5 Keys to a Regret-Free Life

Well, I want to welcome you here to church, whether you're here in the auditorium or watching over there in a venue, joining us over there. My name is Rene, one of the pastors here. Happy Independence Day. On July 4th, 1776, the founding fathers published the Declaration of Independence, and it had a lot of memorable lines in it. One of the most memorable lines was probably this, "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of what? Happiness."

Now, here's my question. What does that phrase mean? Because there's really two different camps. One group of people says, "Well, the pursuit of happiness means pursue whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, however much you want. It's all about me. I want to get what I want, what I see I need when I need it." Right? Then there's another school of thought that says that is actually not what the founding fathers meant at all. And this is what most historians say. The phrase "pursuit of happiness" was actually a philosophical phrase.

And when you look at where that took place in philosophy at the time, back in the 1770s, this is what it meant. Chief Justice Anthony Kennedy said in a university lecture, "For the framers, happiness meant that feeling of self-worth and dignity you acquire by contributing to your community and to its civic life." In other words, pursuit of happiness either means the pursuit of whatever makes you happy, it's all about yourself, or the pursuit of happiness means living for something greater than yourself.

All right? Now, I want to show you two different pictures that each illustrate a life lived for each one of those definitions of the pursuit of happiness. And the first picture is this. Who is this? Shout it out. Elvis Presley and his nickname was what? The king. That's right. The world had never seen a celebrity like this. He was the world's first global rock star. He starred in 33 movies. He had an estimated 1 billion fans worldwide at the height of his fame.

He sold hundreds of millions of records. Twenty-five years after he died, they released an album with his top hits, and 25 years after he was gone, that album was the number one selling CD of that year. Yet, despite incredible fame and unprecedented success, Elvis was, according to his closest friends, unhappy and unfulfilled, and he died at age 42. Just out of curiosity, how many of you are 42 or older here or in bed here? Raise your hands. Wow.

He died at age 42, bloated as a result of drug addiction and all sorts of other vices. Why, why was he so unhappy and unfulfilled? Well, his wife, Priscilla Presley, put it this way. She said, "Elvis never came to terms with who he was meant to be or what his purpose in life was." He thought he was here for a reason. Now watch this. Maybe to preach, maybe to save, maybe to serve, maybe to care for people, and that agonizing desire was always with him, and he knew he wasn't fulfilling it.

So he'd go on stage and he wouldn't have to think about it. But let's look at this sentence. So sad. Elvis hadn't a clue where to begin to look. No clue where to look. Now contrast that with another man who was famous about the same time as Elvis. Who is this personality? Say it out loud. Martin Luther King Jr. That's right. Another king, you could say. So let's compare the two kings.

Why did he live? Because he made him happy. He said, "The end of life is not to be happy or to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but to what? Do the will of God. Come what may." He said, "We're prone to judge success by the size of our salaries or the size of our automobiles rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind." That's something Elvis suspected but never really discovered, and that's why he died. Rich and miserable.

MLK Jr. went on to say, "Here's a prayer God always answers, and it's the most fulfilling prayer that you could possibly pray." Not, "Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?" That's that other pursuit of happiness. Here's what he said to pray. "Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do and use it for a purpose greater than myself."

Now, they both died young, but which life would you have really rather lived? See what MLK Jr. was saying is that life without purpose is pointless, really. By definition, a life without purpose is meaningless. It's really passionless. And I think that's why in our society, as we move further and further away from faith, we have more and more people having these crises of meaning going, "What's it all about? Why am I even on this planet? It's all absurd."

But listen, God made you for a purpose. In fact, turn to the person next to you and look at them in the eye and say, "God made you for a purpose." And if you're an introvert, just look at them and communicate it by ESP or something. But God made you for a purpose. Listen, I have one goal for you today: to motivate you to discover God's purpose for your life and to dedicate yourself to living out God's purpose for your life.

I want you to grab the message notes that look like this in your bulletin. Strong Grace is the name of our verse-by-verse series in the book of 2 Timothy in the Bible. We've been in this amazing book for about 12 weeks, and today I want to wrap it up. And what I want to do is I want to unpack one key verse for just a minute and then do a review of the five major themes of 2 Timothy.

And by the way, as we wrap this up, I want to give you a little insight. Next weekend, we start a brand new summer series called Light Bulb Moments. And what we're going to do is we're going to have different speakers every week coming in, and they're going to talk about their personal light bulb moment, their aha moment, when in their lives through some kind of crisis, they understood something in Scripture in a way that they never understood before.

We're going to bring in some great speakers. For example, Craig Barnes, the president of Princeton Seminary, one of the leading Christians in America today, is going to be here again this summer. And also some people you've never heard before from our staff. Jessica Bristol, our junior high pastor, is going to preach, delivering her first sermon here. And I've told her this crowd is great. They're going to encourage you. And so encourage her.

You're going to hear from Mark and hear from Paul, some other people talking about their light bulb moments for the rest of this. I'm really looking forward to this. But right now, what I'd like you to do is look at your notes, and I'd like us to read the verse on top of the outline out loud together. It's going to be on the screen too. Paul in 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 7 really gives us a key verse to understanding this letter that he wrote. Here we go. Let me hear you. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.

Now Bill Butterworth did a great job on this a few weeks ago. But the sad thing about this translation in English is it kind of misses Paul's point. Because you read this in English, and the emphasis is really only on the verbs. I fought the good fight. I finished the race. And the faith I've kept, in other words, would be defended or guarded. And we think, okay, I got to fight. I got to finish. I got to run. I got to guard. I got to defend.

But I put the actual Greek words there in the original word order next to the English translations in your notes and on screen here. Do you see the order? Paul probably would have said it sounding like this. You know, the good fight I have fought. Every time I look at Greek word order, I always think it should sound something like this. The good fight I have fought, yes. But anyway, he probably didn't sound like that. But now I'm going to ruin the way you're reading this for the rest of your life.

But look at the emphasis. The good fight I have fought. The race I have finished. The faith I have kept. In other words, the emphasis is not just on fighting but on what Paul chose to fight, to run, to guard. He's saying there is a fight worth fighting. And by implication, that means there are fights not worth fighting, right? There is a race worth running. There is a faith worth guarding.

Paul there in prison is writing his last letter to Timothy, and he's saying you have to make sure you are living for the right purpose. Timothy has apparently been timid and intimidated. And Paul is writing this one last missive to fire him up to make sure he fights the good fight, guards the right faith, runs the right race. And I think God's been using this for the last 12 weeks to say to you and to say to me, it's time to get back to living for the purposes of God, for the gospel of God, for the fight that's worth fighting.

Don't get distracted. I don't know if you saw this, but the Santa Cruz Sentinel had a great article this last week, front page article called Artistry in Sand. And it was amazing, all about the sand artists in Santa Cruz who do all these interesting designs on the beach, and what they do really is beautiful, it is stunning. But ultimately, you really do not want this headline to be the tagline for your life. Artistry in Sand.

Why not? Because it's beautiful art, but every day the tide just washes it away. You don't want to work your whole life on something that really at the end just gets washed away. You want to do something that outlasts you, to live for a purpose greater than just your day-to-day existence. And the good news is you can. And Paul gives us here in the book of 2 Timothy five keys to a regret-free life. Really these are five beliefs, and if you believe these things, then you're on the path to living for a purpose greater than yourself.

And the first thing is this: see yourself as created for a purpose, and that purpose is to serve God. You are created for a purpose, and that purpose is to serve God. I've told some of you before that one of the most formative memories in my life is in the years shortly after my father died when I was four, when I was very young. My Swiss Italian Aunt Pia used to hold my head in her hands, and she'd look at me and she'd say, "René, you are here for God's purpose. He is going to use you in amazing ways. You are so special. You are gifted."

I, my heart races when I think of how God is going to use you. You are so gifted, you know. And I grew up thinking there was really a cosmic reason for God to put me on this planet. And you know what? Pia was exactly right. And I wish I could go up to each individual person here at Twin Lakes Church and look you right in the eyes and cup your head in my hands, if that didn't creep you out too much, and say, "You are here for a purpose."

And truly my mind reels when I think of how God is going to use the people in this church to do amazing things for him. Because look at this, verse one, chapter one of this whole thing, this is where we started. "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God." Now circle the word Paul, and circle apostle, and circle by the will of God. Paul is an apostle. Why? Because of the will of God. You say, "So?" Well, at some point you need to be able to write that sentence for yourself.

I, so and so, am this by the will of God. Audience participation, on the count of three, everybody shout out your first name. All right? Ready? One, two, three, Renee. All right. That can be followed by what God has given you to do, and then by the will of God. You've got to be able to fill in that blank at some point in your life. For example, for me, it's Renee, a husband and a father, and the pastor of Twin Lakes Church, by the will of God.

Now I wasn't able to really completely say that with confidence until really honestly just a few years ago. I was doing what I was doing really long before I was able to say with confidence, "This is God's specific will for me." At some point, you have to be able to fill in that blank for you. Now you say, "That's great. To help you do that, flip over to page three in your notes real quick. We put daily meditations every week in here, but you see under Monday's heading the box it says, "How do I discover God's will for my life?"

This is of course not exhaustive. I could preach a whole sermon just on this, but in no particular order. First, stay in the Word. God's will on the important things is clear in the Bible. Be gentle. Be respectful. Love God. Love others. You don't have to guess. That's there in black and white. Number two, ask wise Christians what they see as your gift. Ask godly people in your life, "What do you see as my strengths?" That's very important, that feedback.

And then ask yourself, "What are my unique factors? What brings me fulfillment? What do I love that will also matter years from now? What opportunities for service has God given me in my life?" Then number four, live life and see where God directs. Put yourself out there. Like they say, "You can't steer a parked car." Move into traffic. Don't wait till you got it all figured out. And then five, be patient. As you're moving into traffic, seeing where God directs, let life develop and let God lead the process.

Now go back to the front page. Why do you do all that stuff? Because that's why you were created in the first place. See, I'm assuming that most of us are Christians here. Why do you think when you became a Christian God didn't instantly transport you, just like beam you up Star Trek style to heaven? Because he made you to fulfill a purpose down here first. And if you don't really own that, then you end up living a life like the king instead of Dr. King, you know?

You say, "Well, I'm not a genius. I'm not a super gifted, talented person." I want to show you a picture of one of my favorite people here at the church. I took this yesterday. This is Robert Greene. Show of hands, how many of you know Robert here at venue? Right? Look at this. He's got a lot of friends. Last night it was the same thing. Most of the hands went up, right? Now little Robert has a lot of disabilities to overcome in his life. But he is there like whenever there is a service opportunity.

I took this picture at my mother-in-law's house. He was helping my mother-in-law move into her house along with 20 other guys from the church yesterday. And we're sitting down. We provided lunch for these guys. And Robert just starts talking to me, not knowing what I was going to preach on. And Robert always talks at volume 11, if you know Robert. And he says, "You know, I have a mission in life." I said, "Really? What's your mission?" He goes, "This is my purpose statement. I am here to serve God in any way I am able."

I said, "That's great, Robert." And he goes, "And God has given me two gifts so that I can fulfill my purpose. He has given me the gift of stamina." He says, "I have more endurance than most people my age." Which is really true, right? And he says, "And God has given me the gift of joy. I have so much joy when I serve. Those are the two gifts God has given me so I may fulfill God's purpose for my life." Isn't that awesome? Man, he is locked in more than most people I know. He knows his gifts, he knows his mission, and you can too.

So then what's next? Well, page two, number two, stop stalling and start serving. Stop stalling and start serving. Some of you have been stalling. I'm going to wait until I figure out how to become a better Christian. I'm going to wait until I quit smoking. I'm going to wait until I'm a better human being. You're stalling. Timothy was stalling. And that's why Paul says in verse six, "I remind you, fan into flame the gift of God which is in you."

Let me ask you this. Why are there so many dead, apathetic, tired Christians? Put it another way. What causes people's faith to come alive? The best way for your faith to really catch fire is to fan into flame your gifts and put yourself in the mix and start serving God and serving people. You know what? Again, this is why our youth group, I mentioned this last week, our youth group was in Mexico a week ago building homes for the poor.

Here's a video of what they were doing down there. They built tons of homes, and it was a great thing to do for the poor. This is God's heart of compassion in action. But frankly, what we do on our mission trips for the poor is really only like half of the reason to do mission trips. Well, what could possibly be the other half? The other half is this. If you just entertain young people in youth group, if you just give them spectacle, they become spectators.

But if you give them opportunities for service, they become servants. And that's the same thing with you and me. If all we do here in church is give you spectacle, you become spectators. But if we also give you service opportunities, you become servants, you become participants. And that's why God called us. My friend Ray Johnston, who I'm indebted to for so much in this, he did a great review of 2 Timothy in a series they did at their church through the Bible. But here's a great line from him. He says, "Maturity is for ministry."

Do you get that? You grow in Christ so that you can serve, not so that you can sit around all day with all this knowledge in your head or all these good feelings in your heart. Paul says, "Fan into flame the gift of God which is in you." Raise your hand if you consider yourself a gifted person. Anybody here consider yourself a gifted person? Look around, every hand in this room should be up. Because the Bible says the minute you trust in Jesus Christ, God gives you irrevocable gifts. That's true of you.

Turn to the next person and look them in the eye, whether you're here or in venue, and say, "You are gifted." Go ahead, look at them and say, "You are gifted." You are gifted. Robert's got the gift of stamina and joy, right? You're gifted. Now, you may not exactly know what it is yet, but the way you discover it is throw yourself in the mix, start serving, and your gift will emerge.

Now, at some point, you do have to mature to the point where you realize there is a difference between prominence and significance. There's a difference between prominence and significance. Years ago, two teenage boys tried to go to a church meeting in North Carolina. And they walked in, and it was all packed, it was super busy. And so they decided there's no seats for us, and these two teenagers decided to leave. But an usher spotted them. And he said, "Wait, wait, wait, gentlemen, wait, wait. I'll find you a seat, I'll find you a seat."

And he went and he found some folding chairs and he sat up and he goes, "Go ahead, boys." And they sat down. And at the end of that service, both of them went forward and prayed with people who were at the front to begin trusting Christ as their Savior. And they both ended up serving God in ministry. One of those young men was a man by the name of Billy Graham. Now that usher's role was not prominent, but let me ask you this, was it significant to the kingdom of God? I think so.

You know, you can always be significant but not necessarily prominent. See, anonymous does not mean unnecessary. Do you get that? Anonymous does not mean unnecessary. Let me ask you, do you know the name of the person who handed you those message notes that you're using today? Do you know the names of the people who stuffed that bulletin that you're holding? Do you know the names of the people teaching your kids right now? Do you know the names of all the people who are in the band playing here or playing over in venue with Ryan and Lily?

Do you know the name of the person who records the sermon audio every week and makes sure it's on our podcast and our website and on iTunes? By the way, that's one person who does that every week. His name is Martin. Aren't you glad Martin does what he does and all those other people do what they do? Yeah, give it up for these guys. All those people are basically anonymous. Yet what they do is so important. Living a life on purpose does not necessarily mean being famous and getting glory.

I'm going to go back to Martin Luther King Jr. on this. He said, "Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service." He said, "If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted or a Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'" I love that.

You've been number one gifted to serve God. You've been called to serve God. And number three, you've got to stay focused on the grace of God. This is a common theme in 2 Timothy because if you don't stay focused on grace, you end up serving God out of guilt. Now grace does not mean you sit around and get fat and lazy on thoughts of God's love. Paul tells Timothy, "He has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace."

It is so important to stay focused on grace. Paul says, 2 Timothy 2, "You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." Some of you are going, "You talk a lot about grace at Twin Lakes. What is this? I don't understand. What difference does it make whether I feed the poor or do other good things out of a sense of grace or out of a sense of duty?" I'll tell you the difference.

Ephesians says, "I serve so that I am accepted." Right? But the gospel of grace says, "I am accepted so I serve." Does that make sense? In the gospel, I don't serve so that God will bless me or save me. I serve because he has blessed me with every blessing I could want. So I'm filled with gratitude, and I serve out of gratitude, not servitude. And then to live a regret-free life, a life of purpose, means number four, I serve with perseverance. I don't quit.

Paul says serving God is like chapter two starting in verse four, serving as a soldier or competing as an athlete or as a hardworking farmer. Here's what he's getting at. All these professions require total dedication, right? But if you ask the average American Christian, "What are God's expectations of me as a Christian?" Not how am I saved, I'm totally saved by God's grace, but what does God want from me as a believer? You know? And ask the average American Christian, I think they'd say something like this, "Well, attend church periodically if it's not raining or I don't have a better offer. Put a little something in the offering like tip God if I feel moved, you know, or maybe I'll serve once in a while if it's easy and everybody thanks me before and after, and I'll avoid any public really big scandalous sin."

Is that really God's expectation of the people he's saved by grace? Absolutely not. We know from what Jesus said to his disciples, here's God's expectation: absolute 100% dedication to him. God, I put 100% of my time and my heart and my desires at your feet. God, I acknowledge you are the shepherd, I'm a sheep. You are God, I am not. And so I serve you 100%. Now do you feel the tension in the room ratchet up just a little bit?

But if you think about it, part of what Paul's saying here is really in none of these great professions would anybody require anything less than 100% dedication? An athlete, can you imagine Jim Harbaugh saying to the Niners in the locker room, "All right men, great men, I'm going to expect you to give like 67% of your effort out there on the field today." A soldier, can you imagine a marine drill instructor saying, "Gentlemen, we are here to make you into people who give one third of your effort to the United States Marines." They would never say that.

Of course, if you're going to do something great, you're going to give 100%, right? And you need perseverance because if you give 100%, you got to understand that just like these careers, there will be tough times. It is not always easy, even if you're right in the center of God's will, right? If you ask yourself, "What did I do wrong?" every time things go wrong, maybe you didn't do anything wrong. Some seasons are just tough for athletes, for soldiers, for farmers, and for you. So Paul's saying, "Fight the good fight, Timothy. Persevere. Don't give up."

But he also tells Timothy, "Some fights are not worth fighting." Adam and I did a great message on this in this series. Paul says, chapter 2, verse 14, "Keep reminding God's people of these things, of the gospel." But, he says, "Warn them before God against quarreling about words. It is of no value and only ruins those who listen." Would you circle the phrase "quarreling about words"? There are Christian leaders out there who basically want to do nothing more than teach their people how to quarrel about words.

And Paul says, "Arguments that distract from the gospel are of," what? "Of no value. Some things are not worth living for, even if they're done in the name of religion." Paul says, "Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they just produce quarrels." There are arguments that Christians get into that basically there is no possible good result except they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but must be kind to everyone.

In other words, don't give first-class allegiance to second-class causes. Remind yourself, "I'm not going to give first-class allegiance to a second-class cause." And this is something that Paul, in this final letter to Timothy, says over and over again. So to review, how do you live on purpose? Well, first, you see yourself as created with a purpose to serve God. And then you stop sowing and start serving. Then you make sure you're strong in grace or you will get burned out, and you will not serve with perseverance.

So I just want to say, stop being intimidated. Get yourself in the mix and focus on the gospel of Christ and make sure that's the ultimate reason that you're doing anything. And then finally, Paul tells Timothy and you and me, we need to see the eternal reward. See the eternal reward. Our life is not just artistry and sand. He says, 2 Timothy 4.8, "Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing."

Circle the word crown. Usually when we think of a crown, we think of something like the crown jewels, right? Like this picture. But a much better picture is this, a laurel. When you won a Greek race, what they did was they put a crown of laurel wreaths like this. Now the reason this one has lasted is because it's hammered out of gold, but usually it was literally just green laurel leaves that they would put on your head. Now you might be going, "So big deal, I work for a year and I win a race and you stick a plant on my head. Big deal, right?"

Well, it was just representative of what you got when you won that race. And here's, I looked this up, here's what it was symbolic of in the Greco-Roman world. Four things. First, your name engraved on a wall in the center of the city to be enshrined, presumably forever. Second, all your debts wiped away. Mortgage, you know, chariot payment, whatever, it's all wiped away. All of it. Third, you are tax-free for the rest of your life. Fourth, free food for the rest of your life.

So when you got a crown, your name was remembered, your debts were wiped away. You got free food as a banquet, and you never got taxed again for the rest of your life. Paul says, "Here's what it means to get a crown. Your name written in the Lamb's book of life forever. You're no longer indebted to God. All your sins wiped away, and there is a banquet table set for all eternity." Now he says, this is what I've earned? No. He says, this is not only to me, but to all who've what? Served hard and proven themselves? No. Who simply longed for his appearing.

So all who place their trust in Christ, he's saying because this eternal award awaits, dedicate yourself fully to serving God and his gospel. I started with a Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. And so let me end with that prayer. Do you remember that he said would fulfill you more than anything else and that God would always answer, "Use me God, show me how to take who I am and who I want to be and what I can do and use it for a purpose greater than myself."

You know what? Let's pray that prayer to God right now as we prepare our hearts for communion. Would you bow your heads with me here or over at venue? Let's pray. As I say it out loud in your hearts, just pray that prayer to God. Use me God. Use me. Show me how to take who I am, the person you made me to be, and who I want to be and what I am able to do and how to use that for a purpose greater than myself. That's true pursuit of happiness.

And pray God, help me always to frame it by grace. I don't obey you so that you will accept me. You accept me 100% by grace. So I want to give myself to you in gratitude, not in servitude. And in these next moments, God, we remember the core of the gospel, the thing that makes that grace possible, that Jesus Christ was obedient to you even to the point of death on a cross. We remember the one who bought our true freedom, our ultimate independence, Jesus.

And God, there are some people in this room possibly who for the very first time want to receive you into their hearts as their Lord. They've heard people talk about accepting Christ before and unsure what it means. And it means simply this, that they place their trust in you. And perhaps even as they take communion today, they can say, even as I receive this juice and this bread into my body, Jesus, I receive you into my soul, my spirit. And I give myself 100% to you. In your name I pray, amen.