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At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
This is the Sandals Church Podcast, a place for real people with real struggles learning to follow Jesus. Wherever you are right now, driving, working, or trying to make it through the day, we are really glad you're here. Let's get into today's message.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Hey, Sandals Church, so good to see you today. My name is Andrew McCourt. I want to put out a massive thanks to Pastor Matt and Tammy for having me here today. I'm actually here with my wife. Her name is Isabelle.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:We're married thirty two years, everyone. Thirty two years. She is the hero in the story. We got four children, but you know what? We don't care about them anymore because we got one grandchild.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Oh, yes. Any grandparents out there? You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. And so we already got one grandchild, but he is the world to us.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:And I know you wanna see a photograph of him. You wanna see him? Yes. Well, this is him. This is little Killian.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Look at him, everybody. Isn't he beautiful? So what you might not know that his other set of grandparents, they're from The Philippines. I'm from Ireland, so we call him our philaprocon. That's what he is.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:He's our little friend. And you can sponsor him for $39 a month. You think I'm joking. Christian education is expensive. That's a little bit about us, but it is so good to be here today and taking part in your teaching series on the book of Matthew.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:I think you started this series in 1983, and it's taken you so long to get here. But I am here, and we're going to be jumping into Matthew chapter 25 verses 14 through to 30. And it's a pretty long read, but it's absolutely incredible. So we're going to dive right into it. Is that good?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Okay. Come on, let's look at this. Here's where it starts. Verse 14, it says again, just stop right there. Just stop one word.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:We're going to stop at one word. Jesus said again. What is He repeating here? Well, is like super important. We're in the Olivet Discourse.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:There's five main discourses in Matthew's Gospel, like five major speeches that Jesus gives. And this is the biggest and this is the longest. What is Jesus talking about here? He's talking about some really important stuff. He's talking about the future destruction of Jerusalem in A.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Seventy when the Romans come and literally flattened the temple. He's also talking about end time events. He's talking about how important it is for us to remain faithful and vigilant. And he's talking about the final judgment. Is that important?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:I think that's super important. That's why he goes again, I need to talk about this gate. I've talked about it before, I'm going to talk about it again, and I'm going to come up with another illustration that we'll cover next week, another parable. So he is talking to the people about one day I'm going to come back. And a simple question is this: Why were the early church so radical?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Why did they just live lives that we all look at today and go, we want to be like the early church? Here's the answer. Simple answer. They lived somewhere between the resurrection of Jesus because shortly after this, Jesus would go to the cross, He would die, but He would be raised from the dead. Is that good news?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Him raised from the dead. But guess what else? They lived somewhere between His resurrection, but also between His return. The other side of their lives, they were expecting Jesus to return. And I don't know if most of the Christians in California or in America or Western Christianity actually has that anticipation that one day, maybe in our lifetime, Jesus could return.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Yeah. I'm praying it's not before the Soccer World Cup, but after the Soccer World Cup, Jesus can come back. So it was pretty impressive. Jesus is speaking. He said, I want you to listen because this is big news.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:But let's continue. He says this again, It will be like a man who's going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his or her ability. Then he went on a journey. Well, who was the man in the story?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Well, it's God. That's who we're talking about. Who are the servants? It's us. Are you alive and serving Jesus?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:That's us. Everybody here at Sandals, we're serving Jesus. And what were the bags of gold? Well, it's an entrustment from God, and I believe it's salvation, it's His kingdom, and our individual abilities and giftings that God has put in our lives to share the gospel and live out the kingdom of God. And for all of you out there that love Scripture and love the Bible, this is a moment where we see Jesus not only as the great teacher many called him great teachers but there's a guy called Kenneth E.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Bailey, and he writes so brilliantly in the New Testament, and he says this: At this point we see Jesus as a parabolist, not just someone who tells a parable and tells a story, but as someone who lives into the moment. He's like, you know, a metaphorical theologian, not a conceptual theologian. Someone that says, I want you to come and step into the parable, actually live from the parable, cause I'm going to teach you something that is so profoundly important. What does He teach us here? Well, the first thing is if you're taking notes, you could write this down.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:We have God given approval. God given approval. This is what it says, that the Master called them and He entrusted something to them. And I want to say this to you, that's pretty powerful. I mean many of us were just living normal lives, You know, we're trying to look after our family.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:And life is rough for a lot of people. I don't know if you saw recently that the Artemis spaceship went to the dark side of the moon and actually went the furthest that anyone from earth has ever gone. How many people thought, I'd like to get on that ship, and I would like to go as far from this planet as possible. I would like to get out of here. But I want to encourage you with this: We've got a God who says, You know what?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:You're going to live beyond the daily grind. Why? Because you've come into My Kingdom, and I've called you, and I've entrusted you. Now a lot of us, we don't feel that good. We don't feel like, you know, like Pastor Matt every time Pastor Matt gets up to preach.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:I mean the man can walk on water. We don't feel like that. We feel like me sometimes. I feel like a loser. I was with my church staff just a year ago in Orange County, and it was a Monday morning.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:I was leading church staff. We were all seated down in a huge circle, and it was going like really well until suddenly all our iPhones went off at the one time. We had an alert at one time and we looked down stopped the meeting looked down and it was an earthquake alert. Now I'm from Ireland. We don't have earthquakes.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:We don't get earthquake alerts. We get alerts when the bar is going to close. That's what happens in Ireland. People start freaking or whatever. But we looked at it and we kind of laughed.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Literally, about five seconds later, the whole building shook that we were sitting in. It just shook. I never experienced this before. That should have been my finest moment in life. That's when I should have, like, looked at my team and said, Everybody, be of good cheer because I am here, and this is going to be okay.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:I want you to stand up in an orderly line. They keep the building and let my wife go first. Why? Because I am the hero of her life, and I will be the last man standing. That's what should have happened.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:But guess what happened? I jumped over everybody, bolted out the doors into the parking lot. And you know what my first thought was? Oh no, I left my iPhone in there. Not I left my wife in there.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Do you know what I am? Loser. That's what I am. But I want to encourage you with this: No matter how big a loser you might feel in life, God has called you and God has approved you. And that changes everything.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:God has given you an entrustment, an endowment into your life. I want to take you back, let's imagine twenty years ago, Steve Jobs is still, you know, CEO of Apple, and you're just grinding in your job, and you're trying to get a breakthrough in your job. You suddenly get a call, Who's this? It's Steve Jobs. You'd be like, What?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Steve Jobs just called me? Imagine if he said these words to you: I've been following you. I really like your work. I think you're on to something. I would like to invest into you.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:How would you feel about yourself twenty years ago? You would have been, like, freaking out. You would have been texting. You would have been calling everybody. But I want you to hear this.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:There's a God who's way more important than Steve Jobs. And his opinion is way more important. And he has called you, and he's entrusted you. You are so important. And this is how I try to live my life.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:I try to put my feet on the ground every morning, stand up, and in God I say these words, I am enough and I have enough. Amen. I am enough and I have enough. Not because of me, I'm a loser by myself, but because of Jesus Christ. Peter says this in his first epistle.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:He says this in chapter one. He said, The stuff that we get to experience today, Christians, the stuff that we get to experience today, Old Testament prophets and angels, they were looking into it going, What is this about? This is so incredible. Do you know that when Isaiah was writing it, he had an idea that he was on to something, but he doesn't know what he was writing about. He was like texting Joel, what do you think we're talking about?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:I think you're on to something. Let's call up Jeremiah. They didn't know what they were doing. Zephaniah has probably got something on this. But they were all just guessing.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Look at me. All of us in this room and in every single campus, we've got God on our side, we've got the Holy Spirit living inside of us, and we don't have a shadow, we have the reality today. We have God given approval in our lives. But then we've got a God given amount. It turns around and it says that He gave to them.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:And what did He give to them? Well, could be called the parable of the talents because, you know what, we've known that from the past. But actually it could be misleading. Talent isn't just your God given ability. It can be.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:It's important. But actually talent here was a weight, and it was a weight of gold in a bag. What did it amount to? It amounted to, in a single bag, up to a million dollars, probably a million dollars. Anyone want a bag of gold?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:That's what was happening here. The Master God was incredibly generous, and He gave out the five bags of gold to the first one, two bags of gold to the other one, and one bag of gold to the last guy. God is so generous. But I want you to get this. It says that God, the Master, He gave.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Why? Because it belongs to Him. And anything that we have in life belongs to Him. Our breath, our talent, our time, and our treasure, it all belongs to Him. So the next time someone comes to you and said, Hey, can I borrow your car?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Don't answer them because you can't answer the question because it doesn't belong to you. You can't say, It's my car. It ain't your car. Who owns your car? God owns your car.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Now that's great if you've got a Ford, but if you've got a Ferrari, that's really scary. But I don't care if you've a Ford or a Ferrari, it all belongs to God. And so we gotta answer. We gotta this has gotta be our answer in life. You know what?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Let me go and ask the owner. You see, we don't own a home. We run an Airbnb for Jesus Christ. You don't have a wardrobe, you don't have a closet of clothes, you run a TJ Maxx for Jesus, that's what you do. Seriously, everything we own belongs to God and we gotta make sure that we give it to Him.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Not only do we have God given approval and God given amount, but we have God given ability. I love what the great commentator R. T. France says. He said these words: The allocation of these huge sums according to ability is not only commercial sense, but recognizes that God reckons with His people as individuals whose circumstances and personalities differ.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:You see, it's not about your ability, but it's about how you use it in life. And don't be sitting here today, the two talent guy, the two bags of gold guy, looking at the five bags of gold guy and going, well, I only got two and he got five. Buddy, you got $2,000,000 right there. Anyone want $2,000,000? Yeah.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:I mean, your $2,000,000 is incredible. Don't look at the guy who's got one. Don't compare anything with anybody else. Just use what God has given you. And here's the truth.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:God gives it to us and what we need to do in the economy of the kingdom of God is give it back to Him. One of my heroes is a guy called Eric Liddell. I think we got a picture of him here. Some of you years ago may have watched the movie Chariots of Fire, and I love this guy. This is a guy that won the gold medal in the nineteen twenty four Olympics for the 400 meters.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:He was like the Usain Bolt of his day, an incredible guy. But this is what he said about himself. He said, God has made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure. Isn't that beautiful? God has made me fast, and when I run, I just feel His pleasure.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:I can't say that. God has made me slow and when I run I feel agony. Is anyone else with me? I just feel sore in life, what is going on? But that was his ability, and he used it for God's glory.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:That's the deposit that he had in his life. I'm gonna ask you, what is it that you do that when you do it, you feel the pleasure and the smile of God? God has given you approval. God has given you an amount. And you know what?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:God has given you ability in your life as well. Let's read on. Verse 16 says, The man who had received the five bags of gold, and I love this here, went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also the one with two bags of gold gained two more. I love this here, went at once.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:He didn't sit and pray about it. He didn't get in a small group and start fasting. You know what he did? He said this year, I've got one life to live. I've got one life to give.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:That's it, everyone. I've one life to live and of one life to give. And he went at once to start the work of doubling what God had given him. There was no instructions. There was just this innate sense that God, his master, had called him to be productive and to be fruitful in life.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:And every Christian should feel that. Isabel and I, we worked in a city called Derry. It's up like, if you look at the map of Ireland, it's at the very top right in the middle. And it had suffered terribly through a thing that we called in modern history the troubles in Ireland, where there had been conflict and Protestants and Catholics were fighting. And you see it look at that in that beautiful day.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:That's the one sunny day of the year that we managed to get that photograph. Beautiful. But in that city, I got to know a man, his name was Paddy Doherty. Paddy Doherty. What a great Irish name, Paddy Doherty.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:When I got to meet Paddy, he was 79 years old. Now in the city, because of the violence, so many of the buildings that you see there were bombed when I was a kid. Like one of the buildings that Isabelle and I used as a church, it was bombed, listen to this, 23 times in twenty five years. Crazy. But Paddy Paddy, he actually rebuilt every single building.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:He was a structural engineer. He rebuilt every single building that had been bombed during that time. And I remember saying, Patty, you're an incredible guy. You've made an impact in this city. You've left such a legacy.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:What what caused you? Because he he was one of 13 children in his family. We Irish. We know how to keep warm. We know how to do that, everyone.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:And he was one of 13 children. And I said, Patty, you were born in poverty. You had a big family. You know, your first daughter was best dressed. That was the sort of way that it worked in his house.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:I said, How did you, like, how did you rise up? And this is what he said. He said, I went one time to the cathedral in the city. My mom would bring us every week. And he was from the Catholic tradition and Mass was read in Latin and he said, I didn't know Latin.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:I didn't understand a thing. But the only thing that the priest read in English were the Scriptures. And as a little boy, one Sunday, his ears perked up when the priest read out the parable of the talents. The parable of the gold bags. And he was just a small kid.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:He said, I'm sitting down near my mother's feet, and I hear the words, and I hear that incredible parable that Jesus taught, and he said, I promised God as a child that before I would die, I would double every single thing that he had given me in life. Amen. Amen. That is the power of the word of God. And I know that you're listening to me today and you think this is a beautiful accent and you're quite taken in with it.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:And I know I sound like Jesus. I know that. But listen to me, I'm not Jesus. I want you to hear the word of God today. You've got one life to what?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Live and one life to give. I don't know what's been spoken over your life, but I want you to hear this from the word of God today. You've got God's approval, you've got God's amount in your life, and you've got God's ability. Get on with it. It's time to start.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Life's too short. It's time to start, and we need to go for it. You see, our waiting for Jesus' return is never merely passive. We're not just hanging around. And Bayside Church, where Isabel and I, we've been for over ten years, they do a thing called, you know, city serve.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:And it's incredible. But we shut down church once a year and about 10,000 people go out and just serve the city. Instead of going to church, let's be the church. Let's let's go out and do it. I remember one of the projects, and there's about 250 projects on a day.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:One of the projects, they ran out of supply, so they had to go to, like, the local railies and, like, get a lot of stuff. And, you know, people start panicking. When you clear shelves in America, they think it's the end of the world, you know? And so they go up to the girl, and she's at the cash register, the realies worker, and she's putting everything through and looking at all these carts and everything. And she's going, Who are you guys?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:And then she said, No, no, don't tell me. I know who you are. You ready for this? You're that church that loves to do lots of stuff for lots of people. Do you know, at the end of the day, I don't care if anyone remembers the name of my church or remembers the name of Sandals.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Wouldn't it be great to be known as the church that loves to do lots of stuff for lots of people? Not a church that's just sitting around, and I thank God for Sandals Church because of its passion for the community and its involvement within the community. Use what you have. You see, not everyone is equal in talent, but we can be equal in effort in life. I got a friend, and he's probably the smartest person I know, okay?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:The smartest person I know. He got his PhD from MIT. His name is Doctor. Sam Pearlie, and he is just I mean, he works with human stem cells and or adult stem cells, and he's just looking for listen to this here for the cure for cancer and Parkinson's disease. What do you do Monday to Friday?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:And I'm serious. He's just a remarkable guy. But you know what he does on the weekend? You know what he does on the weekend? He's planted a church in Santa Clara.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:He's like so all week he's just like trying to work out. You know, I remember one time going to his lab, it was like stranger things. And I walked in and he said, Have you ever seen adult stem cells? I said, No. And he opens his fridge and like when you like, you know, you and I would just grab O.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:J, He just he grabs this whole tray of adult stem cells, and he's working on them. And then he brings me to the back. We gotta get all suited. You know, stranger things. Gotta get all suited.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:And he takes me down to his mice at the back where he's like working on them, and yeah, we're gonna we're gonna solve cancer through this one. And and he holds this mouse up by the tail, and the little thing starts pooping itself like you would if a giant grabbed you by the tail. And this is what he said. He said, Andrew, he said, All I want to do is get a breakthrough with this, monetize it, and plant more churches for Jesus. He's a five talent guy.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:I'm not a five talent guy. I don't have my MIT from I don't have my PhD from MIT. Look, I can't even say it. But listen to me, every talent that he's got, he's using it for the glory of God. Every talent he's got, he's using it for the glory of God.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Verse 19, it says, after a long time, and this is the thing, eventually the master did come back. The master of those servants returned. Maybe there was days they thought, where is he? Will he ever come back? Will he ever return?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Those commands that he gave a long time ago, those endowments, the bags of gold, that was a long time ago. Will he ever come back? But He did come back, and listen, every Christian, Jesus will return. He shall return. And He settled accounts with them.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Here's one more. It was God given accountability. And for every single person in this room, you have God given approval, rejoice in it, but you also have God given accountability. There's going to be a day where we're going to meet with you. It's not a day of fear.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Do you know why? Because we got one life to live and one life to what? Give. And if you're given your life and you're not like burying your treasure and sitting on your treasure and you're doing your absolute best, God's gonna rejoice over you. Because look what happened.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Verse 20. The man who'd received five bags of gold brought the other five. Boom, right there. Master, he said, you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:His master replied, Well done, good and faithful servant. How many people would love to hear that on the other side of eternity? No, I want to hear it today. I don't want to be messing about and one day hoping that I hear it. I want to work for God and hear it today.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Said, You have been faithful with a few things, and I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness.' And the man with two bags of gold also came, 'Master,' he said, you entrusted me with two bags of gold, see I have gained two more.' His master replied, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things, and I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share in your master's happiness.' From the two servants, pretty remarkable. The first guy, what's he got?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:He's got 5 mil spread across the five bags. He doubles them. He's now got 10 mil. Can I hear a cheer for him? Well done, good and faithful German.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:That's pretty good. The guy with two bags, what does he do? He's now got he doubles them. He's got $4,000,000 worth of money. Not bitcoin.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:It's gold, everyone. It's real money. That's what he's got. But what's really interesting, one guy's got 4,000,000, and the other one's got 10,000,000, but they still get the same commendation and appreciation and a love and gratitude and reward from the master. Is that good news?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:That's got to be good news for everyone. Do you think I can't sing and lead worship? I can't get on stage and do this? Who cares? You can do something that no one else in this world can do.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Do it for the glory of God. Just do it for the glory of God. The reward, interesting, for investing wisely is not retirement, but more responsibility. Not like, Hey, you're gonna get a lake house, and you're gonna be put on a golf course in Palm Springs. And you're gonna get to play golf with Rory McIlroy because that's who God supports.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:You're gonna you're gonna play golf with Rory Roxy. Rory McElroy is gonna be your caddy for all eternity. No. But get back into it. You see, they started out as servants, and yet because of their fruitfulness, they ended up as rulers.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:We're not gonna stop. We're not gonna hold back. I just wanna say this. This this church here, I think I saw it in someone's jacket earlier on. Sandals Church, established 1997.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:You're getting old Sandals. You're all growing up and mature. And what God has done in this church and I want to say this Pastor Matt and Tammy and this isn't just, you know, pastor smooch talk, you know, I love you. It's not. Genuinely, it's an incredible church.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:And there's no perfect church. There's no perfect saints. Do you have a perfect family? No, no, no. Any Waltons here?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Anyone remember the Waltons? No, no. You're more like the Simpsons. Let's be honest. That's what your family thought.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Okay? We we don't have a perfect family. So if you don't judge your family harshly, we cannot judge the church harshly until our families are perfect. Okay? But this is a great church.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Not a perfect church, but it's a great church. I mean, and right now, I think, you know, Sandals has 15,000,000 campuses. I think it's something like that. No, it's got 14 campuses. That that is amazing, like from starting all those years ago in a living room and then moving to the college, and here we have 14 campuses, and God is moving, and people are coming to Christ.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:But but but it's not time for retirement. It's time for more responsibility. And I just in 2019, I brought pastor Matt to Europe. I brought him to Ireland. Yeah.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:To give him a real education. That's what I did. I brought him to Ireland, and his heart was just like lit for Europe. I I wanna say this here. Sandals Church, it's not just the point to go, well, got our 14 campuses.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Aren't we so good? Oh, we doubled, we trebled, we quadrupled, we 14 noopled. We did all of that. Aren't we so good? There's 600,000,000 people that live in Europe, and only 2% less than 2% are connected to an evangelical church.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:That means there's five eighty eight million lost people in Europe. Is it time to retire? No. No. We need to have a Sandals Sicily.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:That sounds cool, doesn't it? Who's going to Italy? Come on, people. Verse 24: Then the man who had received one bag of gold came, and look at him. 'Master,' he said, well, that's a good start.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:It's a good start. I knew that you are a hard man. Harvesting where you had not sown, gathering where you had not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you, his master replied.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Oh, that's okay. You wicked lazy servant. So you knew that I harvest where I had not sown and gather where I had not scattered seed. Well, you should have put my money in deposit and gone to the Bank of America so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. This one guy wasn't just because he had won, wasn't because he was fearful, it's because he was lazy.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:He was lazy. William Barclay, the great Scottish theologian says this, it's a longer quote but this really helps us understand what Jesus was speaking to. He said, There can be no doubt that originally in this parable the whole attention is riveted on the useless servant. There can be little doubt that He stands for the scribes and the Pharisees and for their attitude to the law and the truth of God. The useless servant bury his talent in the ground in order that he might hand it back to his master exactly as it was.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:The whole aim of the scribes and Pharisees was to keep the law exactly as it was. In their own phrase, they sought to build a fence around the law. Any change, any development, any alteration, anything new was to them anathema. Their method involved the paralysis of religious truth. Everybody, we are not here to cage the gospel, we are here to release the gospel, we are not here to keep salvation, we are here to spread salvation.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:That is what God has called us to do. A University of Columbia researcher worked out that for Americans today, that the average American makes about 70 conscious decisions every single day. Look at that. 70 con now, not, you know, those subconscious ones, you know, latte or Americano. I want to say this to you.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Latte is not coffee. Americano is coffee. That's the decision you need to make. All right, so but we're talking about 70 conscious decisions, and that equals 25,550 per year. And across a lifetime, that's 1,788,500 decisions.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Look at this quote: You're basically the sum of all your choices. The sum of all your choices. But there was a great American preacher, and his name is A. W. Tozer, and he said this: what comes into your mind, your brain, when you think about God is the most important thing about you.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:That one decision right there is the most important thing about who you are. You've got 70 decisions. Seven. I don't know how many you've made today. Getting to your campus, you know, just like getting your kids in the car, kicking your dog that's on drugs.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:I I don't know what to you just you just you just just to get here today. I mean, it's a it's a lot of them. But the number one decision that you make in your life is the decision that you make about what do you think about God? This guy with the one talent, don't go, oh, the one talent. This guy with a million bucks had a wrong thinking about God.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:The wrong thinking about God. Isabel and I, we got friends, and he's a pastor. Just they're an incredible couple. They've got four biological children, but they've adopted nine kids from around the world. I mean, that's crazy.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:They're just a higher life form. They really are. But then they adopted two teenage brothers from Ethiopia. It's a remarkable story how they got them out of the country. Got them in The United States, brought them here to California, and he tells this.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:He said, After they'd been with him, the two boys had been with their new family for about three months, he, Brian, went to his wife, Dana, and said, What's up with them? And she goes, What do you mean? He said, They don't do anything wrong. They're teenage boys. You ask them to do anything, they do it immediately above and beyond.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:They've never spoken back to us once. They never dropped the lip once. They've never done anything. What is going on? This is weird because we're used to American teenagers, and we do love you.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:He said, I'm going up to talk to them. So he went up, and he looked and said, Boys. They went, Yes. Sit down on the bed, one either side. I need to talk to you.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:What's up? And they went, Everything's great. He said, It's too great. It's too good. And they went, What do you mean?
Pastor Andrew McCourt:He said, Why do you never misbehave? Why do you never do anything wrong? And both of them immediately, they dropped their head and like tear came into their eyes. And he said, tell me. They went, no, tell me.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:And they said, well, the matron of our children's home grabbed us before we left and said, don't mess up because the day you mess up, they'll kick you out of the house and they'll send you straight back here. And he said, all of them hugged and fell to their knees and just cried. And, you know, a lot of people have that thought about God, and that's not my God, everybody. And you might feel like you've only got a small talent or a small deposit in life because you're wrongly comparing yours yourself to everybody else on Instagram. What a curse.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:But listen to me. God loves you, and God has called you. And whatever you've got in your life, just use it for his glory. Use it for his glory. I finish with this.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Isn't it great when a preacher says, I finish with this? Everyone's like, oh, thank the Lord. We're gonna get home for breakfast or, know, whatever it is. But Jesus is talking here about end times, the destruction of Jerusalem, end time events, the final day. Eschatology, it's called.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:It's about the second coming of Christ. And we know the first advent, another thing, at Christmas we celebrate Advent, the first coming. And then preachers like me and Jesus talk about the second advent, the return of Christ. And I don't know when He's going to come, I don't know how He's going to come, I don't know if He's coming in a jet or coming in a train. Here's the good news everyone He's coming!
Pastor Andrew McCourt:So have your little theological battles and discussions, but don't fall out over them. Why? Because He's just coming. He will return. That's the big headline.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:But you know there's a third advent. Have you ever thought about this? There's a third advent. And it's about the personal coming of Jesus to our lives. Yeah.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:He came before Bethlehem. Yeah. He will return one day to the Mount Of Olives. He shall return there. But there's a personal eschatology that we need.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Maybe we'll be here when Jesus returns to earth, or maybe it will be our last breath when we go to him or not go to him. And here's the powerful thing from this story. You and I don't have to wait until our last breath, and you and I, we don't have to wait until the big second coming of Jesus. Do you know that Jesus can come to you where you are today? No matter who you are, no matter what you've done in your life, there's a God who loves you, and he wants to come to you personally.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:And out of everything that I said, that is the most important news. It's a one on one experience with God, and I encourage you, on no matter what campus you're on, watching online, sneaking at looking at this in your Tesla, whatever you're doing, listen to me today. Have a personal advent. Have a personal coming of Jesus into your life. Don't leave it to the end.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Make sure it happens today. Let me pray for you. Lord Jesus, I wanna thank you that you are a good God, that you love us, that Lord, we have your approval, you created us, you've given us an amount and we rejoice in that, you've given us ability, Lord, we wanna thank you, but also Lord, there's accountability. And I pray for anyone watching today who's not made that decision to yet make Jesus the Lord of their lives, to have a personal advent, a personal coming of Christ. May they make that today, and I pray that in the name of Jesus.
Pastor Andrew McCourt:Amen.