can help someone know about Christ? So do you want it? Do you want to be disciplined? Are you driven to be disciplined to the daily habits or not? We started with a question. Are you engaged? Let's end with one.

The tomb is empty. So why do so many Christians still live empty lives? This is the very essence of life. The continual stumbling uphill towards the city of God.

As we mature, have an adventure and seek to speak the truth of God's word to the world each day. So stand up straight with your shoulders back. Have an adventure.

Speak the truth. Become all things to all people. Make your bed and go to bed exhausted every single day.

I have staked my life on this. And the things that I'm telling you are true. Or maybe, just maybe, Chat GPT wrote this entire sermon.

Just kidding. Let's pray. God, we thank you for this night.

We thank you for your forgiveness. We pray for the grace, the means, the strength, the hunger to be able to carry out the things that have been written to us in Peter's message in chapter 4. That we would seek to be engaged with the world around us and not apathetic. That we would be good stewards of what you've given us, Lord.

Lord, I pray this church would catch a fire. That it would be a light in West Covina. A beacon that people would come to.

Not just for help. Not just for food. Not just for resources.

Not just for energy. Not just for entertainment. But purely, only, forever and always for the unadulterated name of Christ that is crucified.

That we preach week in and week out. Give us the grace and means to do this for the rest of our lives. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

We ask this in your name. Amen.